Happy Birthday Tom!!

Tom is in the states, he went for a dental conference and then stopped off to see his family for a week. We're sad to miss him on his birthday so I asked the kids their favorite things about him and we came up with this list, they could have gone on and on but I had to put them to bed!:

My Favorite Thing About Dad/Tom Is:
"That I LOVE him!" Danica
"The presents that he gave to us" D & H
"How nice he is!" Hayden
"Hanging out watching TV and folding laundry together."
"I like him because I like to drink milk like him." Danica
"...'cuz" Alyssa
"Training for the marathon together."
"I like that he always plays with me." Hayden
"Bless that daddy can come home safely" Danica, yes, I know it makes no sense is response to my question
"Constantly striving to find a way to beat you at a strategy game!"
"Playing monster catch." Danica
"Riding bikes together!" Hayden
"daddy at Papa's" Alyssa (she was a little confused by the question but at least she knows where you are!)
"Playing at the park, going on the slides" H, D & A
"Reading me bedtime stories every night." Hayden

The kids made these cards for his birthday: (notice Tom has a football in his hand in Hayden's card, Alyssa just kept declaring "purple" and you'll have to ask Dani about her's because I don't know what Tom's holding or why sharks are swimming around them!)

Island Hostage

Yes, I do watch Lost and yes, I do feel like the island doesn't want me to leave! I have never felt so far from home and so isolated. Tom is back in San Diego at a dental training and then heading up to spend a little more than a week with his family. The kids and I were hoping to catch a free military flight, Space A, so that we could go to Utah for a week and then meet up with Tom in Washington. Supposedly this is a great time of year to catch those free flights because there aren’t many people traveling. I spent all week packing, prepping and doing everything that goes into trying to leave the country for a few weeks. Apparently, available seats aren’t the case anymore and they didn’t end up taking any extra people on the flights throughout the weekend. It made for a really long, emotionally charge weekend with showing up at the airport and waiting around for hours only to find out we weren’t getting on the flight and then more attempts the next day and the next... So needless to say, I am really sad to miss seeing family and sad to be stuck here alone with the kids for two weeks after thinking I was going to be on vacation. I try not to think about all the fun things my parents had planned and the good food they had for us...Cafe Rio...sigh... I guess we’ll just have to wait until summer when we buy the unbelievably expensive tickets...and now I can go clean the house because it really needs it...luckily Danica is handling it better than I thought she would. Ever since Christmas she has been saying “Okay, it’s after Christmas, when are we going to grandma and grandpa’s house?” Then in the last few weeks she’s been going crazy with excitement and declaring how much she loves grandma and just can’t wait to go there! I kept reminding her we were just going to TRY to go and she still doesn’t get that now we aren't going for a while...I think it’s better this way. Tonight Danica asked when Tom is coming home and I said two more Sundays and she said "I'm really going to miss daddy" and then she interrupted my family prayer and said "make sure to say "bless daddy to come home safely." She is such a sweat heart!

However, I luckily don’t have much time to stay depressed with tons to do and the knowledge that I am truly blessed in so many ways. I had a friend point out there are certainly worse place to be stuck...it is true. Today was great, sunny in the 70’s. This afternoon I hooked the bike trailer to my bike and towed the girls while I went on a nice ride with Hayden. Then a friend had us over for dinner and we had great food and company. Lately we’ve had a lot of fun around here, here are some highlights:

Karaoke! We found a great place, really close and reasonably priced and you just rent a big room for your group to sing it up. However, I think they would have made more sound proof doors if they were expecting such loud groups of crazy Americans! I don’t have video of any of the really good songs, hopefully I’ll get them next time!I actually don't sing when we go to karaoke but I enjoy the fun and food. This new place had some real genuine Japanese cuisine including pizza with mayonaise and octupus, lots of squid and raw ham salad...I stuck to basic curry and rice!

Wago Family Land- it’s like a version of Chuck E. Cheese but way better! Things are crazy and fun, there are no worries about safety or litigation. We had a blast! This video of the balloon room would be a dream come true for most kids!
He just rolled around and around!
Awesome zipline that took itself back up to the top to the next kid waiting!
The kids just hung on as the tree swung around!

At the end of January, Sesame Street Live came and did free show. We had a great time once Alyssa got over being terrified! Alyssa has her hair in a pony tail because for a week straight she insisted on it every day! She was obsessed with having her hair in a pony tail!

Two Steps Forward, One Step Back

Everyone is growing up around here...well, not everyone.

1.Hayden lost his first tooth!!! (A little late much to the dismay of his dentist/dad but I’m in no hurry for him to grow up!)
2. Danica has spent years watching Hayden turn into a reading machine and the bug has bitten her as well. She is obsessed with learning to read and begs me all day to teach her (no I am NOT complaining!) The other day she woke up and before even saying good morning she stumbled out of her bed and said “Mom, teach me to read!” In the car one afternoon she said, in one long hurried breath “Mom, I want a snack and I want to learn to read!” Needless to say I’ve been working with her and she’s doing great and can read simple words. It’s so fun to watch her excitement as she figures out each new word.
3. Alyssa is actually growing up and talking a ton and figured out how to get on and off the potty by herself (hooray!) but she is obsessed with pretending she is a baby. Her and Dani play all day a game revolving around her being the baby and Dani being the mom. Recently I got out a bassinet for our friends baby to sleep in when they came over and Alyssa insisted on sleeping in it- “I want to sleep baby bed!” Well on Sunday I gave in and let her take a nap in it because she was so insistent... imagine my surprise when I went to check on her and found that she had apparently gotten up and gotten a “toy” and climbed back into her baby bed... I don’t know who she thought was going to sneak up on her in her sleep but she was ready!

Island

Sometimes I forget that I live on an island. I am accustomed to seeing the ocean as I drive down the hill to the commissary and don’t even notice it anymore. We haven’t actually been to the beach in a while. I get so frustrated that I can’t buy the things I want, I feel so limited and think things like “What is this? It’s like I live on an island in the middle of nowhere!” Yes Tracey, you do. Last Saturday Tom and I took advantage of free babysitting for military families (offered the first Saturday of the month if you sign up.) With our free day we took a bike ride together out to a lighthouse, about a 30 mile ride. It was a fantastic ride and the view was great. As I looked out over the rocks at the deep raging water below I was reminded again that in deed, I do live on an island, surrounded by a gigantic ocean. It was breathtaking and very humbling.



So much has happened lately making me realize how fragile life is. I struggle to fight off fear and anxiety and replace it with a sense of peace and making the most of what blessings we currently enjoy. I have many friends dealing with death, cancer and other trials. Then the earthquake in Haiti...so much heartache...I understand that it is all part of “life” and a necessary part of God’s plan but it doesn't change my desire to somehow take away the pain. I have a friend who was just recently diagnosed with cancer and part of her response is to be grateful that it is her and not her husband or children because she knows she just couldn’t watch and at least now she can fight. I admire her courage and outlook. I am constantly surrounded by so many people full of strength, faith and courage, I hope some of it rubs off on me. And I hope, that while I feel guilty enjoying such a feeling of fullness and joy in my life, I can help ease the burden for someone else.

2009 Comes to a close....

So here is the last of what we did in 2009.

December 23rd was a long awaited day for Hayden- his 7th birthday!!! I was crazy enough to say he could have a party again and he chose Legos as his theme. I thought this was such a unique idea but quickly learned it’s really popular, oh well, it was still fun. The highlight of the party was giving each boy a chance to create his own mini-fig and then name him and design a house. I bought a ton of mini-figures on ebay and then we dismantled them. The boys rolled a dice and the numbers cooresponded to bowls of parts, for example, heads were in bowl 1, bodies bowl 2, hats bowl 4 and so on. It was a lot of fun. We played other lego games and simply played with legos and on the trampoline. Everyone had a great time. Hayden wanted an icecream cake... it was fine but I know for the future not to try to decorate an icecream cake. Even shaping it like a green lego was almost too much!

December 24th we decided to venture out in town for some Japanese Christmas Eve excitement and that is what we found! We bought tickets to a Christmas Snow festival at the zoo. It cost about $40 just to get in and that was with getting discount tickets for the kids. So it was a bit pricey but they promised igloos, sledding and a lazer show so it sounded worth it. It wasn’t. But alas, we still managed to have a good time and the kids really did the love the snow even though it was a very small amount of wet slush! Alyssa kept running around yelling "ice ice!" one of her favorite things (that I can get for free from the freezer.) The sledding incline (you can’t call it a hill because it was the equivalent of sliding off the kitchen table down the front yard) cost an extra 500 yen per ride! That’s nearly $6 a ride, it was ridiculous and we didn't do it! We watched the show which started with some sort of entertainer/magician, he was funny and did enough physical action that the fact that we couldn’t understand his japanese didn’t matter much. Then they had some dancing girls which was some fun hip hop. Sorta Christmassy at times... but we found ourselves staring with our jaws hanging open when the girls were dancing and the music went sinister and a man in a mask with a machine gun came on stage with loud laughing, gunned down all the girls who fell dead on the stage and then turned the gun on us. Seconds earlier the kids were dancing along to the hip hop and suddenly I felt the need to cover their eyes. The other adults we were with just kept staring at each other wondering if we had seen it right. A few moments later the music changed to something angelic and the girls on stage got up slowly and acted like angels (I think that is what happened but everything was spoken in Japanese so I’m not sure.) Needless to say, it was so shocking we just had to laugh. The “highlight” of the night was the Snow Show. Just as we were trying to leave they drove over the snow making machine and turned the hose up into the air so it began to snow on us. It should have been fun and magical but it was so warm and the machine wasn’t working right so we were actually being pelted with mushy slush balls. We were blocked in by people on all sides and couldn’t move. The girls were screaming in the stroller and we were grabbing our jackets and trying to take cover. Again, just laughing our heads off. The stroller was soaked with muddy slush, and so were we... Hayden loved it and wanted to follow the truck for more. 
When the truck started throwing huge discs of slush they turned it off...hopefully it worked better the next night. We wandered around looking at Christmas lights and avoiding the over priced carnival games. Luckily, the kids don’t ask us to buy them food since they don’t recognize anything! At the end we watched a lazer show, all set to Michael Jackson music...apparently, he invokes feelings of Christmas here... we went home and did our normal things of reading the bible, acting out the nativity, and opening gifts from each other. What a night... I think we’ll just skip it next year!


Christmas Day was fantastic. Tons of fun and way too many gifts for everyone! The kids are so spoiled by their relatives, they were in heaven. I love the looks of delight in their faces on so many of the pictures. You can see Alyssa saying “wow!” Hayden scored with Lego sets and was so happy. It rained ALL day, we got the girls a little playhouse for the backyard and they didn't even know it until the next day when it stopped raining! That night we had our good friends the Wilsons over for dinner, they did half the food. We invited several single marines to eat with us and enjoy the evening, we all had a great time.



When Christmas was over I decided it was great but all WAY to much to do and like I always say, I must simplify it next year... this year I’m really serious.

New Years Eve started off with a bang- I went on my first ever bike ride with the gang here. Tom wanted to go and wanted me to join him so he convinced me I could do it. It was supposed to go from 7 to 10:00...we got back at 12:00. I borrowed a bike and was nervous but figured it couldn’t be too hard...I just ran a marathon after all...however, it was a 50 mile ride, with plenty of hills. In fact, we actually took a wrong turn, but don't worry, it just means we skipped the nice flat ride along the coast and cut across the hills through the middle of the island. I had a good time and parts of the ride I really enjoyed... parts of the ride I really hated and have to admit I pretty much lost it going up the last hill. We had already gone 48 miles, nearly 5 hours of riding and then there was this hill... calling it a hill is comparable to saying it’s hot here during the summer or the spiders are big...it just doesn’t begin to cover it. Tom checked the Garmin and it said we ascended something like 500 feet, more than twice the distance of the other big hills! You can see it on the map. That said, the real point is how amazing Tom is and the fact that he was just plugging along going up the hill with no problem! These guys were crazy and I could not keep up. They all kept saying “Oh you’re doing so great for your first ride.” I like to think that’s the truth but it will be much better when I can just keep up!
Later that night we had a few couples over for a BBQ and games. The girls and everyone else’s kids went to bed around 9. Hayden made it until 11:30 when he fell asleep on the couch while he was reading. I carried him outside at midnight to see the fireworks but he was too asleep to remember it. New Year’s Day we went to the park and had a great time on the slides and beautiful weather.

2009 was a fantastic year, we look forward to 2010!!!

2009 in Review

Can I really sum up all our adventures in one post? I guess I'll try. These are just a few highlights from our year, you can read the full accounts in the archive!

January: We took advantage of the great weather and spent so much time at the amazing parks here. The slides are huge, wild and dangerous, and so much fun! The equipment is so different to us, the kids love it! The island is small so the coast is everywhere which means a lot of the parks also have a beach, it makes for a great outing!

February: Tom and I spent Valentine’s day having a picnic on the beach. On February 16th Tom turned 31 and we had a surprise birthday party with a BBQ and Rockband with all our friends! We discovered the treasures at the “100 Yen Store.” It’s like a dollar store and the kids love all the great stuff they find there!
March: We picked up some new passions in our family: Family Rockband time- with Hayden singing and the girls on guitar or drums. Running- Tom and I began to really enjoy it and were training for a half marathon! Karaoke- I think Tom would go every weekend, he’s phenomenal and kept needing “just one more song!”

April: Everyone is growing up so fast! Hayden started playing soccer, Danica got her haircut, Alyssa got rid of the binky and I turned 30! My birthday was great and left me realizing how my life has only gotten better in the last 10 years!!! We had a great camping trip on the beach and fun at the Forest Adventure Park flying down ziplines. We traveled by ferry to a nearby island where Tom and I competed in our first ever half marathon. It was fantastic although we were puzzled by the bowl of hot noodles offered at the finish line- I wanted a cold drink!
May: Tom had an amazing opportunity to go to Cambodia with a Navy medical humanitarian team to do dental work. He loved the experience of helping the people there. We missed him for those three weeks but when you live on a military base you find that 3 weeks is nothing compared to the separation that so many families endure. I have gained a new appreciation and admiration for the sacrifices of our military families. We are truly blessed to have such amazing individuals and families willing to serve this country, and all of us.
June: We enjoyed a trip to Okuma, a beach resort where we stayed in a condo. Had fun at the huge aquarium on the island where the kids enjoy watching the sharks eat. School got out and we headed to the states! We spent some time getting over the jetlag and then spent a fantastic week on a houseboat at Lake Shasta with Tom’s family! We had 31 people on one boat and enjoyed it all!! The water skiing and wake-boarding were fantastic!
July: While in Washington with Tom’s family we enjoyed tons of shopping, eating out and game nights with the family. Hayden practically moved in with his cousins and the kids were on true vacation mode, even sleeping in until 9 or 10 some days! It was so much fun and made us long for the time when we will live there. In the middle of July Tom had to come back to Okinawa for work and the kids and I flew down to Utah to see my family for the first time in 14 months! We went to Antimony (southern Utah), I ran a 1/2 marathon and came in 10th place for my division, we went 4-wheeling and bottle shooting and just ran around! Back at my parents house we began a month long vacation of crazy fun everyday!
August: The list of things my parents took us out to do is too long to write again! It included Lagoon, Children’s Musuem, Park City Resort, East Canyon Resort, the fair, movies, the zoo, the temple open house and so much more! It was so fun to be with family and to see friends and have my mom’s cooking! The highlight was right before I had to come back I was able to attend my mom’s graduation from BYU!!! It was fantastic to watch her walk across that stage and know she worked hard and really earned that degree!

September: Hayden started first grade and Danica began at preschool and Alyssa potty trained. Tom got really into road biking, the huge spiders came out in full force, the humidity made me want to die, we got serious with our marathon training and got into longer runs including our 18 and 20 milers. We had more adventures out in town discovering fun recreation centers!

October: We explored the caves of Okinawa World, did a lot of running in the rain, and decorated for Halloween. Hayden is a reading machine, sometimes finishing chapter books in one day. Danica is showing some real skill with gymnastics and loves it! On the 31st Tom and I took a ferry ride to another island and ran our first full marathon! It was a gorgeous course, along the coast of the island! It was a long and grueling run, but we did it!

November: Hayden entered the science fair and won for first grade! Danica loves to work on her own homework while Hayden does his and is getting really good at her letters. Alyssa is talking more every day and is a dance-a-holic and can’t resist when she hears music! We spent a wonderful Thanksgiving with friends at some cottages on the beach!

December: It’s all a blur this month has been so busy.... we’ve had Danica’s birthday, our 9th anniversary, Hayden’s birthday, cookies for the class party, gifts to neighbors, Christmas cards, all the shopping, service projects, primary activities and so much more! Just like every year I keep saying that next year I am starting in August so I can actually enjoy the season!!

The year was full of adventure and fun and we are so grateful to be happy and healthy and have this wonderful world to explore. We are most grateful for our Savior and the gift of his birth and his life and death, for the opportunity he gives us to be together as a family forever. May you all have a Merry Christmas and may 2010 be a year full of fun and adventure for you all.

Love,
Tom, Tracey, Hayden, Danica and Alyssa Stinchfield