One Tired Mama

**I wrote this on Sunday, hoping I would have pictures to document some of this by now, but no..maybe next week.**

I took a nap today, for the first time since....since I was pregnant I think. We have been so busy the past few weeks, camping, beach going, projects around the Casa. We have also had a few late nights watching movies. I am not a movie watcher and have probably only finished 20 movies in the past 10 years. The past few weeks though I have watched several, here are my reviews.
The Bucket List- Awesome Movie, I love Morgan Freeman. I want him to read to me all day. I want him to casually offer life lessons to me.
Becoming Jane-Another Wonderful Movie, I want to move to England now.
Cloverfield-sucked
Fool's Gold- Good one, I kinda have a crush on Matthew McConaughey ;)
Chaos Theory- Wouldn't watch it if it were the only thing on TV, my kids were asleep and the internet was out. Boring Movie.
Rendition- I am not usually into CIA conspiracy type movies, but this was very interesting. There is also a book The Dark Side by Jane Mayer that discusses the same thing. I think I will read it as soon as I finish the third book of the Twilight series.
Semi-Pro- ehhh..it was ok.
Stop Loss- I would have rather sent 2 hours....rubbing other peoples feet, and we all know how I feel about that.
And, some other movie about a severed finger..I can't even remember the name of it.
Thomas took the kids to see Journey to the Center of the Earth and they all said it was pretty good. For this week though, their favorite movie has been Holes. We have watched it everyday.

In addition to watching movies I have also enjoyed some me time. Some time away from the kids, away from the house, with girlfriends. Saturday I started the day by assisting Aviva with a Senior photo shoot for my neighbor. The girl was gorgeous and I think I am just as excited as her to see the photos. Afterwards I was so lucky to hang out with some very cool and very talented ladies. Bekah, Katherine, Aviva, Serena Nicole, Catherine, Kassia, Betty and I all headed to Naha for a day of photo-shooting fun. I felt incredibly out of place and so unworthy of hanging around, but it was oh so fun, and I am so glad I went. I didn't take many pictures since we went to Kokusai street and we had just been there a few days ago. It was also incredibly hot, and I was enjoying being able to shop and talk. Serena had a fish eye lens that I played with a bit. It's a really cool lens, especially if you know how to use it and have an eye for things. For me, not so much...but I did give it a try.

Check this out...yes my friends, thats my hand, next to the biggest spider I have ever seen. With it's legs all extended it was larger then my hand. He was fixing his web working busily in the shot Aviva took.

tagged myself...what a dork!

5 and 10
I tagged myself...from Cindy's blog. I thought it looked fun, so here goes.
10 years ago: July of 1998, It was the summer before going to 10th grade. I was carhopping at Bumpers :(
5 years ago: July of 2003. I had just found out I was pregnant with Braden. I was working at Outback and going to College full time. I had just changed my major from business to Education. So glad I made that choice!
5 months ago: February. We celebrated Bradens 4th Birthday and our 8th wedding anniversary.
5 things on my list of things to do tomorrow:
1. Assist Aviva on a photo shoot of several generations of Okinawan women. So excited I can barely stand it.
2. Laundry, sorry family...if you shower this am you have to shake dry. I just took the last clean one.
3. Ride bikes with the family weather permitting. (Yes I finally got one)
4. Get some packages ready to mail that I have had sitting in the closet forever.
5. Hang a few pictures since the self help store had these dandy little 3M sticky back hooks things and Thomas doesnt have to drill for 20 minutes to hang them.
5 bad habits:
1. Not being consistent with the kids
2. not bringing all the stuff back into the house that the kids take to the car
3. not putting clothes away as soon as I fold them, then someone messes them all up.
4. blog surfing whem I should be doing other things...hello laundry
5. DrPepper....nuff said
5 places I’ve lived:
1. Mississippi
2. Okinawa
3. thats
4. about
5. it
5 things people don’t know about me:
I am pretty much an open book, this will be hard.
1. I can't swim for crap! Went on a snorkel excursion last week and lets just say I didn't get very far from the boat.
2. I don't eat the ends of french fries.
3. I worked my tail off to get my Bachelors with 2 kids and working full time.
4. I broke my left arm in several places and its really crooked now.
5.I'm only 25, people always think I am so much older.

OK, heres my tag list:
Traci
Kassia
Crystal
Jessicka
Angela

Have Fun Ladies!

Blog Stalker

I have stalked and still do stalk a number of blogs. Shh...don't tell them, they may get freaked out a bit. I read a number of blogs of families here. Then sometimes, I am standing in line behind them at the Commissary and I so badly want to say, "Hey I love your new Living Room set!" or "Congrats on the promotion." or "Why are you buying those Doritos? I thought you said you were going on a diet." Just kidding, that would be myself.
A few days ago I added a feedjit application to my blog that told me where readers were viewing my blog from. Interesting...Milton FL...who are you? I can seee you!!!!!!!!
This morning I noticed a reader from Nottingham. I have a long lost relative that lives in Europe somewhere, not sure of the location, so I went over to see if that blog might just be her. It wasn't. I did find another interesting blog to read though. As I was reading I noticed she had linked a few friends of mine here in Okinawa to her blogroll, myself included. Whoa, just then did it hit m that a stranger was reading my blog. How did she find me? What could she possibly find interesting about my little ole' life? I emailed the other ladies to see if any of them were friends or related because, well the curiosity got me. I can be so immature like that. Anyhow. Aviva, commented on her blog and the reply she got back was so nice. She commented on our pictures and said she enjoyed reading our stories.
How freakin' sweet is that? A person who feels no family or friendship obligation enjoys hearing my stories and looking at my pictures. So, from now on I will quit calling my inlaws every few days and reminding them to check my blog. Just kidding..my inlaws love my blog. Right? Bobbie, Chad? Are you there?
So the point of this story is, if you are reading this, leave a comment. It's quite simple. Just click on comments at the end of the post and write something :) I'll be waiting.
I hereby promise to comment on the 20 or so random blogs I frequent, hope you will do the same.

One thing I do miss from America

Commercials! Thank goodness for YouTube
My brother sent me these a few days ago.
What are your favorites?

Okuma Take 3

Yes, we went to Okuma again. For the third time this summer. The first time I took the boys while Thomas was in Alaska. Then we went as a family for a few days. Well, we forgot a few things (beach towels and swim trunks) in the laundry there. So, weather being nice, and Daddy on leave we decided if we were going to drive all that way just to stay for a few nights. The boys had been begging to tent camp. We hadn't stayed in a tent since camping last summer with the Larson family.
So, here we go again.
These are some pictures I took on the ride up. The first one so accurately shows living here. Concrete everywhere, power lines strung about like tacky Christmas garland, Family Mart sign in the background (Japanese equivalent of a 7-11), Tower apartments, itty bitty cars, and way more traffic than street and parking available.


This one was taken around the Onna Village area. It's just as you are getting away from Okinawa city and where there are many resorts. The traffic is more manageable and the view os much nicer.


While walking one morning we came across the land of Banana spiders. We have been here 2 years now (whoa...2 years?! I can hardly believe it has been that long) and this was the first time we had seen them. They were everywhere and some were quite huge. This one was about as bit as my palm.


A not so friendly crab that was stuck on the street trying to make his way back to the water before the sun baked him. Thomas used a stick to help him up onto the grass. The boys though it was so funny watching the crab fight the stick.



Dayton being kept busy with a pudding snack pack while we packed up to leave.


The camping trip I had talked about with the Larson family, here is a picture of Dayton then. The file says July 29, 2007, so almost 1 year ago. Look how chunky and bald he was.


We had a great time, and tent camping wasn't too bad. A/C would have been nice as it is so hot here right now, but we survived. The kids played until they couldn't move, falling asleep by the fire each night. They had so much fun making s,mores every night, reading out bedtime stories by flashlight, and sleeping to the sound of the ocean in the background.

Family Land

The Chuck E Cheese of Okinawa
Friday we took the kids to Family Land Friday to play. It reminded me of Chuck E Cheese...downscaled and with Soba instead of pizza. The boys had blast and 2 hours was enough playtime to make for a nice afternoon nap.

Started with a little table tennis.

Snowboarding

Bad parents promoting violence through Japanese video games.

Can you squat this low?

The balloon room that was Daytons FAVORITE


and around Keegan goes..

and this is just a funny looking sign I thought might make you smile...or look at all confused, like why the heck did she put this on her blog..whatever.

The past few days...

We have done a bit of everything and a whole lot of nothing!
Thomas is still on leave, so our normal schedules and daily routines have gone out the window. There has been a lot of late night movie watching and sleeping it the next morning. I have cooked a huge breakfast the past three mornings though, complete with toast, bacon, pancakes and eggs.
Keegan lost another tooth yesterday and the tooth fairy forgot to come last night, again. The last time he lost a tooth it took her about three days to remember. The thing is he stays up later than I do most nights. I am pretty sure he doesn't really believe in it anymore, just looks forward to the free cash. Maybe she will make a stop tonight. If not, we will just have to make the assumption she doesn't work weekends.
Braden is busy following Keegan around and attempting to do everything he does. We finally bought him his first Bionicle this past week and he has carried it around everywhere. Amazingly it has only came apart a couple times but he was able to fix it. He has just now gotten to the age where he will take care of things somewhat. So, I guess we have two lego addicts to support now.
Dayton is growing. He has gotten so big and his face has matured so much in the past few weeks. I think it's partially due to the fact he has all 8 front teeth now, so when he smiles I see a full set of teeth instead of those baby gums. He has started talking a good bit. When you ask him a question he will either nod his head and say "uh-huh" or shake it and say "uh-uh" He can also say Mama, Daddy, bye and Arrigato, which is thank you in Japanese. We have been out in town a lot the past few days and I always tell him to say arrigato when we purchase an item, or someone tells him "kawaii" meaning cute. He has also started climbing. Ugh, not loving that so much. Thank goodness he hasn't figured out how to pull the chairs out from the table or he would be on top.

As I said in a previous post, we went back to Okuma for a couple nights. Thomas had never been, so it was fun to go as a family. Also, alot easier on me, having 2 more arms and 2 more eyes to help. Shower time was a bliss too. Can you imagine me trying to bathe all 4 of us in a public shower....not pretty. Although we were there for 3 days, I only took my camera out for about 10 minutes. We were busy playing mose this time, and I didn't want to get the camera all grimy, or take the time to clean myself up in order to handle it. So it stayed in the bag and I stayed in the sand.
Heres one of the 5 pictures I did take.

Thursday night we invited a couple of other families, the Browns and the Bieks bowling. The kids took one lane and the adults took the other. I officially suck at bowling. It was still fun though.
Dayton with his ketchup face...the kid LOVES ketchup!

.....

It rained for just a bit yesterday morning and we have had sun shiny goodness since. I guess we should have went afterall.

See me cry

We were suppose to take the boys over to Ie island for a camping trip after leaving Okuma Wednesday, changed our minds as it was POURING rain!
The forecast was looking nice for the weekend, so we decided to try again tomorrow, Friday. Got the van loaded with crap, bought enough citronella to kill every dang mosquito in this hemisphere, made reservations for the second time.
And this is what I see tonight...

The boys have totally lost all faith in us. Not to mention we have been dangling this over their heads for a week now. "Clean your room or you can't go." "Eat your veggies or you have to stay home."
Looks like Wall-E is playing at Kinser theatre. Maybe I can win their hearts back by seeing that after a few hours at Mona Kids.

On a side note, anyone here at Okinawa headed to Okuma in the next few days? We left somethings there.

Naha, Yui and Kokusai

We took a day trip down to Naha to ride the Yui monorail and visit Kokusai street today. On Sundays the street is closed off and with no traffic, smog, or horns blaring it is a fun place to explore. I took a load of pictures and have a bunch I want to share, so this may get long. Grab a drink and bag of chips or bowl of edamame if you please.
This morning we told the boys we were going on an adventure, and it was a secret. That always gets them excited. I only gave 1 hint. It started with the letter Y. Keegans only guess was a Yak...if I knew where to find a yak, we would have went there instead.
We had to park and walk a block to the big surprise....

The Yui Monorail is a monorail train that goes above Naha City in downtown Okinawa. We parked, walked to the train station and bought all day passes for everyone so we could ride all the way through and see the city from a birds eye view.




See the Shisa on the side of the building?


We got off the monorail at Kokusai Street, also known as the Miracle Mile. It is the shopping district in Naha. A huge touristy place. Lots of shopping, food, and a few games for the kids.

Star sand in a bottle. There is a story behind the star sand. But I can't remember it, maybe next time. It can only be found on a few beaches and it's cute. That much I do know.

We bought lots of this, so if you live in the states and have a birthday coming up, this may be what you get...act surprised.

Since 1982!? Me too! December 23rd 1982 to be exact, remember that, I expect gifts, and you can't give me the star sand back.


Random Japanese fact: All restaurants have a nice glass case out front displaying an EXACT replica of what the food you may order will look like. It is really nice for those of us that can't read Kanji. We just point and voila, we get the food we want.


Kokosai street was filled with the prettiest Shisa I have seen so far. Thomas didn't like them though. He prefers the more traditional design.

Dayton is a crowd favorite, especially when we get away from the base where the locals don't see American babies all the time.



We found a little shop where the kids could paint their own Shisa. These are the prettiest ones now.




Since the street is closed off, that means no taxis. Their solution, the taxi trike. We didn't ride one this time, maybe next.


While the street is closed off the kids can play with bubbles, water toys and chalk on the pavement.



Look at the size of this bubble!


Another taxi trike..

Habu Sake

Albino Habu?


Creepy mannequins


A broom whistle.

We stopped to get ice cream. Keegans was blackberry and oh so good, until it fell off the cone.
Japanese and their randomness....

Thomas contemplating his next move.


Yeah, we weren't real sure what his act was suppose to be.

Taiko shoes.

Don't get your hand caught in the door!

Thomas, getting irritated with me.

What you see here is rain, what you don't see is how soaked we were after having to walk from the train station back to our parking garage.


On our way home I asked the boys what their favorite part of the day was. Bradens instant response was "Playing in the rain!" Keegans was painting the Shisa, that was mine too.