One of the things that makes Christmas in Okinawa is the numerous light shows for the grand holiday. If not for the light shows, we wouldn’t feel Christmasy! Our first stop was down south past Naha. If you look at a map of Okinawa, there’s a little peninsula on the bottom right-hand corner and there lies the city called Itoman. Itoman is also where you’ll find Thai in the Sky aka Cafe Curcuma aka Freakin’ Yummy Thai Food! Unfortunately, on this night we didn’t plan for Thai in the Sky. We played it smooth and made a quick stop at McDonald’s before hopping on the Expressway. Prior to this visit and my visit to Mickey D’s the day before, I think it was like a year since I had eaten at the Golden Arches. Don’t judge! It’s Christmas Vacation and I’m allowed! But lemme tell ya, the hips don’t lie! I digress.
Skater Boy(aka Turdy, Turd Boy, Boog (I haven’t used Skater Boy in such a long time!), has had quite a fascination with the Christmas lights this year so to indulge him we thought it would be fun to check out each glorious display. He has his favorite houses he likes to pass by on base. That’s really cute to hear him screaming joyfully telling us that he sees Frosting the Snowman or Santa or Reindeer! Yes, that’s Frosting the Snowman. Can’t correct him and really don’t bother with it because it’s funny. 
My favorite part of the night was when we walked beyond the lights and found the flowers!
Who doesn’t love a lily? There was a whole building full of them and the smell! Oh my, it smelled like a really great perfume that I once had. It was simply delicious!
I honestly can’t tell you what the name of these flowers are. I am not a horticulturist. But I do love flowers. I am a girl. Who loves flowers. I never get them.
It would be great if someone could tell me what these are. After all, we paid 100 Yen to get into this building. Shoulda bought some of them. 
I officially love taking pictures of flowers. They stand still.
Hibiscus, oh how I can’t wait to see a butt-ton of you in Hawaii!
I can’t forget to mention that this crazy guy decided it would be fun to do this:
If you look really close, the table that he is standing on is not one but two! Yes, two! Freakin’ crazy!
And look at these cute things. They look like paper mache’.
And what night wouldn’t be complete without a picture of these boys of mine?
I HEART these boys. I wish I could keep the short one short. The tall one, I got him that way. I suppose he can stay that way 
Next up, The Okinawa Zoo Light Festival. Until next time peeps!
OH!
Speaking of peeps…not sure if it’s relevant but some of you may have heard that our assignment to Eglin, AFB in Florida has been cancelled. But not to fret pets! Well, we definitely did some fretting and pouting. Along with our cancelled assignment email we got 5 places to choose from instead. Our list went on as follows: MacDill AFB(Tampa, FL), Schriever (Colorado Springs, CO), Ft. Meade (Maryland), Cannon AFB (New Mexico), and the dreaded Robins AFB (Georgia (Yuck!). We put MacDill as #1 on our list and the rest as you just read. This beautiful Sunday morning, Paul awoke early and headed into work to take care of some emails and reports and blah, blah, blah. He came home just as Turd and I were emerging from our slumber and Paul says that he has something to show me. I’m totally thinking what kind of remote control car he wants this time and wondering if it will take 3 damn months to get here again. Oop, I digress again. And he shows me an email and says, “Honey, I’ve hilighted the area I need you to read.” I read…..I read again…..I scream…..I jump for joy in my pajamas…….and Turd says I wanna play too! We’re going to Tampa, Florida people! Start planning your vacations! Now, what’s the chances this assignment will get taken away from us again? Paul seems pretty confident that since the email came directly from the “detailer”, that we’re good to go. But me, I’m a little skeptical but super happy we’re still going to Florida and even closer to some dear friends! And let me not forget, Disney is like a couple hour’s drive! Hell yeah! Ooop, Heck yeah!
Alright, it’s late. Darn near midnight. I told Paul I was going to bed an hour ago. But blogging is an addiction, an obsession, my chocolate…NO! My chocolate is my chocolate. Who the hell am I kidding? Ooop, Heck! Heck! Heck!
I got the Little Giants team photos the other day and thought I’d share them you all! How stinking cute are these?
So sad that football is over. Who wouldn’t wanna hang out with these cuties?
We had a long day today. We woke up fairly early for a Saturday. I heard little footsteps outside our bedroom door and they kept running back and forth. Turns out that the Turd was up and was just transferring his cars from his bedroom to the living room. I finally got my lazy butt outta bed and came out to see what was up. Come to find out, he had been outside to greet the morning. He told me that he was out there looking for Mr. Michael. Mr. Michael was his babysitter last night. I guess I should tell him that babysitters don’t usually stay the night to say goodbye to you in the morning!
We also got to talk to Uncle Matty on the phone to wish him a Happy Birthday. We won’t say how many, but it rhymes with schmirty-stix. After our phone call, I got to go along to Daddy and Turd’s Saturday morning donut and coffee run. We stopped by the BX and the post office and then back home for showers! It was already hot out and it was only 1030 in the morning! A little lunch at our favorite Indian restaurant Krishna’s and then to the Toy Store to hang out for the rest of the afternoon.
Long day already but there’s more! After a quick Taco dinner at home, we decide that we should go take pictures of American Village because there’s tons of Christmas lights up and it’ll be fun to lolly-gag around. As we arrive in the American Village, we see a performance of Taiko Drummers and who’s little face lights up with excitement?
We got to sit and watch the first 20 minutes or so of the first performance and then had to get to the store before it closed. We walked around a bit more taking pictures of lights and such. Some crazy guy started messing with my camera to find it’s flash so he could take our picture for us. I tried telling him that I don’t ever bother with my flash and that I didn’t know how to get it up! 
Then we started to hear the Taiko drummers again. So off we run to catch the next performance.
After the 2nd show, I asked the Turd if he’d like to get his picture taken with the drummers and he said he’d rather go home. So I told him that this would probably be his very last chance to EVER get a picture taken with this very group. And one of the girls waved him in and off he went to stand with the drummers! Aside from the extreme flash because I didn’t want to screw up the picture, this could be the coolest picture ever!
This kid went non-stop since 830 this morning! I have to admit, I had to sneak a nap in the car while Paul went to get us coffee to give us adults a jolt of energy for the rest of the day. Turd stayed in the car with me. I kept dreaming that Turdy was talking to me saying things like, “Momma?! Wake up! Where’s Daddy? Can I have a coffee too?! Ooo! Can I have Kid’s Apple Be Juicy with the red one?! Momma?! Are you sleeping? Momma?!” I’d wake up occasionally, and there would be a stinky foot on my reclined seat and Turdy saying, “Mommy! Smell my stinky toes!” Grrrrrrr! Long day I said.
First Steps Football only lasted for 6 weeks. Out of those 6 weeks we only had 4 practices. Well, Turd only made it to 4. For some reason, it would rain every Tuesday night at 5 pm and it so happened to be our practice time. But oh well, it was still fun and we still made some new friends.
Coach’s son B. He wanted to give everyone Hi 5’s once we arrived.
Mr. O. He cracked me up! He and Turd we the shortest kids in the bunch and it seemed like they were always paired together. I think they made for nice buds.
The team was supposed to get their team pictures done a few weeks back but it was because of all that rain at 5 pm on Tuesdays that the photographer got pushed back to the last night of football. As soon as she showed up, I flipped my camera behind my back and let her do her work. I didn’t want to be rude and hijack her session. But I couldn’t help myself with this one. I only snapped one of these and Thank God it turned out! I was so happy that I did that!
Just look at their adorable little faces! The team, by the way, was named the Little Giants. (Giggle, giggle!)
Just look at what my little football player learned during the 4 practices he got to attend.
Throwing
Hiking
Punting
and Catching
Sorta catching
Since it was the last practice, Coach got the whole team Football Cupcakes! It was a nice treat for the boys. My kid, just licked off the icing and said that it was great and wanted to throw the rest of the cupcake away. So Paul and I ate the cake part and it was yummy!
The other kids seemed to enjoy their cupcakes too. 
I have to say, that I think Turd loved his football practices. I sure wish that we could be here next year and I’d sign him up again. I hope that there’s something like this in Florida! Maybe there’ll be something for soccer and baseball too! Oh what fun! Welcome to the rest of my life!
Remember my post about missing ShichiGoSan Celebration? I received a picture from Turd’s school yesterday and just look at my baby!
How freakin’ cute is that?!?
I can’t believe I’m so late on my Thanksgiving post! Not that I traditionally write a Thanksgiving post but I’m pretty sure that I usually post pictures or something about this holiday!
This year, I thought I’d go ahead and list the things that I am thankful for. I’ve seen other bloggers do it and it just seems appropriate for this wonderful time of year. But first, let me find a picture for you so you have something to look at instead of my rambling mish-mash of words.
Kind of random, but necessary. I don’t believe that I have showed you guys my little Yukata-boy.
On to being thankful!
1. I am thankful for having the ability to express myself freely on this here little blog. If it weren’t for this little thing, I may need to see Mental Health
2. I am thankful for the clothes on my back. If not for these clothes, I would be naked and let’s just face it folks that would be tragic.
3. I am thankful for automobiles. Cars also cure boredom.
4. I am thankful for toilet paper.
5. I am thankful for the bed that I sleep on.
6. I am thankful for the shoes on my feet.
7. I am thankful for the house over my head. Even though it is not a house that I would personally pick for myself. But if it was given to me, then so be it. I am still thankful for it.
8. I am thankful for the recent assignment that we have received to Eglin, AFB in Florida. We have friends in each direction that would only be just a couple hours’ drive.
9. I am thankful for my camera. If it weren’t for that great piece of mechanical engineering, you would never get to see my son or my husband. And on occasion, me.
10. I am thankful for my husband and my son. They are my inspiration. They are my life. They are the reason for me to exist.
11. And one last thing that I am thankful for…the men and women of the United States Military. I don’t think I would appreciate them as much as I do if I hadn’t chased my husband until he gave in. Well, more like shut me up. Little did I know that he was going to re-enter into the military. But so far, it has been the best experience of my life! For that, I am thankful.
Oh! We decorated our Christmas tree today! Here is one of our favorite decorations for this year!
It’s Grandpa B’s old John Deer 4020! Well, not his exactly! That would just be ridiculous to try and hang that thing on our tree. Besides, I believe it was sold some years ago. Paul came home with this ornament the other day and you all should have seen him! It was like looking at Turd, but Paul’s not as Asian. (Yes, I will shut up. I am all by myself on a Saturday night. The boys are in Turd’s room watching a movie. Shutting it.)
Yesterday, parents were invited to have lunch with the wee ones at school. I was sooooo looking forward to this because last week they had a little celebration for ShichiGoSan and I totally missed it! But I talked to another Mom of one of Turd’s classmates and she said she had no clue about it! So, I was not the only one! But this lunch totally made up for it!
Every Tuesday and Thursday I pack his Bento lunch and away he goes to school and I don’t even know if he eats everything that I put in it. Or if he does the trade that we all used to do when we were young. I would always wonder if the other kids would make fun of him for what was in his Bento. But alas, I got to experience it for myself yesterday. As it turns out, each child waits patiently until Sensei is ready to sit down at her little organ to play while the kids sing some little prayer-thingy. (How freakin’ adorable, by the way!) Then after the song, Sensei comes over to sit with the children and then they say a prayer kinda like mine growing up. Mine went like this: In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Bless us Oh Lord, for these thy gifts which we are about to receive from the bounty to Christ our Lord, Amen! Well, theirs probably was similar but in Japanese! And OH MY GOD! I about cried I was so dang proud of my little Angel! Oh! And when they sang that little song before the prayer?! Yup, tears wellin’ up in the eyes! It was so funny, there was one little girl that was the loudest singer in the group but she was by far the worst singer. I’m thinking that her tone will come to her when she’s a little bit older!
It was this lunch that I realized how much I really give my boy to eat! I think I may give him a bit too much! I was looking at all the other kids’ Bentos and they all had a teeny serving of Broccoli or some other vegetable, a couple of tiny little rice balls and then a teensy dessert. I give my son 3/4 of a ham & cheese sammy, some Goldfish, some 100 Calorie pak cookies and as an extra treat yesterday I gave him some cracker/cookie thing that he loves. I hate them because they taste like fish. They’re weird. So, note to self: Pack Turd a lighter lunch!
Here he may just be getting full.
I learned that my Turd has a girlfriend. And this is her:
OH-A DEAR-A GOD-A! He’s only 3! What’s a Momma to do?!
I was a bit relieved when I saw this though:
I think that she’s pretty close with a few of the boys in the classroom.
Just when I thought our lunch date was all done, we were ushered to the Hall for Friendship Day. Now Friendship Day is something that I normally skip because my Turd thinks that I should take him home right after it. But I usually can’t because I have to work. But I have rearranged my schedule a little bit to incorporate his Tuesday night Football practice so we were prepared to take him home after our visit. Oh, but like I said I usually skip this day every month because I don’t wanna break Turdy’s heart by making him go back to his classroom with his friends.
So yesterday we got to dance and sing and play with a parachute!
When both Paul and I were young, this was our favorite activity! We loved the parachute and so does this little man!
And while Paul had the camera, he caught this little ditty:
What a fun day! I wish I could do that at least once a month! But since he started his new school, that was the very first time the parents have been invited to lunch. I’ll take whatever I can get, man! It let me see my baby in a whole new light. Yeah, in his very own element. Oh and one more thing?! Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday he eats whatever the school prepares for the kids and it’s definitely Japanese cuisine. I was told by one of the Japanese mothers who speaks awesome English that Turd tries everything! Good to know! Good to know! I’m going to try sneaking some Japanese things into his Bento now!
Oh Gosh! Turd has been talking about being a Taiko Drummer since he started his “new school” off base! He loves everything there is about Taiko drumming. After months of him saying, “I’m a Taiko drummer!” We finally gave into him and bought him his very own little Taiko drum. The one above, is obviously not it but you should have seen the amazement in his eyes! He was more than thrilled to touch this one!
We started out our Saturday at the Annual Foster Field House Bazaar. It’s just a fun little vendor event where people from all over the island come to spend insane amounts of money on all things Okinawa. I’m going back tomorrow to spend my monies
Edamame! Freakin' yummy!
No trip is complete without some Yakitori!
And some Apple Tea.
Here, we find an old friend from Shima Noko daycare.
Hey H! Long time, no see!
And here’s one of Turd’s girlfriends. She’s as sweet as pie.
Little M. Her and the Turd play so well together. You can hardly hear them playing sometimes!
I hope to go back to the bazaar tomorrow and buy this:
Yes, it's a glass ball. Don't judge!
Then we realized that it was 1:20 pm and the Taiko performance was to start at 1:40! So we hauled our smelly butts from one base to another and made it just in time to see the beginning!
I particularly love the pint sized drummers!
The adult-sized one's ain't so bad either
This group in particular is named Nix Hayama. They’re awesome.
Oh dear God, I hope I spelled that right.
Miss Akemi freakin’ rocks. And I just happen to be sitting right in front of her.
Poetry in motion, really.
Look at this one! She’s holding a baby drum!
This one is handsome.
This one is gonna bite his bottom lip off!
Couldn’t even get this one’s attention long enough to snap a pic of him actually looking at me.
…with chicken sauce still around his lips! LOL!
Oh how I love too look at this. I could do it all day long.
Chicken still stuck in his teeth. Oh dear.
Thanks for coming along on our Saturday afternoon outing! Hope you enjoyed yourselves. You would think that my kid would be pretty tired after all of that. But it is now 10:10 pm and he’s still up playing with cars. We’re hoping that the longer we keep him up, the longer he’ll sleep in tomorrow. We thought that would work last night. He stayed up til about 10 last night but he woke up at freakin’ 8 am! What the heck?! Somebody ’splain that one to me! Whatever.
Today was Turd-Boy’s school’s celebration called Shichi-Go-San. Bascially, it’s meant to celebrate children at ages seven, five and three. You can find a nice description of the Shichi-Go-San Festival on the OkinawaHai website.
Today, in honor of Shichi-Go-San I dressed Turd in his finest. Well, I had to buy him an outfit to be appropriate enough because he dresses up just as much as Paul and I. NEVER! Look at this mini-man!
Clearly, he is tired of the camera.
How freakin’ cute is that child? I couldn’t resist this outfit! The day I bought it, I brought him home from school and I made him try it on. Kicking and screaming that is. He came home in one of his moods. And by moods, I mean he was fricken crabby as all get out! So to make matters worse, I put the whole thing on him including the shoes.
Some casual kicks because I refused to buy patent leather shoes.
How adorable is this little tie?
Some serious thought for my totally un-serious 3 year old boy.
First shot out of the camera. Now why couldn't the next 15 minutes go as well as this one?
Hmmm, maybe a Kool Aid commercial. Look at my cheese head.
The cover of GQ er, I mean Teen Bop er, I mean Parent's Magazine?!
And here’s my favorite pic of the day!
Here I had just told him that I love him and Thanks for being such a good model this morning. And he said, “I love you too, Momma!”
What a sweet little boy. This morning anyway. This evening he was fortunately, still sweet. But it had a weird and goofy twist to it. I will never be able to explain, you will just have to experience it all for yourself!
It was a beautiful day out yesterday so instead of being stuck inside our house, I suggested we go to the seawall and go for a nice, long walk. I love the seawall! So we stepped down to one of our favorite spots to throw rocks. Throwing rocks is not really my cup of tea but for boys, a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do! And to get my little one’s head outta my butt, A GIRL’S GOTTA DO WHAT A GIRL’S GOTTA DO!
As I was saying, it was a gorgeous day. 
It’s days like this that make me already miss Okinawa. But I keep telling myself that Florida will most likely have tons of days like this. Hopefully more in the 70’s rather than the 80’s and 90’s. I’m not so keen on the hotter temps. So why would someone like me want to stay in Oki or go somewhere like Florida? Uhhhh, because the beaches are freakin’ awesome! The island life, the beach bum life. There’s nothing like it!
And really, if we lived in good ‘ol Minnesota or North Dakota I don’t think that there’d be many opportunities for us to just go for a walk along the seawall because we were bored.
Plus, you can’t find rocks as big as your head to throw in the water so you can get a splash like these!
Where else can you go to find little treasures like these?
Along the seawall, people pay to graffiti a certain amount of space. Or at least I think they pay. I’ve seen a sign somewhere along it asking people to contact so-and-so if you would like to design a piece of the wall. I love each and every piece of art on that wall! They change from time to time and it’s really cool to notice those subtle changes. This one here is rather new. Probably because of his untimely death:
There always seems to be a bike along the wall. If it’s a really old looking, antique thing I will snap it. Just because I feel like it. And for some reason, I am drawn to old bikes. Or rusty ones. 
Where else can you pop a squat and enjoy a refreshing sip of something totally Oki?
How about a picture of the 3 of us?
And how about my little muscle man?
He’s a snorkeling Shisa in this one.
There’s the muscle man! Peace!
It’s doubtful that I’ll find half of these things in Florida but I can imagine that we will find other things that are unique to it. The more I think about missing Oki, the more I get excited about Florida. I think about the many visitors we will have. I think about the ease of travelling a few hours to see friends and family instead of days. I think about my little Turd growing up in the good ‘ol US of A. It’s advantages and disadvantages. I worry too. I worry about that missing child out of Florida that I just heard about the other day. I worry about how many sexual offenders that are going to be living in the same town that I live in. I worry about finding a great pre-school for Turd. I worry about finding a job that’s near his pre-school. I worry about Paul’s new job. Oh dear, I could go on and on. But I won’t because I think you may have an idea of how I’m feeling.
As I sit here to write this post, my boys are out riding bikes. It is once again, a beautiful day outside and they are enjoying the sun and fun while I do laundry and type away in my blog. I love my blog. I love posting pictures of my family even if there is nobody out there reading it. Blogging is fun. Blogging takes up a lot of my time. Blogging is addictive. Blogging has become my hobby. I must stop this blog before it gets outta control!
