Last trip down south...

Last weekend Alison and I made our last tour book day down south. It was a beautiful day and we had everything all planned out...we'd go to charlies tacos for the last time, visit a banyan tree tunnel, see some castle ruins, and make a final stop at the glass factory...Well...it didn't quite turn out the way we had planned. Let me start by saying we have not had an unsuccessful trip yet and apparently it was time to make up for our other really successful trips. Let's just say I lost count how many full circles we went in and the amount of u-turns I made...some of which I am sure were illegal. Needless to say I have developed some bad driving habits this year! Anyways, at one point while we were looking for the banyan tree tunnel I made a u turn on a small dirt turnout and Thomas, our car, made an AWFUL noise! But it wasn't just for a moment, it kept going! Alison and I were just having a conversation on the drive up about how surprised we were that our car was still alive as we were sure it wouldn't last this long, now we found ourselves laughing so hard we were crying and also praying it wouldn't be serious since we weren't even sure where we were no less trying to tell someone where to come get us! So I pulled over and shut the car off...we walked to where we thought the banyan trees were, of course we were wrong haha, came back to the car, turned it on, and everything has been fine since. Praise God! whew!

This is where we thought Thomas was going to die!

We pulled over in front of this beautiful view to stretch our legs :) and get yet another pic together!

So we continued on our journey to nowhere....When we also couldn't find the castle ruins we decided to go to a cave site from the battle of Okinawa where over 200 school girls who were made to be nurses caring for the wounded soldiers ended up committing suicide after hearing rumors of what the American soldiers would do to them if found. It was more intense than anything I can describe! They had accounts to read that were in English and I read 2 and had to walk away, they were so graphic I couldn't handle it. From the cave site we headed to the glass factory, our second home, for the last time. Let me just say how weird it is that we are coming down to the "lasts." It almost feels like yesterday that we were having our "lasts" in California getting ready to board a plane to Okinawa. What a year!! :) Anyways, I've been waiting for a lamp to "call my name" and have been searching for a few months. This time it called and now I have MY lamp to bring home. So excited! I know it sounds weird, but it's the little things! :) Glad to have had another productive glass factory trip.

This was the really tough view we had for most of our drive around the southern tip of the island

In the end I was proud of how patient I was with the entire day considering how much I don't like not knowing where I'm going while driving. :) It was really a lot of fun considering our inability to find what we wanted. It's hard to imagine not having the beautiful ocean view surrounding me wherever I am. It is just as breathtaking now as the first time I experienced it almost 10 months ago!

Time continues to fly...

Last Saturday was our church's All Mothers and All Daughters Tea. Since Alison and I are both daughters, though we didn't get to be with our moms, we decided we would go for the fellowship. It was held on Camp Foster at Globe and Anchor Club. We had a fun time sitting with Kim and Emma, Cyndi, and one of the youth. There were A LOT of young girls there, being the military environment with lots of young families. They were really cute all dressed up learning about tea etiquette.
Kim did a short drama skit with a couple of the girls, cue cards included. It was quite funny!

Then we had a had making contest including a cat walk. Our table nominated Emma to have to wear the fabulous hat we made....NOT fabulous at all really. Ours was quite possibly the worst one there. I must the Japanese really know how to make hats. No exaggeration, their paper plates were turned into what looked like store bought hats! serious talent!

Here are the hat models representing each table.

Following the tea, Alison and I took Emma and Alisia for some hang out time and sleepover. We headed back to the apartment and changed to go to the beach since it was yet another gorgeous day! We hung out there for a bit then decided to get shaved ice, only the best ever! So much better than the states, finer ice and not so sweet syrup. Though I must say that I have never waited 30 minutes to receive my order of ice with syrup. Thankfully the weather was great and the company even better. from there we decided to make our way to American Village to ride the Ferris wheel, for the first time. It was most definitely on our list of things to do before leaving Okinawa. Check. It was a lot of fun and included some pics.

Alisia and I

The girls

After what was supposed to be a 15 minute ride, we thought it was more like 8, we headed back home to watch some teeny bopper movies, paint our nails, and eat mac and cheese and lumpia (Alisia's mom, Pauline, made it for us...really good!) We have a great time and learned some new things about these girls, like how they get when they're tired. Good times!

We started our 5 week countdown to our Cali arrival this Monday...Alison and I have been waiting to visit the Garlic House, a restaurant with anything garlic you could possible imagine, with Rocky and Gina, so on Tuesday evening, after a long day, we tried to make that trip. When we arrived after a 30 minute drive we found a sign on the door that said "Closed for extra holiday." Hmmm didn't know that was a normal thing, apparently in Japan it is. So instead we went to The Pizza House, formerly the US embassy, and enjoyed some good pizza and salad and some quality time with the Young at Heart, as Rocky refers to himself. I have been so blessed by Rocky and Gina, I can't even explain it. Alison and I laugh our heads off every time we're around them and always feel so much more relaxed afterwards. So after our long day this was the perfect way to spend the evening. After dinner we went to a different 100 yen store and ended the night with Big Dip Ice Cream.

Love them!

The week went on and my kids got more crazy. Being busy in the evening time really helped with my sanity. Continuing with the fellowship trend, which I must say has been completely amazing this year, Alison and I had Pastor Clay and Marlene Glickert over for dinner on Thursday night. We had a really fun time with them. After dinner we played cards. I learned how to play Hearts. They are an awesome couple and are just another reason I find it very difficult to say goodbye to Neighborhood.

So now it's Friday night, just got home from babysitting at the Love Dare meeting, and am preparing for what will be one of our final tour book days tomorrow. We're headed down south for the last time to catch a few more things...praying for a beautiful day!

Cake Decorating...

Backtracking prior to coming to Japan, Alison and I had discussed and started to research where we could take cake decorating classes, then with all the craziness of coming to Japan and getting everything ready that slipped through the cracks. So when we came to Okinawa and started to get to know Rocky and Gina we found out that Gina decorates cakes on the side for every occasion you could possibly imagine. She told us she would give a lesson sometime and that time arrived this week! Alison and I were so excited to try it out! Lisette and Mika from church joined us and we each decorated our own cake. Our teacher, Gina, taught us how to frost, trim, as well as some other secrets to decorating cakes. Here we are trying out our new skills!

We were all VERY focused on our works of art! :)

Here is my cake all trimmed and ready to be decorated! Not too bad for my first time huh?

Here is Gina showing us how to make roses...Gina was a great teacher! :)

Here is my star cake all done, nice and simple...I decided I would bring it to school on Wednesday to feed my kids...They loved it and the staff was impressed with my cake decorating skills! haha I try!

Here is the class with our teacher :) We love her!

Kite Day

This week was Golden Week on Okinawa, meaning many of the families up and leave town from Monday to Wednesday in celebration of everything from nature to children. I had a great break this week with only 9 kids at school on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Tuesday was our annual Kite Day. The kids all made kites in art class and we headed to the park with their families to fly them. The kids had a blast and it was a beautiful day, though I'm sad to say I got a little too much sun!
Here are the kids and parents from my class that participated...missing a lot of them!

I was seriously about to climb this, but we were called in to start flying the kites....maybe next time ;)

This is the massive slide that would definitely not be allowed at a park in the States.

the most BEAUTIFUL weekend yet...

Alison and I have developed a list of the things yet to see on Okinawa over the next 6 weeks. One of those things was to visit one of the other small islands close by. So on Saturday, with the absolutely amazing weather, we decided to take that trip. We drove up past Nago and headed across a bridge that lead to one island and continued onto another bridge to a second one. The drive up was an breathtaking as always...it will never get old!

As soon as we came across the second bridge we found this local beach with lots of other families hanging out around the water. We laid out our towels on these steps and relaxed for a while, in other words I napped. :)

More of this beautiful place we call home, for now.

If only the pictures could actually capture the fabulous colors of the water

Sunday was yet another beautiful day so Alison and I thought we'd head over to the sea wall to pay another visit to the Transit Cafe. Long story short, it ended up being 10 of us and the small cafe was packed so after a short photo opp :) at the sea wall we headed to the restaurant at the Kadena Marina.

In the picture are Clay and Marlene (temporary assistant Pastors at Neighborhood and Robert, Lisette, and Sage)

Robert and his funny faces

Alison and I on the sea wall :)

Robert and Lisette invited us to go snorkeling on Sunday after lunch so after a quick change of clothes we met up with them and headed out to the cape. Though when we arrived we noticed the waters were quite choppy, but we gave it a go anyways. It lasted about 10 minutes and we decided it was just too rough to continue so we drove down the road a bit and tried a different location. This time we walked a significant way out into the shallow water where we found it most dirt and coral. With that we resolved to try again next weekend and head home for a quick shower and evening service.
Alison had a small mishap with a rock...it ran into her....she was tough though and now has a battle wound to show for it.

Here we are leaving our final stop, Alison seemed to be just a little excited :)

The weekend was wonderful with lots of fellowship and good times with people I will truly miss! I'm looking forward to 5 or 6 more just like it!

Spirit Week=Crazy Kids

Last week was spirit week at school. Each day was a special dress up day that provided for many laughs, but also crazy times. Below are a couple pictures of my kids during the week!

Here are Adriel (Kindergarten) and Alyssa on Twin Day...They dressed up like Adriel. It was really adorable!

Some of my students on favorite character day....We had everything from Belle, Tinkerbell, Spiderman, Kobe Bryant, a Japanese animated character (I can't remember the name) and "Nathaniel" (he dressed up like himself :) )

More exciting news for the week....I discovered some water leaking from the back of my sink early in the week so the school called up the landlord to come and take a look. He came Thursday afternoon and "fixed" my sink. By the end of the school day I noticed there was more water coming out so my aide and I put some paper down on the floor to soak it up until we could called the landlord back on Friday...Except when I walked into my classroom on Friday morning the entire back of my classroom was covered in water. So exciting! After initially mopping up the mess, I was informed that the guys would be in there for most of the day fixing the sink again, so I got to move my class upstairs to the Japanese room for the day. Thankfully we survived Friday and my sink is now fixed for good. :) Never a dull moment!

Women's Retreat...

Last weekend was Neighborhood's Women's Retreat up at Camp Schwab, a marine base about an hour north from home. They have really nice cabins on base that are overlooking the Pacific Ocean. It really is a tough life living here on Okinawa! :)
The weekend was great! Over the course of the two days we had 4 teaching sessions focusing on Charles Swindoll's book "Intimacy with the Almighty." There were four disciplines that Marlene taught on....simplicity, silence, solitude, and surrender. Over the course of the weekend we were challenged to apply each discipline to our own lives and I especially appreciated the time we had to reflect and talk with the other ladies at the retreat. We also spent time in devotions and prayer in our cabins, had time for solitude, put together and decorated scarpbooks, had a fabulous barbecue thanks to Pastor Wes and Pastor Clay, and a great time of sharing, laughter, and prayer at our PJ party on Friday night. I also must say that this weekend was the first time in over 9 months Alison and I spent a night apart! I know we may be pretty pathetic but I'm happy to say we survived with flying colors. :)
I cannot begin to express how this weekend has challenged me, especially with looking ahead to going back home and getting back into the swing of busy California life. I am so thankful for the women at Neighborhood, many of which have been a great encouragement and friend to me over the past 10 months.


This is the view from one of the cabins! Here is my cabin...

Colleen and I at one of the sessions Michelle, Eva, and Alison apparently kickin back a bit Alison, Lisette, and I at the Friday bbq
Michelle, Omayra, and I...Cabin mates

We made a pit stop on the way home from the retreat for some lunch at Camp Hansen, another new one for us.