We got our new assignment...

After a lot of impatient waiting (on my part mostly), we finally got our new assignment.


We will be moving to...

Colorado Springs, Colorado!!

I'm excited. I love Colorado. It's a great job for Scott and he was "competitively selected" for it, meaning the commander chose him. Also we have a few friends who live there, so it will be good. I am a little nervous about driving in snow and getting used to cold winters after being in Okinawa, but it will be great. The winner of the guess where we'll be moving contest is Alycia since she got the closest by mentioning Utah, a neighboring state. You will notice we ended up with something that wasn't on our original list at all...which is how it goes a lot of the time. Matthew asked me if they have windows and public gardens in Colorado. I'm sure he'll end up loving it there.

The other news is that we will be moving in November (probably the beginning of Nov. or late Oct.) instead of January like we originally thought, and that is coming up fast! So much to do, but we are really excited. Rocky mountains, here we come!!

Oura Wan: Part 2

More adventures from our weekend at Oura Wan.

For lunch we went to our new favorite sandwich shop. They were very busy so we had to wait a little bit to get our food, but it was worth the wait.

Drinking some coconut juice.

Anna liked it too.

My sandwich - Greek chicken - it is so good. Marinated chicken, Tzatziki sauce, fried zucchini...yum. Scott got a southwestern one. Also delicious.

We ordered one that was called "luncheon meat" something for the kids. I thought it would be sliced deli meat, but it was spam with scrambled eggs, cheese and ketchup. Anna loved the spam.

On the way back we stopped at a park and went on this LOOOONG roller slide. It's the longest one I've been on yet. It took forever to get down 'cause the rollers were a little stuck. Also I was wearing a denim skirt and it kept getting caught in the rollers. Bad idea. Here we are walking to the top.

On the way down.

I tried to take a picture of how long it was, but pictures didn't quite catch the scope of it.

Here's the upper half.

There's Matthew and Scott going down again.

Very exciting.

Anna was beat after the long day.

Here we are pulling away from our cabin the next day. It doesn't look that impressive from the outside, but it was a nice place and we had a good time.

Oura Wan: Part 1

We went to stay at a beach house this weekend at Oura Wan - a beach at one of the bases on the other (Pacific) side of the island. It was a great weekend.

We got to stay in one of the big "distinguished visitor" cottages, which was very fun. We had a great view of the ocean!

Our living room. The kids had a great time running all around the different rooms.

Matthew and Anna's little bedroom. They loved sleeping on a big bed, especially one with so many pillows.

The view from our front porch. It was so beautiful, just sitting there watching the ocean felt so relaxing!

The porch with BBQ.

We stayed in the Shisa cottage (another name for Shi Shi dog) and there were shi shi dog pictures all over. I mean, who doesn't want to look at a picture like this when you are eating breakfast, or brushing your teeth, or going to sleep. :)

The view in the early morning.

Anna liked all the flowers.

The cabin had this outdoor wash area, which I LOVED. I wish our house had something like this. Great for beach living.

We played at the beach. The water was a little choppy and it was HOT, but we still had fun.

Anna liked the sand.

She bathed herself in the sand.

Both kids wanted to swim with their floaties, but it was a little too choppy for that.

Matthew and I were wading in the water and a piece of seaweed wrapped around his leg. That freaked him out and then he wanted to sit for a while. He drank his water and then got sand in his mouth, and then his eyes.

He cried for the rest of the time...and we left the beach not too long after that.
On to more adventures. Stay tuned for part 2.

Hard at Work

After church last week Scott had to stop at work and finish up a few things. It's nearing the end of the fiscal year and things are very lean these days in the military financially. Unfortunately that means a lot of work and extra hours for Scott through October. It's been interesting hearing about some of the inner workings of the base budget from him. And I'm glad there are people smarter than me making the hard decisions about "what's more important to buy" for the base since money is so limited.
Anyway, here we are at Scott's office. For some reason Anna is showing Scott her open mouth.

Why? I don't know.

Scott tries to do his work as Anna investigates his file cabinets. Scott usually keeps some lifesavers in a drawer and she likes to try and find them.

Matthew found a spinning chair. So fun. We don't go visit Scott at his office too much since it really reduces his productivity.

Matthew vs. the Shi Shi Dog

We went out for dinner on Saturday and got to see a little Taiko drummer/Eisa dancer show afterward. These dances often involve a big shi shi dog dancer in costume.

The drummers and dancers were all kids and the performance was really fun to see. They drummed and danced to modern Japanese dance music, rather than the traditional Okinawan music, so it was very upbeat.

It was all fun and games until the shi shi dogs came out...and one of them tried to eat Matthew's head...

...this one.

He was a small one (the little boy inside the costume was no bigger than Matthew), but still quite terrifying. Kids other than Matthew were screaming as he roamed through the audience looking for a victim. He honed right in on Matthew and I and walked right up to Matthew, who completely froze. The little shi shi dog then proceeded to put Matthew's head all the way inside his giant mouth. Matthew was too afraid to do anything, but after it was all over, he started to cry and said he wanted to leave. Anna tried to tell him that it was ok, that the dog just wanted to smell him, but he would not be consoled. On the way back to the car, however, Matthew got his revenge.

How does it feel shi shi dog?
I think that made him feel better.
*note: it was my idea for him to do that - he is not really a vengeful little boy :)

Earlier in the night we had gotten some dinner at the sushi-go-round.

I pulled some eel off the belt for myself and the kids both wanted some, so I let them have it (it was cooked, not raw). After eating it Matthew said, "I like this chicken." Scott and I looked at each other and smiled. Yes, chicken...muah ha ha. They also ate their usual choices of rice, shrimp and egg. Very tasty. Anna also tried crab and some other things. She is a very adventurous eater...for a toddler.

And after dinner we got some frozen yogurt. Tasty. Matthew kept telling me he wanted watermelon for one of his toppings, and I was very surprised to see that they had it. I guess he remembered it from last time. He also got one green gummy army man. A little nod to Toy Story?

Not a drop was wasted. It was a nice Saturday night and we were glad Scott didn't have to work!

Cape Busena

Scott had the day off work on Monday so we headed to Busena resort up north to take a glass bottom boat ride and visit the underwater observatory there.

Matthew was really excited to ride the free shuttle bus at the resort.

Here we are at the boat dock waiting for the boat to come. The sea was pretty choppy but we decided to go out anyway.

Here is one of the boats coming back. You can't tell from this picture but that boat was getting tossed around a lot. It scared me a little since I am very prone to seasickness/carsickness/airsickness. Yikes!

Waiting for the boat.

Here we are on the boat, checking out the fish. The boat ride was cool and we saw a lot of fish, but it was VERY choppy. I was feeling pretty sick.

Some of the fish. I didn't get a lot of pictures on the boat...'cause I was trying hard not to vomit.

We made it off the boat without any disasters and found this big anchor on the way to the underwater observatory.

Getting ready to walk out to the observatory.

We walked way out on a pier and then down a big spiral staircase to the observatory. The water was a little cloudy, but we still saw a lot of fish. The kids loved it.

Some of our little friends.

Here's Matthew heading out of the observatory, up the spiral staircase.

We fed a few fish off the pier. It was cool to see all these tropical fish jumping out of the water for our little food pellets.

We didn't get to ride the shuttle bus back 'cause it was too crowded, so we walked. Matthew was very disappointed, so we took a picture by the bus after our walk back. That sort of appeased him.

Just before we left the resort we found this fountain to play in. As I take this picture Scott is trying to get Matthew NOT to drink the water.

After the resort we went to this delicious sandwich place nearby (Manza Sub Shop). I got the Greek sandwich special and it was so delicious!! We're going back there soon! After our tasty lunch and exciting morning, the kids were beat. Nice quiet ride home.