Christmas in February!

Ok, not really, but thats what you get when I don't have access to my Christmas pictures all January.



First of many Christmas related functions... Torii tree lighting, complete with bubble blowers, brass quartet, cookies, and Santa visit via firetruck.






Coryn was super obsessed with Santa this year, at every event he was the first in Santa's lap, wanting to run across the road just to be the first to say hi. He really wanted his Star Wars Legos.




This year he had the joy of sitting with a friend from school as well, Savina.




The second event was the 505th party, they had fun dancing and playing in the soap bubble snow they used for pictures. My camera died so I was only able to get pics of them in this 'be an elf' board... too cute.

Thanks Mom and Dad!!

While we were in China, Mom and Dad were watching the kids. When we got back I got to spend some time with them before they left. We went up to Okuma and climbed Hiji (go Mom!)


Visited the giant Okinawan Rail (bird) observation at Hedo Point.

And Ryukyu Mura to name a few... here we got to dance with the old lady balancing a giant sake bottle on her head.
Look! Dad's dancing! and smiling! Is he having fun? Is he laughing about how much taller he is? or is he enjoying watching my mom swim her way through a gaggle of school kids?

China! part 1

okay, I just wanted to start blogging this trip though I'll have to do most of it later while I catch up on what we're doing... and yes, the signs in China are indeed as funny as you think, you are here!

Our first stop was Shanghai, though we only stayed long enough to catch our flight to Beijing. Its an entirely different experience than Japan, but I'll get into that later. Shanghai is the largest international hub in China, which makes sense being that its the most modern and international city in China. It was fun though to see the multiplug posts! Jackson has a couple of international converter plugs thanks to the USO but China wasn't one of the options so we had to buy a converter there.

Pizza Hut! its everywhere, but different just like McDonalds is... there's usually always an item or two on the menu you know and will be the same, but this is a popcorn chicken pizza (delicious!) which we're pretty sure had Tabasco sauce for a base.

Although China is now all about the communism and sameness and junk, they have broken from that when it comes to tourism and have fun things like pillars covered in gold fabric.

I thought I'd seen everything in Japan when it came to strange named foods...

Birthday Time!

Coryn got to celebrate all day long on his birthday... starting with donuts for breakfast at the cabins. Followed by a party at school where he had pizza and cupcakes, and he got to sit at the end of the table with his best friends sitting next to him.

Here are his teachers.

Presents from school were opened afterward, he's hamming it up Japanese style.

Then he got to play in the bouncy while we waited for people to show up to the non-school party. It was a perfect day for it too... rain in the morning, brief sun, rain in the afternoon, cleared up just in time for the water to mostly dry and stay partly cloudy the rest of the evening.

This was the immediate favorite for all, playschool medical helicoptor.

Halloween!

There was a slew of parties lined up... first my ACGO meeting which I didn't know was supposed to be costumed, so Coryn got to choose from a box of stuff, as you can see he went with the ever popular giant pink sequined hat. Yes, he's busting a move.

Here we all are in our costumes (Jackson is an Afghan) at a Japanese Halloween party we were invited to, which was quite different. They had games, costumes, and a haunted house of course, but different none-the-less. They handed out candy bags to everyone on the way in, including adults. They had a card to fill out signature squares for each game. We didn't know what to expect so I brought some candy to hand out, and after I gave it to the lady that invited me she ran off and brought the guy in charge over to personally thank me for our donation. :)

Japanese costumes are quite haphazard, although possibly more creative... in general they don't quite know what to do with Halloween, its not in their culture. This is one of the games they had set up, fishing for candy, and these guys dressed appropriately in octopus and turtle getup. Another game they had was really fun, they filled a small room with crumpled newspaper and had strewn candy about for people to jump in and find.

Here's Halloween night... Boba Fett and Chicago Firefighter are ready to go! (complete with popcorn buckets from Tokyo Disney for candy)

We carved a pumpkin the day before and this is Coryn's first look at it lit up. He chose the design and watched me carve it. We even baked the seeds. Needless to say, there is way too much candy in the house. Still.

Discovery Channel

Last year the discovery channel had a fun commercial with a really catchy song attached to it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5BxymuiAxQ

Well, their new version was just released and we've been listen to it all weekend. I just thought I'd share them with you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0jZzBEKIMc (let this one load in it's entirety before you play it so it won't freeze part way through)... boom-de-yada, boom-de-yada!

P.S.
Make sure you watch both of them in full screen mode (HQ for #1 and HD for #2)

September still... ice skating

Thats right, subtropical Okinawa, the Hawaii of Japan, has an indoor ice skating rink. One.

So we went, and the kids had a blast. Coryn was kind of scared, who likes that slippy feeling when you're used to walking normal?

Carter had a blast, he swung between us, and purposely slid his feet every which way for the heck of it. Check out those gloves!

But they had the most fun getting pushed around in the skating rental cars!

Of course we had to warm up with some ramen and cocoa, Carter refused to have his gloves on at this point.

Coryn's getting really good at chopsticks. I think he'll miss those at the restaurants.

Carter likes getting fed like a bird.

It was a very tiring day...