Okuma for the Day

Our church held its annual family camp weekend up at Okuma.  Since we hadn't made arrangements for the dogs and had some things to take care of at home, we decided to go up for one day only.  We spent some time in a teaching session, followed by lunch with some new friends.  One perk of family camp is meeting families and individuals you might not otherwise meet on Sunday morning.  Okuma, as always, was lovely and it was refreshing to spend some time enjoying the beauty of it all. 

We spent most of the afternoon exploring the coastline with Perry and Jennifer.  It was overcast most of the day and even a little cool (thankfully!).

Here's a view from the trail.

A little closer: a view of one of the beaches.

Noa points out the scenery.

The strange, waffle-patterned cement walls along the beach are certainly unique.

Perry decided these were for climbing.

Can you tell who is who?  Noa is on the left, Perry is on the right.

These gorgeous blue-purple flowers were growing along the trail.  How I wish I was carrying my SLR.  I only had my little point-and-shoot with me.

Team Juloa strikes a pose.

Once we were on the beach, we found all kinds of critters and shells.  Here, Jen and Noa try to figure out what creature this white, oval shell came from.

Perry found a giant hermit crab.

This guy was almost invisible against the sand.

These are all hermit crabs that were bunched together in the sand.

I found a white one!

Two cuties on the beach: Jen and me!

Another view of the beach.

This beach is on the other side of one of the lookout points.

And a final view of one of Okuma's beaches through the tall grasses.

Beautiful, simply beautiful!

Homecoming!

Noa is back!!  His homecoming was wonderful.  A lot of our friends showed up to welcome him back home to Okinawa.  I was practically jumping out of my skin waiting for him to walk through the doors.  Here are some picks of the event.

The huge group that came out to the airport.  Even the Yosts, with their new baby, came out to see Noa.  He was so surprised!

This was taken right after I greeted him at the doors and we're walking back to the group.

Rachael made a welcome home sign.  It read: Welcome to Okinawa!  Happy Valentine's Day to Dr. Noa!

Here's a close-up of the adorable drawing at the bottom.  Cute!!

Team Juloa reunited!

Oh Happy Day!

Little Ella Yost entered the world today.  This little princess has a head of dark hair, long feet, and adorable little puckering lips.  Tom and Laura couldn't be happier and I'm so proud of how Laura did throughout the pregnancy and birth.  I'm happy to report that both mom and baby are happy and healthy!

In other happy news - Noa is due home soon from deployment!  I'm very busy getting ready for his return home, of course.  And anytime something big comes up, you can be certain that pedicures at Cokcos are in order!

Clockwise from the left: Laura's pink striped toes (just in time for Ella's arrival), Jen's orange-a-licious toes, and my bravely brown toes for Noa's arrival home.

Why I Won't be Following in my Mother's Footsteps (or Husband's, or Friend's....)

Isn't this a lovely playground?  It's called "the kindergarten park" at my school, since the four kindergarten classes share it each day.  Today as I was outside monitoring a couple of classes, one of my students jumped off a climbing ladder and landed on his head, consequently ripping it open.  My para brought the student to me, who was obviously crying and bleeding profusly.  As I was trying to calm him down, clean his wound, and keep blood from falling all over the classroom floor, I was able to catch a glimpse of the damage and he indeed had a pretty nasty head wound.  So, we headed over to the nurse's office.  She was still at lunch, so we went to the main school office and I had the student sit and hold a damp cloth to his head while we waited (he was much calmer at this point).  

As we waited, I realized that some of the office staff, including our brand new office clerk (who I had't yet met until this point) were talking to me and I wasn't able to take in what they were saying.  I also realized that I was sweating - a lot.  Then, the black spots started to appear in front of me.  I've passed out enough times in my life to realize it was about to happen again.  Thankfully, the nurse appeared a minute later and took my student to her office.  As soon as he was gone, I sat down and promply put me head between my knees.  So, picute this: I'm in the middle of the office with my head between my knees, the office staff is working around me, and parents and students are popping in to take care of business.  Nice, huh?  Thankfully, I was able to resume to work in about 5 minutes.

My mom is a nurse.

Noa is a doctor.

Jess is a nurse.

I think I'll stay in my current field.  It's just better that way.

One more pic: the scene of the crime:

A New Year

In case you didn't know, it's the year of the ox (sometimes also referred to as a cow) in Japan.  If Wikipedia is even somewhat close in the explanation of  the symbolism of the ox, it's going to be an interesting year:

The Ox is the sign of prosperity through fortitude and hard work. This powerful sign is a born leader, being quite dependable and possessing an innate ability to achieve great things. As one might guess, such people are dependable, calm, and modest. Like their animal namesake, the Ox is unswervingly patient, tireless in their work, and capable of enduring any amount of hardship without complaint.

Really, you know I don't believe all that, but it is interesting to know what the surrounding culture may be thinking about the year ahead.

So what does the new year bring??  Well, I obviously can't see into the future, but I do have some things to look forward to:

• Noa returning home!  He's been gone since July on deployment.  He should be back next month!
• Babies!  No, not mine, but we have good friends who are expecting little ones.
• Travel!  We're hoping to go to China, Hawaii, and see family in the States again.  Who knows where else we'll end up?
• Saying good-bye and hello.  Sadly, being in the military means we meet and say good-bye to friends frequently.  Some of our best buds are scheduled to leave Okinawa this summer.

I look forward to blogging all these upcoming events (and more!).  Hopefully, the blogging will be more frequent.  So, here's to 2009!

Catching Up: New Years

The end of 2008 began with lots of snow in NH.  I loved it!  Added bonus: I got to see the wild turkeys that live near my parent's house.  

The evening was a great New Year's Eve; it was a reunion year of sorts.  You see, I grew up with adopted extended family.  Our family always celebrated holidays and events with a couple of other families that also had children similar in age to both my sister and myself.  New Years was especially a fun tradition with games at my house and a big breakfast next door.  Now, the children have grown up, we've all moved at least once and the next generation is coming around.  However, once in awhile we still get to see each other and this year we got to reunite for New Year's.  Below are some pics from the night.

Here are the "kids" standing in age order: (R - L) Adam, Cristyn, me, Tim, Pete, Anoli, Joel (missing from photo is Phil, who was unable to attend the festivities)

My favorite picture of the evening - Anoli and I pose for a self portrait.

Mom & daughter shot: Cristyn, Nancy, Loni (my mom), & me!

Playing Quelf brought out some crazy antics, like...

...hiding in the couch cushions...

...letting the crowd know your true feelings are towards them....

...and making a headdress of toilet paper.  

After ringing in the new year, we sang a couple hours of karaoke and then drove back home so I could get a couple winks before boarding the plane back to Oki.

Next up: it's a new year in Okinawa!

White Christmas

Due to my computer dying (good news - it's now fixed) and traveling to the states, blogging was difficult, but I'm back and have lots to catch up on.

I spent Christmas this year in New Hampshire with my family.  It was a wonderful trip and worth the long hours of travel.  Unfortunately, the 2 items I forgot to pack in my haste to leave were my camera chargers, so pictures weren't as abundant as usual.  However, I did get some use of one of my cameras before the battery completely died.  After that I used my sister's camera and tried to document highlights of my trip.  

I arrived in the middle of a snowstorm, which caused my flights to get rerouted to Charlotte and then to Boston.  I finally made it home at 3:00 am, but my luggage didn't arrive for another 2 days.  On the upside, the snow was absolutely beautiful.  I really miss New England winters.

The house was all decked out with Christmas decor.  Here's the Christmas tree in all it's glory.  The funny thing about the tree this year was that it didn't have the typical pine smell.  As soon as I walked into the living room, I smelled OLD CHEESE!  That was the mystery of the Christmas tree - why was it smelling like old cheese?  We still aren't 100% sure why.... 

At least it was pretty.

I got to decorate mom's famous cookies... and subsequently inhale them over the next several days.

As Christmas tradition dictates, Bailey received his potent catnip toy and attacked it with wild abandon.  We laughed so hard when he kept standing on his two back legs.
Another tradition: opening up presents in your pajamas!  Anoli and I model the scarves mom brought us from a trip to New Mexico.
My grandfather came over to spend Christmas day with us.  He really liked his new pot holders from Anoli.

 I practiced using my new camera lens from Noa on Bailey.  Bailey wasn't that impressed, but I had fun (until my battery died...).

After Christmas, Anoli and I went to visit Cristyn and meet her new little girl.  She is so precious and quite the little peanut!

More to come!  Stay tuned!

Top 10

Top 10 Reasons I'm Looking Forward to Going Home for the Holidays
(beside the obvious...spending time with loved ones, of course)

10 - Christmas is lonely when your hubby is deployed
9 - two words: real tree
8 - I need to test out the family's "Cat Whisperer" theory*
7 - It's been many moons since I've seen snow
6 - time to gorge on my mom's cookies
5 - meet the new baby in the "family"
4 - my MacBook is broken (already...) - I need an Apple Store ASAP.
3 - serious Uno playing with Papa
2 - Silver Maple Chinese food
1 - getting to use the porch as a second freezer - genius!

*When I was home last summer, the family cat, Bailey was having some issues with marking in the house. During my stay, he had very few "incidents," giving me the title "Cat Whisperer." We'll see what happens this time around.

Light Conspiracy

I was planning on sharing some holiday decoration photos tonight, but unfortunately it seems that the Christmas lights are out to get me.  I set up my classroom tree last weekend, only to find midweek that one of the light strings burned out - in the middle of the tree!  Of course, being the perfectionist that I am, I HAVE to fix it.  Add lights to the shopping list - check.

Which brings me to tonight.  Even though I won't be here Christmas day, I decided that I couldn't forgo having a beautiful tree set up in the living room.  So, I began to set up our lovely, prelit, and much to my chagrin, artificial tree, by flaring out all the branches, making sure there are no gaps, etc.  Then I plug in the tree and what do I find - a section of the lights are out.  "No problem," I think to myself.  I bought an extra set of light in case this happened this year.  As I was putting on the new string of lights, half of them suddenly go out on my new string.  Seriously?!  You've got to be kidding me.  I was so frustrated that I just stopped and now my tree is only partially set up.  Now I need to get more lights for both trees.  Grrr...

Thankfully, I can find solace and Christmas tree beauty in other places.  Our church always has beautiful trees set up in the sanctuary.  Last night at a women's event I got to sit right by them and enjoy their glow.  The pictures just don't do it justice!

For those of you artificial-tree-experts, I have a question for you: do I take off the old lights that don't work and are intricately wound around each branch?  It bugs me that they are on there and don't work, but at the same time, I can't imagine trying to take them off.  It's quandary, I tell you....

A Week's Worth

I've got some major blog catching up to do!  Last week started out so well - probably because my dearest sent me a dozen red roses to school.  Now, that's the way to start off the week!

Thanksgiving was spent with friends.  It was a delicious meal with everyone pitching in (I brought the cranberry relish - something I couldn't burn!).  Here are some of my closest girlfriends here in Oki: Tritia (top), Emily, Jennifer, me, and Laura (left to right)

The following morning started with a trip to CoCok's with friends.  My toes are the silver and white ones on the bottom.

Then off to the annual Thanksgiving Bazaar on Foster to stimulate the economy in time for Christmas.  It was fun to peruse through each table and display and still learn about this crazy culture that I have learned to feel comfortable living in.  I have always loved looking at the glass ball buoys that are found up north on mainland Japan (these were used long ago by fishermen), but I had never seen these cylindrical ones before.  Apparently, these were used in netting octopus.  Interesting....

Of course, I loved seeing all the various Shisa statues.

That night, a bunch of friends rented a room for karaoke.  As always, it was a blast.  Here we are getting down with the YMCA.  

But, some of my favorite moments of the week, especially on my days off, were spent cuddling with my two furkids and watching the turbulent ocean waves outside.

I have much to be thankful for. 

 And now, on to holiday decorating and crazy hours at work!