Here Comes The Humidity!!!

When we woke up this morning the outside of our windows were all steamed up. Here comes the humidity after magically disappearing all winter. The humidity mixed with the heat in the summertime here is completely stifling. The only way it is bearable to be outside is if you are near water, thank goodness for the beaches and pools. I wonder if growing up in the desert has anything to do with my inability to handle completely stifling humidity. It looks as if living in humid Michigan the last 7 years didn't prepare me at all for Okinawa. The saddest part of all is we are banished to running on treadmills for the next 5 months. Crazy how it is backwards here, you run outside in the winter not the summer!

Favorite Running Spot

One of Josh and my favorite things to do is go running along the seawall on the East China Sea. From our front door it is a 5 minute run to the water. How lucky are we. The pictures say it all.

Just outside the base we live on.

Beginning of the run along the water.



This is the view at the end of the seawall.
Now we turn around and run back home.

Gated Community?

How many of you can say you have watched your 3 year old child be removed from your vehicle and walked across the street holding hands with a Marine who was also holding a gigantic M16 while you were told to remain in your vehicle with both hands on the steering wheel. Then, after your child was safely across the street being guarded by the Marine with the large gun and bullet proof vest, you were ordered to open and close all compartments and doors to your vehicle and subjected to a full vehicle search. Well, I can now say it has happened to me. Even though I had been warned "Safety Training Exercise" were going to occur this week I didn't know exactly what to expect so it was quite a nerve racking few minutes. The Marines were all business, far from friendly. It happened to me on the first day of the training exercises so I hadn't seen anyone else searched making it a real surprise when it happened. Of course I passed the search, no illegal contraband in my vehicle. I guess it is nice to know the gates to our bases have guards that take our safety seriously. How many other gated communities are guarded by military personnel with M16's and bullet proof vests!

What a great 9 days...

We were very sad to say goodbye to Suz’s parents last Saturday. After a whirlwind 9 days they were probably glad to get some sleep on the long 23 hour trip home. It was so nice to spend time with family. The boys had a great time wrestling with Papa and playing games with Mimi. Josh and I had fun taking them to all of our favorite restaurants and showing off our amazing beaches. The boys really miss them. Max thinks they are still at the airport and continues to ask when we are going back to get them. Here are a few highlights of their visit.



Goodbye Mimi and Papa, thank you for coming to visit us!

We love you!

Yeah Visitors!

We are so excited! At this very minute Suz's parents are flying over the Pacific Ocean to come see us. They're our first visitors from home and we can't wait to show them what our life is like over here. But the biggest thing, I can't wait to see my kids give them a hug!

Bird droppings....

I just have to put this on our blog because you always hear stories of it happening to other people and today it almost happened to me and the boys. Max and I were walking Brand to the bus stop this morning. As we were walking all of a sudden Brand stops short and exclaims "bird poop just dropped from the sky, watch out mom! Of course I continue to walk thinking no way, he must be seeing things. Two steps later bird poop drops no more than 8 inches from my nose. I couldn't believe it, 8 more inches and I would have had bird poop on my head. We laughed about it all the way to the bus. Of course Brand wished it had landed on me, so much funnier. I am wondering how close any of you have come to falling bird poop?

Cardboard Hill

The restriction to base was lifted last week, YEAH! It feels great to be able to go anywhere we want again. Sure enough the day the ban was lifted we ate at our favorite noodle place, I bought the bolt I needed to fix the jogging stroller, and I went for a walk along the seawall.

During the restriction we found a really fun thing to do on the base we live. The unofficial name is "cardboard hill". It is a fairly steep hill perfect for riding cardboard down. It is as close to snow sledding as we can get. It looks kind of silly, but it is so much fun. You can get going pretty fast, in fact you go so fast it is kind of hard to stay on the cardboard. The more weight you have the faster you go, hence all three kids on one piece of cardboard.

Of course Brand loved it!

It took Max a few trips down to figure out you are suppose to sit on the cardboard not hold it.
Max finally figuring out to sit on the cardboard.
Max right after his first successful "fast" ride down the hill. He loved it!
An activity way to much fun for just kids! Me about to launch down the hill.