Strawberries

This place really is amazing when you consider that they have things like an all you can eat strawberry farm. Which Olivia, Abby and I did with some friends. 

Tiny human to little person

 I can't believe this little girl is almost two already!

Notice her new little purse. It's a clown fish. We found it at the aquarium.  She loves her purse!

Cosmos and Fish Watching

One of the things that we love about living in Okinawa is all of the flowers. There's a flower festival always going on that we can wander to visit. Starting at the beginning of January the Cosmo flowers started to bloom. They are so beautiful and they made for perfect pictures of the girls. 

Every once in a while we will do something here that reminds me of being home in Seattle. Back in Washington, they have the Tulip Festival. There are acres and acres of every kind of Tulip you can imagine. I would be surprised if this field of Cosmos was bigger than an acre. But it still brought back that feeling of looking at something that was truly breath taking. It helped that the girls were more than willing to try and take pictures. We just need to work on getting Abby to look at the camera. 

Our neighbors were there at the same time too. They have three girls; two of them older than Olivia. Olivia loves them so much. It's funny to me to see how they treat her as if she is there little sister and she treats them as her older sisters.

This is Jericah and Harper. Abby is about 2.5 months older than Harper.

We also took some time to visit the Underwater Observatory and take a glass bottom boat tour at Busena Cape. The whole area is owned by a resort so the grounds and beaches were absolutely stunning and perfectly manicured. If you have ever seen a show like The Bachelor, I think you could describe it as a scene out of there. 

It was a perfect day for this. It was hot with a cool gentle breeze, around 70 degrees. I don't know if Olivia had been on a boat prior to this. But she held no reservation when it came to getting on. She loved seeing all of the fish. It helped that as we went over the reefs that they dumped buckets of fish food to attract the fish. I wish that I had taken a picture of the boat because it was painted and shaped like a giant blue whale!

 This is the bridge headed out to the observatory.

They had these little machines that you can buy fish food to dump over the side of the bridge. At the bottom, where the reef started, there would be a ton of huge fish gobbling it up. The outside packaging of the fish food that was dispensed was something sort of a rice cracker box that you could throw into the water as well. Even though it was quite a drop down to the water, you could hear them chomping the rice cracker box.

 Steven and Olivia descending down to see the fish.

The room to see the fish through these potholes was not very large. It felt especially small with all of the people down there. Basically, the staircase had an outer ring, maybe 3-4 feet wide, that you could walk around to look through these holes. We pretty much looked through them all. Although they all showed the same thing, fish and coral, Olivia was amazed by every single view. There are so many pretty fish though in bright neon colors! Many of them are large as well!

Originally we had taken a trolly from the parking lot to the boat ride. But we decided to walk back because it was so nice out. I'm glad we did. These two perched down on some wooden stairs for some dad and daughter time. It was the cutest thing ever. Olivia loves her dad so much!

My tiny human is growing up way too fast!

This conversation happened today

Steven: I can't believe she's already 9 weeks!

Me: I feel like we have been saying 9 weeks for too long. We should check the calendar. 

......

Me: yep, we lost a week somewhere. She's going to be 11 weeks tomorrow!

Time flies but it's because we are having so much fun!

2014

We have so much to be thankful for this year. Many of the prayers we had were answered this year and we were at the receiving end of many tender mercies. 2014 was a great year. 

When we first moved to Okinawa, we were ready for adventure. In so many ways, this is a perfect fit for where our family currently is. We have been surrounded by amazing people who are kind, positive and resilient. Their generosity in our lives never cease. I was not anticipating this at all. In fact, coming to Japan wasn't in the original plan at all. I was set on moving to California. But after a lot of prayer I felt at peace about it, and then excitement. 

Shortly after we arrived, I had a dream. I do believe in personal revalation from God. That's not to say I think all my dreams mean something- because often times they are strange. But everyonce in a while I have a dream that sticks with me. It helps me to see situations in my life with perspective and clarity. Often times I have experiences that I later realize were helping me prepare for something down the road. I know this is Heavenly Father helping me.  This dream was one of those experiences- its message had prepped me for the year and has provided me with some clarity ever since. 

Here was my dream.

I dreamed that we had just arrived in Okinawa. We were still in our temp lodging at the hotel and hadn't been given a place to live yet. We were ancy. We wanted a home to stay in and a car to explore with. Steven went and checked in with his command. When he came back, he said he had been given a new assignment. He had been given orders to Italy. We were leaving in a few days. With our 10 month old. After already not living in our own place and traveling for over a month. On incredibly long flights and obnoxious layovers. Eating food that made us feel less than our best. 

So this is the craziest part: I wasn't freaking out. I was completely calm and good with it all. Here's why. 

Because I've learned that God is in control and he's got this covered. I feel like I can turn around on any given day and see where Heavenly Father has blessed us- especially when things don't look or feel like they are working in our favor. He puts people in our way to guide us and to look over us. He sends us where we need to be. The list of people who influenced us and who have given direction in both my life and Steven's life is endless. God is in control and he is watching over us. 

That's the end of it. It was simple. But the moment I woke up, I felt the impact. I very distinctly remember having the thought,"You're not going to go to Italy. But you will have a lot of changes you didn't see coming. But it's ok. God is in control. Have faith in his plan."

This last year could have certainly been described as having a lot of things I didn't see coming my way that could have caused anxiousness. But instead, I felt that moments of clarity and peace were given to me because of my faith that He is in control. 

As 2015 begins, my wish is that all people will be able to experience this peace and clarity.  Happy new year everyone. 

Steven's Promotion

Congrats to Steven for being promoted to Captain today. We are super proud of him! 

In other news we found our Christmas tree. They don't really sell your typical evergreen trees here so we went a different route. I had the best helpers decorating it. 

We decorated our tree, drank a little egg nog, danced to Christmas music and watched the Polar Express. It was so much fun!!

Harry Potter Baby Shower

We went to a fun baby shower today. I lost the "don't say baby" game for the 50th shower in a row. But it was so cute. The theme was Harry Potter. I guess I didn't relalize how into Harry Potter our friends were until people started pulling out their legit wands from Harry Potter World. We're cool, just not Harry Potter cool yet. Here's some pictures of us trying though :) 

These balloons were drawn on to look like owls. Olivia had so much fun with them!