Life lately

Sometimes, I'm amazed at how much we pack into such little time. And we love it! There are so many cool places to visit and eat at! 

We went hiking with our church group at Mt. Katsuu. We figured since it was a church activity, it would cater to all abilities. Well, not so much. There were kids on the hike that did amazing, but it was a hike and then a partial climb at the end. We were pretty sweaty at the top but the view was amazing! We hope to find more amazing hikes like this one!At the top! 

This girl is a green smoothie junkie! She loves her smoothies! As soon as the blender comes out, she happily gets into her high chair. She's funny about her food. We haven't quite figured her out. Basically it boils down to flavor we think. Baby food is basically a no go. But she will try just about anything on our plates. She loves her meat too!

This isn't a fun new trick that she's learned. She knows how to flush the toilet. It won't be long before she knows how to dump things in the toilet bowl. I may or may not have ordered a massive package of baby proofing products. Does this mean she will potty train early??

We discovered a new Indian restaurant to eat at just close to our house called Shiva. There's two tables and a few spots at the counter to sit that. It is a one man cooking/serving/cleanup show. He was so nice. He made Liv a mango drink just a nice gesture. The food tasted more homemade than restaurant made. 

Her newest trick: standing with no hands! That's right; she's almost ready to take her first steps. Now about that pacifier- I'm ready for it to go. 

Tonight we tried a Korean BBQ place. They are so much fun! You order the food raw and cook it on the little fire pit in the middle of the table! 

Steven is as always, our family's BBQ master! 

Olivia @ 10 Months

This girl is growing so fast!

Happy Valentines

Happy valentines day! It was pretty quiet for the most part during the daytime with Steven at work and us two girls at home. 

We did go try out a new restaurant for dinner though. Seaside BBQ on the 329. It was hard to find with several different sets of directions there posted online. But we found it- it was a little bit of Americana. 

Notice the "love fern" Steven gave me in the background? my husband is awesome. He have me an indoor palm tree for valentines day! 

She's looking so old to me!! She's our cutie little baby! 

The BBQ joint was pretty cool. Picnic tables, free lemonade and they served alligator bites! We tried them. Overall they had great flavor but they were chewy. Great to try to say we ate it but I probably wouldn't order them again. 

The pulled pork sandwich was hands down amazing. I have a feeling we will be going there a lot during our time here on the island. 

Sometimes you need to get to the bottom of things....

It happened to Olivia today after church. We were letting her play with her toy box. Aka: pull everything out and toss it to the side or behind. 

 Until now, she just hasn't been able to reach the bottom even though she stands on her tippy toes as much as she can. Well today, she REALLY reached and went right over the edge. I feel like a bad parent because I laughed as we rushed towards her to help out. But that little moment was one of those enjoyable moments where I love being her mom and seeing her grow up. 

Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium

Today we went to the Churaumi Aquarium. It was massive! It's the second largest in the world. We could have easily been there for a few more hours. I was skeptical about how good it would be; we've been to the aquarium in Monterey, California. That is an impressive aquarium! I would say this ranks up there but for different reasons. 

In Monterey, I felt like that bug in A Bug's life that was going towards the bug zapper and said, "I can't help it, it's so beautiful!" The displays were amazing and jaw dropping to look at. The colors were unbelievable. 

Here, the fish were so exotic looking. And there were soooo many of them. The whale sharks were impressive. There was this massive tank next to the cafe where they had 3 whale sharks, schools of fish, manta rays that were of all sizes. Needless to say, we went to the cafe to stare at them for a really long time and ended up buying food. (Which was incredibly reasonably priced. In the States, we would have probably gotten one meal for what we spent on all three of us. We were stuffed on the way out.) We were pretty lucky and saw the whale sharks during feeding time. When they open their mouths to swallow the food, the water becomes this swirly vortex and the food is inhaled and then swallowed. The kids were cheering like crazy!

So a fun thing about being here. Everyone loves Olivia! Thankfully, she mostly smiles back at them. They come up to her and say Kawaii (like Hawaii, but with a k sound). It means beautiful in an adorable or cute sort of way. People come up all the time to poke her in the cheeks or forehead. She thinks it's funny although occasionally she's not in the mood. But generally, she likes it. On several occasions, teenage girls will come up in herds and ask to take pictures with her or of her. It makes Steven and I laugh because they are going to go through their pictures and it will sound something like, "look at this massive shark! That sea turtle was amazing! And this cute white baby in a tutu- we just wanted a picture with her to commemorate the moment."

These two are hard to take pictures of because they are too busy having fun together. I (not so) secretly love it. Thankfully, we purchased annual passes so we will have plenty more opportunities for picture ops. Here's their two best shots on the way out.

He was tickling her on the way to the car. She was laughing so hard, I thought she was going to burst an organ. I love her giggles.

This post has been a draft for SOOOOOO long….

So many wonderful things between Thanksgiving and now! Unfortunately I uploaded a ton of pictures, only to have the whole post sit as a draft for a very long time. Whenever I would get close to having it published, something would always crash and I would have to start over with time I don't really feel like I had.

 So now we are going to attempt to get it posted. Like my sister says, people really just want to see the photos anyway. 

This is Steven graduated from Communications School in Quantico, VA.  We are so proud of him. He graduated 3rd in his class!

This is Olivia opening her first Christmas present (ever) from her cousin Chloe. She loved opening the present and then playing with the box. We sent it with the movers shortly after this picture. But it is now opened, batteries are installed, and she loves it. They should put a note on the box saying "press the purple stick. Otherwise, even if you turn the switch to ON, it will act like it's broken. Then you will be so frustrated her awesome new toy is not working and it will make you install several sets of new batteries attempting to make it work. Then, your daughter will get so impatient and try to play with it while you are replacing another set of batteries, and will hit the purple stick, and then it will work."Yep- 20 minutes later and a lot of batteries later, we really enjoyed the toy; even if we lost the balls under the couch, several times. 

We had a chance to go to the Visitor's Center at the Washington DC Temple before we left. Funny enough our neighbors wanted to go to see the Temple lights. It's funny, because they are not members and were working on getting us to go. There was a concert that same night, we all went and had so much fun! A couple we knew from London came too!

This was in Seattle! We totally lucked out and were blessed by the fact that all flights that we needed to go on to Okinawa go through Seattle. So we just had a REALLY long layover there. Such a blessing to our family to be able to spend the holidays with our families. We surprised them a couple of days early. So much fun! So much work with a lot of luggage while moving.