Father’s Day weekend started out with a Father’s day party at school. The kids made bamboo squirt gun with the help of Dad, then took them outside to squirt

After squirting fun it was time for lunch by catching noodles as they came down the bamboo water slide

Then it was back inside for the presentation of gifts to all the Dad’s

This is Sean’s picture that he drew and colored of Jeff, for some reason he always draws him very colorful

The next day we went to Murasaki Mura, which is an old tv set that has been converted into a series of craft shops.

Jeff has been wanting the make Shisa’s with the kids, so I found this for Father’s day to do. Catie chose to pick out a pre-made Shisa and paint it,

and Sean chose to make his own

While we were waiting for things to dry we found a calleidoscope craft building with this photo spot

and some horses to feed carrots to

Then it was time for Sean to paint his Shisa

and he helped make little shisa while waiting for his to dry

The restaurant I wanted to go to was a 2 hour wait, but we found a little okinawa buffet restaurant. Sean refused to eat anything until I found a ‘make your own” noodle soup bar. He ate five of these bowls!

Sean and Catie are taking swimming lessons a Japanese pool

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The rainy season this year was short, but did produce. We had 13 inches of rain in a one week period. During that time, we took a trip to the zoo. Mommy is Wonder Museumed out, so I told everyone as long as it wasn’t pouring buckets of rain, we’d see the animals. So we checked out the lake where people were fishing for small fish with bread

Catie showed off her dance moves

As we moved on the rain got a little heavier, but that didn’t stop Sean and Catie from having fun

I’m assuming because of the weather the elephants were inside, but we got to go into their barn, and Catie got a hi-five from the female elephant. Sean was too scared to move beyond the door.

There’s nothing like blowing bubbles at 8am on a Sunday morning. I’m sure our neighbors appreciated it too!

And here’s how our tomatos are doing

It’s the time of year where the kids like to spend more time at the beach. On Memorial day weekend we headed out to White Beach for their Memorial Day picnic. Apparently it wasn’t well advertised, there was maybe all of ten families there. So Catie and Sean nearly had all the bouncys to themselves

and they also had a fun clown show, here’s Sean showing the crab he got

This past weekend we had reservations up at Okuma. Friday started with some rain showers, but we still got to play minigolf, play in the maze and collect hermit crabs

Saturday was the battalion family day down at Camp Schwab, so we all trekked down there to the beach. I didn’t take many pictures, but Catie did get to spray the fire hose with her Dad

Sean spent the day finding hermit crabs with some of his classmates from school, and Catie also came for a ride in the kayak with me. Then it was back to Okuma, a race to the go-carts, then a search for a restaurant in town, finally we found a super yummy chinese restaurant. The “ginger firey condition” turned out to be ginger beef which was oishi. Sunday it was beach beach beach, with a trip in glass bottom kayaks (there wasn’t much to see on the side of Okuma we were on) and lots more hermit crabs. I think Sean maxed out at 27 hermit crabs at one point. I’m sure they all heaved a collective sigh of relief when we left, and there were no hitch hikers in Sean’s pockets.

Back during Golden Week the kids had a few extra days off from school, I was tired of the poor produce selection at the commissary, so I took matter into our own hands. I went to the local do-it-yourself store and stocked up on pots, soil and plants. With my able assistants, we started a little container garden

We planted tomatoes, lettuce, a green pepper plant, fennel (to encourage butterfly catarpillars, so far we’ve only got a moth cocooned on it) 2 kinds of mint and another blueberry plant.
And here is how it looks today

On the top of the stand is a container of lettuce that didn’t survive a visiting snail, so it was replanted today. Sharing the top shelf is some pre-existing parsley. The second shelf is cilantro that we planted earlier, this is the 4th time we’ve attempted cilantro and it finally took. Just below that is basil, and on the bottom is a successful planting of lettuce, that I should have thinned when every seed that I planted came up. And then we have our tomato plants that are just staring to flower. Not bad for just under 3 weeks of growing. And we found that adding cilantro into salad gives it a nice little twist.

Harii is the Japanese name for the traditional dragon boat races that take place this time of year, asking for a bountiful harvest from the sea. Some of Jeff’s Marines were invited to participate at a Harii race last weekend. The race took place in Henoko with 4 traditional boats, with heats taking place throughout the morning. The boats are used for this day only, then rinsed, dried, oiled and put away until next the next year’s Harii

Here’s Jeff’s team, and the local man Kinjo-san who steered the boat for them.

Someone forgot to tell them to wait for Kinjo!

Sean and Catie spent the day playing on the beach and tormenting hermit crabs. Three hermit crabs found there way into Sean’s pocket and made it home with him. One was immediately lost in the front yard, the other 2 spent a few miserable days in a critter holder until they were returned to a local beach.

Here’s Jeff’s team coming in to the finish, and the winning team from their heat. They didn’t do too bad considering they’d never paddled one of these before. Many other teams managed to swamp their boats rounding the turnabout point and getting towed back to shore.

At the end there was an awards ceremony, where every participating team recieved at least a case of beer, more if they placed well

Last weekend Sean’s soccer season also came to a close. To be honest, he had more fun playing on the field and distracting his fellow players than playing soccer, hopefully it will come together more for him next year. (This is a picture from an earlier game)

Okay, as Rebecca pointed out it’s been a looong time since I’ve posted, but we’ve been really busy. Jeff came home

Of course, leave it to Catie to ask Jeff if he was her Daddy.
Soon after Jeff got back, school started

Hurray for having 2 kids in the same school, but getting everyone’s backpacks and change bags ready everyday can sometimes be a challenge. (As a note for those concerned, we got Sean a bigger uniform so he doesn’t look quite so long and skinny anymore.)
Three days after school started, we caught a hop on a C-130 up to Tokyo. Thank goodness it was only a 3 hr flight… you fly in back with the cargo, in net seats, and there is no toilet, only a bucket, surrounded by a circle of parachute material. Needless to say, Catie was absolutely thrilled about the ride.
By the time we landed, made it to lodging and found some grub for the kids, it was after 11pm. The next day was Friday and a recovery day, we just played at the park on base, had Catie take a nap, and explored out in town and found an Indian restaurant for dinner. Both Sean and Catie enjoyed the tandoori chicken, so we need to investigate the Indian restaurants around Okinawa.
Saturday we went to the coolest park, only about a 1/2 hr train ride away. We also caught the last good day of Cherry Blossoms and the beginning of the flower festival there.

As you can see it was a big picnic day, there was hardly space to walk under those cherry trees. And they had the coolest play areas!

There were these huge “clouds?” to jump on, and then a whole series of stone and mosaic dragons to climb all over, with built in slides and tunnels. Adjacent to that was a little stone valley to walk and climb your way through. Just a totally awesome park, Sean and Catie loved it!

The next day was Easter Sunday, we checked out of lodging at Yokota, hopped on a bus and went to the New Sanno in Tokyo. We had Easter brunch and Sean got his picture with the Easter bunny. Catie was terrified of him…I don’t know why, he was pink!

From the New Sanno, we caught a taxi to Hardy Barracks. If we didn’t have kids, it would be a totally cool place to be, right at the edge of the Roppongi area where there is a ton of night life, but with two little ones, you only get to dream about it. Monday, according to Sean and Catie, we made it to Tokyo. For them, you haven’t made it to Tokyo until you are at Disney.

We timed our vacation right, so neither the Japanese or Americans were on school vacation. The longest lines were 30 minutes, and for It’s a Small World, the Teacups and the carousel, you just walked right on. The nice thing with Catie getting a little older, we were able to skip her nap and stay until 6pm. After that we went one train station back, hopped on a bus, and went to the sushi go round that we frequented on our last trip to Disney.
Tuesday was another recovery day, just an almost quick trip (if I hadn’t gotten us on a train headed in the wrong direction) to the Tokyo tower.

Somehow I never got a picture of the outside of the tower, it was pouring rain as we were ready to leave.
Wednesday was another fun day. We took the train to the Ueno zoo, Rebecca will have to remind me how to pronounce it correctly.

The first half of the zoo looks like it has been recently remodeled, with small but natural enclosures. The other half of the zoo still has the small concrete and bar enclosures. Catie sure did take advantage of some of the up closeness those new enclosures provided.
The next day it was back to Yokota, and the following morning a flight back to Okinawa on the Patriot Express. Hopefully we won’t have to use that again, as it’s alot of hurry up and wait, much worse than the regular Space-A hops. Since then we’ve been busy every weekend with soccer, a trip to the aquarium,

and multiple trips to the zoo (we have enough pictures from there to last a lifetime).
Hope this makes you happy Rebecca!

Soccer has started! Sean had his first game today, after only 4 practices! His team did great though. I was really surprised. Only one kid touched the ball, just once, each of the goalies stayed in the goal and did a pretty good job of defending, and the defenders on the team had a pretty good understanding of what their job was. There is only one player on his team who has a lot of prior experience, so his coach has done an awesome job.

I think this was a little stress relief stretch…

And here is the littlest goalie, she is just adorable

Sean is hoping he gets a turn at goalie next game, they change goalies every quarter of the game, so hopefully…

This is the one that almost got away. A few mornings ago, we came downstairs to find Kitten playing with a Okinawa tree lizard at the bottom of the stairs. These are much bigger than our much beloved house geckos (we like the geckos, they’re cute if you ever see them, they chirp and eat bugs.) After following it through all the shoes there and a few squeals, I got it onto a magazine and carried it out to the jungle. About 15 minutes later, Sean found another lizard hiding in the living room. We chased it under the computer desk, though all the cords and it ended up behind a buffet/book case combo, which is to heavy for me to move to continue chasing the lizard. Then 2 mornings later, as I go to grab Catie’s coat, the picture above is what greated me! Well out it went, but it didn’t get too far. Apparently it didn’t like the rain, jumped off the book I was carrying it on and it scooted in amongst all the bikes, skateboards and scooters on the patio. The next morning, there was a lizard in the upstairs bathroom, which I suspect was the same one. Since being returned to the jungle across the street, it hasn’t shown up again.

Sean started soccer today, I think he is going to have fun, he has a great, energetic, fun mom for a coach. And after no one else other than an active duty mom would volunteer to be the team mom, I volunteered. So I guess all I need now is a minivan…