This was going to be the original picture on the blog, since it is of the road, but there were some technical difficulties with the picture that I needed Rebecca to help me out with. This is a picture of the local manhole covers on the roads around our area. Even the little back roads that are only wide enough for one car. They come in different sizes, but all with the fighting bulls on them. The Japanese definitely have a different sense of aesthetics. Other communities in Okinawa have there own design. In the downtown area here some of these are painted, but I think they look much better plain.
Just around the corner from the base where we live is one of the original bull fighting arenas on Okinawa. Bull fighting here is different than what you think of in Spain or Mexico. Here the bulls fight each other. It was started as a competition between farmers and would only take place twice a year, so the farmers didn’t injure their valuable workers. Now the bulls are no longer used to plow the fields here, but bull fighting still takes place in the traditional way. The bulls are kept in long, pretty open barns, there are some just over the hill from Sean’s school. Occasionally you will see a bull walking down the road with it’s handler, just out for some exercise.
For what’s going on here, Grandma Patti arrived Sunday for her visit. She spent the previous week in Japan on a tour, and now is here to recover. Jeff returned from his commanders course Sunday night, so we have a full house. Catie is in a boot mood again,

this picture was from the summer. In the picture, besides showing off the boots, she is showing her unique sense of fashion. I had just shown her new clothes that I had bought for her and she had to put them on, so there is a dress, with a bubble skirt under it, over her pajamas, and of course the boots. So we took Spook on his walk, then made her get properly dressed. I really think she likes all the compliments she gets on them when we go into stores. Sean is in school and very excited for his Halloween party there tomorrow. I’ll try to get pictures.

Okay, so I am going to try this blog thing at Rebecca’s urging. She is probably going to be the only one who reads it since I give everyone the address direct to the gallery.
Today we went to the other side of the island to participate in a 5K with some other moms from stroller strides. There were four of us and did it in a ladder run/walk. So with four of us pushing strollers walking in a line, the one at the end runs to the front and so on. Afterwards I took Sean and Catie to the beach there as a reward for staying in the stroller. This was the first time we’d been to an ungroomed, non Japanese beach, and it was completely covered in coral( and alot of not quite sea-glass).

We also found a bunch of shells which I still need to get a picture of and add it to the gallery. The 5K’s go early here, this one started at 7:45, so I’m not sure how many we will get to do. Jeff doesn’t get back until tomorrow, so as each of the kids woke up I dressed them and then got them to the car. I packed the stroller and diaper bag the night before and made muffins so they could eat breakfast on the road. Jeff doesn’t like getting up early on the weekend.