It’s been busy here…last weekend, after Sean’s birthday, we went that evening to a huge Eisa festival. Sean and Catie didn’t watch to much, they had more fun wrestling with each other, running laps and probably annoying everyone within a 20-30 ft radius of us…The next morning we took the kids to the zoo and children’s museum. I actually had to pay for Sean to get in the museum, so that tells me he’s been to the museum more than 5 times in just under a year, and I know there was at least one time that we went to the zoo without going to the museum. It’s a good thing they have an annual pass.
The magic of turning 5…Sean decided to sleep without wearing a pullup. He’s such a heavy sleeper, I thought he would be wearing pullups until he went to college…but he’s a big boy now, and wanted to try…as long as we get him to go to the bathroom twice before going to bed, he’s been successful. The one night we didn’t, we tried to wake him before we went to bed, but he was already wet. We got him up, changed his pj’s, changed his bed, had a little conversation, he walked all over his bed, and remembers nothing of it. Catie is having intermittent success with potty training, but she already has the underwear picked out that she’s going to wear to school when she finally gets to go. I was going to send her this fall, but she is to young to stay for the whole day, and with my volunteering, I don’t want to pay for school, plus babysitting on the days she wouldn’t be able to stay. Plus, with Jeff gone, I get 10 free hours of childcare a week, which will end just as the new year at preschool begins, and she will be old enough to stay. She was going on and on about how she would go to school, eat rice from her pink lunch box and take a nap sleeping on the floor there. She’s ready, but she’s also upset that she will be in a down stairs class and Sean is in an upstairs class. You can’t have everything…
Speaking of having everything, for some reason, we’ve ended up at the USO on Kadena like 4 times in the past two weeks, and we’d never been there before. Well, they have a wishing well out front, and I’ve let the kids make a wish each time we’ve been. I’m not sure what Sean has been wishing for, but Catie has wished for a pink car that she fits in that she can drive. Like one of those big cars with a battery for kids that really drives! She has wished for this everytime! As we were sitting in Sean’s room the other day, I was telling this to Jeff, and Catie heard us, and said “Pleeeaaase Daddy” and crawled over and snuggled into his chest. I am dreading the teenage years.
Boredom and imagination…Sean has been having a great time with his new lego, he has a really great imagination and can play with it for hours. But he was apparently a little bored this afternoon, he and Catie were playing haircut, which consists of Catie putting the pink blanket across your shoulders and messing up your hair. Well, this afternoon, they wandered out to the backyard to play, Catie was singing and dancing, and I saw wisps of something, I thought it was bubbles, but I knew they didn’t have any, and the neighbors weren’t out playing… I look around the corner of the door, and Sean is bending over and cutting the front of his hair, short, very SHORT. As I was putting him to bed, I commented on his haircut, and he said Ms Gisuji, the only one who can cut his hair(at the barbershop) can cut his hair like Jeff’s next time. I’m not sure if I’m ready for that.

We celebrated Sean’s birthday a little early, so that Jeff could be here for the party. Sean is absolutely convinced that that was his birthday and he is now 5. We tried to explain the dates to him, but to no avail. That was his birthday.
We had his party at a bowling alley, one of his favorite places to go with Dad. They have a special bowling alley with neon and black lites where they hold parties for the kids.

And of course we had to have a cake. After much deliberation with Sean, we settled on an icecream cake. Sean wanted a train cake like I had made for his last 2 birthdays, but he only eats the candy decorations and not the cake, so I said no. We went to Baskin Robin’s to order the cake, and he picked out this one…

I asked if he wanted the cake to be a different color with the cat on it, but he wanted it just like the picture in the book.

He picked chocolate cake with chocolate icecream. After it was done, he had eaten the icecream and left the cake portion. But now he is (almost) five.

Well, the battalion had another family day last Friday. They weren’t really planning on it, but the USO kind of insisted on doing something before the battalion left. It was a hot sunny day, it took forever to get the charbroiled on the outside, raw on the inside food. Did I remember to say it was hot? But Sean and Catie had some fun (sorry honey, I’m just not one of those family day lover’s).
Catie had her face painted. It matched her festival summer yukata perfectly.

They also had a firetruck there for the kids. Here they are waiting for their turn

Sean taking a try

and Catie had her first time spraying the hose!

They also had a bouncy house for the kids,

but the highlight of the day was definitely the dunk tank,

especially when Dad was in it!

Sean and Catie had a great time dunking Jeff, and of course the Marines were right there to help them!

We are trying to enjoy ourselves while Jeff is still here. Yesterday we took the kids to Uken beach. It’s a japanese beach close to home, the same beach where Sean’s school had their Father’s day party. It’s a really nice manmade beach, with nets to keep the jellyfish out. Jeff and the kids had a great time…

Here is Sean with his ’swimming boshi’ for some reason the Japanese are big on swim caps when water is involved, and Sean has picked this up from school…

and Catie could spend nearly all day in the water except for the fact that she gets hungry (the way she’s been eating the past few days, she’s getting ready to grow, again)

since we went to the zoo, so we took our new neighbors there last week (okay, it’s been awhile since I posted too). A great time was had by all the kids (of course)

They got to play dress up

and pose animal statues. But having company to show around the zoo is what made it really fun for them. I’m sure the petting zoo animals weren’t thinking the same thing after an hour of their attention, but the little humans did have fun.
Oh and I did get one picture on our Okuma trip of the cabin we stayed in

We went to Okuma, a military recreation center for the weekend. This place is on a little penisula, so they have a north and south beach. We stayed in a little log cabin, which was just like camping except we had airconditioning. The bathrooms and showers were across the street. Besides swimming, there was snorkeling, boating, mini-golf, and a variety of bikes we didn’t have time to try. the kids had a great time. They spent hours at the beach, most of it in the water. So there isn’t one picture! We spent so much time in or on the water. We took a glass bottom boat ride and saw some incredible coral and tropical fish. I took a snorkeling trip and the coral here is amazing. Neon blues and greens, huge yellow and purple corals, and all the tropical fish to go with it, even the occasional Nemo. So for anyone who comes to visit in the summer, we’ll definitly take you there for a few days. I will probably take the Sean and Catie back myself this fall if I can get a room with it’s own bathroom. I just can’t see the trek across the street, and seperate mens and womens bathrooms with just myself.