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!