Word Book

At my last Market Day, there were a couple of CTMH consultants selling pre-decorated word books. They told a customer they got the books from BoBunny. I looked at them and thought, I can make those with my Cricut.

After a couple internet searches I found some directions and started saving my cardboard. I took this:


Cut it into this:


Then covered it in paper to make this:

My future word books are going to be made a little different, but it was a fun way to learn. I think I may need that Bind-It-All gadget from Susan now...

Beware

Friday the kids went off to school, but Lyle had the day off! We decided to take a day and head off base. We went to our favorite Yen store and wandered around for awhile. Lyle found a sign for Haru:

Then we went to Jusco, which is like a shopping mall, but different. There is a grocery store and small food shops downstairs, then upstairs there are more little stores, a food court, and an arcade type area. The difference between Japanese "malls" and ours is the walls. With our malls you can tell when you leave one store and enter another, but the Japanese believe that walls trap the spirits, so they try to limit the number of permanent walls in a building. Imagine Walmart, but before you leave each little section you have to pay a cashier (or get arrested for shoplifting)

We have been to Jusco quite a few times and have eaten in the food area upstairs only to find the grocery downstairs has incredible looking Bento boxes and the bakery sells everything from donuts to pizza at very low prices. So this time we grabbed a tray in the bakery and picked out a few things that looked yummy. Then went over to the sushi area and got a small package of different sushi. We also grabbed a couple cold coffees from their cooler.

The food was very good, our favorite was a bun filled with manwich type filling before it was baked, so the bread wrapped around the filling (I am going to try to copy this at home). Our sushi was pretty good, Lyle picked it so we could recognize everything in it :) The coffee was an experience. We picked a bottle that looked similar to Blendy, and a new one, that had a straw on the side and said "coffee jelly" in English. The Blendy drink was good, not as creamy as our real Blendy but still good. The Coffee Jelly, was just that! Coffee with cream and chunks of coffee jelly floating in it. It tasted pretty good, once you got past the texture thing!

After that it was home to take a quick nap before the kids came home. All in all a very nice day!

Dragon fruit

While out buying produce awhile back I found a funky looking object. It looked much like an artichoke, but it was bright pink and green. So I went home to do a little searching and found it called Dragon Fruit.

Since I have moved here I have tried to open my horizons where food is concerned and said if I saw it again I would buy one to try. I saw a whole bin of them at my favorite produce market and they were only 75 yen each so I bought two.

I cut them in half and we each got to try half. It was pretty good, tasted very much like a very ripe kiwi. The texture was similiar to kiwi fruit too. It got a thumbs up from everyone :)

On a side note, I have found a couple different websites to help me decipher Kanji and have made it a past time to look up what our packages say. I spent an hour one day decoding the Kanji on the Rice ball mix I buy. I found it says Oishii omusubi which means.......(drum roll)...... Delicious rice ball!

I have also learned that many english words mean similar things in Japanese. Tomato is tomato, Poteto is japanese for Potato. But I had to laugh when I learned that
irumine-shon means illumination (go ahead, say it out loud, i ru mi ne shon). Okay maybe it is only funny to me.

Ahhhh, the sound of Silence

It is 8:40 in the morning and my house is completely silent. Today is the first day of school for the kids and Lyle is back at work. I don't think it has been this quiet in my house for months. Here are the kids before leaving for the bus:

Now back to my quiet :)

Final Vacation post

We were all up early again, so after breakfast I took the kids to register for another Banana boat ride. By the time Lyle joined us at the beach I wasn't feeling well again. The combination of seasickness, the heat of yesterday's walk and the sun all got to me. Lyle stayed at the beach while I went back to our room.

Fortunately all it took was a big bottle of water, a couple Excedrin and an hour of napping before I felt better. The kids grabbed a light lunch and we headed out for our final tourist area, Kongou Sekirinzan (a seaside national park).

Mt. Kongou-sekirin was created from the rain on Okinawa eating away the limestone rocks. This is the only place in Japan this Karst exists (straight from the brochure).

We had already driven by this site on our way back from Hedo point, but didn't realize what it was until we say the brochure at the hotel. The hike wasn't nearly as rough as the day before and the views were even more breath-taking. Since it is August (Hot and Humid) we had the place almost completely to ourselves. A Bus took us to the Welcome Center and a combination of four courses brought us back to our car.

The first course is a Barrier-Free course. This is a nice walk along flat boardwalks and had pretty views of the mountain peak. Unfortunately it is completely in the sun, so we didn't stay on this one for long.

The second course is the "Superb View" course. We took a leisurely walk through the jungle to the edge of a cliff, where we could see forever. If you look back at our pictures of Hedo point you can see the outcrop we were on, just as you can see Hedo point in the picture I took from here. It was amazing how far away we really were from the ocean. This course lead right into Course Three.

Course Three is the Strange and Big Rocks course. After already seeing some strange rock formations on the last two courses this was a bit of a let down. But it was a nice walk through the cool jungle and it led right to the Welcome Center, and the welcome center had Ice Cream! Lyle tried another new flavor, Okinawan Sweet Potato. The Sweet Potato here is naturally purple and is popular in a lot of their sweets. It was pretty good.

After our little break we found the final course, the Forest Course. This took us through the gajumaru (banyan trees of the tropics) including trees with some of the biggest trunks in Japan. About 100 meters into this final course I took a misstep and rolled my ankle. This is the same ankle I always twist. On my fall down I slammed the camera into a rock. Both the camera and a were a little worse for wear but able to complete our mission to the front gate. This is where I decided I don't vacation well.

We found the road out (easy thanks to the sign!) and headed back to the hotel for a quick swim, shower and our final dinner at the resort. Lyle and I went for a final (slow) walk on the beach, then headed back to be in bed, again, before 10.

The next morning we got up to find our car battery completely dead. After finding someone to give us a jump, we headed home. Good thing, I don't think I could "relax" anymore LOL

Enjoy the slide show of some of the Okuma pictures we took over the 4 days we were there.

Vacation Day two

We were all up by 7 am on day two. We headed to the dining room to get coffee and breakfast. While there we made our plans for the day. We decided to go out on the snorkeling boat in the morning, get lunch, then head out to Hiji Falls for the afternoon.

Our boat headed out at 10 am for a 90 minute adventure with two other families on board. We stopped at a spot where another boat (full of japanese tourists) was anchored for the same activity. The water was beautifully clear and about 15-20 feet deep. The reef was full of pretty fish, blue, yellow orange and a school of Zebra fish swam right up to us. I stuck with Stpehanie while Lyle and Chris went off on their own. After a bit I was starting to feel a bit queasy. I never do well in boats on the ocean, and I guess even floating on the waves is enough to set me off.

So I swam with Stephanie toward the boat. She asked the guide "How much longer" She and I both heard 5 minutes so I figured I would be okay on the boat for 5 minutes before we headed back to shore. Unfortunately we both misheard him and we had 25 minutes on the boat. Needless to say by the time we got back to shore I was thoroughly green and needed to lay down before even thinking about doing anything wlse.

After a 30 minute nap I was feeling well enough for a granola bar and we headed off for Hiji Falls.

We foung the entrance to the falls without a problem (we are learning to read Japanese maps pretty well), paid our entrance fee and we were off. We read all the signs about no swimming and we had seen the ads on Armed Forces Network warning of the nasty things you can catch by swimming in fresh water on Okinawa. We had also heard it was quite a trek to the Falls, but was "well worth it" according to our naighbor.

Turns out it was 1310 meters each way but we didn't know it was mostly stairs. It took us about 30 minutes to get to the falls. All four of us were completely drenched and exhausted, but we had to hike back. So we took a short break for pictures then headed back. Out of curiousity I counted the stairs on the trip back. From falls to car it is One Thousand, One Hundred and Eleven stairs. That is almost a stair riser per meter. It was nice to see, but if we ever go back, it will NOT be in August!

I fought with Slide.com all day to get this video loaded for your enjoyment:

On the way back to the resort we stopped for (what else) Ice Cream at the Family Mart. I am sure the customers there had a comment or two about the nasty americans that stopped in that day.

We got to our room, showered, ate dinner and were in bed again before 10!

Day three will be posted tomorrow (Slide.com willing)

We're Baaaaack!

We got back yesterday actually, but I had a list of things to do before updating the blog, including going through all the pictures we took and going to both kids schools for orientation and schedule pick up. I still have to get my Creative Memories stuff together for the craft fair tomorrow, but the blog was calling

We started our vacation by taking Haru to my friend Rita's house. She and her kids agreed to watch our dog so we wouldn't have to put her in a kennel. Plus since their dog is stuck in the states for another month they were needing a puppy fix. Haru had played with Rita's kids before so she was completely comfortable hanging out there.

The next morning we got up and moving right away. We decided to take the Okinawa Expressway to Okuma after hearing so many people say the highway took forever to get there. It was amazing (you are going to hear that word alot!) to go from crowded buildings to open jungle so quickly. Naha and central Okinawa is so full of people, cars and busineses that there is no open space, but once we got a little away from the base there was nothing by jungle!

The expressway ended once we got to the town of Nago and we picked up Highway 58. I love driving this highway on the northern end. It runs right up the coastline so close to the water and the views are incrdible. We stopped at a Family Mart store to pick up a few snacks. Lyle and I shared one of the MANY varieties of cold coffee offered here, Blendy (YUM). We also tried out some new snacks. One was a banana shaped twinkie like bar, except instead of cream filling it was filled with a thick banana flavored paste. And in keeping with the healthy japanese snacking, very little, if any, sugar. We also tried a pancake rolled like a crepe filled with honey, some cookies and some snack cracker balls. I understand now what my brother Rick was talking about when he said strange aftertaste. The fishy ones were Nasty!

We got to Okuma at about 11 am. Unfortunately our room wasn't going to be ready until after Noon. we all got back into the car and headed for one of the other sites I wanted to see, Hedo Point.

Hedo point is the Northernmost point on Okinawa. The view were breathtaking from the cliffs edge looking over the ocean. Both Chris and Stephanie found it necessary to go as close to the edge as possible. I had to walk away! After taking a bunch of pictures we went to the snack stand for a little ice cream lunch. We decided to try taking a road that was marked "scenic view" before heading back to Okuma.

I was driving but had to stop when the "road" became no wider than a bike path down the side of the mountain. I backed up to the parking area we had just passed. Turns out this was the scenic view:
We got the picture so time to head back. My vote was to turn around and go back the way we came (it seemed safer), but Lyle was certain, after seeing the view, the "road" came out right where we wanted to be. So he drove, I rode white-knuckled, the kids laughed hysterically. At one point the road appeared to drop straight down, they thought it was funny when I screamed.


Fortunately Lyle was right and the path turned right onto the highway to Okuma. I had had enough exploring so we went back to get our room.



Our suite consisted of a living room with 2 pull out couches, a bathroom and a bedroom with 2 queen beds. Plenty of room for us all to spread out. We unpacked, changed and headed for the beach. We spent a couple hours on the water then hired a boat for a banana boat ride.

A Banana boat is a large inflatable raft. Riders sit two wide on tubes and hold onto a rope handle. The driver tows the raft behind a speed boat. His job is to make us all fall off!. Chris bounced out 6 times, Stephanie only 4. They claim they did it on purpose. Lyle and I stayed on the whole time! By then we were all pretty hungry and tired so we went back to the room, changed and went to the dining room. This resorts food and service are incredible. We all ate WAY too much, so Lyle and I headed out for a walk while the kids watched a movie. We were all in bed asleep by 9:30! Tune in later for a recap of Day Two

Vacation Time

Lyle has finally taken some leave and we are off for vacation. We are leaving the computers behind which means no updates until Friday, maybe. Until then take a look at where we are staying:

Okuma

We have a couple other spots we are going to try while "up north" but you will have to wait to hear about those.

Hair Cut

Okay, I finally got the phone number of a Marine wife on nearby Camp Lester that does hair from her house. She speaks english, cuts, styles and colors hair. I have seen her work on a few different ladies with different hair types and they all look great. Did I mention she speaks English? Unfortunately, she caught a hop to the US and with the cut in "Freedom Flights" until a new contract is signed in September she will stay there :(

I tried to hold out, but my hair was driving me crazy. Add the humidity to naturally curly and slightly overgrown hair, you have a mess. No matter how much gel, anti-frizz creme and hair spray I used, by day's end my hair was pulled back into barrettes and looking bad anyway.

So I went to the local salon, booked the first available appointment (and one for Stephanie) and hoped for the best.

I let Stephanie go first. That is why we have kids, right? To let them test the dangerous waters before we leap in? While she was in the chair getting a basic trim I browsed the magazines looking for my standard style. You all know, the hair I had before I left North Dakota. No muss, no fuss, just wash and go. I found a picture that was close and showed it to my stylist, Miyagi, along with my ID card. Then I closed my eyes and let her go.

I had to get her to cut more than she wanted, I needed more layers than she was cutting. She did pretty good, until she got out the hair dryer. While taking the brush and dryer to my head she explained in broken english that, to get the hair straight you must brush in opposite direction. All I saw was a helmet of hair getting bigger by the second. I tried not to worry, told her I didn't need hair spray, paid my bill, then rushed home to send you all a picture. Unfortanately it calmed a bit before I found batteries for the camera, but you get the idea:


I showered and then "styled" my hair with a little gel. Much Better!

The everlasting t-shirt

In 1999 we moved to Wichita Falls, Texas. One of the first things we did after finding a place to live was to find an outlet for all of Chris' energy. We found a combination of gymnastics and karate - Gymkata.
Chris only did Gymkata for 6 months but he kept the t-shirt until it got too small. It was in such good shape we just passed it on to Stephanie and she wore it... until yesterday.
While going through clothes we tried on the t-shirt only to find she has outgrown it too. The shirt could still pass for new, the logo is still crisp, the color is still black, and the fabric is solid. I have put it in the bag of clothes to donate, I couldn't bring myself to throw it away.

I am NOT on strike

Although many of my blogging friends are declaring a strike, due to a certain someone not updating FOREVER, I am not one of them. I have just had a very busy (and tiring)week.

I spent every morning last week with over 50 kids. Every one of them rotated through my "Coconut Cafe" snack room. We created tortilla butterflies, Chocolate covered banana toucan beaks, ate dried fruit "bugs" like frogs, Sherbet baby birds and chocolate frosted Monkey muffins. I learned many things over this week, here are my top five:
1. No matter how "fun" you make it, dried fruit is dried fruit and kids don't like it
2. If you dye cream cheese blue, little kids will eat it, big kids will not
3. The best birth control for teens is to have them help you with VBS
4. Japanese boys are just as wild and uncontrollable as American boys
5. The Japanese word for nose is hana, flower is ohana and butt in any language will make 5 year olds giggle.

My favorite VBSer was a half Japanese boy named Yo, he has a brother named Yu (I kid you not!) He was always smiling, always participating and loved every piece of fruit I put on his plate. If I could clone him I would!

Lyle took pity on me on Saturday and saw I needed a break from everyone, so he took the kids with the Teen group to a Paintball field. This is the group before:

I asked for an after picture too, but no one was clean enough to hold the camera.

All three of them came back filthy and exhausted, battered and bruised. Stephanie was a trooper though and played in all five rounds. She took a hard shot to the thigh and a shot to her face. The thigh left a mark, but the face shot exploded on her mask and just left a purple smear through her hair.












Chris and Steph are ready to do it again. Lyle needs a few more days to recover :)

During my morning off I cleaned the house, did a ton of laundry, finished my book and finished scrapping (and journaling) 2005. I just have to order pictures now to get started on 2006. I loved every second of my "day".

Sunday we went out for a nice dinner. We decided to try one of the many Teppanyaki places we drive by all the time, Four Seasons Steak House.


Stephanie had Shrimp, I had chicken and shrimp, Chris chose chicken, but Lyle got the best meal of all with his steak order. It was so tender and flavorful. Our chef did the whole juggling thing while cooking our food, it was entertaining and fulfilling.






Now I have to run, the kids need school clothes and I want to check Camp Foster before I order online.

Cinnamon Muffins

I love Tastefully Simples Cinnamon Muffin Melts. That mix is worth the $7 a box (plus shipping). While browsing a friends cookbook I saw a recipe for Coffee Cake muffins. They looked EXACTLY like TS muffins! So I copied the recipe to give it a try. They were yummy! I made a double batch to take to Vacation Bible School this week, one full size and one mini muffin size. I prefer the bite size mini's because you get more cinnamon sugar flavor. To make them more like TS muffins I think it might need a bit more nutmeg, maybe some in the topping, but they are good just as written.

Coffee Cake Muffins (cinni-mini muffin melts)
Easy Everyday Cooking card
12 Muffins

1 1/2 Cup Flour
1/2 Cup Sugar
1 1/2 teaspoon Baking powder
1/2 teaspoon Salt
1/4 teaspoon Nutmeg
1 Egg, beaten
¾ cup milk
1/3 Cup Butter, softened

Topping:
1/2 cup Sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/3 Cup Butter, melted

Combine flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in a medium bowl.* Preheat oven to 350. Grease a 12-cup muffin pan. Beat egg and milk in a small bowl. Beat softened butter in a large bowl until light and fluffy. Add flour mixture and egg mixture alternately, mixing with a wooden spoon after each addition. Do not over mix. Spoon batter into prepared muffin pan, filling each cup 2/3 full. Bake until a toothpick inserted into center comes out clean or until muffins are golden brown, about 15 minutes. Mix sugar and cinnamon in a bowl. Remove muffins from pan. Dip muffin tops in melted butter, then in cinnamon sugar. Place right side up on a wire rack; cool or serve warm.

* At this point “mix” can be bagged and stored to make your own “pouch” mix.

I made a batch of these as mini muffins. Bake about 10 minutes.

My Fisherman

Lyle got up at 3 am on Saturday to go deep sea fishing with some guys from work. Yes, 3 am, voluntarily (in fact he paid for the privelage LOL). Here is the gang he left with:
The upside to leaving that early is watching the sun come up over the island. Something we never see here at home since we are on the sun down side of Okinawa. Lyle caught a few good shots of the early morning sun.

The "boys" had a long day of fishing. They actually hooked a Marlin, but it broke the line by going under the boat. The captain estimated it to be close to 300 pounds, the largest he had ever seen hooked. Of course, he gets paid to say stuff like that :) Lyle caught 5 fish but only brought home two of them. The largest of which was 19 inches long. He filleted it, which took a bit since we left all of our fillet knives at the lake in Michigan, and we saved it for Sunday's dinner. We grilled it up with a little Old Bay, Lemon and olive oil. It was incredible!

Retirement?? Not yet

When Lyle joined the Air Force he had two goals: Make master sergeant by 17 years and retire at 20 years service.

He met his first goal early but the second goal changed somewhere along the way. That is how we ended up in Japan, by promising to stay in until 2012 (23 years). But just to get the imagination train going, Lyle reminded me that today is the day he is eligible to put in his paperwork for retirement. Where have the last 19 years gone?