Goodbye SOTW

I have pulled the Sign of the Week off the sidebar of my blog.

Why? Mostly because I didn't update it every week like I originally intended, but also because some pictures needed to be bigger or have longer comments to go with them. So I am just going to post the occasional item here.

Like this one:

Gum with a liquid-y center. We thought it should have been called SPLASH, but then we tasted it and decided it was named after the sound you make spitting it out - SPASH

Or this sign:

I don't know where the Japanese go when they are feeling sick, but I know where they go when they are UN-sick and Healthy!

One more before I head off to work:

For those that don't want to take the road less traveled!

I missed it!

I keep track of my miles on a sticky note in front of my computer. Whenever I think of it (or feel like it) I will go in and update, but it isn't something I do every day. I guess I should have been tho, since I missed the big 1000 mile marker :(

Of course I am never going to make it from here to Michigan, unless we extend our tour here by another 3 years (never gonna happen)

On another note, I meant to blog on Wednesday, but my day got thrown into a tailspin pretty early. I ALWAYS take off my rings and string them on my watch band. I put the watch either next to my computer or on the hook near the sink. But Wednesday when I saw my watch next to the computer only my sapphire ring was on my watch, my wedding ring was gone. I glanced around the desk, but didn't see it.

Don't panic.... just think.... I remembered having it the night before at knitting group. We were talking about local jewelers and I mentioned that I needed my ring repaired, since it was cracking. But I slipped it back on my finger.... Right?... I know I did. But then the mind started working. Did I really put it back on? Did I hand it to someone to look at? Did I drop it into my knitting bag by mistake? Could it have fallen into the bag that had my trash from dinner?

I called Lyle first, maybe he took it planning on suprising me by getting it fixed. NOPE, he didn't have it. My stomach started churning, my mind was racing. Where could it be? I emptied my knitting bag, my purse, my desk. I pulled out the fridge, the stove, the microwave. I called up to the USO, where we met Tuesday night. I searched my car. I drove up to the USO, searched the trash can, the parking lot, the room we sat in. All with no luck.

Lyle met me for lunch before I had to leave for work. He reassured me that it was somewhere and "it is just a ring".... Men don't understand.

My whole day at work was preoccupied with thoughts of the ring. At 7:30, before I left work, I called home to see if anyone needed anything before I came home. Then I was told, they found it! Lyle promised the kids Baskin Robbins Ice Cream if they could find my ring! It took them 5 minutes to see it on my computer chair, between the cushion and the back rails. Relief!

When in Japan...

I am amazed at the variety of food here on Okinawa. There are so many places to eat, foods to try and ethnicities to explore. Recently Lyle and I went out on a date night and ended up at an Indian restaraunt called Krishna's.

Neither of us had EVER had true Indian food before, so we were unsure as to what we should order. Fortunately, for us, they had sampler sets. Lyle ordered the traditional set meal, while I ordered the seafood set.

My meal is pictured above. It included Naan (flat bread), Tandoori shrimp, fried fish, salad, seafood curry (the red stuff) and fresh yogurt with mango puree. There was also a crispy flat chip type thing, but I don't know what it was since it wasn't listed in my menu. Lyle's plate looked just like mine except he got two currys (one chicken, one vegetable), Tandoori chicken, and a "Sheek Kebab". The Kebab was ground chicken, seasoned to spicy perfection then pressed onto a stick and roasted. I loved it, Lyle just thought it was okay. But we both agreed the food was wonderful. I even spent some time searching Recipezaar.com trying to find recipes to recreate the meal.

We love set meals because they always feature a restaraunts best dishes, but also for the dessert factor, After we stuffed ourselves on our huge dinner our waitress brought out this:

The clear bowl is Lychee gelatin (YUMMMMM) served with a small bowl of fruit. The red fruit at the bottom is a Lychee. Of course we didn't know that until we got home and looked it up. It has a tough outer skin, but the fruit inside is soft, like a Kiwi.

It was a wonderful night without the kids, and I look forward to doing it again!

Tenkaipen

I thought about posting all of my food related updates together, but there were too many. Food is definitely a major cultural experience for us here. Whether we are going out shopping or site-seeing we always end up trying a new food, drink or restaraunt.

One Sunday after church we met up with Audrey and her husband. They wanted to take us to one of their favorite places.

Tenkaipen is a ramen restaraunt. Their menu is only one page long, and half of that is beverages. You really only need to decide what size you want and how thick you want your broth! The set meal came with ramen soup, rice (fried or white), gyoza, and a drink. We ordered medium bowls with the signature thick sauce, based on Audrey's recommendation.

It was incredible! The broth was delicious, my mouth is watering right now just thinking about it. We will be heading back there someday!

What have I been doing?

Not blogging! I got a reminder from my German counterpart that it has been a while so I looked at my camera to see what I still had to write about.

I ended up with a notebook full potential blog material.

I will start with this: I have been knitting. This seems to be my new passion here. I still scrapbook and have a small group of ladies that gather once a month (or so) and I think about stamping quite a bit. But that is something that requires more than 10-15 minutes of my time at once and I just don't seem to have more than that to give right now. I even started working on small projects during my lunch break at work. I don't have pictures of everything but I do have these:

Helmet liner to keep Lyle's Chem Gear from hurting his noggin. It started life as a regular hat, but I didn't make it long enough to cover his ears. Fortunately he had already asked for a helmet liner!

Lace Shawl, my first big project. This was a learning experience the whole way through, but I love it!

My "learn to keep your mouth shut" scarf. A lady in my knitting group was making a beautiful sweater from this yarn. I mentioned how pretty it was and she said when she finished she would give me whatever yarn she had left, because she never wanted to see it again. After knitting this scarf I understand why. I have one small skein left, if anyone is interested :)

This still needs to be blocked to stiffen the teeth on Chris' Chain Chomp hat. I had seen this on a knitters blog. When my knitting buddy Audrey said a young airman wanted to learn to knit just to make this hat I agreed to accompany her when they got together. I finished mine, Justin is still working on his. Personally I think he enjoys the knitting nights, 22 years old surrounded by 15 women every Tuesday night!

I am currently working on my very first sweater (for myself, in case it looks horrible) and have gotten about 1/4 of the way finished so far. I will post pictures once I make enough progress that it resembles a clothing item!

And the winner is:

#6

That means Ellen. Just goes to prove that honesty is the best policy.

When we bought the kit kat we knew it was potato from the picture, but we didn't expect it to taste SO GOOD! The flavor is much like taking a sugar wafer cookie (ya know the layered pink, white and chocolate cookies) and coating them in white chocolate. But since it is sweet potato, it must be healthy :)

Here is a shot at the box Ellen will be receiving once she emails me her current addy (wouldja quit moving already?)
From upper left (clockwise) Ume potato chips (pickled plum - very good), Sweet Potato Kit Kat, Banana Powder (for flavoring milk), Snack nut assortment, Apple Pie Crackers, Roasted Corn snack stick, Watermelon Kit Kat, Berry Kit Kat, Mystery flavor snack stick and the best of the best, Chocolate filled Marshmallows.

Enjoy!

Crazy Kit Kat

While walking through Family Mart one day we found these:



We made a few guesses on the flavor based on the packaging, but then asked one of our Japanese friends to translate for us.

I would love to tell you the flavor, but that wouldn't be nearly as fun as letting you all guess! From the guesses I will pick a random winner to receive this flavor Kit Kat, as well as a few other Japanese goodies.

Just leave your guess as a comment, I will pick a winner Monday 5 pm Okinawa time!

And just to let you know : This Kit Kat is YUMMY!

Gomen Nasai

means "I'm sorry" in Japanese. Unfortunately, that is what the higher ups are telling Lyle.

He hasn't looked up the scores yet. I don't blame him after last year's decimal point miss.

"Maybe next year" seems like the thing to say, but for today all I can say is Gomen Nasai.

I hate waiting

I am not a very patient person. The last couple of days have caused my anxiety level to rise slowly, but I have about reached the limit.

Rita, being the chief at Lyle's squadron, knows by now whether he made Senior or not. She conveniently skipped our work out session this morning. That just made the nervous factor increase: Did she skip because she wouldn't be able to hide the good news? or did she skip because she didn't want me to see the bad news on her face?

Official results are due out at 11 PM Okinawa time, but knowing that the list is here on island already is slowly driving me insane (no comments needed, TYVM)

I know the Erne clan is sitting in the same position. I just wish we could be sitting on the edge of our seats together, drowning our nerves in coffee, ink and cardstock.

I know, I know

I have been a very bad blogger.

It all started a month and a half ago when we won a free trip to a Japanese Tea Ceremony. This was just a day or two before Lyle's step-dad came to visit, but I didn't get it on the blog. Then our days were filled with our adventures with Dave, then work happened.

I just never got the pictures of the tea ceremony up on the blog, and it made me stuck. Now, just so I can get past it, are the pictures of our tea ceremony: