April Fools Jokes...

Tomorrow is April Fools Day and it's 9 o'clock at night. So I had to get busy. I planned a few tricks for my kids. One caused an explosion of dye on my hand. My kids fight over the downstairs bathroom in the morning to brush their teeth and such. Mainly because they are too lazy to climb the stairs again! So I cut a sponge, soaked it in food coloring (red to look like blood!) and put the sponge inside the faucet aerator. So when they turn the water on in the morning all the water should come out red. You are supposed to use the egg coloring tabs but I didn't have any and there is no running to Wal-Mart or Walgreens here in Oki, so food coloring it is! I also pre-poured the kids milk for the morning, coloring their milk to look like juice. They usually get juice in a cup so this should mess with their oodle-oop! The third and most boring thing I did was switch the cereal boxes. Nothing fancy, but I am certain this will get them as well. Here's a picture of my hand. Hopefully I can play it off in the morning that I broke my ink pad while scrapbooking last night and they'll be none the wiser!

Happy April Fools' Day!

Dandelions?

It's very interesting that most homes here on the island do not have yards. The only homes that have them are military housing or housing set aside off base for military/Americans

to live. The reason? It's quite simple, they have gardens. Okinawans are very very good

at utilizing every meter (haha inch) of space available. Each home uses whatever green

space they have for gardens: flower, herb, vegetable and fruit gardens. They rotate their crops so something is always in season. It's quite remarkable, very resourceful and

completely self-reliant. I'll explain more on that in a later post.

This being said parks are where the kids go to play, stretch their legs, run and go wild.
And it's spring time in Okinawa and the other weekend while out GeoCaching we discovered a common weed... Ummmm I mean flower? Yep the dandelion. Those pesky little weeds are over here. I was honestly surprised to see them. As I was verbally wondering how these little precious flowers have come to adorn the little bit of grasslands on the island...
my mom said "probably on the combat boots of the Marines invading during the
Battle of Okinawa during WWII". Think of it this way... we've given the children of Okinawa a gift!
I am certain they too pick these flowers and run them to their mama's and grandma's
with pure joy of the gift they bring. It's a beautiful thing no matter what country... a kitchen graced with a jar filled with dandelions given in love by the wee ones of our homes.

200th Post...

I can't believe this is my 200th post, but it is!

Am I that old?

Does this blog make my butt look big? (don't answer that I honestly don't want to know!)

That being said, I bet you are wondering where I've been for the past couple of weeks. I've been enjoying a beautiful visit with my mom. She's flew here from Ohio almost 3 weeks ago and it's been nonstop since she arrived. Here's a brief recap of our visit thus far... with some pictures of course!

The kids and I took Dad and Grandma to their first roller park. This particular park was huge and down by the Japanese Naval Underground Headquarters. Which we visited earlier that day... more pictures below!

This is a picture from Hedo Point the most northern tip of the island of Okinawa.

It's beautiful up there!

This is a sign outside the Underground Headquarters.

Inside the tunnels. Breathe taking, very humbling and sad. What a story it tells.

Mom and I went whale watching. That was AWESOME! The seas were a bit rough but such a great experience.

The kids and I took Grandma Geo Caching for the first time. Actually we've been several times, this is just one of the many caches we've found!

And today mom and I snuck off to the Renaissance Hotel and watched the dolphins. They had a total of 9. There were 3 babies in this area, they were so adorable. Wish we could have gotten closer but we were already pushing the boundaries. They were training and feeding them; sadly we had to leave early to pick up the boys from school. This is definitely a go back to place with the kids. They were sooooooo jealous! It was truly priceless.

Tomorrow we are off to the Harley Davidson dealership for fun, then to the antique shop,

and possibly hit a shrine on the way home.

Only a week left with my mom, gotta make it the best!

My Son Can Legally Wear This to School!

I've heard so much controversy about what kids can and cannot wear to school. In 4th grade in North Carolina one of my boys got in trouble for wearing a Disney World Star Wars trading pin with light sabers on it. I truly thought it was over the top, but I was going to obey the rules. And we didn't take that to school again.



Today, Caleb is wearing a shirt his Dad sent to him from Iraq. If you notice the #69 shows the sizes of a different caliber weapons used in the military. There is such a difference living on a military base attending DODDs schools. It saddens my heart to think why we, the USA, are in the situation we are in today.

Whatever shall I do?

Today is the last day of swim team practice until May 31st when the summer season starts.
Whatever shall I do with my Mondays and Wednesdays from 3:45-6:15pm? Awe yes, homework. We shall do homework... Oh what joy. This doesn't seem like a very good alternative. Can I get a recount?

I can honestly say....

There is a recent blog topic making it's rounds amongst many of the blogs that I follow, so obviously it happens often. But I, yes, BUT I can honestly say I have never had to use Code Adam. I have never lost or misplaced my child or children long enough to warrant Code Adam to be issued anywhere. Don't mistaken me for a perfect parent because I am not. When the boys were babies I read this STUPID STUPID article that said parents of multiples were more likely to have a child abducted than parents of singletons. I don't think I went crazy over this, but it certainly heightened my safety measures.

Then one day while we were living in northern Virginia we were at Tysons Corner, a big beautiful mall. The boys were in 3rd grade and Jr was in 2nd. My mom, Mark, the kids and I were all enjoying a leisurely day at the mall. Mark was in the book store with the boys while Mom, K80 and I were just a few stores down trying on some clothes for K80. The boys were specifically told that Mark was in the store with them. If the boys stayed together they could look on their own in the book store. Well after a little bit, the boys apparently couldn't find Mark, he never left the same section of the book store. So the boys set out to find us in the mall. They came a few stores down to where mom and I were and couldn't find us. We were in the changing room the moment they came into the store. So they set out to find the mall cops, and they found them. (Think Paul Blart Mall Cop!) The mall then proceeded to make several announcements for "the lost parents". Funny thing, the announcements can ONLY be heard in the hallways of the mall, not in any of the stores. And since I was in a store and Mark was in a store we never heard it. (Does that makes us bad parents or a poor mall intercom system?) Mark did finally hear the "missing parents" report and together we went to the mall security office. Caleb and Seth claimed their missing family members and we lived happily ever after.

I recall the discussion with them later, telling them that they did the right thing going to the mall cops, but they also did the wrong thing by leaving the bookstore. Even if they thought dad had left, they should have told the bookstore people and not wonder the mall looking for a mall cop.

Did we panic, I don't recall panicking, but I do remember being embarrassed. Was I worried; they were together so I knew they would fight off, flee from or scream their way from any "bad people". They were on a mission to find us. They knew what to do and because of our parenting they did it without question.

So why bring this up, well a blog I recently read was making light of the fact her child got lost in the mall. They locked down the entire mall to find him 30 minutes later hiding. Can you imagine what it would take to lock down an entire mall. I am thankful my children never hide from us, they RUN to us. We have strong independent outspoken confident children who know who they are, what they stand for and we love them very much. I pray they always run to us and not from us.

Okinawa Marathon

Today is the Okinawa Marathon... what does that mean for you? Not much, but for me and my house it kept us from going to church. And at the same time it allowed us to sleep in and chillax today. I know many of you are wondering just why this changes our lives. Mainly because the route of the marathon is all over the entire island. They are running right past the gate to get in and out of our base housing. It was HIGHLY recommended to us to just stay home and enjoy the Sunday. So we did.
With 13, 000 runners headed down our street you trying getting out. The island is only so big so they have to run somewhere right. I admit I was a bit frustrated with this at first then I embraced it. This has allowed our family to truly relax. Not rushing anywhere, just sitting back watching the runners out our back door sipping my hot chocolate thinking to myself... thank goodness that's not me. They are running 26.2 miles and it's raining, what are they thinkin'? Didn't their mama's ever tell them to come in out of the rain?