JUST One More Picture

I shot this with Anne's camera in the jumpie the day after Logan's birthday party. Clockwise it's Mia, Logan, Madilyn (aka Maisy Mae), and Nikolas.

After this I put down the camera and jumped on their faces and tickled them until we all peed.

Boo

Mia the kitty with Logan the Transformer last night. I was the witch - but of course, I didn't get a picture of myself.

Here's Daddy Derek with his 4th kid, 3rd son, Knyte - 5 weeks old. The Wizard. So cute!
I'm going to get some clearance candy in a while at the store - I feel the need to replenish my kid's stash! Happy November, everyone!

Halloween 2007

You know when you're watching a horror flick and you turn to your friend and go, "Jeez, this is such crap. You know if there was some crazy dude with a knife in the bedroom you wouldn't go back there, you'd get in your car and drive away. That's what really irritates me about horror movies."

At which point your friend (in this case my husband) turns to you and says, "Oh come on now - you have to suspend belief. If she didn't do that there would be no movie!"

(It's really fitting that this is the analogy I chose since it IS Halloween and all.)

All the neighbors around here are telling these stories over the last couple of weeks about how INSANE Halloween is here. Come on.... really? "Oh no - not kidding. Went through 18 bags of candy last year..." or "30 bags wasn't enough - they come banging on your door even if the lights are off and you pretend not to be home!"

Hm. This I'm having a hard time believing - not these gentle sweet well-mannered Japanese children and their uber-polite parents!

Even so - we were going to go on base to trick-or-treat - which my husband quickly opposed because "you can't go in a neighborhood you don't live in to bug neighbors that are strangers." Hey, we ain't in Canton anymore, my friend.

We had a plan set to go with the Neathery family on Kadena and trick-or-treat in the townhouses. Well, some water main break happened by the main gate (that goes directly out to our house) so we ended up bagging that idea because we thought we wouldn't get home until 10pm on a school night. Ok - suck it up and dress up the kid and get out there. Anne called me and said, "Bring a couple of folding chairs out and we'll set up a table with a bowl of candy and all the kids will come by on the block." Done.

We ate at 5pm. Seriously - it wasn't even 6 by the time we were forced to have Mia in her costume and ready because the kids were already outside and Logan and Nikolas were banging on the door telling her to COME ALREADY BECAUSE WE ARE WAITING FOR YOU SO PLEASE HURRY UP AND COME DOWN AS SOON AS YOU ARE READY PLEASE.

(patience is NOT a virtue of a 6 or 7-year-old kid, in case you were wondering that)

I didn't buy much candy because we live in a hotel - I really doubted that kids were coming up to our door to trick-or-treat - I didn't know we'd be home. So I went downstairs with my 2 bags of candy, the Neatherys had a few more than I did, and saw that the WHOLE ISLAND was here on our street saying "tdeek o tdeet" in a Japanese accent as I struggled to learn "I'm sorry we are totally out of candy. " THEY LOVE this holiday! And they loved the carved pumpkins, the American kids in their costumes - it was all very friendly - but it was like a bunch of really cute dressed up vultures or hyenas!

Seriously. The 2 bags I brought were gone in 10 minutes. And that was ONE PIECE PER PERSON! Observe a few of the pictures:



What are these costumes? I DO NOT KNOW - but the kids were so darned cute. I felt really bad to still be standing out there for an extra 20 minutes after we were out of candy but I did!
Bless their hearts, OUR kids went around the block, got half a bag of candy and DUMPED theirs into the big bowl to hand out MORE since there were so many disappointed children! So I figure I'll get the bags on clearance tomorrow and give the kids a bunch of good sugar since they didn't really save any for themselves. I should've known there was a reason all the stores on base had HUGE displays full of candy. And that all my neighbors told me to buy 30 bags...

I think next year I'll start Halloween Candy layaway in July.

Kadena Fire Station

I was one of 8 moms who chaperoned a trip to the Kadena Fire Station yesterday. Mia's class of 24 children walked from Bob Home Primary School to the Kadena Fire Station - I'm not sure how far it was, but it was a decent walk to make with that many kids - with the company of 8 moms, the teacher, and her aide. The kids are so darned cute & talkative, it was such a fun walk. And as you can see, it was "almost" raining all day, so the kids had umbrellas & raincoats with them just in case.


We got there, and the kids got a tour of the whole fire station, including the ambulance and a fire truck. They got to climb through - big fun. Is it my imagination, or does it look like she's giving this "hey there, Mr. Japanese Firefighter dude, you're cute," look to that guy?

Then - my personal favorite part - they got to hold the hose and each kid got a turn to control it and knock over a cone in the parking lot. BIG fun. I wanted to do it too, but I held back and just took pictures.


Finally, the group returned with found goodie bags within the fire station to Sparky.
I'm proud to say I think I can name almost all of these kids after yesterday. Good thing too because I'm taking pictures for their intranet and helping Ms. Robin upload them. Gotta go - more pictures there soon for those who have the user name & pass word.

Quick side note - I'm listening to the Dems debate while on the computer. Lots and lots of Bush bashing - particularly by Hillary - and a general feeling of - Juliani as an opponent? Awesome! Bring it ON!

Just heard the statement "do away with No Child Left Behind" and I could NOT agree more.

Ok - off the political soapbox now. That's not what this blog is for. And heaven forbid, Big Brother or someone might find out that my left-leaning self married a Marine and - well, let's just say there's a good amount of people here whose opinions are different than mine.

Like My New Outfit?

Do I look fat in these colors? Do they suit me? Like the old way better?

Well, the blog hosting IS free - so I only have so many templates to choose from. But I'm thinking this is a nice change. I made a header image and changed things around a bit - do you like? Feel free to comment.

Hour Shmour II...

Bear with me, I'm an idiot - I screwed up and did the time change in the wrong direction & a week too early - see below - new chart.

There's no daylight savings time change in Okinawa. I thought maybe I'd show how much fun this math will be - as of next weekend we are 14 hours apart and from the west coast we'll be 17 hours apart.

You know - in case you wanted to call our Vonage phone.... or something like that. Maybe. One day. For kicks. To hear our voices or whatever.

Courtney had asked for a chart a while ago, and I thought this would help more people, so here it is:

In other news, one of our new quests is to visit all the incredible playgrounds (specifically insanely large and cool roller slides) on the island - there are 91 parks on this island, and we'd like to visit at least most of them if we can. Here are some shots from Tonbaru Park yesterday - where everyone, including Craig, Casey and me, enjoyed CRUISING down this monstrous slide. I do apologize, we brought the long lens and couldn't get the whole insane slide in 1 picture. I promise not to do that again.

The kids bring cardboard pieces for under their rear ends. This is smart for 2 reasons- the rollers are bumpy (can you say owowowowowowowowowowowowowowow!?) and the friction heats up the rear to a point of pain. This did NOT, however, deter Brice and Mia from climbing the stairs and netting over and over to come back down countless times. Very fun. And yes, my tush is sore today. The Japanese children at the park squatted and went down on their flip-flopped feet! That was hilarious to watch. And those tiny bodies REALLY picked up speed.