HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

So Very Thankful

Hi, gang. I'm hoping you'll let me slide this blog back on like a comfy sweater from last winter.... ok? Yesterday was Thanksgiving here in Oki. And I celebrated with local family, much as we did last year. The Neatherys have left to move back to the states, but life does go on. We celebrated at Val & Cat's house down at the end of our block. No - not two women who live together, two families who live next door to each other and have taken out the glass panel between their balconies so that we can roam freely between TWO apartments! Killer setup for a big party with 4 little kiddos.

First, a shot of our kiddo before we left the house. She's playing on my iPhone - a fishing game. How long-legged and giant is she now? I can't believe this is my kid.
I made stuffing, a home-made (no cans) green bean casserole, and my famous fruit coffee cake. We headed to Val's and as we entered, the smell of the perfectly cooked turkey wafted up my nose and made me giddy. Here she is carving. I don't THINK I drooled on the turkey. Too much.
I looked over and saw Guiness, their dog, watching closely for a dropped morsel.
Kinda brought back memories from 2006 at the Kollegian home in Carmel Valley...

Chris popped open some champagne.... gotta love that.

Sweet nectar...
The hors-douvers spread... and some coconut/butterscotch/chocolate bars. Who says you can't start with dessert?
The ladies...
(Myself, Cat, Val - Val is the one I went to Kyoto with.)

The guys - Craig and Nate (Cat's hubby). And Val in the background grinning while carving.
Maddie (AKA "Wormy") running into Cat's apartment through the open balcony.
The spread...
And THE TURKEY. Mmmmm.... I can still taste the juicy goodness....
Hostess #2, Cat. (She made crazy awesome mashed potatoes, a leg of lamb - she's Australian - and apple pie among other things...) Isn't she a classic beauty?
Her daughter, Victoria, in Tinkerbelle regalia.
And Guinn-Dog. Wearing a St. Patrick's necklace, if you can spot the green. He is a sweet & handsome devil.
After the feast (they made me put down my camera while I ate...), the ladies all grabbed their cameras. There is a REASON the three of us work so well together. HELLO - Canon 5D..
And Canon 40D... (and possibly one of my favorite portraits of you, Val... even though there's a camera in your face)
Some fruits of our after-dinner-shoot-out. George, Cat's other kiddo:
Wormy girl:

And of course, my kid being a goofball with Victoria.
Last one - I felt I had to make up for lost weeks of photos... This is just so sweet!
All the photos are here. Hope your holiday was happy!!

This Is So Cool!

Thanks, Mom.... This is so amazing!

I'm slacking again, I know. The time I get in front of the computer is being used to put together MANY things for the biz. I'll be back soon, I promise!

Mia's last day of swim is tomorrow - sniff - and we're getting haircuts. We'll definitely share some photos of that.

And this week is Obon - a very big deal Okinawan holiday. (you may remember last year's festivities) So I'm certain there will be more interesting things to photograph this year! We will seek it out.

HAPPY 4TH!

(This post has been ready for 3 days - but I wanted Craig to approve it so that OPSEC wouldn't get mad at me. Well, he approved.)

We had a great time at the Kadena Air Base AmericaFest! A few from the day (with my point & shoot, so don't go getting all critical. I left the good camera at home. Yes, I was twitching and drooling and heavily made fun of by Kassia and Katherine, fellow photogs I saw there who had their SLRs. But admittedly it felt good to leave it behind and not add another layer of sweat to the camera strap.

The festival was on the flight line, so we drove down the runway to get there. Maybe I'm a big dork, but I thought that was rather cool.
Oh yeah, baby. The Marines were there. (Just look for the old banged-up, I mean - WELL-USED planes and helicopters, and those are Marine planes & helicopters!)

Cool cover for one of the engines.

My golden kid & hubby sitting in the back end of a C-130

Big propeller.

Mia with her best Red Baron face:

One of the Japanese fighter planes:
Mia & I chillin' in the rescue helicopter. Note the killer sky - the colors were beautiful!
Again...hello, sky!

How 'bout those Marines?

Last one - still trying out the seats in the planes - not that exciting. At least not compared to carnival games and fireworks.

Fireworks were good but not fabulous. But we had a great time with lots of friends. Happy 4th to everyone in the states! We're off to the Torii Beach Jazz & Wine Festival tonight; I can't believe when we were there last year we were SO new here!

Koinobori - Children's Day

May 5th is Children's Day in Okinawa. A holiday celebrating children. Right there during Golden Week. We went to the Hija River, not too far up the road from us, to check out the Koinobori. Koi are carp, "no" is possessive in Japanese, and bori is banner, so it's a carp banner. It USED to be Boy's day, but they changed it to include all children.

Mia asked for it - as recently as Sunday when it was mother's day (mind you, AFTER we celebrated Children's Day with icees and a boat ride!) - "When's kids' day?"
"It just happened, Mia. Not to mention, EVERY day is Mia day!"
The response was pouting. We're hard at work on a plan to get the selfish out of this only child.

Anyway - here's the view as we walked from where we parked toward the small festival.

The koinobori swayed in the breeze.... and Craig and I wondered aloud, "How do they get those things up there?"

We spent a few yen, donned some life jackets, and hopped a quick little boat ride out the river mouth and into the China Sea. Mia is one boat-lovin' sea-farin' kiddo. She was smiling like this the whole time! (Note the still very loose other bottom tooth that hadn't yet been pulled out by yours truly for a rope of licorice. Yes, I know. The irony. I offered licorice if she let me pull out her tooth. And let's have more teeth falling out. Shush.)

This was the view looking up at the flags from the boat.

And this is a zoomed in view from the shoreline. It wasn't really that windy.... sometimes those things were horizontal.
A gorgeous day. I find myself wishing the weather would stay like this. Feels like San Diego out here right now. Alas, I know the scary sub-tropical stickies are headed this way, sooner than I'd like. For now I'm enjoying amazing weather and the last weeks of Mia being in school for 7 hours a day.

Why Are We Here?

Well, not here, like Okinawa - but here like in existence? MOMS! That's why!
On the left, that's my mom, aka Grammy to one pint-sized bottom-toothless wonder. (and also to my adorable nephew, Ben) Mom & Dad drove out to Ohio in April when we were there for my father-in-law's funeral. I was lucky enough to spend some time with her (and my dad) and Mia was gloriously happy to share her reading skills and her loose teeth and giggles with her Grammy.

As any mom will tell you, women don't fully understand what it is to be a mother until we become one. It's a crazy thing, but it's also so amazing how suddenly you appreciate all that woman did for you EVEN more - exponentially more. (And we all know I don't only mean childbirth or diapers...) So thanks, Mom. Especially for mac & cheese when I was sick, carting me around everywhere when I couldn't drive, putting up with my sassy mouth (oh yeah- THAT is coming back to me in spades with my kid), always being there to cry on, and for letting me be me - actually for encouraging me to be me most times - even if you were holding on to those strings a bit. I know why you did. And Craig thanks you too because without you there wouldn't have been one heck of an awesome wedding, which you planned pretty much single-handedly, and you've been there for us for so many things in so many ways. Never enough thanks, mother's day should be every day.

Aine - Craig's mom (pictured on the right) is the dynamo who raised 3 children, Craig being the oldest. She worked to support them during most of their childhood, and I'm amazed at what she was able to do. Craig remembers amazing holidays (she is one fantastic cook), and times when any other woman would've broken raising him and his 16-month-younger brother. (This I could not imagine.) He has so much love and respect for his mom helping him become the man he is today, and because he's my hubby I thank you and love you as well. You raised 3 incredible kids who I'm lucky to call family. Ya done good, Mom!

We love you! Hope you had an incredible day.

Okinawa From Above

So for Valentine's day, Craig told me he made plans for us and to be ready on Friday at 12:30. Wear a jacket. Ok - that last part there squelched any ideas I'd had about a spa day. Hm.

Well it was almost as cool as a spa day. A 45 minute flight over Okinawa in a Cessna! It was amazing. And since we were allowed to take the kid, we grabbed her from school and went for it! Here are a few.

Looking toward the back seat at my sweeties (Valentines!) Ok - now see the head-sets? Well this was Mia's first experience with a head-set and it basically induced verbal diarrhea. Hearing herself on that thing was the best thing EVER so all we heard was running dialog; "Daddy. Daddy? Mommy. This is the BEST airplane trip ever. Mommy. Mommy. Mama. I love this airplane. Daddy. I think I see a dolphin. And it is going to eat the little people. A dolphin, Daddy. Daddy? This is the best airplane trip. Ever. Daddy. Daddy? Mama... I love you. Look there's the bridge we went on. Remember Mama? Daddy? The bridge - look there, the bridge we went on. Daddy. Daddy?" And on and on ad nauseum.:

Here's the view after we took off as we headed toward the sea wall. You can see our home in this picture!

Shuri Castle from above.

A cool island east of Okinawa:

Let me bust in here to say - not to toot my own horn - or really, my camera equipment's horn, (TOOT - sorry, beans for lunch) but these pictures were taken from a 1967 or so Cessna window which had probably not been replaced ever. There were reflections, but the quality is not so bad, huh?

Good heavens, the SUN came out while we were up there! For the first time in WEEKS - seriously - I'm starting to get SAD.

Very cool bridge to Ikei Island - from above. I have no idea why there seems to be a narrow ravine-like area going under there, but it's super cool and made me want to go diving again. The whole trip made me want to go diving again in Okinawa's incredibly clear sapphire waters.
I put some gems on my flickr site (including one that has para-surfers in it from above!), the whole batch can be found here. Today was still pretty grey - I might put up a shot or two from our lame trip to Nago - but more likely I'll have some cool shots after a trip south to Kokusai & Shuri Castle tomorrow if the clouds can leave us alone already. JEEZ.

Pineapple Park, Ufuya Restaurant & a Small Island

LOTS of pictures, get ready. You'll see now why it took me so long to post this - and the whole lot of pictures that came out well is 93- this is a measly 32 good ones.

Saturday morning was glorious, we headed up to Pineapple Park in Nago. It started getting cloudy along the way, but we were assured this wasn't an outdoors-vital trip, so we went for it. Craig's coworker goes a lot - we were curious as to why. Here we are after parking in the lot, headed toward the entrance. Yep - pineapples everywhere.
We paid admission (not bad, about $10 for all of us) and headed toward a car like this one:

The car magically pulls up, the staff member person places you inside... Mia was a little excited.

They turn on a little MP3 player thing (thankfully in English for us) and it narrates as the car drives you around the park. No steering, no track - anyone have an idea how that happens? GPS? Gotta love Japanese technology. Used for the Pineapple Park! Look - NO HANDS!

This is what you see when you emerge from the garden part of the trip. At the top of the hill, next to this giant pineapple, is the building with the shell museum, winery & shop. Think Costco meets wine-tasting rooms with unlimited samples.
We quickly realized that this was why Craig's friend and so many others come a lot. It's FREE FOOD. But we're suckers, and we bought stuff. Way too many pineapple-related things. We did not buy this cute little guy:

However, we did buy some wine (it was pretty tasty, though sweet):
In the shop, there were lots of staff members doing all things pineapple-related. This woman was slicing up fruit for smoothies.

They also had dragonfruit for sale. This is one of the prettiest fruits around.

Yes - Pineapple chocolate. In a fountain. Mia was transfixed. It's basically white chocolate flavored with pineapple - and it's pretty good, actually. After this expensive outing, we needed some savory lunch!

As it began to sprinkle, we headed out to find Ufuya. The word means "big house" in Okinawan dialect. This was a big spread out house with many rooms, all around the side of a hill with waterfalls and plants and flowers - and shiisa out front, of course:

This is the picture from the front of the restaurant.

We were led up narrow staircases in beautiful dark wood rooms with amazing views and open windows - the sound of waterfalls was everywhere. And soba noodles were on the menu! YUM. Here's Mia cheesing for me. The tables were all low down, everyone sat on the floor. You can see the pits for their feet.
Our yummy soba set - also included iced tea, rice, a little kimchee type of thing, and some kind of salad. It tasted heavenly - and even better because of the gorgeous setting.
On the way out, I snapped this picture; it's of the main room you head through as you go to the other rooms in the house following a host to find your seat.

As we ate we hoped it wouldn't rain too hard so that we could hike around the grounds. Mia enjoyed one of the few swings in the front yard.

These purple beauties were everywhere - lovely.

The view from the top of the hill behind the restaurant.

Looking down a waterfall at someone's table.
You guessed it; pineapple ICE CREAM! Oh my gosh this was good - possibly the best of the pineapple confections.

We took a side trip on the way home to a small island I saw on the map. We pulled into a parking area just off the bridge, and I peeked through the pines and saw these two people fishing (you can't see the fishing pole, but it's there):

There was a beach area on the other side of the street. Mia went shell hunting, and Craig set up the tripod. In between, he though it'd be funny to throw her into the ocean. Mia apparently thought that was funny too. This one's title is "trust".

Showing off a shell to Craig.
That tripod allowed us to have a family shot!
On the way back to the car I shot this - I love the Okinawa bus going by in the background! Totally unplanned.

Some of the tall grassy reed things next to the bridge (yes, that's the botanical name for them, thank you).

A couple of guys had set up some fishing poles. I don't think they caught much, but they made for a cool picture.
Ok, Ryan; if you can tell by the pictures, I want to know what the blue bird with the orange breast is (toward the bottom right on this chart). I see them everywhere!

The freeway here is a toll road, we take it when we have to go a bit farther than usual. Some of the signs are pretty funny. This one makes me think a scary warthog is going to come charging out at our tires!


Yes, we had to do the touristy thing; here's our picture on the bottle of pineapple wine!
New Year's is a holiday that the Japanese celebrate as well. It's customary to send cards to people wishing them a happy new year, and also to send businesses you deal with regularly a bigger gift. These were in the lobby of the hotel. I cannot get over how stunning they are, and I enjoy looking at them on the way to the bus stop each day.


The whole album (be sure to read the captions) can be found here.