Weather Report

I can only describe the weather this week as hot and muggy. They tell me it hasn't gotten bad, yet. I think I might melt.

Saturday at the Beach

It's the rainy season in Okinawa, so we haven't had a lot of dry weekends. As Saturday approached, and it looked like the weather might be good, we decided to plan a beach day. We gathered our stuff together and headed to Torii Beach. (I know, we've been here before, but it's one of the nicest beaches, and it's so close to home.) I went crazy with pictures, so I'll post a few and let them tell about the day.

Jessie liked to go out and 'jump' in the waves with mom or dad's help. Cassie caught a face full of sea water, and decided to join her brother playing in the sand for a little while.

We buried each of the kids up to their waists in sand. Cassie turned into a mermaid.

The girls finally figured out how to have fun in the ocean without mom and dad and how to deal with sea water in the face. Here's where the sunburns happened: here and here . Nobody would let me take a picture of their burns that night. Carston on the other hand got no burn. He's still afraid of the waves, and he really just likes to play in the sand. I just kept shifting him with the shade. He also did a pretty good job at keeping his hat and shades on when he was in the sun. Isn't he adorable?

We only ended up staying about 3 hours, and we didn't even want to go home then, but we thought it might be a good idea to limit the sun time, and boy were we right.

Weather Report

This week Cassie joined the weather team. Cassie will be reporting the temperature everyday. The only part we are missing is the humidity factor, but that's a bit much. Just remember that it's VERY humid EVERY day.

Scuba trip to Maeda Point

I have been scuba diving with some guys from work every Wednesday after work when the sea conditions allow us. Our last outing was to a place called Maeda Point, a very well know scuba location here in Okinawa. We bought an under water camera so I took some pictures and a short video.

This is a Black-spotted Blow-fish.



This Heniochus Monoceros fish kept following us. People probably feed it so he probably thought that we would eventually feed him.


This is a Goldbelly Anemonefish (clown fish). We only saw a couple of them at this location, but when I did my second certification dive we found a whole colony of all types of clown fish. I will have to try and find it again.

This is a self portrait.

This is me and a couple of guys from work about 30' down at Maeda Point.

This video is of the guys I was diving with. You can here me breathing and see some of the surroundings where we were diving. The problem with me owning the camera is that I'm not in many of the pictures and not in the video.

Posted by Jason

Last Baby Tooth

In the four months that we've been here, Cassie has lost six baby teeth! Three of them, she lost at school. The Tooth Fairy has been unable to keep up, and in fact, owes her for three now.

I remember when her first tooth was loose. It took forever to come out. She was so worried it would hurt that she let it dangle 'by a thread' for a week. Finally, I 'accidentally' flossed it out.

This last tooth went from barely loose to out in a week. It wasn't really very loose until Sunday, but by the next day, she was so

miserable that she couldn't eat dinner. We've used the floss one other time with another molar when she was miserable, so we sat down with the floss again. This time, I couldn't get the right angle, so I just yanked it out. She wasn't very happy with me.

Now my baby has no more baby teeth! Does that mean she's not my baby anymore? She's growing up way too fast!

The Ruins!

We went to some of the castle ruins in Japan. Here's pictures!

This is the entry way (left), and stairs to get to the castle (right).

This is a picture of the stairs to the castle up close.

This is the stairs from the other side to exit.

This is a picture of the whole castle area.

This is a picture of me and Jessica on top of the wall.

Zakimi Castle Ruins- by Jessica

Cassie & I- I was tired of walking, and Cassie came and sat by me so we could take a picture.


This is where you put your money in for the spirits- a gift.



Here's a picture of me, Carston, and Cassie and it looks like a tunnel.
Before I go, I'd like to say, goodbye.

New Weather Girl

How's the weather? We get that question a lot, and we like it, because weather in Okinawa is so different from the weather that we're used to in Utah. So, to keep everyone up to date on the weather happenings, Jessica will be our new weather girl. She won't be predicting the weather- who can anyway?- she'll be reporting what the weather has been doing. Every day, she takes a look out our 'weather window', or when we are outside, and determines which die cuts she should put on her chart for that day. She's been doing a very thorough job. Here's this week's report:

Facing My Fears

I received an email from my dive instructor on Tuesday this last week, telling me, and others, that he was ready to finish our certification dives on Saturday. This gave me four days to stress about it. Luckily, I'm good at denial, and I waited until Friday to begin panicking.

Great news when I arrived at the marina on Saturday morning- we had the opportunity to dive off a boat at a discounted price. If you read my last blog about the troubles I had getting in and out of the water, you might understand why I practically jumped at the chance to go! Yay! One worry to cross off my list.

I still had problems putting water in my mask. I really think it's worse than actually removing and replacing my mask, but I don't know why. I managed all of my skills, and I am an offical Open Water Certified Diver. I may not have conquered my fears, but I have at least faced them, and not let them stop me from achieving my goal.

Jason asked me to blog about my dive, because "you saw cool things and you got to do a boat dive." He is jealous. I owe him a boat dive. We did go to a really cool place for our two certification dives. It's called the Pinnacles, and there were tons of beautiful fish in so many colors. We also saw a giant clam, which is really about the size of a football, and it was a beautiful color of purple inside, some different choral formations, clown fish guarding their anemones, just tons of life down there. And it was soooo easy getting in and out. My only problem was that for some reason, I started to get really sick between dives. I could tell when I got out of the water that I needed to get some food, because I was really shaky. Then after I got the food in me, I wasn't sure I was going to keep it down. I hadn't had a problem with the rocking of the boat up to that point, so I think the wet suit had me too hot. Once I cooled down, I was fine.

The next bonus of the day was a third trip out for FREE! Who could pass that up? Luckily, my hubby let me go. This was the best dive so far. Why? Because I didn't have to put water in my mask or remove it or anything! By then, I was official, and I could just go on a recreational dive. For that dive we went to Navel Kadena 1 and saw tons of cool little fish. We saw a tiny baby anemone fish inside a hole in the choral. Some of the other sightings that I noted in my log book were an Orangutan Crab that was inside bubble choral (my instructor was interested in the crab, I thought the choral was way cool), Egg Shell Conery (which looked just like black velvet with silver glitter spots), and an Indian Cushion Sea Star (looked like a big rock with colorful moss on the top, but on the bottom it had the lines like a star fish) with a little shrimp darting around it. I had a blast. Man, if I could dive off a boat everytime, I'm sure I could love this sport. Too bad Jason isn't rich, yet.

So, what does this mean for the future? Am I going to be a diver? Well, here's my plan: I'm hoping to have to opportunity to go out on a good day, to see if I still have problems getting in and out of the water. I had a sister in my branch tell me that she, too, struggled at the place that I went to last time, so maybe that just isn't the place for me. Second, in typical Jennifer-fashion, I'm going to sign up for some more classes- actually they call them Adventure Dives. I'm going to do a Peak Bouyancy class and I'm going to do a fish identification course. I think I just need more exposure, and I'm not sure that I feel comfortable doing it without a professional, just yet.

As far as the rest of the family is concerned, this week was a big week for new activities. Jessica started gymnastics on Tuesday, and she had a blast. Cassie and Jason started guitar lessons on Thursday, as well, and Cassie is working on 'Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star'. Jason and some coworkers have started their own regular dive night on Wednesday nights, and he had a cool dive at the Junkyard this week. Carston took his first head over heels tumble down our wood stairs on Saturday. I knew it would happen sooner or later. He's fine. It hasn't even made him CAUTIOUS around the stairs. Last night, Jason found a gecko on our house. I don't know how it got in, let alone up the stairs. He caught it, and released it on the front porch. We're hoping it eats spiders and decides to stick around. It's quite a smorgsbord out there. I think that's pretty much it- business as usual. Cassie has two more weeks of school, and then, hopefully, we can find some fun activities for the summer.

Here's a picture of the gecko hanging out on our front porch Monday morning. In the house, it was white, to match the walls.