Celebrating a Decade

Cassie is 10! I can't believe it! I wrapped her presents Wednesday afternoon, and she spent the evening staring at them. She was anxious to get up and open them Thursday morning before Daddy went to work. This year, she got the American Girl Doll, Kaya. Later, Cassie opened her presents from Grandma and Grandpa Bohn while we webcammed with them,Uncle Ryan and Aunt Kristy. It was nice for all of us to talk with them. Cassie and Jessie spent most of the day playing with their dolls. They got online and used the birthday money they got from Grandpa Jones and Grandma and Grandpa Bohn at their favorite store- American Girl. Cassie got to choose her birthday dinner- steak, of course, with as few vegetables as possible. Cassie chose to try a Neopolitan Cake recipe that I got from my Grandma Jones forever ago and had never tried. It was so interesting the way the colors swirled when the cake rose.

Cassie wanted to go swimming on Saturday to celebrate, but the weather here has been rainy, again, and we didn't know if it would dump on us, so she chose bowling instead.

I think Cassie got the bowling gene that seems to have skipped a generation. She did really well. At one point, she and Jason decided to do a 'freestyle' frame and bowl backwards. Cassie got a strike out of it. I wish I'd had my camera ready.

Here's Jason's backwards. He guttered both times, but he didn't have the bumpers to assist him. But then, Cassie followed up her amazing backward strike in the 9th with dropping the ball backward in the 10th. It was the only time I saw her do that.

Jessica and Carston used the ramp, and Daddy helped them with the aiming. By the end of the two games we played, he was getting pretty good at predicting Jessica's ball. Here she is after her spare in the 10th!


Carston started out with Mom's help, but in the end, he wanted Daddy. Good choice, because Daddy's aim is much better than Mom's. (I love his little bowling shoes.) This picture was so funny, because he barely turned around for a second to pushthe ball then turned right back to yell at his sisters. He got a strike in the 10th, and he LOVED giving high fives!

Jason has bowled a bit more than the rest of us at wing-man activities, and he's getting pretty good. We had a good time. We need to do more family bowling.

Cassie is growing up so fast. Too fast. I hope that she and I can remain close as we go through the trials of the next decade. She and Jessie have grown really close since moving here. Jessica has always been lonely when Cassie is gone, but now, if I take Jessie somewhere alone, Cassie has "nothing to do" with her gone. I hope that they can be good friends as they grow up and especially when they are adults. Cassie is a great big sister to Jessica and to Carston. She loves to help and I couldn't have done without her while Jason was out of town a few weeks ago. She loves to read and write. Her imagination is huge. Maybe someday she can write a best seller. She tries really hard to make good choices, and I'm grateful for the way she carries on when I know she'd rather be in Utah right now.

1st Annual Pedicure

I love spending "girl time" with my girls. I talked Jason into letting me take them to get pedicures. It's a bit expensive, so it'll probably have to be one of those traditions that we can do once a year. I took them to Cocok's, and we had a great time. I'm still having a bit of a problem communicating here, and I set up their appointments for nail art, instead of full-pedicures. They didn't get the massage, but they still got a nice pedicure:

Here we are deciding what kind of nail art we want while relaxing in our recliners.

We soaked, and they trimmed, filed, and painted. The ladies at Cocok's do amazing nail art. Seems like it's a waste on my feet. Then, we sat under the lights while our toes dried.

The girls were done faster than I was, so they kicked back in the kids area and watched some Japanese tv while I finished.

Here's the final product: Cassie got tiger stripes, Jessica got Pokemon and I have a tropical island at sunset. We had a lot of fun. Next time the girls have request the massage, as well.

The Little Things

Well, we've been in Okinawa for about five months now. (Really, only five months? It feels like a year!) We really miss our friends and family and all the traditions and things we do with them. Good news is, we get to go home for a visit in a month. Bad news is, it's a very short visit. But, on the lighter side, we've put together a small, incomplete list of some of the little things that we're missing after five months away:

Jessie says she misses our truck and our Durango. I for one, am very glad we were not able to bring them. Okinawa is no place for large vehicles.

Cassie is missing Wendy's, especially their frosties. Okinawa has McDonalds, A&W, and KFC, all of which are a little different from home, but no Wendy's. There was one a few years ago, but not now. :(

Jason and I have a bit longer of a list:

We miss the mountains. I think that's in our blood.

We miss having a lawn and a yard where the kids can play. (Jason doesn't miss mowing.)

We miss having a choice of what radio station to listen to, and being able to pick one that doesn't play music I shouldn't be listening to, let alone my children.

I miss my dishwasher, which had more convenient racks, and water jets in the middle and the top so I could load large bowls on the bottom and still get my top dishes clean.

Jason misses Cafe Rio. No good Mexican food in Okinawa.

We miss DVR's. AFN has a pretty good selection of shows, but never when I can watch them. When I do have time to watch, it's some stupid reality show that has already been on once this week.

We miss carpet. I didn't think I would miss carpet, but Carston is constantly falling, and it never fails that he hits his head on the cement floor. I'm so frustrated trying to keep him from being a boy and jumping, climbing, or hanging on things! But, he hits his head so many times a week, he's going to have brain damage!

We miss turning lanes. There aren't many in Okinawa, and only at intersections. You don't realize it, until you are stuck behind someone turning right (remember, wrong side of the road) on one of the island's major highways!

We miss milk! Can you see the writing on this milk carton? Milk here is "ultra-Pasterized" for a longer shelf life. I bought this gallon today, and it expires August 22. That's over a month away! Extra pasterization gives milk a dust taste. I tried the skim milk when we first got here; it was like drinking dirt. I couldn't cover up the taste even with chocolate milk mix. I had to dump it! 1% I can stomach; the dust is only an aftertaste. I've never worried about my calcium intake, because I love milk. Here, I've started to take calcium tablets. I'm going to drink a gallon of milk when I come home to visit!

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Like I said, it's incomplete, but those are a few little things our hearts have been yearning for lately. Jason left yesterday for Arizona for some training, so he'll get to experience a few of these things again. After taking him to the airport, it's hard not to dwell on our upcoming trip back to Utah. A month can take such a long time to get here. I'm afraid that the two weeks we're there are going to be the fastest two weeks of my year!

Baseball Player?

Last Sunday, Carston found this water gun-type toy that the girls had left out. He brought it and a ball- not the one in the video, but the same size and a little heavier- and started trying to hit it with the makeshift bat. I questioned Cassie to see if she had shown him to use the toy as a bat, but she said she didn't. I guess he just put two and two together after seeing it on tv. The crazy thing is, we don't watch a lot of baseball, so he put the idea together with very little exposure. Anyway, I told Jason to go get the camera so that I could document his first effort at baseball, and Jason decided to take some video. Check it out:

I love how he bends is legs and gets into it. Looks like he might be a lefty. We played a little longer, and he got a few more hits. Always from the left side, and always facing a little forward. Still, maybe he can be a professional athlete when he grows up and buy us our own island!

5 Years Old!

Jessica turned 5 on Monday, the 28th. We asked her if she wanted to go do something special as a family the weekend before her birthday. She said she just wanted to play games. Jessica LOVES playing games. That was the plan, until Daddy saw that Toy Story 3 would be showing at the Kadena theater on her birthday. She just had to go, so we had to celebrate her birthday over the course of two days to get it all in.

After church on Sunday, we had her newly found favorite dinner- lemon chicken. (This is a step up from last year's waffle dinner choice.) Then began the family board game time, followed by the family Wii time. Look how serious she is in this picture! She's so competitive, and she hasn't learned how to lose gracefully, yet. She loves to play Mario Party 8, and she's getting pretty good at it. Still, she demands that we give her a handicap everytime. When we play shorter games, she kills us with the handicap. Then she and Cassie played about 20 rounds of Uno. Mom joined in for a few more right before bedtime.

Monday morning, she opened presents before Dad went off to work. Cassie and Carston gave her a FurReal kitty and Mom and Dad gave her a new 'Just Like You', American Girl Doll. She chose to have a Japanese-looking doll this time, and she's named her Kaori.

Mommy made waffels for breakfast, and then Jessica spent the day playing dolls with Cassie. Mommy even joined in and worked on some of the more tangled doll hair.

When Daddy got home, we headed out early to get to the theater. It was the first showing of Toy Story 3 at this theater, and we didn't want to wait in a huge line or have a problem getting seats. We bought our tickets, then ran over to the BX for some dinner- Subway, Jessica's favorite!
We had a long wait at the theater, but we really liked the movie. Jessica really got into it, and was so worried that she began wailing loudly. She had to sit on Daddy's lap.

At home, a cat birthday cake was waiting. Jessica had just enough energy to blow out the candles, but decided she was too tired to enjoy a slice. She headed up to bed. Cassie and Carston enjoyed some for her.

I can't believe my little girl is five years old! She's registered for Kindergarten in the fall. Kindergarten is full-day here, and while I like the idea that I don't have to cut my day in half, I'm not sure what I'm going to do without my little Jessie with me all day. She is at times the most frustrating child ever, and yet also very loving. She can be a big helper when she wants to, but often she tells me she's "not a cleaner". She uses a lot of excuses to keep from doing what Mom and Dad have asked her to do, and she throws quite a few temper tantrums when things aren't going her way. But, she's been a very good sport with the move. She's usually willing to go, go, go with me, and she enjoys seeing new things. She's not so big on trying new foods, though. Jessica is the child most likely to come over and give me a hug, just because she loves me. She loves her sister, and wants to do everything with her. She's so excited to ride the bus with her in the fall. I know she's ready for school; I just hope school is ready for her!

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.