Hawaii; maybe not

We planned to use our second Space-A flight to go to Hawaii at the end of January before the flight expired. We get two flights per year, but they don't roll over if you don't use them. As the time grew closer, we felt a little uncertain if we should go. It just didn't seem right, although the thought of getting away from the day to day and the cool temperatures was quite appealing. After much debate, we decided to go ahead and try. Winter time is the off-season for flying Space-A. With the kids in school, there isn't as much competition for flights. It's not however, the off season in Hawaii, and as we found it hard to find lodging, we again started to second guess our decision. Still, we went to the terminal and got seats on the first of two flights going out on Tuesday morning. We checked our luggage, got our boarding passes, and even got through security before they came and told us they were going to have to kick us off because they changed the number of seats available. They had already called roll-call for the second flight, so we missed out on that one, too. There were a couple flights scheduled for the next day, but we decided it was a sign and opted for a staycation, instead. Checking with the military resort on the North end of the island for a cabin, we discovered we weren't the only ones who were looking for a change of pace- all the cabins were booked. Oh well; staycation in it's purest. We'd just do day trips from home. We went home, unpacked, and Jason, Carston and I took a nap. When Jason finally woke up, we started our staycation with bowling!


Family togetherness time.

Cassie bowling.

Jessie bowling with Daddy's help.

Carston after one of his strikes! Jason was able to dial into Carston's shot, because he pushes it the same every time.

Check out Carston's score! He beat us all!

My best score, ever. Jason and I played one more game, but the kids were tired. I beat him, but it wasn't pretty.

Jennifer's Birthday 2011

I am really behind in my blogging! I better get caught up.

I turned 36 in January. Guess I'm on the downhill slide to 40, now.

We didn't do a whole lot for my birthday. We had a meeting scheduled with Cassie's teacher, which put a bit of a cramp on our evening. I spent the day playing around with my Bosch. I made some homemade bread to have with dinner and some refrigerator rolls for later in the week; and I helped Jason make cream cheese pie for dessert that evening. I also made some of Aunt Janna's yummy clam chowder in the crock pot so it would be ready for us when we got home. I spoke on the phone to my mom and my father (who actually remembered my birthday on time) and also to Ryan and Kristy. It was really nice to hear from them.

Here I am with my pie. I'm not a big fan of cake, so I told Jason I'd rather waste my calories on something I love.
The next day was Friday, and my girlfriend volunteered to watch the kids so that Jason could take me out for my birthday. We had a delicious crab dinner at Seaside Ristorante at the Kadena Marina. The best part was that I got to eat my dinner without listening to how something was icky or smelled like throw-up. There were no crayons on the table to keep track of and no need to try to keep anyone in their seats or keep them from disturbing our neighbors. Just actual dinner conversation. It was magical! And the food was good, too!
I thought for this year I'd post a little bit about the birthday person and what they've been up to lately. I have been working on two things- running and photography. Jason and I started running using the Couch to 5K program that my girlfriend told me about last November. On the 5th of January I finally made it- 5K. We're continuing to increase our mileage and soon, we'll break it into four days of running instead of three. Hopefully I can burn some calories and lose some weight. I have a huge sense of accomplishment making it to the 5K.
I've also been trying to learn how to use my new camera and improve the quality of my pictures. I end up taking tons of pictures just to fool around with the settings. I'm so glad we're in the digital age. Jason bought me some digital photography books and I'm learning how to take good pictures. Hopefully you'll be able to see the products of my work on the blog soon.
The majority of my time is spent shuttling the kids to activities, preparing meals, and refreshing my 5th grade education. Not as much time on cleaning as I probably should. I've had the cross-stitch bug, lately, so I try to spend some time on that after the kids go to bed. Since we've moved here, I've done a lot of reading- actually reading words on a page, not just listening to books on my ipod (although i still do that when I'm cleaning). I never had time to read back home. I'm always looking for suggestions for good books, so send them my way if you read anything good.
I miss my family, but I've made some friends here, and I'm getting used to it. I still only know a few words in Japanese, but I smile and bow a lot, and say thank you as often as I can. My visiting teacher put it in a very good way: Life will never be as simple as it is in Okinawa again. There are a lot of things that are harder to do here, but there are a lot of things that I just don't complicate my life with while I'm here. It's nice to simplify for a while.

Hiji Falls

A couple of summers ago, on a trip to Arches National Park, we discovered that Cassie loves to hike. However, compared with Utah, Okinawa doesn't offer a lot of hiking opportunities. There are a couple however, and on December 29, we decided to take advantage of one of those opportunities and go to Hiji Falls.
Last summer we discovered that Jessica DOES NOT like to hike. Since then, I've been making her walk herself up and down the hill to and from the bus stop to get her legs ready for some hiking. (It also means that I have to walk my self up and down that hill twice a day.) When we first discussed going for a hike, she said she hated hiking. So instead, we told her we were going for a walk to see a waterfall. And to some extent, I wasn't lying.
The trail is "improved" with most of it being stairs of some sort or another. There are rock stairs, and there are wood staircases, and then there are barrier stairs, where they have laid a piece of wood and built the dirt up behind it to form the stair. There's also a good deal of paved or wood plank path and a bit of well worn dirt path. But mostly stairs. Jason and I were "feeling the burn" for a couple of days. But Jessica was a little trooper, and she said she had a good time. After the "walk" was all over, Jason told her that we call those kinds of walks Hikes. We hope she'll enjoy more hikes in the future. Cassie, of course, loved the whole thing.
Many of the pictures that I took didn't turn out the way that I wanted. Just as we were getting to the falls, it started to rain on us, and I was hesitant to take the camera out much. So here are a few pictures, and I guess we'll have to take another hike to Hiji Falls in the future so I can show you the beautiful greenery along the trail.
This is a little fall right at the beginning of the hike. It was nice, because it got the kids' attention before they started to get bored.
Jason carried Carston in the kid pack.

Carston really wanted to get down and walk, but he would've taken forever on the stairs.

Along the path:

The Falls:

Cassie and Jessie up ahead on the way back. The trail wasn't all up and then all down- there were steps up and steps down along the path to the falls and back.

When we got back to the paved path where the steps end, we let Carston down to join his sisters. He ran until he caught up with them, and they all walked back hand in hand. I love these kids. They really are so happy to be together. The best part of being here in Okinawa has been the friendship that has developed between the three of them.

Christmas 2010

We had a wonderful Christmas. On Christmas Eve, we had a nice candle-light dinner, read the Christmas story, and opened PJ's.

Christmas morning, Cassie and Jessie were awake at 6, and Jason and I heard them sneaking downstairs to take a peek. Being the mean parents that we are, we made them wait for Carston to wake up. In the meantime, we made some cinnamon rolls for breakfast, and while we were eating, Carston woke up. The kids were too excited to eat, so we went ahead and got into the stockings and opened our presents. Here are pictures:

Our tree before we opened presents.

Stockings:

Gifts for each other:

Gifts from Santa:

Other presents:

The weather was rainy all day, and we decided to spend a relaxing day inside. Jason prepared a nice steak and shrimp shish kabob dinner. This was definitely not our usual Christmas, but we had a nice day. We miss everyone at home, and hope you all had a good Christmas, as well.

Ready for Christmas

Just wanted to post some pictures of our Christmas decorations. We finally got our last package today, so we're all ready. Merry Christmas everyone!

We bought this little Christmas tree at the after Christmas sales last year. It is a bit smaller than we thought, but easier to store here than our larger tree would be.
The stockings were hung by the stairs with care... Speaking of that, we're anticipating that Santa will have to squeeze through the air vent this year, because we don't have a fire place our electric heater/air conditioner/de-humidifier units don't vent to the outside.

Santa

Santa came to visit at our Branch Christmas Party this year. Carston has been very excited about all the pictures of Santa out this year. He says, "There he is. Santa," and sometimes, "Ho, Ho." But when it came time to sit in his lap, he wasn't so sure.