Happy Birthday to my MAN............

Can you believe another 365 days has came and went, I really think they flew! Just want to tell our man Happy 37th Birthday!!and many more!!!

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

I hope you enjoy the random pics that we have gotten this weekend, Darrin went fishing on Friday and decided to get his fish painted so that he can have a souvenir of the great fishing here on this island!! The first photos are of the shop he took it to, all of the other fish are on the ceiling of the store a pretty unique way to preserve the fish, the other pics are taken at Sunabe sea wall, we went to dinner with Mr Mike and Ms Dawn and girls for maybe a last time, Dawn and the girls are trying to "HOP" back to the US, not much luck yesterday and I am so glad to have more memories with them, we have enjoyed becoming friends with them and always have a good time with them! I am also adding on pics from Sunday, we went to KOKAZI Street to do a little browsing and to find the fish market! Score we found it and it was such an experience you could buy the fish in the bottom market and they would take it upstairs to cook and eat it! It was a good day I bought about 12 bottles of SAKE, just small ones and the girls bought them some treasures as well and we couldn't miss the ice cream! I am also proud, I filled my entire external hard drive with pics and had to go buy a new and bigger one and I let Darrin and the girls know that I am planning to fill this one before we go!! So I am sorry that this clip is EXTREMELY long and it may bore you so if it does does just hit the red X!
Hope you enjoy!
(you can speed it up my clicking on the +, also there are captions you need to roll the cursor over bottom of pics)

I am not sure..........

how I am going to live without this............

A Day at SEA....

This is a day Darrin has waited for since we arrived on the island, he said that the water was smooth as glass and the weather cooperated the entire day.

Here are a few pics from the last week of marathon soccer!!! 8 games in 5 days and taking third place, you couldn't ask for much more! Kadena Panther's did an outstanding job this season, with alot of injuries and a few players quitting they weren't sure where it would lead them but it was so amazing to see what each and ever girl brought to the field to get them to third place!! We took in alot of sun rays, had a few rain drops, cheered them on alot and made many friends from yet another page of this "JOURNEY"!!!

They even found a good luck charm "CLOVER" to help them along to VICTORY!!





"CLOVER" the LUCKY CHARM!!

Another week......

Another week to mark off on the calendar...WOW they are coming faster and faster, Darrin was excited for this week he finally went out fishing, not on a boat just from the sea wall, he and his friend Zac caught three of these Ugly things and Darrin believes that he is fixing it for dinner! A feast for himself! The girls woke up early this morning to participate in the Navy Kids Marathon, it was at Camp Shields. They both stayed at the same pace and participated together! That was incredible that they did something together without fighting! They had fun and did a great job even got a free breakfast out of it!! Hope all of you are doing great and that summer is upon you!! It has really warmed up here and I have already had a couple of deodorant failure days!
Love to you all !

*** Happy Mother's Day ***

I just want to wish all of the Mother's in our lives a very Happy Day! I hope that you will have a relaxing day full of FAMILY and LOVE!! And to the three ladies in my life I love you all and miss you tons but will see you all soon!! I hope you have a great day and know I will be thinking of you all!

P.S. THANK YOU all for the greetings, gifts and cards!

A review of the last couple of weeks.............

Sorry for the lapse of time in my posts, the mile meter on my taxi has been overloaded the last couple of weeks! Hunter is still very busy with soccer, school and ROTC, practicing every night having 2 to 3 games a week and on weekends. Her team is getting ready to head to the FAR EAST Tourney. Each year it is at a different location in the Pacific and this year it is here at KUBASAKI H.S.. We are looking forward to seeing the different schools and watching them play, and it has been a real pleasure to see them play all of the different Japanese teams, they are so polite and clean playing it is unreal to think that Americans are so aggressive.

Hayleigh has been busy with her Soroban comp, she has been going to school early to practice and staying after for her Eisa drum club. She has a performance this week at school they are bringing in some of the elderly Japanese to watch the performance so it will be alot of fun to see how well the group will do! May 5th is Childrens Day here, they have the Fish socks flying everywhere here on the island, in celebration for the children!

Went for an overnight camping trip last night to OKUMA and Thank goodness the weather participated, it was the anual OKUMA FEST, lots of people, food and fun.

I am thinking at this point of the year we may not have a slow moment, we are getting our things in order, packing a box here and there and thinking of THAT moment!
Hope that all is well with all of the FAM and friends!
LOVE to you all!!

...... Spring Break 09..........

***** Forest Adventures *****

Today we ventured to the jungle......... the jungle full of zip lines, bridges and lots of trees! I was really a bit leary of this idea but Darrin and the girls were all for it, so we got all harnessed up, which to me I felt like all of by body and parts were smashed and tightened into a pair of Hayleigh's pants and there were muffin tops hanging out in places it shouldn't have been! We had about a five min briefing on how to get hooked up the correct way......mind you our guide was Japanese so you know he was thinking the entire time(these stupid Americans). So we had a practice run the zip was about 8 ft above ground, I just had to tell myself I think I can I think I can, but man it was a bit scary. We all passed that so that meant we could move on to bigger and better................ and YES it was longer zips and YES higher up (farther to fall) oh man can I just say that depends would have come in handy today! Darrin went first, Hayleigh, Hunter and me it took me about 20 min to decide to go. There were about 12 to 15 zip lines all at different distances. Darrin and the girls did them all, me I did a few and that is one thing that I can mark off on my bucket list!
Hope you enjoy the pics and the clips (sorry for the jiggly clips)

~~~~GREAT NEWS~~~~

So I have been waiting for the appropriate time to inform all of our family and friends that we have EXTENDED for another 2 years, we are hoping that any of you that have alot of vacation time and need somewhere warm to go, feel free to book you a flight the offer of room and board is open!!!

Love to all!!

So I have had a request to get Hunter's game on the blog..... sorry for the poor picture quality but I guess it gets the point across! I hope to get better with the filming of the games!!!
Enjoy!! Kadena is in Black and she is #7

To our LEPRECHAUN

This post is to one of my favorite girls in my life!! Our Hayleigh Erin!! I can't believe that it has been 9 years since this little leprechaun came crying into this world, She never seizes to amaze me she always putting both feet forward to try whatever the challenge is given. I am amazed at how well she has adapted to the culture here and I am so proud of the her for all that she is learning in school and in her culture class.
She keeps us on our toes as well as our sides always hurting from her sense of humor, and she is the best cheerleader any sibling could ask for!!
I hope you will have a wonderful bday and many many more!!!!
We LOVE you!!!

~Girl Scout Sunday with the Sister Troop~

Today the girlscouts met with the sister troop to celebrate The Okinawan Doll Festival which is on March 3, we dressed in Kimono's and had a Tea ceremony as well! It was an honor to wear one of their Kimono's, and as you can see it did not fit me the way it should! Oh to be thin as the Japanese!!

Hunter had a JROTC drill competition today, this is the first one she has competed in and it was really neat to see some of the future armed force men and women. In the first year competition there were 5 flights to compete, her flight took second!

~~~ JROTC DRILL COMP ~~~

Here are some more pics from today!!

One long week ...... Pays off ......

As the phone rang tonight at 8 pm, this call was one that was the one that paid off!! No it wasn't Ed McMahon, it was Coach Nguyen............. with the best news one tired, hard working girl could dream of!!! HUNTER made the VARSITY SOCCER Team!!!

I couldn't be a prouder Soccer Mom at this point!! She has worked so hard, not just this week but ever since she started playing, I think that she is a natural at it!! I wish her nothing but the best at whatever she does in her life, College, Soccer, ARMY, AIR FORCE, NAVY or marines........

Hunter....I am so proud of you and LOVE you MORE!!

Fun, Fun, Fun!!!

The first three people to respond to this post will get something made by me! My choice,For you. This offer does have some restrictions and limitations:
1- I make no guarantees that you will like what I make!
2- What I create will be just for you.
3- It'll be done this year.
4- You have no clue what it's going to be.
5- I reserve the right to do something extremely strange.
The catch is that you must repost this on your blog and offer the same to the first 3 people who do the same on your blog. The first 3 people to do so and leave a comment telling me they did win a FAB-U-LOUS homemade gift by me! Oh, and be sure to post a picture of what you win when you get it!Who's in?

Thanks KS!!!

*** RYUKYU MURA ***

We had been planning to visit here since Hayleigh went with her class, and I am really glad that we did! This is one of the neatest places we have been. RICH with culture and beauty!! I am not sure if I have a bit of spring fever going on or if I know that we are getting to the middle of the tail end of our "Journey", I feel like we need to go and see every inch of this island and take every picture that can possibly be taken, I even heard Hayleigh tell Darrin behind my back, "she is taking alot of dumb pictures" well one day I hope she will ask to look back at all of these "DUMB" pictures and realize how lucky we have been to see all that we are seeing, meet all of the wonderful people that we have met and learned all of the culture that we are!!( mind you, she has turned into our Japanese translator)

Hope you enjoy!

To my BROTHER....SEIKO.........

Kind of nice to be able to celebrate others BDAYS a day early!!
We hope you have a great day today and tommorrow!! WE LOVE YOU!!