Merry Christmas!

Rainy Day Fun

Earlier this week Logan and I went back to the Wonder Museum (when we went last time I’d forgotten my camera) for a rainy afternoon escape.  The museum is connected to the zoo, which we now have annual passes for, so it’s great, cheap fun!

The entrance and top floor have a number of optical illusion exhibits/activities.  I’m not sure which of us was more mesmerized by these spinning patterns and “changing” colors!

  This room, part of the second floor, was Logan’s favorite.  It was all about motion and physics—lots of balls and tracks!

Of course, Logan had just as much fun going to retrieve the balls himself as he did sliding them down the tracks.  Oh well, I suppose that counts as learning too!

This, in my mind, is one of the coolest things—you speak (Japanese) into the microphone and water comes out of the other end and the Japanese characters for what you just said appear in the pool.

Then you can take this little bucket, “pick up” one of the characters and it changes into a picture in the bucket!  The picture corresponds to the letter, like a-apple, b-bear.  Logan did a pretty good job of fishing for the letters.

The bottom floor has all the nifty technology exhibits, including that water speaker and this umm . . . motion tracking screen.  Apparently I really can kick my leg up fairly high over my head! 

I just realized that all the pictures of Logan are of the back of his head!  He’s obviously 1. getting pretty independent and 2. very absorbed by all the fun things at this museum.  I’ll do a better Logan-update soon.

On a side note, God has been speaking some pretty incredible things to me recently and I would greatly appreciate your prayers for discernment and courage to follow.

Christmastime is here . . .

It’s beginning to LOOK a lot like Christmas,
even if it doesn’t feel like it!

O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree!

We found this little friend lending some extra sparkle to the star atop our tree.

Thanks Mom!  The nativity sets you gave us last year have all found wonderful new homes.

This cherubic mouse has always been one of my favorite Christmas decorations, and I have no idea why I like it so much.

There are some phenomenal neighborhood decorations, including what I call our “Eiffel Tower” of Christmas lights, but they don’t photograph well.  Hopefully I’ll catch the light just right one of these evenings so I can show you.

I’ll talk to most of you between then and now, but in case I don’t . . . MERRY CHRISTMAS!  Praise the Lord; Immanuel has come!

December in Okinawa

Chillin’ at the unit Christmas party.

Loving the balloons.

Thrilled by the fire truck.

Not so excited about Santa this year.

Seriously folks, this is what December looks like around here!

Feeling Woozy

This was a bit like the extreme sports version of a playground.

There were these spinny-things that were angled in such a way that your own body weight kept it spinning almost indefinitely.

The swings, which are actually something of a novelty around here.

This IS the toddler slide.

For big kids, you have this—a drop slide.  You don’t sit and push yourself down like a normal slide; you hang from a bar at the top of the slide and drop down onto it.  And this picture was taken at quite a distance; this thing is huge!  (No, I didn’t take Logan on it.)

But we did go down this roller slide several times.  It’s the best one we’ve found yet!

We had a blast! 

Miss you all; hope you are doing well.

Before & After

Ta-da!

In Progress

Hey there,

      I’ve got a couple things I’d like to share with you—the house decorated for Christmas and my new haircut—but both of these things are still works in progress.  (Yes, the haircut is still being worked on.  I didn’t like the way the salon cut it so I’ve been trimming it up myself.  I trim a little bit, wait a day, trim some more.  This way I make sure I don’t go overboard and so far, I’m quite pleased with my own results.)  In the meantime, I offer you these:

   Thanks for the puzzles Michelle! 

Back with more when the house and hair are complete!