The most fun you’ve seen

The Japanese have some seriously amazing playgrounds!  On the one hand, they get points for creativity; every playground we’ve been to off-base is unique.  On the other hand, they also get points for striking a balance between safety and fun.  Check it out:

This one is down on Araha Beach—the closest beach to our house.  The story is that a ship washed up on shore here after a storm some decades ago and the local people took in the sailors and helped them build a new ship to get back home.  When they decided to put in a park, they went with the shipwreck theme in commemoration of that event.  Logan is too young to appreciate the really cool perks on this one—going down the zip line and climbing up the masts!

I couldn’t fit all of this one into one shot, but it’s shaped like a couple of dolphins.  It is also located near a beach (just a bit north of Araha Beach) and has a baseball field and a skate park nearby as well.  Logan (and Jake and I) had a blast at this one!

Look at that joyful grin!

No slow slides here!  You slide down the length of the dolphin’s tail on these little rollers—SO MUCH FUN!

Then, over the past weekend, we went to a friend’s birthday party at an indoor playground.  I’ve seen ones a lot like this in the US.  We had a great time!

And it had another one of those cool roller slides!

Later this week Logan and I will be meeting some friends (the birthday party boy and his mom, among others) at a castle-shaped park, and I’ve heard that there’s another one a bit south of us shaped like a shisa dog! 

Another day, another adventure!  Thanks for reading!

Home is where the USMC sends you

Ta da!  Boxes unpacked, curtains hung, swatch portraits completed, organizing . . . still in progress, but you can’t see that in the photos.  Welcome to our new home!

This is the view from the street.  Doesn’t look like much, does it?  It’s roughly an “L” shape with the short base of the “L” facing the road and the length of it extending toward the back.  The small window you see here is the kitchen and the other large windows are all dining/living area.  It needs some landscaping but it was too hot by the time we arrived to do anything about that.  When you get here to visit, hopefully it will look a little more lush in the front.

This is the interior of the “L”.  Technically, this is our back yard but the front door doesn’t face the front of the house and is quite inconvenient so we use the back door (hidden from view here).  You can see the windows on the back side of the living room and, on the right side of the picture, the windows to the tatami room.

Our entryway—take off your shoes and stay a while!  The picture still needs to be hung but Jake needed to pick up a masonry drill bit; all the walls are concrete.

Turn to the left and step into our living room.  The fabric panels above the love seat are the result of my moment of decorating inspiration.  Japanese fabric glued to cardboard (I never claimed to be very crafty)—it’s called a swatch portrait.  You’ll see a couple more through the house.

This is all one very large room with the living room.  The dining set is all government-issue furniture.  It’s really not too bad!

Off the living room is our itsy-bitsy kitchen with the relatively large laundry room right behind it.  It even comes with an itsy-bitsy pantry--some ingenious former resident built a tiny shelving unit behind the door, just deep enough for a single can/bag/bottle.

Moving back through the entryway and down the hallway . . .

Look, it’s a bathroom!  We only have one but at least it’s a decent size.  Across the hall from the bathroom is the guest bedroom which is not put together yet; you’ll have to see it when you get here.

Next to the bathroom is our tatami room!  (It’s a tatami room because it has tatami mats—traditional Japanese woven floor mats.)  The exterior wall has windows all the way across and the interior walls are all sliding glass doors—three to the hallway and three to the master bedroom.  The glass in the doors to the master bedroom has been painted over for privacy.  We use the room as a combination office/playroom.

The tatami room looking back towards the hall and the government-issue ugly (but comfortable) chair.  Guess I forgot to take the packing tape off that trunk!

Across the hall from the tatami room is Logan’s bedroom, looking much the same as it did in Jacksonville.

  Just in case you’ve forgotten what it looked like before, here’s another shot.

And at the end of the hall is the master bedroom.  Your tour is almost complete, I just want you to check out one more thing . . .

These are our incredible closet units; we have one like this in every bedroom!  The large doors to the left are your typical closet, with shelves behind all the smaller doors above and to the right and six built-in drawers.  We also have THREE hallway closets!

Thanks for dropping by; it was great having you.  And now that you’ve seen the place, let me know what you think!

Our home is our castle . . .

Okay, so the post title is a little deceptive.  Still no house pics—I PROMISE they are coming very, very soon—but we do have castle pics!  We visited the ruins of Nakagusuku Castle this afternoon.  They are not more than a couple of miles from the base, so it was an easy and pleasant afternoon adventure. 

The entrance to the castle, with the sign announcing that it is a UNESCO World Heritage site.

 

 

The castle sits on a hill overlooking the Pacific Ocean, and you can also see (although not in this picture) across the island to the East China Sea—pretty impressive!

 

Logan enjoyed climbing all the steps.

 

And I just couldn’t get over that gorgeous ocean view!

 

Here’s one looking towards the East China Sea.  You can see the ferris wheel!

 

There’s also this “haunted” hotel nearby.  The story goes that the owner was warned not to build it because it is too close to a Buddhist temple and its sacred grounds but he ignored the warnings.  Building proceeded until a number of strange events spooked all the workers and they walked off the job, leaving the hotel unfinished and deserted to this day.  We walked around it a little, didn’t see any ghosts but did find some quality graffiti.

 

Logan waves bye-bye.  See you again after our next adventure!

Quasi-post to tide you over

The grandparents have requested more pics of the little boy and you know we've got to keep them happy :) House pics have also been requested but you're going to have to wait a little longer still for those. We got curtains put up over the weekend and just hung pictures last night; we're making good progress but there are still a few more things that need to be done before the house is picture-presentable. Unpacking and organizing go much slower with a little one around!

I don't know about having big shoes to fill--I can't even find my feet in this get-up!

Because what else are boxes for?


Helping make Mommy's birthday cake!

Yummy birthday dinner! That would be the roast rack of lamb that you're drooling over.

And Jake's beautiful (and delicious) cake! Yes, he made sure there were a full 28 candles on it.

This one's for Elena :)

And that's all you get for now. Back with more soon!

Napping through church?

Sorry I haven't posted much recently--life has been busy with very mundane things for the most part. We are getting our HHG's tomorrow though, so I'll have updated pictures of the house for you soon!

Tonight, however, I want your advice on a current conundrum. Logan's morning naps have been going from 9:30 to 11:00-11:15; mostly I consider this to be a great thing. It is rather inconvenient for getting to church though. Most of the churches that are nearby have services that start at 10:30; obviously that doesn't work very well right now. There are two exceptions: one church has an early service that starts at 8:30 and runs until about 10:00 and another church starts at 11:00. We tried the early service today . . . not only were Jake and I struggling to pay attention through the sermon but when we got home and laid Logan down, he still woke up at 11:00 after barely more than a half-hour. Other churches that we might consider involve a half-hour drive on top of the issue of inconvenient service-nap combo. Any brilliant insights?

A Few of my Favorite Things

In no particular order:

--AFN (Armed Forces Network), the ONLY English radio station on the island, plays the most random mix of music. In one hour last week, between running errands, I heard something by Guns'n'Roses, the Macarena, some country song, My Girl (by The Temptations?), and Sweet Escape (Gwen Stefani). Best of all, one of its tags is (you've got to imagine this being said in the cheesy radio announcer voice to get the full effect): AFN-your alternative to silence.
(Sidenote: the Japanese, apparently, aren't big radio fans as there are also very few Japanese stations available and all of those are 90% talk. Ugh!)

--The colors of this island are unbelievably brilliant. There are days when the sky is so blue it practically hurts your eyes. The clouds are almost always bright white and fluffy, like they were painted by an elementary school student. The bushes and trees an intense green, accented with dots of flower-color, the most common being the exquisite coral-red of the hibiscus. You know those ads for the allergy medicine where they lift the film/haze off the picture? It feels like that, like someone lifted the film off and now, here, everything is clear.

--My husband is enjoyed his job again for the first time in a LONG time. I can't begin to explain how nice this is . . . And, as an extra bonus, he gets to come home for lunch most days!

--The Japanese have a wonderful appreciation for French pastries! (Can you see me smiling?) There is the most delicious little patisserie just across the road from the corner of the base--Jake and I picked something up as we were walking home from the beach the other day and decided that we need to make a point of trying one of everything while we are here. When you come to visit, we'll let you know which ones are our favorites!

--One of the things that I have always loved about the military community is that people (generally) are so much more welcoming, friendly, and helpful than in the "real world". Several of our neighbors have brought us baked goods and I've obtained a wealth of information from people I've met while out walking in the mornings. There's a sense of community among strangers . . . hard to explain if you haven't experienced it.

--Bad English translations! You see English on clothing frequently (and French too!) and it's usually a random smattering of loosely related words--very comical to read. But this sign from Araha Beach is the absolute best:

Got that? No leonfires and keep your pets in cluin!

--NOT one of my favorite things: TEETHING!!!

Hope you're having a great day! Leave me a comment so that I know you love me :)

Odds and ends

A smattering of things that reflect our recent lives:

Logan's favorite new toy: a stick! He carries it with him as he walks around the house, reminding me alternately of Moses or a (pants-less) knight.

This is the playground that we walk to almost every morning--I do toning exercises and stretches while Logan runs around and everyone is happy.

Logan has figured out how to climb up to and go down the big slide all by himself. (For the worriers out there: I do supervise but don't have to assist.)


This is our car! It's a 2000 Mazda Premacy; so far it suits us pretty well. If you look close, you can see the driver's wheel on the right side of the vehicle.

And this is one of our geckos. We seem to have only two in the house. This is our kitchen gecko--Ringo. Our bedroom/bathroom gecko is Oliver. I have no desire to kick them out; they eat bugs and I think they are kinda cute.

Another oddity from the animal world: the dragonflies around here are bright red!

Logan LOVES books and having stories read to him. (Yeah!)

Lift-the-flap books are particularly entertaining.

This is one of the local shopping areas. The ferris wheel actually sits on top of the building and is a dominant local landmark. The building itself is only a block or so from the beach.

Logan and Mommy enjoying a walk on the beach!