A Merry Little Christmas

Last Christmas might technically have been Logan’s first Christmas, but I think the Christmas Eve assembling qualifies this year as our first REALLY official Christmas as parents!

Good morning world and thanks everybody for my presents!

Cool trucks!  This is EXACTLY what I wanted!

Here, Daddy, let me help you with that . . . 

Pure joy when Daddy rolls out the tricycle!

Got wheels; I’m going places now!

Thanks everyone for your gifts and for remembering us this Christmas.  Even though we missed all of you, we had a very joyful holiday.  Hope you did too!

Christmas lights

Location and Logan both modified our Christmas traditions this year, but it hardly feels like Christmas to me without going to look at Christmas lights and thankfully there were several opportunities to do so on the island.  We went on the 23rd to the show at the Botanical Gardens, which was pretty impressive and lots of fun! 

(The photo of Christmas lights in the previous post, by the way, was taken right here in the neighborhood—that’s my “Eiffel Tower” in the background!) 

While we waited for the all-natural light show to be completed, we browsed the craft fair vendors and found ourselves some dinner.

Enter the tropical Christmas wonderland . . .

and enjoy some fairy magic.

There was a playground area all lit up, so Logan was able to run around and that made all of us happy.  And there were more than enough lights to put me in the proper Christmas mood.  If you are reading this and it’s still Christmas, merry Christmas!  If not, then happy new year!

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.