Happy New Year!!

We hope everyone has a safe, happy and healthy New Year!!! We are looking forward to moving in  2009!!! And to catch up on the latest events, Ken ran his second Marathon and did it in 4:10 and was still smiling at the end!!!! Maddie started playing basketball and taking tennis lessons and is enjoying both, she also had her first band concert. We all had a wonderful Christmas, not quite the same as last year being home with everyone, but we loved being together and were thankful for that. We had Christmas Eve dinner  at our favorite Izakaya (bar and grill in Japan) Kitakaisens, we went there after church with several friends from church and had a wonderful time. We got to see the Botanical Gardens all decorated for Christmas again this year, I really look forward to going, we missed it last year, as it is only decorated for a couple of weeks.

We went with our friends the Arrietta's, and the Hafer's. So here are a few highlights from the latest events.

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Hi All and Happy Holidays

I know it has been a while since the last update and sorry about that!! It is that crazy time of year again and I love the hustle and bustle of the holidays, but sometimes other things get missed!!

Well since the last update, we went to Tokyo for Thanksgiving and had a wonderful time and instead of uploading a million pictures on here, here is the link to our mobile me gallery with some of the highlights from the trip. 

http://gallery.me.com/clakley3#100255

http://gallery.me.com/clakley3#100270

We did two tours in Tokyo, one was a city tour and it was fascinating seeing the sights of Tokyo with an english speaking guide!!lol  We also visited Tokyo Disney, and they have a park called Disney Sea and that was a great time, nothing like watching a show and the dialog was in Japanese but the singing was all in english!!!  Our next day there we went to see Mt. Fuji, we had a boat tour across a beautiful lake, a very high cable car ride up a mountain, and we finished off the day with a ride on the bullet train home!!! We had a blast!!!

Well I know it has been a while since I updated this thing, so thought I would take a minute and show you all some of our pictures from the Marine Corps Ball this year. And wow it is hard to believe that this was our last ball on the island. We had a wonderful time, Ken was in the ceremony, but I couldn't get a good shot of him. But during the practice the guys decided to play scrabble with the letters on the cake, (it has to be redone every night, but I am sure that the  bakers still didn't appreciate it!!! LOL) So, what did they spell out, look at the picture below and you can see that each layer spells something, they just wanted to let everyone know that the  152 Sumos Rock!!!!!

                            Ken and the majority of his Marines from airframes division.

The love of my life!!

 Our wonderful friends the Mortons, who are leaving us in just a few short days now!!! (Sniff!)

                                                

We are getting really excited to go to Tokyo, we are going to go to Tokyo Disney can't wait to see Japanese Mickey Mouse!!! lol And we are all excited that it is actually quite cold up on mainland, a reason to wear our jackets!!! woohoo

Naha Tug of War

We went down to Naha on Sunday for the annual tug of war between the east and west sides of Naha. We had a great time, even in the midst of thousands of people and we met up with our friends the Hansens afterwards and strolled along Kokusai  street. We had another first, we road the monorail back to Heather and Steve's car for the ride home. To say we were cram into the monorail car would be an understatement, but being with another really fun family it was laughter inducing and we had a great time!!!!

The sea of humanity waiting for the tug of war to start.

One side is the Samurai and the other is a farmer,  the each ride in on the shoulders on other men and pretend to fight before the tug of war starts.

Each district has a pole designed to represent their area.

After attaching the two ends of

 the rope.

We were right under the giant gold ball went it opened!!

Ken getting our family a piece of the rope!! It is supposed to be good luck!!

My little cupie!!!

The first monorail that arrived, needless to say 7 of us were not going to fit on this one, but the next one was not much better, so we squished in for the ride!!!

Our friends son Seth posing on the monorail, and see he has only been here a few months and already has the japanese pose down with the peace sign!!!!!

Still smiling after a long day!!!!

We got orders!!!!

We found out where we are going from here and it is sunny California!!

We are really excited about going to see the sites of the West Coast!!

We still have a few months here to see the rest of the sites of the island before we go, we are missing Grandma/Mom we wish we could have kept her here longer!!! But the good news is she is going to go cross country with us on our journey from Florida to California!!

Mom's trip to Okinawa!

Well thought it was time to catch up on here, we have had Mom with us for 2 weeks now and unfortunately her time here on the island with us is coming to end to quickly!! But we have had so much fun taking her out to experience some of our favorite foods here and she is calling this her "cultural trip"!!! She has enjoyed our Japanese house, still is a little freaked out by the sized of the roads in the neighborhoods, but getting used to it!! She only flinches a little now when another car is coming at us!!!!

We also celebrated Ken's 16th Anniversary in the Marine Corps, and it doesn't seem possible some days that it has been that long since I said goodbye to him to go to bootcamp, and I couldn't be more proud of him!!! And speaking of Ken he just finished a grueling 3 week  Martial arts course that has made him an instructor as well as a higher belt rank, and did it being on average 10+ years older than the others in the class!!!!  So I have to say that I am pretty proud of him for that accomplishment too!!!!! Love ya Hun!!!!

Mom and Maddie after church in one of the outfits Gram had brought over for Maddie.

One of our favorite restaurants is Kitakaisens and and we knew we had to take Mom there for her cultural experience, you sit on Tatami mat floors and put your feet in  big cut out in the floor.

We ordered several of our favorites and shared around the table. And Mom was very happy when they brought her out a fork!!!!!

The  picture of all of us dressed up was taken at Ruyuku Mura, it is an attraction of how the island was like  pre- WWII and it has actual bldgs from that time period that were moved there and preserved. It was a neat look back into the cultural we are surrounded by!!! So we thought what the heck and dressed up for a picture to remember it by, and Ken was a great sport and got to be the King!!!!

Well I guess that will do it for now, we love and miss you all and hopefully we might know in a couple of weeks where we will be going next!!!

Maddie's off to Middle school......

I still can't believe that my baby is in Middle school,  I don't think its really possible and I am still in denial!!! But she is a great kid and will do well, and she humored me and let me post some pics of her first day. They were told to wear their school colors.

                                                      And she is riding the bus!!!!
 

Gram is in Oki!!!

Hi all,

Just wanted to let everyone know that Gram arrived safely, we will be posting more pics of her trip in the weeks to come!!!!

Okinawan wildlife!!

I now have fascination with the bats here, they look like flying cats, they are the largest ones I have ever seen!!! Right now I guess their favorite food is in bloom on the trees that are all over by our house and they have been filling the trees at night, while Ken and I were out on a walk last night watching the Taiko drummers we came upon several and I had to take their pictures!!

Last night I was really excited about the pics I could get of them and I really wanted to get one of them flying so everyone could see just how wide their wingspan (do bats have a wingspan?? I will have to look that up now!!) anyhow,  a couple of them took off and buzzed Ken's head and that was as close as I wanted to get to one so I moved away really quickly and didn't get a shot of them flying!!! Ken laughed at me, but that is OK, he still loves me and always humors me when I want to take a few more pictures!!

And we only have 1 more week till Mom arrives!!! Woohoo!!

They are kinda cute!!!

Some more very random things from Okinawa!!!

One of my favorite things here on the island are the funny signs (they are written in what we like to call engrish, english with a twist!!) or the names of Japanese items. So here are a few of my favorites.

 Sniggles, the name just makes me laugh!! And I don't think you can read the price tag, but they are 525 yen, about $5.00 a box, don't they sound appetizing!!!

 Now here is a product with a name everyone will just run right out and buy!!!!

Can you even image paying roughly $4.00 a can for a can of pringles!!! 

Still not sure if this is supposed to be "Protected or Protection Green Barrier Zone"!!!!!
I love the "Please do not touch it with a monkey", it still makes me laugh every time I see it, and  it has become a great joke among all of us!! So always remember to not touch it with a monkey!!

This is one from the Expressway, make sure to pay attention to the winds so that you do not tip your car over!!! It is really a problem for them, they have windsocks on the expressway in open areas because the crosswinds will flip their little cars, something to be said for oversized American vehicles!!!! 
We came across this one the other night at Kareoke, wouldn't everyone want an air conditioner/dehumidifier thats name is a "cleanpoo" don't you feel  that your air is cleaner already!!!!

The next set of pictures is the price of our produce, it is not really funny, but it is so ridiculous that you just have to laugh!!!  So needless to say we will not be having any fruit salads anytime soon!!! 

Just some funny things I thought I would share from our little island in the Pacific!!

We are also getting really excited to see Mom/Gram in only three weeks now!!!!

Hope everyone is doing well, we miss you all!!