Christmas Lights

Wednesday, 23 DEC 2009, we went to a garden near by and looked at Christmas lights. Here in Japan they aren't really "Christmasy," they are more geared towards animals.... Here are some pictures....

They had dancers there that put on a show. It looked and sounded more like a Hawaiian theme.

This is Owen and Olivia. I work with their mom and we have become good friends with this family. As hard as it is being away from family at the holidays, they sure help!!

The Japanese always to the peace sign in all their pictures. Every once in a while, we Americans copy them. This is the King family, Bill, Karen, Owen, and Olivia.

Merry Chirstmas!!

Thanksgiving

For Thanksgiving this year, we invited over a bunch of people since this was first Thanksgiving we have been able to do. We bought a 17lb turkey and a deep fryer, along with a lot of other food, and thought we were set. The fryer ran off of propane and we had recently refilled the propane tank for the grill, so we thought we had everything we needed. Micah put together the deep fryer the day before. On Thanksgiving pretty much everyone was over that was coming so Micah went outside to hook up the propane and get the oil ready to put the turkey in. He comes in about 20 minutes later and says that we have a problem. We were out of propane! We had forgotten to turn it off the last time we grilled. He ran onto base to see if something was open, but of course it wasn't. He got home and we decided to cook it on our gas powered stove. So, against everyone's advice....we deep fried our turkey INSIDE!

We ended up cooking on a much lower temp than the directions said to, and for longer, but it turned out B-E-A-U-T-I-F-U-L!!
The guys were very happy with the outcome!And this was our feast....I had a lot of help from the guys! I really appreciate it and could not have done it without them!

Everyone getting set up.... This is our new table! I was sooo excited about it. We just could not have Thanksgiving on our little 2 person table! All I wanted was one nice picture of us on Thanksgiving...Is that too much to ask?! No, but if you know Micah you have to be willing to go through a few different faces first...
"Can you please smile?"...

"Please just look normal."... "Micah, all I wanted was one, and I think we've taken about 5 now..." Yes, my mother-in-law warned me! I love you, Micah!!
I got my good picture!! I hope you all had as great of a Thanksgiving as we did! We definitely missed being with family, but we have some awesome friends here in Japan.

Been a while....

I know it have been just about forever since we have posted anything. I started my job at the end of April and it is sure keeping me busy! Hence the not writing in a while. :) Micah has been working quite a bit and and getting ready for traing. We had a great summer. Jacob and Simon came out to visit and we had a blast. Unfortunately, Jake had a tooth issue, but we didn't let that stop us from having fun!


Here are some pictures of when we went to the Aquarium with Jacob and Simon....

We are trying to talk them into coming again. We really had a great time and we miss them!

Beaches of Oki

Since Micah is out of town, I had to find something to do on my Saturday. I decided to drive around the part of the island we live on and look at some scenery. Here are some pictures that I took. The first few are from the east side of the island.

That is what our beaches consist of- rocks. The "sand" that we do have is normally crushed coral, so it's not very comfortable to lay or walk on.

I drove over to the west side of the island and a storm was coming in.

Their sign of rules for the beach. I'm just going to guess that they are similar to ours because I have no clue what that sign says!!

Update

I'm sorry we haven't written on here much lately. As boring as things have been around here, we seem to be very busy and time seems to be flying by! Not too much has been happening. 27 APR is my start date for the job. We are very excited about that!! I have been volunteering every day at the clinic to keep me busy while Micah is gone. That has definitely helped the time go faster than it would otherwise. I really like the clinic and everyone I work with. Unfortunately, in the military, the turnover rate is so high, but for now everyone I work with is great! Other than that, there isn't too much going on. Once Micah gets home, I know we'll be out and about doing more so there should be more pictures to share!

Job Update

Thank you for all of your prayers. I got a call today from HR offering me the job! I had gotten hints from people around the office leading me to believe that I was the applicant they chose, but it is nice to have it finally be official. My official start date is April 13. I have been volunteering there though, so it should be a smooth transition. God has blessed us so much since we've stepped foot on this island. The day after I start is our 4 month anniversary of being on this island. The rumor I kept here when I got here was don't expect to get a job until you've been here for at least 6 months. There is only one reason that I got this job this quickly....God's perfect plan for me! His timing is perfect and He is always faithful. That is something He has definitely been teaching me while Micah is away training, that He is ever faithful!! Thank you again for all of your prayers!

Creatures of Okinawa

We have definitely come across some interesting animals since we've gotten on the island. Here are a couple that we see all the time around here.

Spiders...HUGE spiders.... are all over. I kill probably one a week. This is by far my least favorite part of the island. I know, Mom, this is really making you want to come visit, right?

Snails are EVERYWHERE!! Every time it rains we have a ton of them crawling up our windows and the walls outside on the house. You can't really tell how big this one is, but it was probably just a tab bit smaller than my fist.

We have seen a couple of praying mantises around, as well. I have only seen them in science books, so it was pretty cool to see one on our fence!

We can't take credit for these two. A friend of ours took them while he was diving a while ago. Micah did get an underwater digital camera for his birthday and has been dying to get out and use it. The weather hasn't been super great lately, but as soon as it is I know he'll be out getting some pictures like this!

I wanted to show you the view when you walk out of where Micah works. It must be really terrible to go to work with a view like this!!

Phone Number

Our phone number is...(727) 394-4968. We just got it up and running! We are so excited to be able to call the states. We would love to hear from all of you, too. Just remember, your day is our night! :) Trust me, we have a really hard time remembering that here too!! We will definitely be making phone calls to everyone!, but with only a couple hours a day to get it done with the time difference it's going to take a while to get around to everyone. We miss you guys like crazy though!!!

Internet

Just wanted everyone to know that we finally got internet in our house today. We will do much better with keeping you all up to date on things. Also, we will have a stateside number very shortly to give you. We got a magic jack and it should allow us to get a 727 number with unlimited calls to the US. We are so excited about that! I'll make sure to get it on here as soon as we get the number!!

The Pineapple Factory

Here on Okinawa, they have a pineapple farm that you can take a tour through. You get on these golf carts that have a pineapple on the top and it is on a kind of a track and you ride around and see the 100's of pineapples that are growing.

You can see the golfcart and the track you're on, on the left side of the picture and the right side is the all of the pineapples.
Here is Micah and me riding around on the golf cart.
This was supposed to be a picture of a very small pineapple, but it didn't turn out. They were about the size of your fist and bright red. Not what you think of when you think of a small pineapple... at least not me!
After you go through the plantation part, they have a gift shop with a ton of pineapple things to taste. They have pineapple everything; pineapple cake, pineapple chocolate, pineapple wine, pineapple cookies, pineapple perfume, pineapple icecream, and so much more!!

Cherry Blossoms

We went to a Cherry Blossom Fesitval at the Nakijin Castle ruins. It was really neat to walk around and look at the beautiful flowers and to see where a castle once was. The ruins consist of the walls that surrounded the castle and then the land that the castle was on. They have signs around telling you what was at certain spots. At least we thing that's what they were, they were all in Japanese! There isn't parts of a building or anything, but it's still pretty cool to see. There was one small building still there, but other than that it was just open areas. The cherry blossoms were beautiful!!

This rock was at the entrance of the castle.

Some of the cherry blossom trees.

A small building that was on the castle grounds.

I was so excited about the cherry blossoms! Micah was such a good sport about walking around with me to see the same flower over and over!!

This is Micah and our friend, Chris, when we were walking around the ruins.

This is part of the wall around the castle.

More cherry blossoms.....

The view from the castle.