Sunday Fun Day

For our Sunday Fun Day this weekend, we took a trip down to the southern part of Okinawa with the B fam and went to Thai in the Sky.  It’s a Thai restaurant.  I’m not really one for Thai food, but 1) I’m pregnant and hungry 2) I heard this place was to die for.  I don’t eat spicy foods either, regardless of Thai food being known for their spiciness. I stay away with no chili and I’m just fine.  I this place was a bit of a trek, it was well worth the trip and we will be coming back again. 

We got there, the place was packed.  We were told a 30 min wait.  Since we drove like 45 min to an hour to get there, we waited.  The wait wasn’t even as long as expected, it was really about 15 min.  The restaurant takes reservations, which most people had that came in, maybe next time we’ll do that before we leave so we can be seated right away.  The place was very English friendly, ( a lot of the places in OKI have a separate menu for English and usually it doesn’t have all the items they offer) everything was translated with pictures.

 As soon as we ordered, our food came out immediately.  I don’t know how they did it???  The B family ordered about 5 things and we ordered about 5 things, literally within minutes food started coming out.  I was expecting to wait and I was already starving.  So I was definitely happy with our quick service.  The food was so delish.  I couldn’t help but pick at everything, except for the curry the guys got I was afraid it might have been spicy for me.  Everything else was fair game.  The plates of our dishes took up almost our whole table.  We ate till our hearts content and then some.  After our feast Mills and I even shared some dessert. Nowadays I get dessert everywhere, I have quite the sweet-tooth.

After we came up for air and rested for a lil bit, we paid for our food and enjoyed the scenery.  The restaurant looked right over the water.  There were benches, chairs, and swings placed all over the back for everyone to admire the view.  It was really pretty.  The Dads took the girls exploring while me and the other prego (Len) hung around.  We weren’t up for all the exploring.  We could hear the girls laughing and having a good time. They were all probably walking off all the food they just consumed.  We took some pics of the girls playing and pics of the view.  That day was totally a fun day, especially for our tummies’!

On a side note>>>

{I have a doc app this Thursday, going to check up on how the baby is doing.}

{Played the baby Bob Marley, he kicked a lot!  Don't know if that means he likes Bob or not.} 

{Found an aweseome farmer's market this weekend.  Wish I knew about it sooner.}

{It's Fat Tuesday, don't know what to give up for lent??}

A Bowling Afternoon...

Gotta love bowling shoes!
Since Amelia is a lot older we keep trying to think of fun new activities for us to do as a fam.  Bowling was Morgan’s idea.  We made a plan to meet up with our good friends the B Fam (formally known as the Basoco’s).  We had gone bowling before with Amelia but she was a lot younger and uninterested.  Not the case this time.  She was all over bowling.  We of course had to help her out a bit, but she still loved it.  She was so excited and cheered for everyone after their turns.  I think she gave over 100 high 5’s that afternoon.  It’s pretty awesome seeing your child do something new for the first time.  She thoroughly enjoyed herself.  Now I’m not a bowler by any means, I think my score that day was like 50 something (I know terrible) but we will definitely take Mills again.  Bowling is a good rainy afternoon activity and that is just what Okinawa had for us.  

Mills' victory dance...so cute!

On a side note>>>

{I LOVE 3 day weekends, its President's day weekend!  Trying to get Amelia to say  Obama's name.}

{Registering for baby stuff isn't as fun online, I miss the gun.}

{To be a stay at home mom vs. working mom???}

{I booked myself a prenatal massage, I can't wait.  Unfortunately I have to until March 4th ugh!}

Well Hello There Friday..... We Meet Again!

Friday is definitely a good day, it’s the end of the work week and the beginning of the weekend, what’s not to love?  Friday was always a love of mine and became even better when a girlfriend and I decided to spend Friday nights together with our girls (we both have girls that are only 2 months apart). 

It all started with my husband’s love for basketball.  As long as I’ve known him he’s played ball recreationally.  Since moving to Okinawa he got more serious about his passion and joined a league.  His team practices 2 times a week and when the league starts he has games every Saturday.  Well when we first got here, let’s just say that Friday nights weren’t the best.  Generally after work he would come home for about an hour and head off to practice for 2-3 hours.  I would be stuck at home because I didn’t really have any friends.  I think Morgan began to notice the toll it was taking on me,  I was lonely and in need of adult conversation.  So he got together with his teammate who has a wife around my age and a daughter around Mills’ (Mills is Amelia’s nickname) age, they got us together and the rest is history.

One of the first times we had the Basco's over for our Friday night get togethers

Every Friday ever since November 2010 we have spent together.  We trade off houses every other week and host.  The hostess would prepare dinner and the guest would generally bring adult beverages.  (Hostess and Guest sound so fancy).  It’s always a good time!  We sip on our dranks and chit-chat, the girls get to play, our husbands get to practice and everyone is happy.  Since we are pregnant (Yes, her and I are both pregnant her more recently) we have cut out the adult beverages and added in desserts! It’s a time that I look forward to every week.  It is so comforting to be able to talk to someone who is riding the same rollercoaster.  She is a Navy wife, has a toddler daughter, and moved to Okinawa around the same time.  Through the dinners we have become great friends, well more like family.  We’ve vacationed together, spent holidays together, celebrated birthday; being in the military your good friends become your family.  The military really is a tight knit community, even more so being overseas.  I’ve never really been too involved, she is actually my first military wife friend.  I just realized that.  Wow, after all these years Morgan has been in the Navy.  Anyways, all in all, it’s a good time!  Good food, good drinks, and good times. 

A pic of the girls now :)

On a side note>>>

{I’m 23 weeks prego and feeling big! I really need to start getting stuff ready for baby.  Morgan and I still trying to narrow down boy names.}

{I made a Filipino dish my mom makes, and it was pretty good!  I was pretty proud of myself.  Made me really miss my mommy.}

{Wondering if I should take maternity photos???? I never took any with Amelia and this might be my last pregnancy.  I need to figure that out, soon!}

A day in the Life of a Working Mommy...

Going back to work has been a bit of an adjustment.  I enjoy getting out of the house, adult conversation, and mental stimulation.  I miss waking up when it’s not dark out, teaching my daughter things, and mother daughter bonding.  I know that the life of a mommy is give and take, weather I stay at home or I’m off to work.

5:15 am I am up with the darkness.   Well I actually set my alarm for 5:05 am, but I hit the snooze button once before really getting up.   If I wasn’t pregnant I would usually start some coffee, but since I am no caffeine for me.  I generally take awhile to get ready, I’m sort of slow and I don’t like to be rushed, so I wake up at an ungodly hour. During this time, I’m getting myself ready and picking out Amelia’s clothes and ironing our outfits for the day.

6:15 am I start my attempts at waking Amelia up.  She is not a morning person, she definitely gets that from me.  I don’t like to jar her so early in the morning so I just keep walking in her room and calling her, until 6:30 am when I actually get her out of bed and sit her on her potty.

By 6:50 am we are out of the door, dressed and ready for the day.  My husband and I usually take turns taking her to daycare, but I take her on most days since he works farther and has to come in earlier.



She tried to go to school with all that!



7:30 am work starts.  Almost always my boss is late so in the morning I take my time, read the news, read my emails, and eat breakfast.

My job is pretty much the same thing everyday.  I’m an office manager at a gym, not too much going on here.  My day consists of; filling, setting up schedules, answering phones, editing my bosses work, making spreadsheets, setting up meetings, taking notes, etc…

"working"

12 pm is my lunch hour.  I don’t like to run errands after work so I try to do all my errands during my lunch. Since I’ve become pregnant I’ve actually slowed down and spent many lunch hours taking a nap in the back of my car.  I’m just so tired these days.  Hey, I’m going to get sleep when I can.

More work after lunch….

4:30 pm is quitting time for me.  On my way home I pick up Amelia everyday.  I like to talk to her teacher and see how her day went and if she had any notable mentions.  As soon as we get home I set Amelia up with something to play with, some coloring material, or a dvd. 

5:15 pm I start dinner.  That is also around the time Morgan gets home. He always plays with her as soon as he gets home. 

6pm is dinner time. After dinner dishes are done.  Every other day I clean the floors.

Pregnancy Craving for Nachos!

7pm is bath time.  Amelia loves bath time.  She just loves her bubbles.  During this time either I am cleaning up or my husband, whoever is not giving Amelia a bath.  After her bath, she has play time.

8:30 pm it’s night night time.

9pm is me and hubby time.  We usually spend this time watching TV, talking, catching up on some reading in bed.  Just some chill time to end the day.

10pm Bed time zzZZZzz

L is for they way you look at me......

Love is definitely in the air. Valentine’s day just passed here.  It was the first time Amelia had a class to share it with.  I was really excited; it’s one of my favorite holidays.  What’s not to love about a day that celebrates LOVE?  Since it was Amelia’s first time handing out Valentine treats I wanted to do better than a simple card.  I hit up the store bought several different bags of chocolates and candy and I went to the 100 Yen store for some goodie bags.  I picked out Mickey & Minnie since she loves them. 

I put the bags together the night before.  Amelia tried to help, but she was more interested in what was going into the bags then putting them together.  I thought they were adorable and I’m pretty sure her classmates enjoyed the treats!

Amelia's Valentines Day Face xoxxo

As for the rest of the day it was pretty low key.  Since the day fell on a weeknight and we had just got back from vacation it was nice to spend it at home.  Morgan made dinner and cleaned up the kitchen after.  We watched our favorite Tuesday night shows and exchanged cards and gifts. Spending Valentines as a family can be really sweet!

Snow, Beer and Fun....

Well we just got back from vacation.  It was our first trip off island to another island in Japan.  We went for 4 days up to the island of Hokkaido.  More notably we went to Sapporo, known for their beer, chocolate, and snow and ice festival.  A few months back I was looking into taking a family vacation.  We hadn’t really been on one since we lived in WA.  Sure we went to visit my parents, went to visit his parents but that’s not really a vacation for me.  We looked at a few places we wanted to go to, but decided on Sapporo because of the snow and ice festival.  This festival is no joke, the pictures we saw online did no justice to these sculptures, they were amazing!  We had an incredible time, so glad we choose to go.  Love making memories with my family!!

To get to Sapporo, there was some major traveling involved.  Well it wasn’t so bad, but when you are 5 months pregnant and have a toddler in tow it wasn’t the easiest.  We took two planes, one about 2 hours and the second an hour, then an hour and a half shuttle to our hotel.  Surprisingly Amelia did very well, couldn’t be happier with her.  I know it was a long day for her.  Once we get there it was in the afternoon, it was COLD.  I knew it was going to be cold, but I wasn’t really prepared for it.  When we got there we just decided to walk around and see the city.  Our hotel was in the shopping and restaurant district.  This was the first time we went on a trip without Amelia’s stroller and she did really well walking.  Morgan had to carry her every once in awhile, but for the most part she did fab.  The streets were so busy.  There were a ton of people all over the place, probably there for the same reason we were. I read that about 2 million people go a year to this thing.  It was really crazy to see some of the local women!  It was 9 degrees out and they would be wearing shorts or skirts with boots and tights.  Can you believe it?  There was also snow and ice all over and they would walk around in their 5 inch boots.  I was in awe…more props to them.  Anyway we decided to just take in the sites and grab a bite and rest up for the night.  With the long day of travel and full bellies we were spent.  We wanted to be all rested for the day after.

The second day we had a lot to do.  We planned to go to the Tsudome Dome.  It was probably 20 min cab ride from our hotel.  They closed off the parking lot for all sorts of snow activities.  There were snow mobile rides, slides made of snow and ice, snow sculptures, snow land for the kids and inside had games and food.  We had such a blast.  I was a little sad that we hadn’t prepared better clothes for Amelia.  I didn’t know this place existed.  I just thought we were going to look at sculptures, we ended up finding out about this place down in our hotel lobby.  Well all the other kids and adults were dressed to play in the snow, we were not.  Thankfully Amelia had fleece lined pants, but they weren’t water proof.  That really didn’t stop her, the only thing that held her back was me taking her inside the dome every so often so she could warm back up.  The whole time we were there she was sliding, riding behind the snow mobile, or playing in the snow.  I was freezing but warmed up quickly when I saw the gigantic smile on her face.  Thankfully Morgan did most of the dirty work, he loves being able to be a kid.  Needless to say, we all had a great time and by the time we headed back Amelia passed out on my lap.

After a good nap we went to go to see the snow sculptures and grab some dinner at the festival.  We decided to go at night, because we heard that the lighting made them look so much more incredible.  They were so awesome.  They were huge.  They were magnificent.  They really were all pieces of art.  There were about 12 huge sculptures and a bunch of smaller ones.  We walked the festival for a couple hours and drank hot chocolate and bought treats from local vendors.  I would have to say my fave was the Mickey Mouse sculpture, I think I’m being bias because of Amelia.  I know she liked that one too.  We got to see all of them, even though it was freezing and towards the end Amelia and I were complaining.  For the last 20 mins the snow really started coming down and it was hard to see and walk.  Definitely a fun night activity.

On our last full day there we decided to go to the notorious Sapporo Beer Factory Museum.  This place looked like something Sheppard Ferry drew up.  It was a very cool looking building.  The Sapporo Beer factory was Japan’s first beer factory ever.  The museum showed a bunch of old ads, old beers, old pictures and of course they had beer tasting.  All of the information was in Kanji so we couldn’t read any of it, but there were tour guides all over the place and they were helpful.  A lot of the stuff was cool enough just to look at.   At the end of the museum Morgan did some beer tasting.  He tasted 4 in all, one was actually made of oyster broth, he didn’t like that one.  He enjoyed the others, but Orion remains his favorite Japanese beer.  I bought some gifts for our friends and some souvenirs for us, so we can always remember the beer factory.  That night we actually went back to eat at their restaurant.  I read on a lot of blogs that it was delish, they were all right.  We ordered a variety of food.  Morgan’s favorite item was the pickled herring.  I enjoyed the crab fried rice.  We ate to our hearts content and we didn’t even finish it all!  It was good while it lasted.

That really concluded our trip to Sapporo.  The rest of the night we packed and in the morning we left. We had a great time and memories for a lifetime.  I don’t know if we will ever be back, but we definitely have recommended to our friends and family if they ever get the chance to go visit.

Goodbye 2011...Hello 2012

Welp 2011 is long gone.  I was not successful with this blog.  However 2012, I resolve to write more and keep it up to date.  It’s such a shame that I don’t, we do and see so many fun things out here.  So with that, another year another chance.   But before I embark on to the future, I’m going to reminisce a little on how good 2011 was to us!2011 was good year.  Lots of things happened.  We tried new things, saw new places and met new people.

 One of the biggest things to come out of 2011 is that I’m pregnant!  Morgan and I have been talking for awhile on when the right time was to start adding to our family.  Finally in September we decided we were going to start trying.  Its’ actually kind of crazy how fast it all happened.  I got off birth control on September 12^th and literally by the next week I was pregnant!  I didn’t know it yet, I just went on with life.  I was told by my doc that my cycle would be a lil screwy from coming off the birth control and to give it a couple months to go back to normal.  I few weeks after I got off bc I had a feeling I was pregnant.   And the test came back positive, a woman just knows her body!  We were over the moon!  From then on I just keep dreaming of our little family of four.  We don’t know what the sex is for our baby yet, but we are going to found out in the coming weeks.  I’m due in June, so we will have 2 summer babies!

Another life changing event is that I got back into the working force.  I go back and forth weather or not I’m cut out to be a stay at home mom or not.  There were really good days Amelia and I had, I miss all the time we got to spend together.  There were also not so great days where I wanted to tear my hair out and I missed adult conversations!  I currently work full time and Amelia is full time at daycare.  She has been able to learn a lot and for the most part I think she is happy being there.  Her daycare is another issue I have to deal with and we are probably going to move her. 

Amelia turned 2 in 2011.  Let me tell ya, a 2 year old is a whole different kind of kid.  She has been talking up a storm and repeating everything we say.  We have to really watch what we say in front of her because she does not hesitate to repeat it. She is very active and funny.  She loves to dance and sing songs.  Whenever we can we try to get her to dance and sing in front of the camera, she gets camera shy a lot though.  She sleeps in a toddler bed now.  With the new baby on the way we thought it would be the perfect time to transition her into a toddler bed. She is growing up so fast it’s really hard to believe, it seems like only yesterday we took her home from the hospital. 

A lot has really happened in 2011.  Morgan and I celebrated 8 years of marriage. Morgan turned 28.  We had lots of family outings all over Okinawa.  Went back to the states for a few months.  Morgan went to Korea, Philippines, Thailand, Hawaii, and DC.  Morgan’s sister had a baby.  We FINALLY sold our house after a year and a half!  I’m just ready for the great things and adventures that 2012 will bring.  I’m so EXCITED