Visitors!

Chad's parents came to visit us on June 29th for two whole weeks! We did a lot of sightseeing around the island and even did some things that Chad and I hadn't experienced yet. One of those being, going to the Tadake waterfall. It's about a 20 minute hike through water and rough terrain to get to the actual waterfall. Once you get to the waterfall, you can actually get in the water and swim. It was pretty cool and super pretty! While I was taking pictures and admiring the waterfall, Chad had started hiking up a huge hill. We decided to follow him, but he was so far ahead of us that we actually lost him for a second. This hill was so steep and rough that someone once upon a time had put ropes up to help people climb up it. Once we got to the top, we still didn't see Chad but there was a little trail to go down the other side of the hill, so we decided to hike down it. So after getting all the way down, it brought us to a little creek and we weren't sure which way to go. We thought if we went one way, it would bring us to the top of the waterfall. After calling for Chad a few times, we finally found him! He was out exploring the top of the waterfall. He had us hike back up the mountain and then hike up even more and then back down to get to the top. We did a lot of hiking, it was a lot of work but so worth it! We enjoyed our time at the waterfall. The only down fall was there was huge horse flies flying around our heads the whole time!

Another adventure that Chad and I hadn't done yet is go to one of the surrounding islands. We had heard that the Kerama Islands were surrounded by beautiful blue clear water and was a great place to snorkel! We figured out how to get reservations on a ferry to go there (not a very easy task when you're in a foreign country) so we were all set to sail on Tuesday! The Kerama Islands are about 20 miles southwest of Okinawa. Four of the islands are inhabited, but there are a total of 22 islands that make up the Keramas. We took a ferry to Zamani Island, which was about an hour ferry ride. I was pretty impressed by the ferry. Seating wise, it looked like an airplane on the inside. On the way there, we decided we would enjoy the scenery from the top of the boat, which was pretty neat! Even though we were just on a short boat ride, it was kind of cool to step off from the rock that we live on and go explore another island. So we get to the island and we start making the hike to the beach to go snorkeling. It was so hot outside, we didn't make it very far and were already starting to wonder how much farther the beach was. Lucky for us, a shuttle stopped and picked us up. If we were in any other country (say.. Mexico), I would have not stepped in a foot in a strange man's van who doesn't speak a lick of English. We realized how thankful we were for the shuttle because the walk there was very hilly and a lot farther than we imagined. So once we got to the beach, we geared up in our snorkel gear and headed into the beautiful blue water. The snorkeling there was amazing! The corral was so pretty and we so lots of neat fish as well. We even saw a reef shark! I was freaking out when we first saw it and then I wanted to chase it to take a picture of it. That thing is fast! It was pretty cool though! Chad and I just got an underwater camera so I've got lots of pictures of our snorkeling experience! Our time at Zamani Island was short during this trip. Chad and I would like to go back again and maybe rent scooters or something to actually explore the island or go to one of the other islands.

Other than that, we took his parents to see all of this beautiful island that we live on. We even had them try sushi for the first time! While I still don't think they are fans, they admitted it wasn't as bad as they thought it would be. Here are some pictures just recapping their visit.

Today marks 1 year for us here in Okinawa. This time last year was probably one of the most stressful times in my life. Living in a hotel, not having a car for a month, not having any of our belongings for 2 months after we moved into housing... all of that was not fun! I'm glad we are now settled here in Okinawa. We love it here, the island is beautiful! We do miss a lot of the conveniences of home such as American malls/shopping, being able to order something online and not having to worry about it taking 2 months to get here, American food, etc. However, in 2 years, we will have all those conveniences again, so in the mean time we're just soaking up all the Japanese culture that we can!

Summer is Here!

I was told by my friends and family back home that I need to update my blog more often. I tell them that nothing exciting happens to write about, but they want to hear about my boring life anyways!

Last weekend we went to the Futenma Flight line Festival. Futenma is a marine base about 20 minutes away from us. They opened up their flight line to the public and loaded it with Marine and Air Force aircraft. They also had a little festival with a bunch of different food vendors and entertainment. Chad and I got to tour an AWAC and KC-135. It was pretty cool to see the inside of the planes that we frequently see flying over our base.

Yesterday, I went with a few girls from my work to get a pedicure! Ever since I got here, I've heard people talking about this nail salon called Cocoks but I had never been. After going, I can now see why people all rave about it. It was an amazing pedicure and the artwork is outstanding! They give you this book of nail designs to look at while they're doing the pedicure and it practically takes the whole time to choose which one you want. They also have this amazing complimentary tea that they give you to drink. I don't even like tea, but this was really good! I can't stop looking at my toes; I will be definitely going back :)

Chad and I have been looking in to getting scuba certified. We really want to do it, but it makes me nervous at the same time! I think it would be amazing to see a whole part of the world that not everyone gets to experience but at the same time, there are a lot of deadly creatures in the ocean! We will probably take the class to get certified after Chad's parents visit, but until then we've just been snorkeling. Yesterday, we bought wetsuits. We figured we would need them to go diving with and it'll be nice to have in the meantime to protect us against jellyfish! After purchasing them we went snorkeling at Madea Point, which is a very popular snorkeling spot here on Okinawa. The coolest thing about that snorkeling adventure is that we saw an octopus!

Chad's parents will be here in less than 2 weeks! We're pretty excited to have visitors again!

May Showers

It's crazy to me that it's been over a year since we found out that we'd be relocating to Okinawa. Here in the next couple months will mark our 1 year on the island! After that, we still have 2 more years here! To be honest, I'm ready to go home, at least to visit! Don't get me wrong, I like it here, but there's just something about being home. The weather is starting to warm up here and getting more and more humid. Rainy season actually started about a week ago. It will pretty much constantly rain for a month straight. I don't like it! Since we arrived in July last year, we know what's to come. I'm not ready to be soaking wet as soon as I walk out the door due to the humidity! I'm also not ready for typhoon season again!

Ok, enough complaining for now! For some good news... Chad and I will be flying home to stay for a whole month in December! We'll be home for Christmas! I'm so excited! I don't want to wish the summer away, but I can't wait until the end of the year! The plane tickets were far from cheap, but they'll be worth every single penny! I will never complain about domestic airline ticket prices again, anything under $1,000 will forever be "cheap" to me!

Nothing much has been going on. I'm going to end this post by adding some pictures from my phone that I have accumulated over the past month since my last post.

At the end of April, we went to see the Kaiensai Firework Display. They shot off fireworks at a beach over the ocean to the sound of music. We didn't want to pay $30 a person to go to the actual beach so we watched from a distance. There fireworks are a lot like the ones you see in America. There were a couple cool ones that we had never seen before.

 

A couple weekends ago, we went to watch the Naha Dragon Boat Races. It was a fun experience but it wasn't as cool as I thought it was going to be. They had several different boat race teams go every 15 minutes or so. 3 boats would race down to one end of the pier, make a turn and head back to the finish line. There were even some Americans who had put together teams for the races including those from the Army, Air Force, and Navy. I think it would be cool to be part of the team but at the same time it would be intense to paddle that boat! I'm sure lots of physical training is required!

Chad had a PT test in April and scored a 95.2% on it! Since he got such a high score, he was recognized by his squadron's Commander and receives a comp day. I'm proud of him!

At work, we had our Annual Air Force Inspection in April. The front desk staff was recognized as doing an outstanding job, so we all got awards. Even though it's something little, it's always great to be recognized for a job well done!

One night after work, Chad took me to Round 1, which is like a big sports complex. They have a ton of different things to do from a video arcade, batting cages, roller skating, darts, ping pong, tennis, boxing, soccer, basketball, etc. You just pay an admission price depending on how long you want to stay and then you get to do whatever you want for no extra charge! It's pretty neat, Chad and I talk about how we need to open a place like that up in America!

 All the rest of the pictures on my phone are of Myah. She is doing something daily that cracks me up, so I'm always snapping pictures of her!

Our First Visitors!

On Saturday, March 30th, Chad and I picked up our first visitors from the airport! My Mom and Greg arrived all the way from Michigan! They were suppose to fly in on Friday night but unfortunately they had a set back on their flight to Tokyo. They left Chicago, flew for an hour and half and then were told they had to turn around and fly back to Chicago because of maintenance issues. Ugh, how upsetting! Fortunately, they were still able to fly to Tokyo on Friday night, but they would have to wait until Saturday morning to catch their final flight to Okinawa.

We did so much sight seeing while they were here that this blog post would be a book if I described every day. I'm pretty sure they saw more stuff in the week that they were here than some people see in the 2-3 years they are stationed on this island. The weather wasn't the best when they were here. We didn't ever have one beautiful Okinawa day, but we made the best of what we were given.

My Mom wanted to go see the big Shisa dog

My Mom & Greg on one of the many beaches we visited

We spent the afternoon at Okinawa World, where we went to a snake museum and walked through a cave.

After watching a Snake Show, we got to hold a snake

My Mom and Greg at Cape Kyan, the southern most point of the Island

Chad & me at Cape Manzamo

My Mom at the aquarium in front of the huge fish tank

We went to the seawall to watch the sunset over the ocean one night

My Mom & Greg at Shuri Castle

My Mom & Greg at the Katsuren Castle

All of us on a beach we stopped at to check out the huge waves on Sunday

We went to check out the waves at Cape Zanpa on Sunday; they were huge!

There's just a short collection of pictures from throughout their trip. We took so many pictures, that if you want to see more, you'll have to check out my Facebook! It was a wonderful week. We got to spend Easter with family this year, which was one of my favorite things! I hate being so far away from home because we never get to spend holidays with family anymore! We also took them to so many different restaurants to try all the local food. I was sad to see them leave on Monday morning. It was hard going back to reality. Now, it's just waiting for July to get here for Chad's parents to visit!

Catchin' up on February

It's been about a month since I have updated! Lets see what has been going on...

For Valentines Day, we decided to cook dinner at home instead of going out with all the crowds at a restaurant. We made steak, broccoli, and mashed cauliflower, which was suppose to be a healthy version of mashed potatoes. I think I'd try a different recipe next time because I wasn't too fond of just mashed cauliflower, it needed sour cream or something to give it some consistency! We've been experiencing with all sorts of healthy versions of recipes lately since we're trying to live a healthier lifestyle. We made homemade pizza one night with a cauliflower crust and turkey pepperoni. It was actually very delicious! If cauliflower wasn't so dang expensive here, I would eat it a lot more often! It cost me $7.22 for a head of cauliflower. I couldn't believe it!

Since we didn't go out to eat on Valentine's Day, we decided to go out the following Sunday to sort of celebrate. We went to one of our favorite "American" restaurant on the island, the Seaside Restaurant. It has an amazing view of the ocean and the food is delicious!

Chad bought me a beautiful bouquet of flowers for Valentine's day. It's the biggest most beautiful flowers that I've ever gotten! They lasted for a couple weeks too, I just threw them away yesterday!

One day after work, I went with some of my coworkers to try sushi for the first time. As soon as they found out I had never tried sushi, they were determined to take me out to try it. We went to a place called Sushi-go-round. The sushi goes around the restaurant on a conveyor belt and you can just choose what you'd like. I liked it because it allowed me to try all sort of things. I didn't even know what I was eating half the time! I was surprised that I actually liked it. I don't like fishy food but this didn't taste like seafood at all. It's definitely not something that I'll crave but I'm glad to say that I tried it! Chad had never had real sushi before either, so I took him the following weekend to try it. He also liked it!

Last weekend, Chad went hiking with some guys from work. They just drove up north, found a mountain and started climbing. He enjoyed himself! I'm not too fond of going off the beaten path. There's too many creatures on this island that could be stumbled upon! Chad said they didn't see any snakes or spiders though! While he was doing that, I went out to lunch and a movie with my friend, Krista. I hadn't talked to her in awhile so it was fun to catch up!

This weekend has been pretty boring! Chad's squadron is doing an exercise this week, so he's working 12 hour night shifts. Those started yesterday (Saturday) night, so that pretty much ruined the whole weekend! Even though I talked about eating out a lot in this post, we're still doing pretty good on our healthier lifestyle. I will be finishing up my 60 day Body Combat program in a few days. I'm happy to say that I have dropped a pant size since January. It makes me feel good! Chad is also doing really well, he is so skinny! He has a PT test in April, so he's been training for that so he can get an outstanding score on it!

My Mom and Greg will be here in just 26 days! I can't believe it's so close! I need to make a list of everywhere we need to eat and do while they are here. I hope the weather is nice for their visit! It has been pretty nice lately. I can tell that it's starting to get warmer. I do have to say, I love the weather here! This winter was awesome without any snow. It was still cold enough some days to wear a hoodie, so that's nice. I am not looking forward to the hot HUMID summer here though! I will never forget when we first got here, walking outside and immediately sweating. It's horrible! Thankfully there are a lot of beaches around here to cool off at :)


I'm sure I won't update until after my Mom comes and goes unless something exciting happens between now and then, so have a good month all! :)

My Birthday!

On January 1, Chad and I made a goal to not eat out for the whole month of January (except our anniversary). As you can see by my previous blog posts, we eat out quite frequently. At least twice a week if not more. We could tell that we were getting fat and unhealthy. Trying to break a bad habit is hard! We were so used to ordering pizza on Friday or Saturday night, it was difficult to get over that craving. We even had to pack lunches a few days when we were headed out to explore because we weren't sure if we'd be home by lunch or dinner time. I am proud to say that we met our goal! Not only are we not eating out but we are eating healthier at home too. It has made a huge difference in our bodies! Not just the way they look, but how we feel as well :) So that's the major thing that's been going on in January for us!

This past weekend was my 24th birthday. It was the first time we had ate out since our Anniversary! We actually overdid it for my birthday weekend, but that's ok! On my actual birthday we tried out a new steak restaurant called Capitals. It was very similar to the Four Seasons place we went to on our anniversary just cheaper! I liked it a lot. They give you so much food!

Earlier in the day on my Birthday, we were just driving around because we didn't really know what to do. We saw signs pointing toward Katsuren castle ruins, so we decided to follow them. This is probably the coolest castle we've been to so far on the island! It had different layers to it and from the top, the view was amazing. I wish I had brought my good camera with me, but instead all I have is iphone quality photos to share.

Nothing else too exciting has been happening. Myah has been a pretty good dog lately. We've been leaving her out of her crate while we're at work and for the most part she has been good, except the day that she chewed our tv remote up to the point that it doesn't even work anymore. And of course it's taking forever for the replacement remote to get here since we live in Timbuktu. Here is a picture of her currently bugging me because she wants to go outside just to sniff around but I won't take her. I cut my foot pretty badly on a piece of glass yesterday so it hurts to walk around on it!

Other than that, we're just gearing up for my Mom & Greg to be here at the end of March! Only 52 more days; we're pretty excited to have family around! I can't wait!