My baby lost his first tooth!

He did it!! Javan actually lost his first tooth on July 29, 2008!! He was so excited, he wanted to know the date because he said it was his "special" day.

Steve pulled it for him because it was just hanging there from him playing with it over the last week or so, he had messed with it so much his gums were all irritated.

A few things Javan has requested to eat to help his tooth come out faster:

- Apples
- Oranges
- Steak
I have felt like a short-order cook around here!

With rain comes rainbows.

It will rain at the drop of a hat here. You can just be walking around outside and "BAm~!" Rain. Never would have expected it, but there it is. It isn't always a sprinkle either, it could be a downpour! It is one of the craziest things I have ever seen.

It will go away just as quickly as it came too and the sun is so hot here that any proof of rain will disappear within minutes just leaving it humid and muggy.

By experience... you can literally get out of your car with the sun shining and start walking to a building, get drenched in the parking lot because it didn't even LOOK like it was going to rain, get in the door all soaked - rain stops, everyone looks at you like "what have you been doing?" and they go on about thier way to go outside and it does not even look as if it had rained. Thank goodness that 90% of the same people have probably found themselves in the same situation so it does not require much explaining!

The beautiful rainbow showed up as we were driving away from our house on base. It was so perfect I had to share.

Ghetto Fab or Gotta Have?

They say When in Okinawa do as....

So manicures and pedicures are the "big" thing around here for women. All the ladies and teens know about "Cocoks" pronounced Coco's (drop the K!!) There they do intricate designs and paintings on all your digits. I was diggin' the whole hour and a half pedicure thing and nail art, what a nice treat!

In the states I have had my nails done for like ummm...let's just say a long time.
It is a process I have gotten down to a science and I know exactly what I like and what I don't like. I run in and in 45 min. I am running out. Perfect. Fast. On-the-fly.

My appt. here started like all the others for my "fill" sit in the chair and - Wait, is that glass of tea for me? Yes! They brought me a glass of tea(it's yummy too)and an hour and a half later she was done. Now I can not say that I was not beginning to become inpatient because well, that is just how I am. Why though? It is such a different way of thinking here. To them I was there to "relax". I am going to work on that!

They have a book of "Nail Art" that you look through and they actually paint the design you chose on your nails and they do 3D art as well(its all puffy). Marissa had thumbed through this book and was beside herself, she LOVED it all. Then she had to go on to say "Mom, you are so boring, you never do stuff like this" and "If Aunt Amanda were here she would do something fun and crazy". On and on she went until I actually started to feel old and boring, not exciting or fun. So I went for it!! Pink paint, gold glitter,3D art flowers and GOLD BALLS!! It must have been the tea. What was I thinking?

Did I really prove anything? Does she think I am any cooler? I don't really think so, but I am the one stuck with some crazy designs and 3D art on my fingernails that I NEVER would have done before, trust me. It is hard for me to even paint them pink. Oh lands, what have I done?

My baby boy is in heaven!!

This is a sight you would NEVER see back in our old sub-division. Back in Wentzville in our wonderful Spring Meadows there were no "boys" for Javan to play with - just stinky girls. Girls who would paint his nails and have him play with dolls and jump rope. He was a good sport because he did not know any better. Well, that has all changed now! They were running around with all of Javans guns chasing each other and making "bang, bang" noises. I LOVE IT!! My little boy can be a little boy.

He did mention today that he misses his "house in Wentzville" but really likes all of his new friends. I think we are making progress!

What was in this boys rice?

We went to the American village last week and wondered around for a bit to find a place to eat that actually took Visa or dollars. We finally found one that is actually a double-decker bus attached to the restaurant. Of course the kids wanted to eat in the bus and it was just us having our own little private lunch. I guess this allowed Javan to really "cut loose". I'm not sure what got into him but he really had us all laughing!

I despise painting.

I truly hate to paint walls. It is a pain, it is messy and it takes FOREVER. This house is never going to feel like home with government yellow walls so I have to do something. I am such an instant gratification loving immediate results type person that I LOVE painting. So many mixed emotions!!!

What is a girl to do?

I have started on the living room and I just had to vent about my internal conflict.

Sooo....my first mistake was

We decided to go purchase another car yesterday. Here in Okinawa you have 2 choices when it comes to buying a car.
1-Lemon lot (where people sell their cars prior to PCS'ing)
2-American Car Lot (usually run by retired military selling Japanese cars)

We decided to go back to the lemon lot for car #2 since we did not want to have to make car payments and plus you can really haggle since military members HAVE to have sold their cars prior to getting authorization to leave Japan to go back to the states. Piece of cake - we are so going to get a deal!!

We found a blue S-MX ( I'll show pictures later) that is small and cute, will fit the kids and I just fine and it ran great! The family selling this car had another black one just like it that they were selling too. Steve and I being the totally rational, thorough people we are thought "Hey, we should drive that one too, compare them and really see if we are getting what we are paying for. (Mistake #1)

We hop in the black one and I happen to drive it first...
[Sidenote: Why am I driving the car to "test-drive" it? I am no more in-tune with cars than I am NASA!]
I drive it down the street to a parking lot and park the thing and ask Steve if he would like to drive it back upon which his answer is "NO". (Mistake #2)
Neither one of us were really impressed with this one so I just turned right around and left the parking lot to go back to the lot.

When entering the lot I had a few choices to make one being to back the car in like he had it originally or pull it in. Knowing myself well enough to know that backing it in was probably not "safe" I decided to pull it in. (Mistake #3)

You see, the car has "aftermarket" ground effects on it (which didn't mean anything to me) but after I ripped it off and broke it, peeled off the paint and scratched it all up the people who owned the car were sure to tell us that they were "AFTERMARKET" ahhh... now I know what that means.

I pulled up too close and I could tell judging by the size of the eyes of the some random people who just happened to be standing in front of the parking spot that I parked in that it was not the best parking job ever. She mouthed "YOU BROKE IT!"

Sure enough, I did and Steve nor I both were real happy. Long story shorter, we offered to pay for the damages on a car we are not buying. We are in fact buying their other car so to say the least we could not "haggle" since I totally messed up their car that someone was coming to buy from them the next day. Steve and the guy worked it out to where the repair cost are included into our purchase costs so that we do not "owe" him anything once the final sell is made.

Humph... only me. (but my little blue car is cute!)

This is what we get to watch instead of commercials...

A friend of mine(that I am borrowing from my sister):) reminded me that I wanted to share these with you guys.

AFN - Armed Forces Network has actually devised a great system of passing information from uniform regulations to daily "reminders" of proper ways to act, interact and treat Okinawa and it's citizens. I really have to laugh at some of them and roll my eyes at others! I thought I would just share a few of the Sooooooooo many that we get to see on a daily basis.



And...


Finally...



Aren't these great? Gotta love it!!

The earth was shakin'!

So apparently earthquakes like to follow us! All the way from Missouri... We had an earthquake here today around 1645 but I guess it really has to be impressive for me to ever notice anything since I had to be told by everyone else.

I always miss all the excitement, even if it's right under my feet!

Link of earthquake info.


http://earthquakes.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsww/Quakes/us2008ufav.php

Again, you have to copy and paste because I am too lazy to really mess with this thing to figure out why it won't link. Sorry!

Let freedom ring

So we went today to the Kadena Flight Line "American Fest" since Steve had duty all day and night on the fourth. I really did not feel like going especially when we heard on the radio that the temp. was 98 degrees and I soooo hate to sweat and be sticky but I took one for the team. I am glad we went though, we saw some REALLY funny stuff and had a fun time people watching. Matter of fact, I took a few pictures for you guys to enjoy too! Some things just really tickle me. I actually saw a Japanese man wearing red, white and blue today to celebrate July 4th! I had to giggle at this-


Kadena is always closed to the Japanese public but it did open today for them to come in and enjoy the festivities and boy do they flock in, they L.O.V.E anything American. It is fun to actually mingle with them and take pictures, they really like to take your pictures with them too - you will always see them holding up the peace sign in EVERY picture, even the babies. I saw my first Japanese mullet today and it just happened to be on a baby, I had to take his picture he was so damn cute!

Isn't this the cutest thing?


OH!! We saw our first Japanese butt crack today too and it wouldn't be in the true spirit of blogging if you didn't have to endure this memory with me also!
Actually, after looking at the color of the crack I am pretty sure he is American but it is so staying here in this blog because I actually went out of my way to photograph this guys butt in front of everyone.

They had a live concert by a group I was sure I did not even know but I thought some of their music was pretty cool until they sang a song that I actually knew! Whata' ya know it was EVE 6...Hmmmm, that's how up to date I am with the whole music scene thing. They sing that song "Inside Out" I felt all cool for 3 minutes and 39 seconds that I could actually sing a song along with them!


The kids had a great time and really enjoyed hanging out and watching fireworks. They had a few games of Okinawan Deal or no Deal and get this, a Japanese lady next to us did not speak English very well and they called raffle ticket numbers to determine who was going to play. She could not read the numbers fast enough to know if she won so she asked us to read it for her and sure enough she actually won a chance to go up to the stage! After being up there and playing the game for a bit her family would ask us what we thought she should do since they are not familiar with the game nor do they speak English very well. Our lady was up to $200.00 and had lost all the "large" sums so we motioned to "make a deal". She was soooo happy she won $200.00! Later one of her family member walked up to us and tried to give us money for helping! Isn't that crazy? Who would do that in the states? Actually try to give someone money for something like that! I couldn't believe how nice and polite they were so we only took $100.00. LOL!!! I'm kidding, we were shocked they even offered and declined politely.

The Winner!!

We had a great time and hope you guys enjoyed our 4th via Blog with us!

Happy 4th!!

I'm not sure how you can feel so busy but still so in a funk all at the same time. The last of our household items arrived day before yesterday so I still have to unpack about 55 of the 71 boxed that were delivered. Yuck! The house still does not feel like our home.

Maybe having another car will help so the kids and I can get out more, I don't know. I have never been the type to stay home all the time and to be truthful I don't really stay home all the time now but I really feel like I am not productive at all here. I thought I might get to resuscitate a drowning kid last week that Steve pulled out of the pool but he pulled him out too soon and I didn't even get to play. What ever happened to teamwork around here?

I need a job, I'm restless. Maybe volunteer in the ER here and finish school. Maybe work and go to the beach, maybe eat Bon Bons and watch soap operas that aired 2 weeks ago in the states (Shhhhh...don't tell me what happened on the shows it will ruin the suspense.)

Happy 4th to you all- wish we were there to celebrate with you, the Japanese aren't into the whole "4th of July" thing. I'm off to go do something productive or maybe sit here and watch TV, maybe eat some icecream, maybe go to bed - urg...decisions. decisions