MaxPlus and Comprehensive Park

After the "study trip" with London, I swung home to get mom and Emmy so we could go for a picnic at Comprehensive Park.  Before getting to the park, I stopped by MaxPlus - the closest to an Ikea we have on this island - to look for a new stool to sit on when I homeschool the girls.  I was sure I had taken Mom here before, but apparently she had never been and was as enthralled with all the funky products as I always am.  This store has a little bit of everything - furniture, kitchen stuff, toiletries, clothes and all-round Japanese-y kitsch.  Here's Emmy with a display of Christmas trees (seems like everything in Japan is smaller, even the Christmas trees!)  The singing bears were belting out George Michael's "Last Christmas", which is a little funny in the middle of sunny Okinawa.

Emmy particularly enjoyed the massage chairs - they were just her size, although not purposefully designed for someone her age...  She kept finding the display models and making herself comfortable!

My favorite product this time was the "bagel cushion" which came in different flavors like "bitter chocolate", "custard" and "green tea".  Best part is it "make hips"!  Not sure exactly what that means...

Mom and Emmy, they liked the revolver mugs...

After the store, we went on to have our Japanese picnic (onigiri - aka rice balls) at the park.  We sat on a bench by the duck pond and Emmy was enjoying feeding the ducks, fish, pigeons and finches.  I had forgotten my camera in the car, so I went back to get it.  When I returned I found this...

...one very wet Emmy.  During the 5 minutes I was gone, Emmy had accidentally fallen in the pond!  Those rain boots did her no good when the water was four inches above the tops!  Luckily Grammie was there to rescue her and she was none the worse for wear (except being soaking wet!)

Trying to fall in, again.

Despite being wet, Emmy still wanted to play at the park and even persuaded Grammie and I to bounce with her on the lady bug.

She couldn't get us inside the elephant bumble, though, so we posed from the outside.

Emmy was smiling so nicely and then right when I snapped the picture, she "Arrghhed" like a pirate.  That's my girl!

Study Trip

Study Trip.  That's the PC term for what we used to call a "field trip". I guess now they have to document that the kids actually learn something when they go some place - it's not just about having fun anymore.

Anyways, Thursday, London's class took a "study trip" to the recycling center to see the operation and to learn about the 3R's (that's Reduce, Reuse, Recycle - not Reading, Writing and Arithmetic).  London's teacher is in charge of the recycling program for the school so his class is well schooled in this topic.  Although by the attitude I get from London when it's his turn to put out the recycling, I'm not sure he's bought on to this concept fully...

I met the buses at the Recycling Center and joined in on the tour.  Here's what I learned: recycling is a stinky business!  Especially when they compress the plastics and you can really tell that not everyone rinsed out their bottles. (Rinse your bottles! Oh, and take the lids off because they come shooting out of the compressing machine with enough force to take an eye out.)

But it was interesting to see how they separate the cans - a giant magnet on this conveyor belt sucks up the steel cans and shoots them into a separate bin.

And it was fun for London to be with his friends (Carter and Aiden)

And it was fun for me to be with my little guy, even if it were in the middle of a bunch of junky, smelly garbage!

Happy Birthday Marines

Yes, the Marine Corps really goes all out when they celebrate their "birthday" (November 10th).  I took Mom to the Marine Corps Birthday Parade on Camp Foster so she could be privy to some of the history.  We tucked ourselves under a tent and watched the procession.  For those totally civilian readers, a military "parade" is not what you think of as a parade - no floats, high school marching bands or Ms. Beaufort County riding in the back of a convertible.  No, it's a parade of troops of some sort or other.

This parade started with the presentation of colors, the national anthems of the US and Japan, a speech or two and then an interesting history of the Marine corps presented through the different uniforms over time.  Since the Marine Corps began in 1775 to present day, the history of the Marines is reflected in the changes of their uniforms.  It was really kind of interesting to see - and Grammie loved every minute of it!

Presentation of the "birthday cake" (hmmm, seems like I've seen this cake before???  Oh, yeah, it's the same one they use at the ball year after year!)

All the different uniforms (21 of them!)  The high school ROTC were the "models".

Grammie loving being with the troops!

Beautiful Beach

Letting Grammie adjust to the time change meant taking it easy her first day, but today the weather was beautiful and we decided to get out for a little air and exercise.  We took Grammie to our new favorite beach (same as last week's post) for some beach combing, cave exploring, water wading fun.  The pictures say it all...

The mushroom

Digging up pieces of coral.

Secret passage

Grammie and her entourage

Photo by Emmy

She's Baacckk...

For the fourth time in just over two years, Grammie is back on the island!  (And that doesn't include the trip to China last fall.)  We love our visits from Grammie, and for all the time and money it takes to get here, I'm assuming she loves them too.

Welcome back, Grammie!

Yes, Cannon is almost as tall as Grammie now!

A New Favorite Beach

So if you read the post from yesterday, you would know that we were at a friend's house with a magnificent view of the East China Sea.  From their balcony, you could spy a beach directly below their apartment and it peaked my interest.  So Sunday we drove back over to Yomitan to find this beach.  Thank goodness James had given me directions on how to get to it, because otherwise we would never have found it.

That's some clear water! You can see our friends apartment building in the upper left corner.

Besides the awesome views of the crystal clear water, this beach had sand, rocks and caves.  It was an awesome beach for poking around on, which is exactly what we needed after the busy Saturday we had.

Emmy made friends with a little chihuahua a Japanese couple had on the beach.

Love this picture!

Kids and the giant mushroom, as Emmy called it.

Photo by Emmy.

Later, we did pick up the Halloween spirit again with a Trunk-or-Treat at the church and pumpkin carving - Stevie's specialty!

Cheerleader Emmy and Tangled

Our craft of the year.

Halloween

With all the parties and fun occasions leading up to this day, I've almost forgotten to post the pictures from Halloween!  Actually, with all the fun of the day, I never actually took a picture of the kids in costume on Halloween, so here's one from the previous Saturday night!

Halloween was on a Monday this year, which meant school for all during the day (boo).  But our friend, Lisa, had the brilliant idea to have all the fun games we had planned for the rained-out Okinawa OktoberFest in the afternoon between the end of school and trick-or-treating.  So around 4:00 the festivities began.  We started with "pumpkin junkin" - decorating small pumpkins with all kinds of "junk" from around the house.  A fun way for kids to decorate a pumpkin without getting too messy!

Then we had the "bobbing for goya" - remember these games were based on an Okinawan twist to a traditional fall fest and goya is a totally Okinawan vegetable!  Emmy and London quickly became masters of this game.

Sam trying for a goya.

Got one!

Then there was the "Neko Hog Tie".  Our neighbors, Krimp and Dima, have a lovable, albeit spastic, chocolate lab named Neko (which, ironically, means cat in Japanese).  The game was to "release" Neko with his squeaky ball and have the kids chase him down.  Neko proved to be particularly adept at keeping the kids away!

Neko in costume!

Go get him!

Guess who won?  Emmy!

Finally we had the "sushi roll" - teams competed to roll one partner in a piece of astroturf and then roll them down a short hill.  The kids loved this game and could have played it all night.

Even Krimp had to have a turn!

Wrapping Krimp

Positioning the sushi roll...

And rolling her!

Finally, it was time to go in, put on costumes, have some dinner and prepare for trick-or-treating.  Stevie stayed home to pass out candy while I took the kids around.  We were only gone for an hour but managed to wrestle up 15 pounds of candy!!!!  Holy cow!

Trick or treat!

Heading home with the stash of candy.

When I came back, Stevie and some other neighbors were sitting outside enjoying the evening while passing out candy.  They came up with a brilliant plan for the older kids who came around (you know the ones - no costume and a pillow case...) - they made them sing for their candy!!!  Oh, how I would have liked to have seen that!

Spencer, Suzy, Sydney and Shawn - aka Goldilocks and the three bears

Chris as a "lawn ninja" (this is the way people dress when they do yardwork!)

Baby Zack as a sushi roll.

Happy Halloween!