Tobaru Koen - Roller slide park

We baked cookies all morning on Sunday, so when the afternoon rolled around we decided to get out of the house for a bit and hit up a park we haven't been to yet.  I've heard about this amazing roller slide, so we were all in to check it out.  

There was a toddler play area right off the parking lot.  

This is what we came for....The supposedly biggest roller slide on the island.  

Here are Reagan and I going down the first time.  Reagan's in front.  

We bought these yellow sleds at the 100 yen store for the sole purpose of using them on these slides.  I thought they helped, but Reagan didn't like using it and found copying the Japanese kids by squatting down worked better for her.  

There were a couple of good drops, where you really started moving.  You can tell I'm slowing myself down by bracing my feet against the sides.  

Brock took a couple mini runs before we decided to have Brandon take him on a real run.  

So Brandon tried using the sled too.  I'm not sure what happened, if it came out from under him or what, but his jeans ended up with a hole in the butt.  I'm going to say that they had a hole burned in them, cause you do work up some friction on the slide.  

I'm not sure who was having more fun here....

This method proved faster for Reagan.  When she went on her bottom, she came off the slide saying her butt was vibrating still :)

Saw this sign on the way out.  I love the illustrations.  

Some of the Japanese kids were sledding down this hill on cardboard.  

Kids Christmas Party

Brandon's command hosted a Christmas party for the kids this morning.  They had a craft table set up and bubbles, along with Christmas presents for the kids.  Here's Brock before we left.  He's really starting to ham for the camera.  Sorry for the blurriness.

This poor Santa…He tried his best, but his costume was a little sad.   Here's Brock with Santa

This is my favorite one.  He didn't love Santa this year.  

Here's Reagan with Santa.  

 The kids opening their gifts.  Can you see Brock's mouth saying "Whoa"    He got a truck and Reagan got Pokemom cards.  

Busena Glass Bottom boat

On Sunday of our long Thanksgiving weekend we decided to check out the Busena underwater adventure.  We have not done this yet, so we are checking something off our Okinawa bucket list.  It was about 70 degrees today, but a bit windy.  Here Brock and Reagan are at the start of our adventure.  

This is the glass bottom boat we were on.

The boat only went out a little ways from shore, but there were some really great reefs to look at.  

You could buy something that resembled an ice cream cone shell for 100 yen.   Brock ended up throwing his in one big chunk, I'm blaming Brandon :).  

Get ready for lots of kid photos.  Usually he doesn't cooperate, but today he did, so I had too many good ones to pick from.  

I love his smile in this one!

And this one was too cute because they are like twins.  

Reagan :)

I have no idea why Brock is doing a Senior picture pose in this shot.  We were coaching Reagan to smile naturally, don't lean over, open your eyes, etc.  This is the best of that bunch.  

We are climbing down the stairs to go underwater in the observatory. 

Can you see the tiny clown fish in the window?

This one cracked me up because of Reagan's eyes.  She was obviously listening when we were giving directions earlier :)

Thanksgiving 2013

If you'll remember, last year we went to Tokyo for Thanksgiving.  Well, Reagan has not let it drop that we ate soup (ramen) for our Thanksgiving dinner since, so this year it's a traditional Thanksgiving!  We got together with some friends to fry a turkey, a first for us.   So glad that we did it, because it was GREAT!  Brandon said it reminded him of Grandma Evie's fried chicken, and you know, it did!  

Here we are with a few pre-dinner appetizers.

The kids were in video game heaven.  

Brandon and Jae prepare the fryer.  

The kids made graham cracker houses while the guys were outside cooking.  

Kana and Sara working hard. 

The turkey before...

Jae and Kana

The turkey after...

and the REAL after, the boys taking naps.