Valentine's Day + Tree house Restaurant

 Valentine's day was pretty quite at our house.  The kids had both received oodles of gifts from family and friends back home, so I set everything out on the table for them to dig into after Reagan got home from school.   Thanks again to everyone who sent them Valentines!

 In Japan, the tradition is for the women to give gifts to the men...sucks, I know!  Anyway, the stores were filled with lots of fun chocolates to give, and they were broken into different categories.  Apparently there are "love" chocolates, which are higher quality, and then "obligation" chocolates, which female workers give to their male counterparts.  Reagan is still all about Pokemon, so I was happy to fine a couple of Pokemon chocolates for her...I imagine these fall into the Obligation category, as I'm sure they aren't high quality chocolate.  Although, I'm giving them in love, not obligation :).  

Notice that Reagan is wearing a tank top - it was that warm!  The necklace below is a gift from my mom and dad.  The funny thing is that my clever mom was able to thread it onto a gift card holder card, which displayed the necklace perfectly.  However, the gift card holder had a Christmas theme.  Reagan had just called my mom out for wrapping her birthday presents in Christmas paper. My mom thought she was wrapping the birthday presents in Disney princess paper, but she didn't notice that they had on holiday outfits, which Reagan spotted instantly.   Not sure if you did that on purpose or not mom, but it was a good joke to Reagan.  

So last weekend we went to a new restaurant in Naha that is built into a tree.  We've seen it may times driving on 58, but haven't tried it yet.  We had read the reviews, and they weren't great, but we figured this was one of those "must do" things while in Okinawa, so we set out not expecting a lot.  When we got there, we had a hour wait, which was odd since the restaurant was only about 1/4 full. 

This is the back side of the restaurant.  

Here's a view of the front with Brandon, Brock and Reagan in front.  

While we waited, we wondered over to a park that was next door.   

Believe it or not, these were the first set of steps that Brock has attempted.  We live in a single story house, so he hasn't had a chance to try them yet. 

Onto the meal... We had grabbed a quick snack to take to the park with us since it was going on 1:30 and we still had that hour wait.  Reagan and I decided to share the chicken dinner, plus we got an order of gyoza (potstickers/dumplings) to share.   Salad was included and was pretty good.  

 Here's a shot of our meal.  I'm picky about meat, I'll admit it.  That's been one of the hardest adjustments I've had since we've moved here.  I really haven't embraced the food yet.  We keep trying restaurants, but keep leaving slightly disappointed.  The Japanese use all parts of the chicken and pig in their cooking, and that goes against my normal, boneless, skinless chicken breast eating.  This particular chicken was deep fried, which usually means yummy.  I couldn't even venture a guess at what part of the chicken it was.  It was super fatty and just not my kind of chicken.  No one ate it, including Brandon.  The rest consisted of miso soup, rice and edamame.  

Brandon had the pork cutlet, which is usually one of the better dishes we've discovered.  This one was just OK.    He also chose Black rice instead of white rice.  It didn't taste much different from the white rice though.  

We were all glad that we had our family mart appetizers before dinner.  PS- Family marts are everywhere here.  They are like the store part of gas stations, but without the gas part.  Plus, they usually have hot food offerings that are tasty. 

We'll keep trying new places to eat, have no fear.  We really want to like the food.  

Brock's 1st Birthday

Brock's birthday is 1 week after Reagan's, plus 8 years :).  Every quarter Brandon has to fly up to Mainland Japan to work at a smaller Marine clinic in Iwakuni since they don't have a Periodontist.  It happened to fall the week between their birthdays this quarter, so he ended up getting home on Friday evening.  We decided to celebrate Saturday too, so Brock scored.  

We tried to save each person's gifts and Facetime with each family so that they could see Brock open their presents.  Being half way around the world is a challenge sometimes, but it's also sort of amazing that we can share all these moments in real time with our families.

These are a few Brock shots in his birthday shirt from Grandma Gloria. 

Someday he'll hate me for this, but I'm singing "It's my party and I'll cry if I want to" in my head.

Nevermind, I'm over it.  

We got him a Herky the Hawk pillow pet, it was a huge hit.  

Trying out the new Bike from Grandma Donna.  


It's Cake time!

Who's ready for cake?   This guy!

Two hands are better than one!

Reagan wasn't feeling the best - can you tell?

Reagan's 9th birthday

On Feb. 1, Reagan turned 9.  This year her birthday fell on a Friday, so she opted to go eat Mexican and then have ice cream at Big Dip, this local place we haven't tried yet.   Reagan is my homebody, the minute she finds out we aren't leaving the house, she gets her pajamas on.  In this case, the pajamas are 3 years old and much too small, but they are favorites.  The sleeves started out long, I imagine they will be short sleeves before she lets me pass this set on.  

This is a Pokeball cake for all you non-Pokemon people.  Pokemon....agh!  What can I say about it, Reagan loves it, but we don't understand a thing about it.  

Trying out the new hat Grandma Donna got her.  Reagan refers to this has as her "Team Rockets" hat....I have no idea why.

On Saturday, we took 2 of her friends to a place called Round 1.  It is a 6 or 7 story building with different sports things on each floor.  It was pretty amazing, they had rollerskating, mini bike racing, soccer, basketball, tennis, golf, boxing, pinpong, archery, basically anything you can think of.  Here's Brandon trying to hit some tennis balls while the girls were skating.  

Reagan and her friend rollerskating.

Reagan and Brandon playing pingpong

They also had an arcade.  In this game the girls were angry brides and had to flip the table in front of them.  Reagan placed in the top 10.  Her table flip was so dramatic it even shook the pretend chandeliers.  Japanese games are funny.

Playing tennis

Nakijin Castle Ruins + Cherry Blossoms

A couple of weekends ago, I decided that we should go to a cherry blossom festival in northern Okinawa.  We have heard all these rave reviews (mostly from women) about how beautiful the blossoms are and that they are not to be missed while here.  We've heard from other people, mostly husbands of the ladies mentioned above that the traffic is a nightmare.   So, in typical Brandon fashion, he decides that if we are going to go, we should get up really early and get there before the crowds.   That turned out easier than normal, because the night before we went to see the Cherry Blossoms, Brandon and Reagan camped out in the backyard.  Neither of them slept well due to the concrete ground in our backyard.  Reagan wanted to put the tent inside the trampoline, and after sleeping in the yard, I think Brandon wished he would have gone with Reagan's suggestion.  So, we were up and out the door EARLY!

We chose to go to the Nakijin Castle ruins mostly because they were having a festival on this particular weekend.  Ironically, because of our early start, we were ready to leave as the festival was being set up :).  

Checking out some of the Castle area. 

This photo shows Brandon and his incredible sense of humor as he points out one of the few cherry blossoms that were actually blooming...

Reagan at the Castle entrance

The nice security guard offered to take our photo.

Reagan with a few blossoms.  

Even Brock looks like he was humoring me on this outing!

View from the top of the ruins.

Reagan and I with the East China Sea in the background.

I think they were both so excited because it was time to leave.  This trip morphed into a Castle ruins visit and less of a Cherry Blossom trip the longer we were here.  

You can't tell in the photo, but the lady ahead of Reagan was walking around on stiletto heels.   Not the easiest shoes for rocks.

On the way out, we passed a group of sightseers with a tour guide.  The majority of the group was old, really old.    I can't imagine using a cane and climbing all these steps, but it didn't bother them.

See, there were blossoms....you just have to look really close!