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.

Reagan's award ceremony

First quarter is over at school, and Reagan earned a spot on the All A honor roll.  Here we are at the school for the awards ceremony.   We are super proud of her and her hard work!  To celebrate, we went on the American village Ferris wheel ride, spent some time in the Japanese arcade and went out for ice cream.  

Neopark

Last weekend we drove up to the North part of the island to go to Neopark.  It was our first time there, and the reviews were mixed online.  Some people said it was awesome, others said never go there because the animals are treated poorly.  We decided to see for ourselves.

Once you enter, there are bags of food for sale, which we bought.  Here Reagan and Brock are checking out the birds.  It was really cool that they could come right up to you, but stepping in tons of bird poop, not so cool.  

Brock liked them, but didn't want them to get too close.  He also didn't like it when they quacked loudly.  


Reagan really liked feeding the birds, they would eat right out of her hand. 

They also had a walk through fish tank with some big fish.  

This is the closest I've ever gotten to a Turkey that wasn't on the table.  

Brock spent a good part of the day pushing the stroller. 

At the end of the park, we came upon this big panda ride.  We threw the kids on its back and dropped in our 200 yen.  Then, the thing took off!  Brandon and I expected it to rock back and forth in one spot, but that was not the case.  Reagan had to actually steer it and it went on and on.  Brandon kept trying to push the red button, thinking that would stop it, but it only put the panda in reverse.  

Notice our abandoned stroller in the background.  We left it behind to run and catch up with the panda.  

They also had a turtle pool.  

Brock is into truck, cars, trains, anything that moves.  So of course we had to ride the train.

While we had a good time, we probably will not go back.  There was a petting zoo, that we skipped, it looked sad.  They also had a pony that was available for rides, but he seemed worn down.  We enjoyed the birds at the beginning, but then the farther we went the sadder the place became.