Halloween 2012 and this and that

This was our first Halloween in Okinawa, and it was a good one.  Brock enjoyed watching Reagan carve her pumpkin.  

 Reagan concentrating on the cat she was carving into her pumpkin.  

 We have a parrot and a dinosaur.  

Here are some other random photos that were on my cell phone.  This is from Gen, a local restaurant.  It's hard to tell, but we are sitting at a traditional Japanese table.  We had to take our shoes off on the floor behind Brandon, then climb up onto the platform.  Our feet are under the table, but we are sitting on the long wooden bench type thing.  Reagan thought it was so cool.  

 The negative about this kind of table for us was that Brock could stand on the seat we were sitting on.  Here he is standing up in the highchair.  

 We ordered way too much food.  Brandon had sushi, Reagan wanted Yakitori ( fried meat on a stick - she had chicken)  and Edamame, and I wanted to try the dumplings and Okinawan Soba.  I was going to order a smaller portion, but Brandon said he wanted to try it too, so we ordered the large....yikes, we didn't even make a dent in it.  It was interesting.  Noodles, pork, and broth, plus a few other things that I couldn't identify.  All in all, very good.  I LOVED the dumplings and Reagan's yakitori was also awesome.  I don't eat sushi, but Brandon gave it a thumbs up, so it's safe to say we'll be back to Gen.


Brock needed a haircut and I was nervous about taking him to the base barbers for fear that they would give him a "high and tight" buzz cut, so I took him to the salon :).  Here he is getting his first Big boy hair cut.  Other than the fact that his little head was on a swivel, it went well.  

This is the stylist...I'm thinking about making it a rule to do the peace sign in all our future pictures, what do you think?

Weekend fun plus a surprise for Reagan

This was a busy weekend for the Peterson's!  Friday night we decided to go to an event on Camp Foster called Fright Night.  We didn't really know what to expect, but thought we'd give it a try.  

We ended up bringing Reagan's friend Amelia which turned out to be a good move because the Fright Night events weren't that great.  We did a walk around and really didn't see much for the girls to do.  They didn't want to do the haunted house, which was the main draw, and they were debating about having their fortunes told, until they saw this...

  A giant inflatable hamster wheel on water - every kids dream :)

For Y500(about $6.00) the girls got to spend about 20 minutes inside rolling around and squealing.  They had an absolute blast! 

From time to time they would poke their heads out to get some "fresh air"  it must have been stuffy inside.  I kept worrying that they were going to end up in the water when they both were on the same side, but they stayed dry. 

Saturday - 
Reagan joined the Girls Scouts and the troops here do so many cool activities.  Saturday morning Reagan headed off at 8 am for Jayne Wayne day at Camp Kinser.  Brandon has a class he is taking every Saturday morning that started in Sept and goes through the end of the year, so I waited until he was finished and then we headed down to get Reagan.  I wish we could have seen more of the events, but Reagan said they got to shoot guns, beat up on marines with sticks and do a military obstacle course.  She had a blast, but we needed to leave early because we had a birthday party to attend.  

After the bowling birthday party, Reagan spend the night with her friend Elyssa and Brandon and I went to a command "Hail and Farewell" event.  It was more fun than I expected, but I forgot to take pictures....shame on me!

Sunday  - 

So we've been back and forth on the trampoline thing since we got here.  We had used the trampoline as a "moving incentive" for Reagan and we actually bought one when we knew we would have a nice backyard that could accommodate one.  The problem came during our housing inspection, when they told us we would need to fence our yard.  That seemed like more trouble that it was worth, so we explained it to Reagan and then took the trampoline back.  She was a good sport about it and wasn't too disappointed, but it still sucked for her.  

Fast forward to Saturday - Brandon and I had parents remorse about taking the trampoline back and decided to surprise Reagan with one after all.  We'll deal with the fencing issue if it ever comes up.  I should mention that almost all the trampolines in our neighborhood are NOT fenced in, so this has given us courage to buck the system :).

Here is Reagan after her first glimpse of the trampoline.  She came outside to see Brandon jumping on it.    I should have brought the camera out a minute earlier because you can see the humidity on the lens.

Reagan giving it a go.  We have since installed the safety nets. 

I'm not sure if she's curtsying here or what.  I should note that Brock also enjoys the trampoline.  He got quite the kick out of Reagan jumping and making him bounce.  We did have to make her stay on the far side because he got air a couple of times when she was too close.  

The action shot

Brock humoring me for a photo.  I don't think he's going to be quite the photo ham that Reagan is.

This week we are looking forward to Halloween - I'll post pictures of the kids.  They allow people with SOFA status (which is military and contractors and teachers) to sponsor Japanese people to come on and trick or treat.  The neighbors have told me that they buy 1000 pieces of candy and give each kid 1 piece.  Yikes, that's a lot of candy.  I'm excited to see what the Japanese kids dress up like since Halloween isn't a native holiday for them.  

Our house - the after pictures + another trip to the Aquarium

I've been slow at getting these pictures uploaded - here are a few "after" pictures of our house. 

 Dining room/office area

 Living room and front door

living room - behind me is the hallway to our bedrooms.

 Kitchen - Reagan was happy to see pumpkins at the Commissary - we weren't sure that we would be able to get them here.  

Normally I wouldn't allow my kids to stand on the counter, but he's so cute.  Come on, if he were standing on your counter, could you say no?

Last weekend we went back to the Aquarium to see some of the things we missed the first time around.

Brandon took this awesome picture of a puffer fish.  Reagan tried hard, but couldn't scare him into puffing up.

Even Brock likes the aquarium!

The Manatee tank could use some work, but it was neat seeing them so close.

Reagan, our budding photographer took this shot.  

Senior picture pose?

This past weekend we took it easy and just hung around the house for the most part.  We have a busy couple of weeks coming up with school activities and girl scout events.