Trimming the Tree

The day after Thanksgiving, we broke out the Christmas stuff and started decorating for the holidays. Sydney and Shawn were so excited to help put the ornaments on the tree.

My little reindeer helper liked the "ball" ornaments best.

Admiring his work.

Sydney was very serious about where she put all the ornaments.

The finished product.

As expected, it was a little bottom heavy, so I may or may not have done a little rearranging after they went to bed that night :)

Thanksgiving

This year we volunteered to host Thanksgiving at our place. The Perrins', Heaton's, Hurst's, and Marine friend Eamon all came over to celebrate with us, and we had quite the delicious spread of food!

Getting things ready.

I borrowed lots of cute decor from Stacey to decorate the adult table.

The crew.

For a while we weren't sure if the Heaton's were going to make it because Stacey's due date was super close to Thanksgiving day. Lucky for her (and us!), baby Taylor decided to come early so they were able to join us. After dinner we were all chatting, and I looked behind me to see this cute sight:

Shawn holding baby Taylor.

We've had so much to be thankful for this year- fun travels, a healthy family, a baby on the way, a good job, and on and on it goes. I'm still amazed when we hang out with our friends that we are somehow lucky enough to be on this island together.

Happy Birthday Sydney!

Sydney asked for a Minnie Mouse party for her 5th birthday. Her actual birthday fell on a Monday, and her party was scheduled for the following Saturday, which meant we celebrated twice. I was so excited that she requested brownies with mint ice cream for the day-of celebration. Doesn't get any easier than that!

Such a goofball :)

Not yet Shawn!

She was so excited to be a big 5 year old!

For presents, she got a new two-wheeler bike and lots of washi tape. Her love of tape started this summer when one of our new neighbors showed her her collection of duct tape and all the stuff she made with it. Now Sydney is constantly asking to buy tape.

Syd with her lifetime supply of decorative tape.

I wasn't very good about taking pictures at her party, but she requested carrot cake Minnie Mouse cupcakes (a Pinterest find- Minnie was made with Oreos). We also had pizza, fruit, and veggies. We rented a bounce house, which almost took up our entire backyard! Everything went great, and the kiddos seemed to have a good time.

Jack, Colton, and airborne Sydney having a blast in the bounce house.

Hailey, Sydney, and Anderson

We love our sweet 5 year old Sydney!

Halloween 2013

We had a great Halloween this year. The whole pumpkin buying thing almost didn't happen, as our commissary seemed to run out of them really quickly. Then they got another shipment just a few days before Halloween (phew!), so I was able to pick up a few for the kids to carve.

Sydney cleaned out her whole pumpkin by herself!

Shawn got about 5 seeds out of his, then I did the rest. He did, however, enjoy eating the seeds that Daddy cooked.

Our pumpkins were cleaned and carved 4 days before Halloween, and I left them inside on our washer to keep them from getting moldy outside. FAIL!! They were totally moldy inside and had spots of rot on them before they even made it out to the porch. Sick! That being said, I stuck candles in them and lit them anyway.

Getting ready to trick-or-treat!

Shawn was Jake from Jake and the Neverland Pirates, and Sydney chose to be Belle for the 2nd year in a row.

Sydney made sure to throw out an, "I sure love Starbursts," every time she saw them offered in someone's candy bowl. She ended up with about a million. Shortly into our trick-or-treating, Shawn got a big sucker in his bag. After that he could have cared less about knocking on more doors, he just kept asking if he could eat it. About 45 minutes later, it started pouring outside. While some of the adults in our group of neighbors were wearing rain gear, none of the kids were. We all got soaked making our way back up the hill! We enjoyed sneaking all of the good candy out of their treat buckets after they went to bed :)

Pretty Sunsets & Cute Kids

As I've said before, Spencer can't resist capturing photos of a beautiful sunset. On some evenings we don't notice the awesome colors in the sky until we've already sat down for dinner. Then the photo is a more impromptu shot from our front porch, like this one:

On one evening when the sky looked prepped for a pretty sunset, Spencer set up the tripod in the grass at the top of our hill:

Once the sun is low on the horizon, it seems to disappear so quickly!

 Cuties Sydney and Shawn were outside with Spencer when he was taking pictures, so he got some cute shots of them too:

Not sure what's going on with Syd's outfit, but that outfit combo isn't something I'd usually let her wear out in public!

Botanical Gardens

Feeling like we needed to explore something new, we went to the newly re-opened Botanical Gardens. It was a fun little morning adventure, but I don't know if it was worth the pretty penny it cost to get in!

This banana spider was huge! It looks small, but it was really probably the size of Spencer's hand.

There was a random grouping of decorative white cows, and our kids wanted to climb all over them. Spencer took that as an opportunity to take lots of pictures of their cuteness.

Mom & Dallin's Visit

My Mom and nephew Dallin came to visit us for the first few weeks of October. It was my Mom's first trip to Okinawa, so it was fun for me to see her finally meet two-year-old Shawn in person! The downside of their stay was that we had the ONLY two typhoons of the season while they were here, and they were lame storms to boot. That meant lots of time stuck indoors, which was pretty much torture for Dallin. But we were still able to squeeze in lots of sightseeing and just enjoy being together.

One of our first destinations was Nakagusuku Castle ruins. The first typhoon was making it's way to Okinawa, so it was pretty cloudy and very windy.

Mom with the East China Sea (and photo bomber Sydney) behind her.

The gang on the wall overlooking the Pacific Ocean.

This pathway was a major wind tunnel, which took Shawn as it's victim. Seconds after taking this picture, I ran after him as he pretty much went flying to the other end of it. Thankfully there weren't a bunch of stairs on the other side! 

Buddhist temple in the background on the left.

Freaky abandoned hotel in the background on the right.

Acting scared!

Looking lovely with hibiscus flowers behind their ears.

On days we were stuck indoors, we did our best to stay entertained.

My kids loved Dallin!

Shawn and Sydney dressed up like Jake and Izzy from Jake and the Neverland Pirates, and Grandma H. set up clues for a treasure hunt. The were so excited to find the treasure- popcorn!

Starting a 1,000 piece puzzle during typhoon #1.

The finished product a few days later.

We had to take Grandma H. and Dallin to get fried rice at our favorite restaurant, Arashi's. They did pretty good with their chopsticks :)

After the storms, we went for a walk on the seawall to catch the sunset and check out the waves. I didn't capture pictures of any, but there were some pretty sweet waves crashing up onto the seawall!

Getting blown away!

We went to the northern part of the island, stopping at the aquarium for a few hours before driving the rest of the way up to Okuma.

Dallin & Shawn

I love this picture :)

I was so impressed with Dallin's knowledge of the animals. He seemed to know what everything was… I hadn't even heard of some of the sea life here until we moved here. Shawn was especially enamored with the dolphin show and divers in the tanks and talked about them for weeks afterward.

We got to BBQ and do s'mores for dinner the night we arrived. The following morning was cloudy, but still nice enough to enjoy a day on the beach! We had the whole beach to ourselves for most of the time we were out there.

Burying Dallin.

Breaking free!

Just a little bit sandy :)

Another must-do on our list was the former Japanese Naval Headquarters. I knew my Mom would want to see it, and my WWII history buff Dad would appreciate her first hand account of it.

We stopped to play at a nearby roller slide park for a little while. Dallin went down the slides about a million times while Syd and Shawn hung out on the basket swings. Despite being October, it still felt like it was about a million degrees outside.

While we were down south, we stopped at Shuri Castle for a quick tour and some pictures.

I couldn't let my Mom leave without a pedicure with some awesome Japanese nail art. Sydney was excited to be part of our "girl's night." 

Clockwise from left to right: Me, Syd, Mom

And just for a little extra fun, we all went bowling on Kadena before Spencer and Dallin went to the broadcast of the Priesthood Session of General Conference.

It was so fun to have visitors! I love that my Mom can now actually picture things that I talk about in our weekly calls. A few days after they left, Shawn was playing with our cash register toy. He was pretending the intercom was a phone and kept saying, "Hi Grandma. I miss you!" and "Hi Dallin. I miss you!" We're so glad they could come and can't wait to see them more when we move back to the states!