Chest Candy

Shortly after we arrived in Okinawa, Spencer started working toward receiving his Fleet Marine Force qualified officer pin. Although not required, achieving this award is looked upon highly because he's attached to a Marine unit. To earn his FMF pin, he had to attend classes to learn certain skills, do a six mile hike in full gear (about 40 lbs.), qualify at the pistol range, participate in a gas chamber training (which involved being exposed to mustard gas), do the Marine fitness test (slightly different than his usual Navy one), and pass an oral exam.

He came home from a stand down in early December and was excited to show me his new "chest candy," as he called it, that he was awarded during the meeting. 

Eye candy… oh yeah, and the big, shiny, gold pin looks nice too.

Congrats to Spencer!

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.