{Funny stuff}

I have to post two(now four) things before i FORGET.

1. JAYDON went poo poo on the toilet last night. He told me he was poopy, which means he has to go. I said "Do you need to go poo poo?" He said, "yes". I took him in, put him on the toilet. Nothing happened for a few minutes. I thought it was a false alarm, or even started to wonder if he was going to be one of those children that is scared to go poop on the toilet. He has already told me another time that he had to go poo and he never went on the toilet. So, after waiting about five minutes i said "Jaydon go poop". He pushed a little and WENT! haha! It's like he was just waiting for me to say that or something. I love it. He is so ready and is teaching himself!! This kid amazes me in so many different ways all the time. NEXT week when i am not so darn busy i will devote my days to getting it DOWN for good. :) I can't wait. I am going to have a diaper free house in about one week. (crossing fingers)

2. Jaydon, Tanner and Shane and I were walking into the BX today to get some subway for lunch. On our way in the air STUNK soooooooo bad, like raw sewage. It just suddenly came and i got a big whiff of it and said "oh sick, what is that smell?!" Right as Shane is being saluted by someone Tanner says really loudly "I don't know, Maybe daddy farted or something!" It was hilarious. Really you had to be there.

3. I guess this one doesn't have to do with stinky smells, and in fact i almost forgot about this one. I was putting Jaydon's shoes on his feet today before running out the door. As i was putting them on him he said to me with a big smile "[I]feel the spirit again"....I thought i heard him wrong and said "WHat?" He said "[I] feel the spirit again." I said "you feel the spirit?" He said "yeah". SERIOUSLY? This kid is a smarty pants in every way. He is teaching himself to go on the toilet....he is remembering us talking about feeling the spirit and feeling it, and maybe even recognizing it??....He is always watching out for his brothers. He tries to keep the peace between tanner and gavin. He tries to fix any problems. If his brothers get hurt in any way he is RIGHT THERE saying "are you okay, nanner?" OR "are you okay gamin?" And he will pet their heads at the same time. He will come sit on my lap, look me in the eyes, smile and carress my face...and he does it in a way like he is trying to take care of me. If i lay on the ground he brings me his blanky and forms it into a pillow for me. He is always aware of his surroundings and always trying to help. It is the sweetest thing on planet earth!! If we all start wrestling around, he doesn't like when anybody wrestles around with mommy. He is there always trying to protect me. When my friend Amy watched my kids for a few days, she said jaydon is a smart boy. When they got in the car to go get her kids from preschool she told jaydon "Don't fall asleep jaydon." She said that so that she could lay him down for a nap when they got home. she said about half way through the drive she turned around to look at him to make sure he wasn't asleep. She didn't say anything when she looked at him, she just looked at him and then he smiled and said "I'm not falling asleep." I remember telling the boys to help Amy out while they stay at her house. That if they notice anything that she needs they need to help her because she has a lot of work to do with 6 kids. Amy said Jaydon was always by her side trying to help her out in any way he could. He is still SUCH boy , aside from these totally sweet things. He gets into everything he shouldn't. He is rough and tough and can keep up with the boys when wrestling around. He can run just about as fast as tanner now. He is a brute. AND knows what to do to get what he wants. He will totally try to melt your heart.

4.There is a pretty little girl in tanner's preschool and at church. Her name is Quincy. She fancies Tanner. :) haha. She and Tanner always wrestle around with each other. AND lately she keeps trying to kiss him. I had to let her mom know bc its happening often, but it's so cute. She asks tanner "can i kiss you?" haha! Tanner just tells me "Mom Quincy kissed me AGAAAIN!"

{yes!}

So, for the past week i have been noticing Jaydon doing the potty dance every once in awhile. One day in the kitchen i noticed him hopping around just like he had to pee. I found it kind of weird. I said "jaydon do you have to go potty?" He said no. At church yesterday he started hopping around and i told shane how i had been noticing him doing that the past week. I said to shane "doesn't it look like he has to pee?" He said yes. So, then last night shane noticed Jaydon hopping around again like he had to pee. Shane said "Jaydon, do you have to go pee?" Jaydon said "YES!" I brought him in the bathroom and put him on the toilet and he went pee!!! hahahaha! Who knew?!!! Hopefully that means this potty training process will be easy. I don't feel ready to start the potty training, BUT i think that was a big sign that he is READY. Not only that , but he has often told me "I am poopy mommy." I would smell him and he wasn't poopy. And shortly after that, within 10 minutes, he would go poop in his diaper. So, its like he was telling me he has to poop. I should start the training process shouldn't I?

{Oura Wan}

Let me first start by telling you a little bit about the Japanese(Okinawans). Here in Okinawa they have Lover's Hotels. BUT they are only available for up to TWO hours. Often times the parents of a household can only find the privacy to make love by getting OUT of the house. They are very private about this kind of thing. :) So, they created lover's hotels. This is how it works. The couple decides they want to make love, but know they can't do it in their home, so they steal away for a couple hours to the lover's hotel. You pull up to this covered BOOTH. They have many many selections of different kinds of rooms to choose from. You push the button for the room you want. It shows you what level to drive up to. Yes, there are levels 100-400. We drove to level 300. When we got to our level there was an arrow flashing to show us which garage to pull into. You pull into your covered garage. There isn't a garage door, but instead large plastic curtains. We closed those behind us and they had HEARTS all over the curtains. haha! Then you get out and you open your door to your room. We opened our door to find ourselves standing in a hallway, but on the otherside of the hallway was another door we opened, which then had steep stairs for us to climb to our room. There were slippers at the bottom of the stairs for us to use. Then our door suddenly LOCKED behind us. We are now locked in until we pay. You have to pay to leave otherwise you can't leave. We climbed to our room to find a TWO story bedroom. The first floor had a tv, a slot machine, karoake and a big couch. Then we climbed the spiral stairs up to the second floor. The second floor had a bed, another tv, xbox, karoake(the japanese love karoake), high tech shower and a high tech toilet. haha...you can imagine. Oh, i forgot...you then climb a few more stairs and open a door to your very own pool. Yeah. It was crazy. It's the coolest , yet WEIRDEST thing i have experienced. They are VERY private about it and want to make sure you have extreme privacy. As soon as we entered the room the phone rang. And this lady in a secretive, serious, whispering voice asks me "do you have a coupon?" I said , no. She said "ok. bye." it was hilarious. Then when you check out, you check out in a little spot right outside your door. It tells you how much you owe and you send your money through a tube, just like at a BANK. You never see the people at the front desk. You never see anyone. It was so funny.

After that we headed to Oura Wan. It's located on Camp Schwab on the East side of the island. We heard they had nice cottages right on the beach so i decided to make it happen. I left our friends in charge of our kids for three days and we were off. One of the first things we did was go to a place called "Pizza IN THE Sky". It's a yummy pizza restaurant. It's high on top of a mountain with an awesome view looking out to the ocean. We ate outside. They had christmas music playing. But not the traditional singing music. Do you remember those old , almost kid-like pianos...that sound like children pianos when you play them? I don't know how to better describe it. Well, it was a little piano that played one key at a time all on its own. It was so cute. Here is the salad we ordered. Doesn't it look good? Well, it was good.

Then we got our pizza....they put corn on their pizza, but it was good. :)

This cute little drink was tasty, but was expensive. It cost us $6.00. Water cups here in Japan are tiny at any restaurant you eat at. As you can see from the blue cup. :)

A picture of us standing outside the entrance of Pizza in the Sky.

When you leave the restaurant here is the view you have on the other side. It's so pretty.

Then we went to a place called Pineapple Park. It's everything PINEAPPLE. You take a little tour on these cute little pineapple cars. Can you see the back end of the car in this picture? It takes you through and shows you all the different ways pineapple plants can look and how they are grown. Shane and I both thought pineapple were grown in trees. Nope. They are grown in the ground.

Baby pineapple...One of the days we headed to Kourijima Island. I have heard good things about this island and have been wanting to go for awhile. You have to ride on about a 1 mile or more bridge to get to the island.

There was lots of farmland and there are lots of random roads that go down into these farmlands. You just have to pick one and hope it leads to the beach. We picked one road that led to the perfect spot. There was one other couple there. It was a quiet beach that looked like it hadn't been walked on very often.

We walked down until we reached a spot where we thought we couldn't walk anymore. We climbed a few rocks and looked on the other side and there was another LONG beautiful empty beach. So, we headed over there. I found tons of seaglass...

Here is shane walking ahead looking for some cool shells.... In this picture you can see where it looks like it ends once you reach that rocky fixture...but in fact, we could walk around that part b/c the water was shallow enough and then that led us to ANOTHER empty beach. It was sooooo beautiful and so awesome experiencing that island. Here in Okinawa, it's not really a good place to do surf boarding. There are many reefs that break the waves before they can come in to shore. That's the great thing about this place too...the reefs. So much beauty under the water to see.

This picture is a view while driving across the bridge to get off of Kouri island. The water is that blue and that beautiful. I am amazed constantly by how blue the water is...

We also went back to Churaumi Aquarium. We wanted to see the dolphin show. And it was so fun. The dolphins did things i haven't seen at Sea World. They made all five dolphins make their squealing sounds at the same time. It was LOUD and so cool. And you can see how awesome the view is. The ocean is right behind the show and it was just so cool. The dolphins did all kinds of jumping tricks...more than i have seen at a show. They would jump out of the water , flip, and kick the ball in the air with their fin. It was so neat.

Here we are , early morning, taking a picture right outside our cottage....

We decided to drive all the way to the Northern tip of the island...Cape Hedo. We drove on the EAST side. There are so many cool and beautiful sites along the way. There are some fun things to do along the way that we didn't do. The drive is beautiful. There isn't anything during that whole drive. It was about a two hour drive i think. It was just dense forest. LOTS of mountains and trees everywhere! We stopped to look at a few dams. That was cool. Here in this picture we decided to go to a Cape...i don't remember the name of it. It was pretty.

Here is Cape Hedo. We were so glad when we finally arrived. I was REALLY glad b/c the twists and turns we endured on the roads during that drive made me SICK. I have never experienced twisty turny roads like that in my life. I thought Colorado and Utah roads were twisty and turny when going through the mountains...nope. This was crazy and i never get sick if i am sitting in the front seat, but i did.

Do you see that beautiful blue?! We both thought it looked like DYE in the water. It was gorgeous.

I took a picture of a wave crashing up on the rocks....

Another picture at Cape Hedo...

One of our last adventures was our hike at Hiji Falls. Here is the sign they put up for Americans. Can you go through and find all the mispelled words? It's so funny!

After about a 25 minute hike through dense woods we reached the Falls. The hike was GORGEOUS. Really. You walked along side the stream the whole time. The water is amazingly clear and beautiful. It was just gorgeous. There are lots of signs to watch out for snakes...particularly the HABU. :) BUT we ran into MORE spiders than ANYTHING. Banana spiders are EVERYWHERE and they are HUGE. One time shane ran into a web...no spider...and he PANICKED! Not kidding. I was walking in front of him and he yelled and RAN and totally pushed me into the wall of rocks and ran!!! hahahahahaha! I will never forget it. When i say shane is terrified of spiders, that is an UNDERSTATEMENT. :) He dreams about spiders attacking him all the time and always wakes me up b/c he freaks out in his sleep. hahahaha! We will never forget that moment. After that he was on the look out for spiders the whole time. We often times were walking right under a spider web with a huge spider on it.

We love these big plants! We want to frame one in our house.

This tree down here is one that take on the look just like a palm tree except the leaves are ferns instead of the actual palm tree leaves. AND it has this awesome pattern all on it's trunk. Isn't that neat?!

Oh, here is the largest banana spider we saw. I am not sure if you can really get a picture for how large he is...? The hike was an awesome one and we are glad we did it. It was so quiet and beautiful. It was an awesome workout too. It was tons of climbing . TONS. And they were pretty steep hills too.

We really enjoyed our anniversary getaway. It was short, but it was perfect for us. We were ready to see our boys again.

We were able to take our bikes up there and go for a ride. It was so nice to actually be able to ride together...that is until shane almost got hit by a car and i crashed into a ditch. That's another story. That was the only ride we went on while we were gone. :)

{Movies as a sleep aid AND a clogged bathtub}

TWO THINGS....

FIRST: How long does it take you to FINISH a movie...from START to FINISH? Well, that answer seems OBVIOUS. It depends on how long the movie is. Anywhere from 2-3 hours. That's what the average time is. I ask this because it takes my husband days to finish a movie from start to finish. THREE days to be exact...ALMOST four. He falls asleep during EVERY movie we watch at home. I don't remember the last time he stayed awake to watch an entire movie with me. The last movie was TRANSFORMERS. We bought it and were so excited to have it and watch it in BED. We bought ourselves a smaller flat screen for our room and just couldn't wait to watch it. WELL, it took almost FOUR nights to get through it. The third night when we turned it on from where it left off the night before we had about 30 minutes left in the movie. 30-45 minutes. Towards the last 15 minutes of it i lean over and he is CLOSING his eyes! I was like "oh no you are NOT going to make us watch this FOUR nights in a row!" So, i nudged him pretty hard "wake up!!!" I had to nudge him every 20 seconds for the rest of the movie. BUT we made it!

SECOND: Jaydon and Tanner took a shower by themselves. Usually all THREE boys get in together. I know, stupid on my part to leave just those two in there. BUT i put them in and they have been showering for awhile now on their own. We don't do baths anymore. But i let them shower in their shower while i HURRIED and took a shower in my shower. We are so close that i can hear everything. Still, stupid. Tanner comes in, but i can hear his shower is still running. I said "go get back in your shower. what are you doing?" He said "but mom jaydon pooped in the shower." I hurried and rinsed and got out. I went in AND this is what i found....

The bathtub suddenly looked like a LARGE toilet. A large toilet that looked CLOGGED. A large clogged toilet with brown poopy water with poop floating all over the place. Yeah. Tanner apparently flipped the button to stop the water from draining. So, it was filling up and was about 1/3 full of water. And his poop wasn't a piece of poop...it was chunks floating all over the place. All over. It was so sick. You can imagine. I had TONS of fun cleaning it up.

{Nikuman}

I was ready to get a steamer so i could make some japanese foods that i have been wanting to try. I finally went out and bought one. First on the list...Nikuman. These are steamed pork buns. There is a yummy pork filling in the middle that consists of onions, garlic, chili powder, ginger, soy sauce and sesame oil. The bread was a bit different to make. The consistency was different than what i am used to when i make bread or pizza dough. I didn't think my nikuman was going to work out. After i saw my pork buns rising in the steamer i was amazed! :) They turned out better than i expected! Shane and I first tried Nikuman at a Family Mart off-base and they have been on my mind ever since. I think they tasted very similar to what we tried off-base. I LOVE my steamer! Next on the list for my steamer is Gioza....along with some SOBA. yum yum. :)