{I am NAKED!}

Jaydon is like Adam and Eve when they first discovered their nakedness. This is a recent thing. It must just be a phase. There are occasionally times where Jaydon does not want to lay down for a nap or go to bed at night. And ocassionally there are times where he asked for nap or bed. On the days where he doesn't want to lay down he throws a huge screaming fit about it. He only does it when he is really tired. I can always see it coming.

During those times when he throws a screaming fit i have to undress him, put on his pull-up and his pajamas because he won't do it. And when i undress him he starts freaking out when i try taking his pants off. He squeezes his legs together really tight and won't let me take his pants off. Then he starts screaming that he doesn't want to be naked. I am laughing right now thinking about this. It's so funny to me. It's like one day he woke up and realized he was naked and didn't want to be naked. haha! Is it mean that i am laughing at him? It's not okay for him to act that way, but i laugh almost everytime he throws a screaming fit. I really shouldn't.
Then today i asked him to take off his pants and put a pull-up on because it was time for a nap. He starts crying dramatically telling me "But i wanted to watch a cartoon! It's all my fault!!" I have no clue why he says "its all my fault." I looked at him and i was like "What's all your fault?"  He says, "Because i want to watch a cartoon!."  As he is crying, spouting out random things he is saying about it being his fault, he takes off his underwear to put on a pull-up.  Then i hear him say "And i am naked AGAIN and its all my fault!" Then i hear him slam his bedroom door. Bahahaha! I'm sorry, you must think i am a terrible mother, but his drama is so hilarious to me. I go up there to tuck him in and he is totally calm and fine as if nothing just happened. That's the kind of drama i get from boys. They throw a fit, and then with a snap of the finger they are over it. Girls are very different. :) I have definitely learned to not take a lot of the stuff my boys do personally or seriously. :) It has helped make my life a bit easier by doing so.

{Thanksgiving}

Ever wonder what Thanksgiving is like in Japan? Pretty much the same. :)  Downside is that we don't get to watch the Macy's Day Parade and football games on our Thanksgiving day. Complete and total bummer. I'ts tradition. Only one more Thanksgiving here and then we will get our traditional American Thanksgiving complete with Macy's Parade and Football. :) Hopefully.

So, this Thanksgiving i made a turkey, a blackberry pie, an applie pie, potatoes , gravy and a green bean salad. I also made wassail, but that just stayed at our home for our enjoyment. :)  My turkey turned out amazing. I decided to brine it again this year. But this year i brined it the correct way. What i mean is that i followed the recipe exactly this time. Before i didn't.  So, he brined in this yummy smelling brine all night. Then i cooked in a bag, something i have never done before. It had sooooooo much taste, and i think cooking him in the bag made him tender and moist. It was a great turkey. The best ive had. YUM! This was my first time making gtavy with turkey drippings. Ive made gravy about 4 times before in my life...so its definitely not something that i am good at. BUT it turned out awesome. I NEVER have really liked gravy and i NEVER put it on my potatoes or turkey on Thanksgiving day. BUT i put it on yesterday, and i LOVED it. It was so tasty! :) If all gravy tasted that good then maybe i would use it more, but i must admit, i will never make gravy again until next thanksgiving. :) My blackberry pie turned out awesome and my apple pie not so great. It was really watery. I think i know what i did wrong, so i will try again next year. :) I didn't have to make EVERYTHING this year, which was so nice. I had enough to make to make it feel like Thanksgiving, but not so much that i felt tired by the end of it. It was great.

This Thanksgiving was spent with two other families we are pretty close with. We have lots of good friends here and i wish we all could have been together. It was TONS of fun and when we are with them i feel like we are with family.  One of the families has 5 kids, three of the kids being around the same age as each of my boys. And the other family has a boy Gavin's age, and the rest are older. ALL of the kids get along so so well. The kids kept themselves entertained the whole time. They just played and played. It was perfect. No fighting. Just play. The older kids, the 16 and 14 year old...they would hang out with us adults and it was a great fit. We did tons of chatting and played games. It was a lot of fun. I was sad when the day was over. By the time we left i realized we were all over there for 7 hours. That's a long time, but it didn't feel that long.

Before we left yesterday to go to their house for Thanksgiving, we decorated our house with our Christmas Decorations and our christmas tree. We listened to our christmas music and enjoyed the smells of the food. Perfect.

And today, the day after Thanksgiving, we have talked to our families, have been playing games together, finishing off our leftovers, and listening to Christmas music again, and watching football, and finished our new movie Brave. I love the Holiday Season. :)

I am so grateful for good friends. We have so many wonderful friends here and i am so grateful for each of them. We are so excited because Shane and I are going with 4 other couples on a trip to Thailand in February. We have never gone on a trip with a group of friends, minus the kids. We are so excited to do this with our friends and know its going to be so much fun! So, on Thanksgiving day i was pondering how grateful i am for all our friends in Okinawa. Not only that , but our friends in the states as well. And how each one has made a difference in our lives. I also thought of our families, whom i am always so grateful for, especially around the Holidays. The Holidays make me miss them more than usual. I wish i could just have every family member and every friend be with us during the Holidays. That would be a perfect Holiday...having the ones we love and care for by our side. That would be Heaven. :)

I also realize i need to get better again at taking pictures. I just need to do it. I often wish i had pictures to post along with these posts that have no pictures. haha! :)

{Hawaii and Guam Family Vacation}

Sooooo, we decided kind of last minute that we wanted to fly to Hawaii to see Mandi and Luke and their kids! They were going to be there for 10 days on vacation and getting there on Space-A is FREE for us...why not go? It's a great way to see family. I just wish they all lived in Hawaii. We could HOP there often. :)

 

On the flight there we flew on a C-17. They say its the cadillac of military planes. It was very large. We sat in seats up against the walls on the side of the planes. And in the middle they had patients set up who they were taking to Hawaii to get medical care. It was nice because watching them do their thing the whole flight there kept me busy and made time go by fast. Before we took off they asked Gavin and Tanner if they wanted to go sit in the cock pit with the pilots during take-off. They came back with big smiles on their faces and said it was really cool sitting up there during take-off. I wish i could have done that! The flight certainly started off right. I was so excited for them to have the chance to do that. The downside is that the plane is extremely loud. You can't really hear anyone talking unless they talk in your ear. I guess that's nice when the boys decided to whine or when Jaydon started crying. I didn't hear it. :) It was a 9 hour flight to get there.  We left Okinawa around 1 p.m. on a saturday and we arrived in Hawaii around 3-4 a.m. on Saturday morning. We were stuck at the terminal until about 7 a.m.  We went through some difficult strtuggles for the next few hours trying to rent a car. Everything was sold out, but we finally got lucky after a few hours and found a minivan.  We went to check into a hotel, but we tried checking in at 10 a.m., and they said it wouldn't be ready til 1 p.m.  We were so tired so we all slept in a running van for two hours on the side of the road until we could check in at 12:30. We didn't have a phone that would work in Hawaii, so we went through a small ordeal to get a phone as well. :)  After we got through that first half of the day we were in heaven. I was LOVING being in America, in Hawaii, feeling like i was home. Paradise home. It was so nice to be off our small okinawa island, just to be on another island. haha!

 

Mandi and Luke stayed in Kailua, a not so touristy spot of Oahu. This picture below is of our drive going there.

 Here we are at the house they were renting. It was soooooo fun seeing the kids and our kids LOVED playing with their cousins. It was awesome. Truly. And this house had a fenced in yard, so everytime we went over there they would all just play and play together and we didn't have to worry because it was fenced in. We did lots of chatting and catching up.

 This is a beach in Kailua. It was a lot less congested than Waikiki. And there was lots of kite surfing going on. It was fun watching.
The water in Okinawa is just as pretty, if not prettier, than Hawaii's water. Our water in Okinawa is a lot more crystal clear. Part of that is due to the fact that we have lots of coral reefs surrounding our Island in Okinawa. The water in Hawaii was a lot more mucky because its all sand getting stirred up and around.

 Another difference between Hawaii and Okinawa is the sand and palm trees. The sand here in Hawaii is beautiful. It's so smooth and perfect. Okinawas sand is rough on the feet, and again, its because we are surrounded by coral reefs. We have tons of shells and coral on our beaches.  The palm trees in Hawaii are taller than the one's here in Okinawa. In Okinawa we have the cute regular sized palm trees. Hawaii has the really tall palm trees.  ALSO, all the mountains of Hawaii look like our northern part of Okinawa. North Okinawa has lots of mountains, just like Hawaii. It's beautiful.

 Hawaii felt more relaxed and more Hawaiian than Okinawa. I really liked the feel there. Oh i miss America. :)
Here's my sweet niece , Karsyn. I had to capture some pics of her.

 We have been doing great eating our plant based foods. We strayed a little bit while in Hawaii. We went to a burger joint. YUM! I will admit it, i still got a veggie burger. I liked it though. I didn't need a real one. I did a quick fun walk through at Macy's. Didn't buy anything. WHY?! I don't know why. sheesh. Probably because i need more time than my boys can handle. :) We also ate some Hawaiian food...Poi, and the pork inside the banana leaves. Those two together were my favorite part of the traditional Hawaiian food. I really liked it.

 On the beach at night!

 Waikiki beach. This beach was crowded. We ARE NEVER crowded like this on our beaches in Okinawa.

 Tanner trying to body surf.

 Tough boy...

 I thought this was hilarious and luckily i caught the picture in time. They were digging away...

 Our first two nights we stayed in a Ramada, but our last night we stayed in a really nice military resort called the Hale Koa. I wish we could have enjoyed it for more than just one night. This was our view to the right.

 This was our view to the left....

 And our view from our room down below....

Overall, we only stayed three nights in Hawaii. Sadly. We had to make it back by Friday, and unfortunately we have to go when Space-A is available. We arrived Saturday morning and had to leave Tuesday morning.  We really had a blast , and are already planning our next trip for next october/november again.
We left Hawaii and flew to Guam. We stayed in Guam for 24 hours.  I wasn't impressed with Guam. Guam is an Asian tourist spot. It's american territory, but down on the tourist strip along the ocean it's about 98% Asian tourists. I didn't really know what to expect in Guam, but i guess i didn't expect that.  Guam really wasn't  impressive. The ocean looked like Okinawa, but the island wasn't near as nice as Hawaii or Okinawa. We didn't see much of the island at all, i guess. BUT what we did see....blah.  Let's just say i know what it looks like and i have no desire to go back. :)
We finally made it home Thursday later afternoon. Our flight to Guam took 8 hours and our flight from Guam to Okinawa took 4 hours. LOTS of flying. It really wasn't bad though. It wasn't bad at all. I could handle that by myself, which gives me hope that our Space-A flight to America in March will be not so bad. It will just be me and the boys.
Space-A is such a nice option for us.  It does require LOTS of patience..patience waiting to catch a hop and patience waiting on the plane  and waiting to get on the plane and to get off. It takes a lot more time than a regular commercial flight. BUT they do give you an option to buy a meal for the plane. It's not like a wimpy meal you would pay for or get on a plane. We pay $4.00 for a meal and we recieve a box with a sandwich, chips, some kind of granola bar, oreo cookies, a drink, and some kind of fruit, etc. They make sure they give you plenty. Its really nice.
It was a really fun vacation. We had lots of fun together.

{My heart is full}

I spoke  at Youth Conference on Saturday. I taught two 45 minute sessions. I spoke on goal setting. It was a difficult topic, but i made it. I also taught the lesson in Relief Society today on Making Time for the Book of Mormon. That was a lot of teaching in a weekend. I am truly glad its over, but so thankful for the opportunity. I learned a lot about myself, about my life, and about my Savior.

Some things have been on my mind often because of all the reading and studying i have been doing.

When we come unto Christ he shows us our weaknesses. When we use the atonement to make our weaknesses our strengths, he then shows us more in our lives that we can make better. It's a continual process of growing and progressing. That's what we should strive for...to become more like Him. And he shows us the way when we come unto Him.  That's what we are here for. Our purpose here is to grow and progress to become more like Him so that we can eventually return to Him and have Eternal life. That's something we are to work for and strive for everyday. He will show us our weaknesses so that we can grow. He pushes us to fulfill the measure of our creation.  It's hard working on those weaknesses sometimes. Its hard trying to make it a strength, but we build character, we become better, we become stronger, and it builds our testimonies when we go through those trials and experiences.

Every person wants to know WHY they are doing what they are doing. We all want to know WHY because when we know WHY it makes it so much easier to do it.  We all have a purpose here and we want to know our purpose. It's built in us to know our purpose.  We are each supposed to figure out our purpose here and fulfill it.  Our Heavenly Father has every confidence and trust in us that we will be able to discover our true potential. He knows we can become MORE than we ever imagined in our minds. He knows what we need to do, and he knows our purpose. He pushes us in our life to fulfill our purpose here. If we don't KNOW our purpose here on earth then that can create confusion. That confusion can create insecurity. That insecurity can create doubts and fears. Fear is limiting. It limits us from becoming who our Heavenly Father KNOWS we can become.  If there is one way Satan can keep us from becoming who the Lord knows we can be, it is through fear.  But when we know our purpose here on this earth, and when we know our individual purpose it pushes us to become more. ANd more . And more. And through that process we learn who we are, and what we want in this life. We can become who He knows we can become.

And the thing is...our life here is so short in comparison to eternity. Take for example this illustration.
---------- . ------------------------------------------------------------------------   The first line, before the period, is our life in the premortal existence. We lived there and prepared to come to this earth. We learned the plan. We probably set goals, and knew what we had to do on earth and what we needed to become and achieve. That dot, after the line, is our time here on earth. Soooo short and it doesn't seem like much time at all. That would probably be similiar to ONE year out of our 100 years of life on earth. Our purpose on this earth is to GROW and PROGRESS, and we do that through trials, experiences, and testing. It's almost like everything in our life tests us to see our commitment to it. Our purpose is to have eternal families so that we can return to our Heavenly Father and have Eternal life.  What we do in that tiny span of existence here on earth matters so much.  We have so much to learn, to do , to become.  Our purpose is eternal life...so we should be striving for that everyday. We should be working on that everyday, in some way or another.  Because what we do here and now matters so much in the life to come. And the wonderful thing is that when we strive for these things everyday with faith, it makes us happier. It makes us happier because our eyes become more open to our purpose in this life, and more open to what we need to do. Somehow we see things more clearly and things start making so much more sense. I don't quite know how to explain how that happens, but it does.  Somehow the closer we become to our Savior, the more he reveals to us. It is through faith that he will reveal things to us. He is testing and pushing us to discover that. And when we start to discover he reveals more...he is blessing us for our faithfulness, and showing us the way. He gently nudges us along and lets us choose for ourself.  As we come closer to him its easier to Keep an eternal perspective, and it is so important everyday to have that because it reminds us of what matters , what truly matters most. We will see the big picture....for example...when someone says something to you thats rude, you don't get offended and BARK back. You, instead, are able to see that it doesn't really matter in the whole eternal perspective of things. And you move on. And might actually feel bad for that person who attacked you, wondering what difficult things they must be going through to act that way. BUT sometimes it is hard not to bark back. :) haha! That's where our human nature comes in. We are all human and will ALWAYS make mistakes. It's not possible to become perfect.  OR when you get caught up in the things of the world momentarily, you are able to keep grounded with that eternal perspective because you know it doesn't really matter because you know your purpose here. And knowing that purpose helps you stay grounded and helps you to become more loving  and kind and selfless. And its easy to keep an eternal perspective through scripture reading, attending church, filling your life with the spirit through prayer, and keeping the commandments and doing what Our Heavenly Father has asked of us. Those things bring us closer to him and fill us with faith and help us to see with an eternal perspective.

Our Heavenly Father rewards us when we show faith in Him and When we act in obedience. He blesses us in so many ways.  I am so grateful for the scriptures.  We have a Heavenly Father who loves us so much to bring us so much Scripture in our day.  All the sacrifices that so many had to go through to bring about the Bible and the Book of Mormon is amazing. He gave it to us because he loves us, and wants us to know how to live and how to return to Him. He is showing us the way home EVERY single day, we just have to notice and be aware of how he is doing it.  That's a huge blessing in itself.  He doesn't leave us alone. He is always there waiting for us to come to Him and is just WAITING to pour his blessings out on us for a faithfulness in Him. He loves us more than we can comprehend. I know its nothing we have felt on this earth. He wants us to succeed. He wants us to become GREAT. And i am so grateful for that.