Our Weekend in Paradise

I swear I'm on a vacation everyday. It's really going to be a wake up call when I get back to the States and the daily question isn't, "What beach/pool/Japanesy place should we go to today?" We had another 96-er (Rob gets two days off for every holiday so that means he had a 4 day weekend). After Rob's morning bike ride, we went to Comprehensive Water Park on Saturday. Expecting it to be super crowded we were pleasantly surprised to see very few people there. Four hours later we left and went out to dinner at Macaroni Grill (I'm not sure how I talked Rob into that one).

In other news, Kate looks like a vampire lately. See for yourself:

Sunday we had a great church service. Since it was the 4th of July we kept the kids up late to watch the fireworks only to mix up the starting time and we arrived as people were leaving. Bummer! Not to worry....about once a week during the summer we can see the Japanese fireworks going off on the beach from our backyard.

Monday we explored Yara Castle Ruins in the scorching Okinawa heat. We had never heard of this place before, but it was surprisingly close to Kadena. It had a lazy river running through it and lots of creepy, crawly things to discover. Ben, our budding scientist, was in heaven. I liked the silence and spending time with just the family. There is always "noise" around our house....traffic or Japanese loudspeakers or ambulances or kids. I can't wait until we live in a house where I can walk outside and hear nothing but nature.

We went out to dinner for some yummy Indian food under the ferris wheel (Alababa's) with our awesome friends the Blairs. They leave next week and this just plain stinks. Every family in our original Okinawa family (except one) has now left the island. The nice thing is that we make new friends, but it sure is hard to say goodbye to the old ones.


Tuesday we went to the secret secluded beach that the Neals introduced us to about a year ago. Once again they invited us along. It's a nice beach with no other people on it. You actually have to go to a neighboring island, through the country, park next to a farmer's field and then walk a short distance through a woods to get to it. After all our friends left, we had the beach completely to ourselves. Just as I was introducing the kids to the pleasure of skinny dipping, a farmer walked onto the beach and we didn't get to really do it. However, here's a cute shot of the only one in our family that can get away with skinny dipping anytime she wants.




On the way back home, Rob remembered a cool spot that he discovered on a bike ride with his buddies. There was a neat torii gate and some long steps up to a shrine thingy. Who knows what it really was, but it was cool.




We hope you all had a lovely 4th of July weekend!