EXCITED!!

Well I have a couple of friends who have been entering a photo contest every week and I've decided to join in the fun! So this week over at I ♥ Faces, the theme is EXCITED! I immediately thought of this picture that I took of Izaak a few weeks ago. He was watching his daddy play the Play Station and wanted to join in on the fun so bad! So daddy gave him his very own controller and he was so excited he couldn't contain himself!!

Labor Day Weekend

Well I know this is from 2 weekends ago, but I'm just getting around to posting about it. And I've been working for DAYS on this one post. I tried to upload a video from the beach and it just wouldn't work. John's stupid computer keeps erasing all the pics I've put up here. I'm really frustrated right about now! Haha! Anyway, we had a wonderful Labor Day weekend! It's always so much fun when John has a 96! (For those of you non-military, a 96 is a 4 day holiday). He got Sat, Sun, Mon and Tue off.

So on Friday night we went out to a great restaurant called Four Seasons.
It's Teppanyaki style and this one uses TONS of garlic! Mmmm.

Izaak looks like he has a noodle or something in his mouth.
I have no idea what that is! Haha. But he is
intently watching that cook.


On Saturday we went to Kadena Marina. It's pretty much just a beach. But it was very nice. John went "fishing" with some of our friends. By fishing I mean, they bought equipment so they could go catch their own fish, crabs, snails and coral for their salt water tanks. I'm pretty sure that's illegal but they say it isn't. Ah well. My friend M and I stayed under a pavilion so our little boys wouldn't get too much sun. It was hot! You know what's amazing...it is now SEPTEMBER, I live on a TROPICAL ISLAND and do I have a tan?? NO!! This is the first summer probably ever in my life that I haven't gotten a tan. You know what that makes me? A mom to a little one! :) And of course I wouldn't change it. But I do miss my glowing summer skin.





Sunday of course was church, commissary, and relax day.

Monday we finally made it to Okinawa World! I've been wanting to go there forever. It was ok. We had to rush through part of it because we had to get back home at a certain time. It had some of the Okinawan culture like the glass blowing, sake brewing, tropical fruit tasting type stuff. There was a also a neat cave we got to walk through. I think we were kinda exhausted because we got lost and it took us almost 3 HOURS to find the place! Then it only took an hour to get home once we knew where we were going. Hehe. Here are some pics from that day.

They had a Habu Snake show
(Habu's are prevalent in Okinawa)


Here are John and Izaak in the cave




Izaak loved sharing daddy's mango ice cream!


Mrs. and Mr. Shisa :)


Blown glass store


Making Habu Sake


On Tuesday evening we went to American village with the S family (the same friends we went to Okinawa World with) for some delicious Thai food! This was mine and John's first experience with Thai food and it was a good one!!

Pretty wall mural

Overlooking American Village

A lot of the menus here have pictures showing you each dish.
It's kinda neat but not always appetizing.
I have no idea how to pronounce the name of this dish
but it was something with pork and it was DELISH!

This is Thai milk tea. With enough sugar syrup it was
pretty good!


What a GREAT weekend we had and now I can't wait for
the next 96!!

More Z Bug Videos

Most of these will probably be pretty boring to everyone except the Grandparents! They love Izaak in every way, shape and form they can get him!

Daddy sat Izaak up on his changing table with all his friends including the singing puppy that MeMe brought to him from the states right before he was born!




Here he is sitting up playing with some toys. He is doing even better at sitting up now since this video!





This is my SO smart boy! He knows what it means when we say, "Izaak do you want a bottle?"





And this one is hysterical of him! It's annoying of me cause I'm really loud in the mic of the iPhone. He LOVES having his boogies sucked out!

Saturday

So ever since Izaak and I got home from the states, I've been wanting to get out and DO something as a family on the weekends. But something has come up every weekend to where we haven't been able to. This weekend was free but my poor baby has a bad case of thrush in his mouth that we can't get rid of. The nurse practitioner told me it is due to the climate we live in. So I figured I probably shouldn't have him outside very much. But we decided to head down to Naha to go to a few places indoors.






Our first stop was PetBox; John's favorite place to go! Izaak has fun there too looking at all the fishies!




Then we went to the bunny store, but sorry guys, didn't get any pics there. We did get Izaak 2 cute little Japanese baby outfits. Oh the "bunny" store by the way is a baby/kids/maternity store. It's always fun to look around in there.

Next stop was Arin Krin, better known here as, "The Garlic Restaurant". Or you can just call it Aaron and Kens as my husband does. What a goof. Anyway...we met our friends The S family and the M family for some yummy dinner! I had been wanting to go here for a long time and finally made it!






There are LOTS of menu choices at very reasonable prices. John says the portions are small and that's why it's cheaper but they were plenty big for me!



We got some kind of spicy potatoes as an appetizer/side dish. They were pretty good.



I got Garlic Pasta for my entree



And John got Garlic Pizza for his entree (well one of his entrees'. I didn't get a pic of the garlic fish he got after he finished the pizza). The pizza was my fave of the night and I'm going to try to re-create it at home this week! We'll see how it turns out.



And here is Nathan and Izaak. We had to take pics of them dressed in the same exact outfit which was NOT planned. They were so cute though!



So we had a wonderful Saturday and I'm looking forward to planning next weekend! There's so much to do in Okinawa and I don't want to miss out on any of it! Oh by the way, I forgot to take my new Nikon with me that day so all these pics were taken on my iPhone. Not bad quality for a phone but I'll have to remember to bring the other one for the next weekend photo shoot!

Video Catch Up!

So these are mostly for the grandparents who are dying from a lack of Z Bug videos!

Here is the little man in bed acting silly with daddy and mommy


This one is a little boring but still thought the G-Parents would want to see it. I was trying to catch Izaak spitting his food out. He gave us a real hard time for a few days when it came to eating his baby food. He only wanted a bottle. We finally figured out it's because he was trying to cut a tooth. He's doing a good job of eating now in his new high chair.




Last week our little Z Bug finally figured out he could roll over!




Eating his Mum Mum crackers

O Ye of Little Faith

This is not a typical post for me, but something I feel like I should share for whoever out there might be reading. I was going through my book shelf yesterday and pulled out the "My Utmost for His Highest" Journal. I flipped to August 12th (yesterday in Japan), and this is what I read.

"When we are in fear we can do nothing less than pray to God, but our Lord has a right to expect that those who name His Name should have an understanding confidence in Him. God expects His children to be so confident in Him that in any crisis they are the reliable ones. Our trust is in God up to a certain point, then we go back to the elementary panic prayers of those who do not know God. We get to our wits' end, showing that we have not the slightest confidence in Him and His government of the world; He seems to be asleep, and we see nothing but breakers ahead.
"O Ye of little faith!" What a pang must have shot through the disciples - "Missed it again!" And what a pang will go through us when we suddenly realize that we might have produced downright joy in the heart of Jesus by remaining absolutely confident in Him, no matter what was ahead.
There are stages in life when there is no storm, no crisis, when we do our human best; it is when a crisis arises that we instantly reveal upon whom we rely. If we have been learning to worship God and to trust Him, the crisis will reveal that we will go to the breaking point and not break in our confidence in Him."

By the way, that was based around the passage in Matthew 8. I just thought it was a really good lesson for me. I guess I never really thought about "producing downright joy in the heart of Jesus" when I remain confident in him. I often wonder how God feels when it's been several days or weeks since I've really come to him to just worship him, talk to him and be in his presence...but out of fear or anxiety over something, beg and plead with him to "Just get me through this". Why is it that we tend to turn to him when the going gets tough but not in our every day lives where he's blessed us with all the wonderful? I try to put myself in his position and well...God has a lot more grace and forgiveness than I ever would. I would have given up on me a LONG time ago! Well anyway... just thought it was a great lesson for me and I hope it can bless you in some way too.

Mmmmm Pickles!

Izaak tried his first pickle at Jason's Deli while we were visiting mom and dad in Dallas. I guess it was all those pickles I ate when I was pregnant with him cause he seemed to like it!