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!

Home Again Home Again Jiggity Jig

Ok first of all, about my title up there, I don't know if anyone else ever says that but my parents always said it when I was a little girl. Haha. Anyways...I'M HOME!! Thank you to everyone who prayed for us! We had a wonderful trip. I was full of anxiety when we left Dallas. It messed with my tummy a little bit on the first flight, but then I was ok after a few hours. It was sad leaving my parents but I was so overwhelmed with fear that I didn't think about the sadness quite as much. Or maybe I was just trying so hard not to. It makes it so much worse having Izaak and watching my parents have to say goodbye to him because I know it kills them. And that makes me very sad. I wish we could live closer or that they could visit more. It's just so darn expensive to fly from/to here. So back to the trip...if you want to hear a *God Story* (as my mom would say), listen up. As I already mentioned, I was very nervous about the trip home with just me and Izaak. I had been dreading it the whole 6 weeks I was in the states. I was trying hard Wednesday morning to concentrate on not having a panic attack or something. Just breathe through it...keep breathing. "God get me through this" I was definitely expecting the worse. Yes I tend to be a bit of a "half empty" kind of person sometimes because I tend to get stressed out quite easily. So mom told me that she was praying for a grandmother or grandmother type to be on each plane to help me with Izaak. I thought, yeah right, no one will be there to even hold him for me if I have to go to the bathroom. I guess I'll just flag down a stewardess. I made it to my gate in Dallas as they were boarding the plane. I went to check my stroller in and asked if I could get an isle seat thinking that it was too late now, but he was very nice and got me one. As soon as I saw where I was supposed to sit, this very sweet, grandmotherly lady was sitting in the middle seat smiling at me and Izaak. I thought..."really?" She cooed over him and wanted to hold him and wiped milk off of his face, covered him with a blanket when he was asleep in my arms, held him for me when I went to the bathroom, and made my ever so jittery stomach ease up a bit. It was amazing. But that flight was only about 4 hours and I thought, "I really needed her on the long flight." We had a 4 hour layover in San Francisco and I was still working on getting my stomach settled. Z and I walked around the airport for a long time just trying to enjoy ourselves. I parked the stroller in front of a big window so he could watch the planes and he loved that. Ok backing up a second, I forgot to mention that the night before I had only had an hour and 45 minutes of sleep (and had to leave the house at 4am). So on top of this 30 hour trip that I was dreading, I was running on very little sleep. I had no idea how I was going to do this because even when John traveled over with us it was hard! And I thought I was going to die on the last leg of our trip if I didn't get some sleep soon! So ok, we boarded our big plane and thank goodness they were able to get me a bulk head! (A lady was very nice and changed my seat). So I was in for an 11 hour flight, another 4 hour layover and another 2 hour flight. Here goes...Izaak was doing really well. He cat napped here and there. He was quiet and happy and kept smiling around at everyone who would look at him. It was a little tiring holding him the whole time, but it wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be. So about 4 1/2 hours into the flight, I had sat Izaak in our seat and I was kneeling down in the floor making a bottle when I heard this lady's voice above me say, "You're going to think I'm crazy, but can I help you with him? You are going to wear yourself out. I'm not tired and I have nothing to do, I'll be glad to walk him around and hold him for a little while." Was I going to say NO?!? Haha. So I said, "SURE if you want!" So for the whole rest of the flight, she would come get him sometimes or she would hold him while I went to the bathroom or washed his bottles. At the end of the flight she waited with me outside the plane to help me get him in the stroller and then we realized that we were both going to Okinawa. We talked during the layover and I found out that she's going to be a first time grandmother in December! Her son and his wife live here and that's who she was coming to visit. So we had the last flight together too and once again she was there when I needed her. I had them change my seat on the flight too and there ended up being an empty seat beside me so I got to lay Izaak down and he slept almost that whole flight and I got in a little nap too. Oh and in Osaka when we went through customs and had to re-check our baggage, I had another lady and a couple who helped me with the stroller and luggage cart. And on top of all of that, Izaak was an ANGEL! I mean, he couldn't have been any better. I was SO proud of him! The poor baby was so glazed over and exhausted by the time we arrived, but he was still being a good boy. He even slept pretty well last night and watched cartoons in bed with me this morning while I slept a little more. Hehe. So, thank you mom for your prayers! And thank you to everyone else who prayed too. I can't tell you how much I appreciate them! You just don't understand how bad I thought it was going to be, and it turned out great! I even still had energy when I got home. (Get your mind out of the gutter). What I mean is, I thought by the time I got to the airport in Okinawa, I was going to be handing Izaak off to John while crying because I would be so completely exhausted. But surprisingly, and I have no idea how, I was holding up!
Well I started to write this post a couple days ago and our computer just shut off on me, but luckily it saved my draft! I've been so busy since then that I'm just now getting back on to post it. We are pretty much adjusted back to the time now thank goodness! A couple rough nights with Izaak but we are recovering. Now I just have to re-train him to not wake up 2-3 times a night to eat and to stay in his own bed. We were doing so good the first 4 months of his life until we went back home! Hehe. Oh by the way, yesterday he turned 6 MONTHS old! Can't believe it. Another 6 months and he will be ONE! He is my sweet, sweet baby. Ok I will end this now. Thanks again for everyone's thoughts and prayers on our behalf!