Rear View Mirror

Here is what I see in my rear view mirror. This was last night on the way to the Sushi-Go-Round on the way home from Olivia's karate class.

Cute aren't they?

The Peach Boy

For Olivia's school field trip we headed to the Okinawa Convention Center for a showing of "The Peach Boy". If you have no knowledge of this story (which I did not, but amazingly my sister-in-law Shannon did, so maybe there are more well read people like her out there!) Here is a description of the story. (note: I also just realized I got no photos of Olivia... so here was our day...)

Here we are, all great kids and mom's from Ms. Byroms Kindergarten Class.

Here is the Convention Center.

Standing in line waiting to get inside!

Cute Japanese school kiddos with their matching hats (every other school besides ours had matching hats.. .it was a sea of colors)

The gorgeous curtain in front of the stage (note the small people with colored hats on...)

The only photo I took during the show. This is before the peach opened up and a kid came out.

After the show we were supposed to go to the park and play and have lunch, but it rained. So, another mom and I led the kids in some jumping jacks and here she is leading Simon Says.

Sunny Beach Days

Some brief beach photos from last weekend. Gorgeous weather upon us. I have a feeling there will be many more of these to come.

Sunsets and Pigtails

Yes, it is another sunset. Sorry, can't help myself.

And here are the pigtails. Alessandra wanted pigtails. I am still not sure how I got them in there (or how they stayed in for the 42 minutes they lasted), but here they are.

Small But Mighty. Gotta love her.

The Okinawa Zoo and Wonder Museum

One of the places we had yet to go was the Okinawa Zoo. I had been prepped that it wouldn't compare to zoo's in the States (and yes, that was true, it did not). However, it was a great way to spend a morning.

The Grand Entrance...

Alessandra liked this guy. "So tall mommy!"

Nothing better than going to a zoo and sitting on plastic animals... I tell you!

These are hippos. Up close and personal... and stinky.

Lunch Break.

And then onto the Wonder Museum. Definitely the highlight of our day (and one of the great kid places we have been in Okinawa)

Making things go round and round...

pushed out handprints... they loved this. really, we could have played at this area all day

A super large chair...

and a super small chair...

Olivia using a fan to create wind and move a vehicle. Loved this too!

A giant ball rolling thing - think marble maze with pool balls.

What a great way to spend a day.

Happy Birthday Daddy!

To our daddy, so far away:
We miss and you and love you and think of you each day.
We can't wait until you are back to wrestle and tickle,
trust us on this, we don't mean to sound fickle.
We wish you the best this fantastic new year
and know that the time goes faster each year.
We hope that we've helped your hair turn a little grayer,
just know that it's adding a new special layer
to the great guy you are and the great things you do
because of all the people we love, the one we love most... is YOU!!

Happy Birthday Brad-Dad, our Baghdaddy! We love and miss you and can't wait until you come home.

Sunsets and Birthdays

Tonight was another Olivia celebration night. Her request was that we stay at home for a special dinner. SO, we did just that and we made our own sushi! Our friends the Colvigs came over and joined us and it was a great time! (I would have some photos of the sushi making, but it was a little labor intensive for the adults helping children, so we will have to take some the next time - because, OH YES, there will be a next time. Yummy!)

The below series are of the sunset tonight. Cameron didn't bring his camera, but he headed outside with mine and got some great shots of tonight's gorgeousness. :) Enjoy.

Oh yes, and the night wouldn't have been complete without a photo of the birthday girl and her cake. YUMMY!

6 year olds are the best...

Here she is. The fabulous 6 year old Olivia the morning of her birthday.

Still hard for be to believe that she started out like this.....

The highlight of today (aside from the obvious presents and being the center of attention for the day) was that it was Field Day at EC Killin (Olivia's school), SO the second half of the day would be spent outside...

The event started with a 1/2 mile run (I won't go into the details, but Coach Yost (the PE teacher) had suffiently freaked Olivia out about hurting herself - I think he had asked them to "be careful" while they were running. Well, she took it pretty literally and was a little skittish. All in all, she finished up just fine.

Here she is running with her best buddy from school, Alexa

Running around the tree (not sure why)

Who doesn't love a Slip-N-Slide?

They kids got split into groups. The mixed Kindergarteners with 1st and 2nd Graders. I think there was only 1 other Kindergartener on Olivia's team. She was with a pretty good group of mostly boys. Above - the tug of war...

Climbing the wall in the gym

Some of the fun water activities!

After school we came home and enjoyed some down time. Here is Olivia talking to Daddy on the phone yesterday afternoon. SO happy to hear from him!

This is a photo that Alessandra took. She is a bit obsessed with my camera, so I had to include this, because she actually got my face in the frame. I may need to do a post on all of the things she gets in the frame (think: floor, ceiling and toys).

Our little celebration. We will have cake tomorrow (Saturday) when we celebrate with friends, but I kept aside a couple of cupcakes from those we took to class so we could sing to her on her actual day. Happy Birthday Sweet Pea! We love you!