NeNe, PaPa and Aunt Linda come for a visit!!

For spring break Nene, PaPa and Aunt Linda came for a visit.  We were so excited to have them come for the week and planned a lot of activities, part of this was an Easter event for Jon's unit.  As soon as they landed the girls and I took them on adventure number 1 - trying a restaurant that happened to be closed so we headed onto another down the street that I had not tested out yet.  This restaurant did not have a picture menu and the owners didn't know much English and I know less Japanese so we got some Taco Rice and French toast oh and a little ice cream which was what I thought I ordered when they brought out the French toast for the girls.  That night we took them to the Ferris Wheel to see the sunset and play at the beach.

Bios on the Hill was another adventure for us where we saw water buffalo, beautiful flowers, a fun playground and just some fun walking through nature. 

I also found a story about a local store that has bee hives, ice cream, honey and even honeycomb to eat honey out of. We loaded up the car and headed out for the adventure that brought us all I hoped for and more.  You could see the hives with bees flying around, taste 6 different types of honey, eat ice cream that was sweetened with honey and actually eat honey straight out of the honeycomb.  It was so fun to let the girls experience this with Nene and Papa since we talk about their bees a lot. 

Another fun activity - cooking 67 cups of rice in 8 rice cookers and in 3 pots on the stove for an Easter event I was in charge of for Jon's unit.  It was nice to have some help getting things prepped and ready.  Once we made it to the event having 3 extra pairs of eyes was nice as the girls hung out with grandparents and aunt while Jon and I ran around.  We had a successful event with twice as many families as expected but the food multiplied and didn't run out.  The kids loved getting to pugil stick fight the bunny.

Okinawa World was our next adventure which including dressing up, the snake museum and walking round experiencing a few local things.

Family Game nights and CoCoK pedicures for the girls were also on the schedule.

All in all we kept everyone busy and tried to make the most of every minute family was in the country - we also tried to be home for naps at least an hour every afternoon b/c some people started to melt towards the end.

 

 

 

 

Last minute shopping for our visitors

Nothing says glad to see you like smashing your face on the corner of a table

They arrived!!!

You can not escape our touch

Ferris Wheel

One of many beach sunsets

Hi over there

Bios on the Hill

Molly and the waterbuffalo

Every kid found an adult and stayed by them the entire trip

NO GOAT!!!

The walk of faith

Jump rope

The honey store with the bee master

teaching them how to eat honey right of the comb

Easter Cake

Easter Bunny pugil stick fighting

Jon praying for lunch and everyone's Easter

The post event food fight!!!

Deep in thought during movie night

Easter

Sunrise Service

Peace Park Memorial

Aunt Linda, Papa and Nene

Family shot in traditional Oki wear

Game night

CoCoK

Our toe shot

Watching Papa on the Ipad

Pineapple Park

The aquarium

Kelly did not like the silly string fight for daddy's birthday - Lucky for her Nene to the resuce

You got me

Birthday lunch at Blue Seal Ice Cream

Birthday fun at Round 1

Surprise Party

This year we celebrated Jon's birthday a few times.  We celebrated while his family was in town and then I threw a surprise party Saturday.  When I asked our friends to attend the surprise they kept wondering how I would be able to prep and pull this off with him around.  Lucky for me his is pretty oblivious when it comes to cooking so he didn't notice that I fixed 3 times the amount of meat I normally cook for taco rice or that I made an entire veggie tray for our "family dinner."  In the afternoon I asked the girls to pick up their toys and then started picking up and even got him to clean the house for his own party.  He was on vacuuming duty while I had the girls clean the bathroom and kitchen table and I kept prepping dinner.  Once everything was clean I asked if we could play cornhole - again having him set it up really for his birthday since my original plan was to play with friends.  We played 2 games and he won twice and it was 5:05 and the party didn't start until 5:30 and my plan was to have him go to the store to get the lettuce that I purposely forgot to buy so I asked to play a short game to 10.  Well 3 bags in the hole later we played the entire game and I declared winners had to go get the lettuce and got him out the door with our 2 little kids at 5:23.  Friends started to arrive at 5:30 and then he was back by 5:40.  This is where it got fun as everyone was hiding Kelly was misbehaving and I tried to get her and Jon's response was no I need to talk with her since she is disobeying me and then he walked in the door to everyone yelling surprise!!!  Needless to say he was a little surprised and Kelly's talking to was delayed.  We all ate some taco rice and then started playing games but not cornhole since it started to rain.  One friend brought a card game called We Didn't Playtest This and we played a few rounds of it before we served the cake.  Another friend had made the cake and it had a surprise to - she made an imploding cake.  We had Jon cut it and when incompletely fell apart when he cut into it his face was priceless and he kept asking if he ruined the cake and was there another one.  After bringing out the real cake we all ate that and settled in for some more games.  The kids ran around and played Doc McStuffins Operation while the adults played Wits and Wagers, Cranium and Settlers of Catan.  Late into the night we started movies for the kids while we kept playing games and they all crashed on the couch which turned into an impromptu sleepover for them all.  It was a fun day of surprises and fun for all!

The "volcano" cake

Excited for chocolate peanut butter cake!

Oh crap - what just happened.

Eating the real cake

The kids couldn't hang for all the games.

Storybook Parade and Field Trips

The weeks leading up to the first ever Spring Break for our family was eventful! The school had a storybook parade and the biggest got to ride a school bus for the first time on the way to a zoo field trip.   For the parade she asked to be Pinkalicious so we picked through our dress ups until we could find one that had the perfect amount of pink.  She asked for pig tails high on her head that matched the cover of the book and some pink leggings to round out the outfit.  At the end of the school day each class walked around the building two times then got some popsicles. 

For the field trip her class got to the local zoo and wonder museum.  I got a friend to watch the little two so I could go and be a parent volunteer - it seems like a lot of others did that too since there were 6 other parents from her class on the trip. Molly was so  excited to ride a real school bus and with her friends even.  She talked about it for days leading up to the event and smiled so big once she actually got on and buckled up for the drive.   Once we arrived I gathered my small group of her classmates and we toured the museum and zoo.  Besides running from each attraction I think the girls favorite part was the petting zoo where they got to play with baby chicks, guinea pigs, turtles and goats.