BOY, OH BOY WHAT A BIRTHDAY!

Today was Dima's 25th birthday. I stayed up until midnight to wish him happy birthday as soon as it was officially his birthday. He was half awake so he didn't really sound too enthused I suppose. In the morning, I surprised him by having presents on his night stand for him. Apparently in his family, they would wake up to presents on their side table in the morning. My family always exchanged in the evening after dinner and cake. He was happy I remembered that and was excited to open them. I got him a very funny mad lib type card where you made your own story with the stickers included. It was a really cool card! He also received a digital camera so he can take photos on the MEU while he's away. It's no special camera, just a simple point and shoot camera, but to be honest I think that's all he needs. Not to mention the 2 year accidental damage warranty was a good investment! He was pretty happy with his new toy and can't wait to use it!

After I left there, I made dima's cake balls for his birthday. Cake balls were something I heard of online and decided to try to make. You basically make a cake, crumble it up, add icing, form balls, and dip them into chocolate. I did Dima's with funfetti cake and icing, his favorites. I did learn that next time, I will have to WAIT to add the sprinkles until it is all mixed. My balls came out kinda purple because the blue and red sprinkles mixed together. No pun intended there!

Dima came home early today, at 5 (wow!) so that we could swing around to the hospital with our neighbor to see the baby on the ultrasound. We made our way down there (after hours, so sneaky!) and got the machine out. We saw the baby, who is getting even bigger, and were even able to make out the bones. We saw the entire spine and legs and arms very clearly. He told us that the baby was looking great and everything was looking to be going well. He then tried to find out the gender of the baby. It took awhile, because the baby kept moving around and put it's hands between the legs to not let us see! FINALLY after pushing against my belly enough, we were able to get a shot of the top of the head, two spread apart legs, and a............................................

WEENIE!

Yep! It's a boy! We couldn't be more excited about our little man. Dima was really crossing his fingers that it was a boy, I didn't really care one way or the other. So this made us both very happy, and was without a doubt the best birthday gift Dima could have asked for! Looks like we both guessed the gender right... now we need to wait for the day the baby is born to see who won our baby guessing game! For now, we will sit back and enjoy the happiness this has brought us!

After our very successful trip, we made our way to the seawall for some Greek Gyros! Dima LOVES Gyros so he picked this place for his dinner. We ordered some pita bread and hummus to start off with, which I wouldn't get again because it came with so little hummus it wasn't worth it. Dima got a beef Gyro, and I got a chicken Gyro. This was my first time having one, and it was pretty darn good. It came with fries that we both ended up throwing away though, they just had too much salt on them!

After Dinner we came home to sit in the front of the neighbor's house and enjoy the nice night. We ate cake balls (which were amazing thank you very much!) and hung around. Dima enjoyed a celebratory whisky and coke, and it was a very low key night, just what Dima likes.

All in all, I would like to say that Dima's 25th Birthday was a very successful one on both of our parts. It makes me excited that we will get to celebrate our birthday with our little one this time next year!

10,000 Eisa dancers, fish markets, and yummy food!

The Eisa dance is one of the many examples of the many cultural differences between Okinawa and the rest of Japan. Eisa is a dance with a long history in Okinawa. It comes from a folk song that was sung years ago. The dance style was passed down by groups of young people who paid respect to ancestors by marching through their neighborhoods and playing the taiko drum. The rhythms and movements are accompanied by the beating of the drum and a beautiful dance. Today, many shows are held where people gather to watch the Eisa. One of the largest of these shows is the 10,000 Eisa Dance Parade in Naha.

Today was an absolutely beautiful Okinawian day, so we decided to celebrate by making our way down to Naha to go to the 10,000 Eisa dancer festival. We went down with the Coats and Jones families to watch this beautiful celebration. On the way down, we crammed the Coats car with the two of us, their family of 5, and a friend of theirs. I played a few games of old maid (with little mermaid cards) with Cannon and London (I one one round). After our games were over, Emmy (the youngest of the Coats children) decided she wanted my engagement ring. She put it on and I can swear it almost fit her! She then refused to give it back until we got the the festival. I think she liked wearing it because it was from Dima. She seems to have a thing for my husband. Here she is showing off "her" rock.

When we arrived to Kokasai street, it was packed with lots of people, which is never great when it's over 100 degrees out, humid, and you're pregnant. But I sucked it up and went on to enjoy our time. We got to stand by one of the famous beniimo stores (they are these famous sweet potatoes that are purple. They are very popular here and are made into all kinds of things from cookies, to ice cream flavors, to being cooked in your meals) that had samples inside for us to eat in between dances. The festival was very organized. They had a bunch of groups of dancers come one group at a time to a big X marked in the street to perform. The shows started every 5 minutes or so. It was pretty cool because you could watch one show, go inside to cool down, and then come back out to watch another just a minute or so later. I mostly took videos that I will include in this post, but I did take a few photos as well. Here are some of my favorite photos compiles from my camera.

I have come to realize that I have taken for granted how unique it is to live in Japan. I see things everyday that I have grown accustomed to here in Okinawa, that were very odd when I first arrived. For one, I suppose I have grown used to their beer drinking habits. This guy was creative enough to strap a backpack of beer onto his back and sell it for 5o0 yet a beer! How cool is that?! I wish I could have had one! A nice cold Orion would have been nice on a hot Okinawian day! Oh well... guess i'll have to wait until February for one of those!After seeing a few of the dancers, we decided we were bored and wanted to walk a little. We made our way down to this one side street where we explored some of the shops and made our way into a really neat fish market. It looked so yummy and I really wish i couldve gotten the freshest sushi ever (they literally filleted, and cut up the fish in front of you and gave you yummy sashimi.) We saw some really cool stuff at the market.

Here is Louise ordering our dinner! This is what Louise ended up ordering for our dinner... Parrot fish! Yumm!
This is a yummy looking red snapper! Maybe next time I will order some and grill it out back!
This is a stone fish... they are so ugly, but apparently yummy to eat. A woman was ordering one and the nice lady who worked there let us all stand around and take photos.
Pork is a huge thing in Okinawa. It is cooked into most Okinawian dishes (soba for example) and a bunch of other famous Okinawian foods. When walking around Kokasai street, you can see just how much they love to kill and eat pork. Here is Porky the Pig himself... (the last thing he said was "That's all folks!")

After we left the festival, we went back home and were invited to have dinner with the Coats family. We first stopped at the store to pick up some of our own Japanese food to share, since they were sharing their yummy parrot fish and lots of other food. We picked up some of the traditional yummy Tepayaki, which is pork or chicken on a stick with some yummy Japanese sauce. Louise made some amazing Miso soup and sticky rice for us to use to make our own sushi. She cut up avocado, cucumbers, and had some sashimi out for us to use to make our sushi. Of course I couldn't have any of the raw fish (grr!) but I made do with some veggie sushi. We had a great meal with some great company, we are so lucky to have such great friends and neighbors! It makes living overseas so much better!

Sure has been awhile!

Wow! I sure haven't written on here in awhile! So much has changed since January/February of 2010! Let's see if i can quickly go through some of it month by month!

February 2010

Went on a cruise along Okinawa. The food wasn't as great as we expected, but it was nice having a fun date night.

We got to explore the castle ruins of ancient royalty! It was beautiful and we found an abandoned building that we later discovered we aren't allowed near!

March 2010

Celebrated my very first White day! In Japan, valentine's day (feb 14) is when the women get men presents. They get their husbands one kind of chocolate and their friends and coworkers other kinds of chocolate called "obligation chocolate." They spend HUNDREDS of dollars on chocolate. Then, the following month (March 14) the women get presents from the men. This was my white day gift from the Mr. He didn't realize it, but the chocolate he gave me was actually obligation chocolate for a friend or coworker. Whoops!
Went out with some friends to poco a Poco, an amazing restaurant right outside our house. It was ladies night, so it only cost us 2,000 yen a person for all you can eat/drink all night!

April 2010

Easter, 2010. Dima was in Yuma, AZ for training at this point, but my friend Robin invited me over for some yummy treats and to watch the kids at the egg hunt. It was a good time with some great friends. Jenn made this yummy easter cake. It was part carrot cake, and part strawberry I believe. Yummy!!
Went out in Naha with Heather, a good friend. Had a good time!
Went to the Dragon boat races with Heather. What a cool event! These people train all year for this event. Very cool! And i just love Japanese festival foods! So much healthier and yummier then the crap in the states! I got some noodles and veggies with a stir fry sauce that was super yummy. Heather got some Okinawian Soba for her and her daughter to share. I then discovered this stand and couldn't figure out what the heck it was! Turns out they were little balls of jello shots that they mix with lemon soda and you drink. It wasn't too strong, but worth trying! Reminded me of taking jello shots in college with Emilie!

May 2010

Went to the Ana hotel for Jenn's baby shower! it was a beautiful hotel and we had a wonderful lunch! Jenn was so surprised she cried! It was a great baby shower and we are glad to be able to go! I made her this baby blanket for her little Vera!


Finally had our second wedding! It was only a year and a half later but better late then never i suppose! We did a Japanese Cherry Blossom theme since we live in Japan and it served to be a pretty wedding.

Just a day or so before the wedding, we found out that I was pregnant! What wonderful timing! It was quite the surprise but truly the best surprise we have ever had. I wish I could say that I was able to surprise Dima about the news with a great story, but unfortunately I had some trouble with the test and needed Dima to get a digital one for me. He was with me and we were able to peek at the positive test together. What a surprise we got after those 3 long minutes were over!

June 2010

While we had family in town, we decided to FINALLY get down to try Dr. Fish. Dr fish is a big tank of fish that eat the dead skin off your feet. Of course there is nothing like it in the States because Americans freak out about it being unsanitary but we were happy to finally get to try this with Sasha! It doesn't hurt, just tickles a little bit. After the 10 minute "spa therapy" our feet felt so wonderful!
We got to get to one of our favorite "fast food" places in Okinawa while we had company. This is Dima, Ric, and my dad enjoying some yummy Coco Curry. At this restaurant, you get to pick your meat, then choose how much rice you want, and then choose a level of hotness you want for your curry. The regular curry is quite spicy enough, so I usually just order that. Dima ordered a level 3 (out of 10!) and said it was so hot that it really took away from the taste of the food. Afterwards we took everyone to San-a, a local japanese store. I can't really describe what these stores are like. They have everything from grocery foods, to clothing, to furniture, to electronics. We went to pick up some yummy fish to make sushi the following night. You can see how unique the Japanese markets are. We bought some Salmon, tuna, yellow tail, shrimp, crab, and squid. But i did see this octopus which looked just yummy. Unfortunately, since I am now carrying a little one, all I can eat is the crab and shrimp. Japan is not the place for a pregnant sushi lover to live!

We also finally made it to the famous Okinawian aquarium. I love aquariums and thought that i had seen the best of the best when I saw the National Aquarium in Baltimore. I was very wrong! Wow this was by far the best aquarium I have ever seen. The whale shark room was by far the most amazing thing i've ever seen! It was a HUGE tank with all kinds of creatures in it. Huge sting rays, and some beautiful whale sharks. I can't wait to bring our little one with us to see the big water creatures!

We made our way to Kokasai Street in Naha while my family was still here. Kokasai street is a very unique place and we got to try some yummy Okinawian purple potato cookies and went out to dinner to a very Japanese restaurant. Again, since i'm pregnant and don't eat red meat, i had some trouble finding something to eat. But I can live off rice I suppose.

In June, we got to have our first ultrasound..."under the table" We are very grateful to our neighbor, Steve who is an OB doc and let us come in to see our little one. There wasn't much to see at this point, I was only 7 weeks along at the time. We did get to see that little heart beating and i think it made my heart flutter just a little.

July 2010

Finally got around to doing some gardening in our front yard. Our neighbor told us about "lasagna gardening," a method of gardening where you place wet cardboard boxes down, followed by compost material, followed by lots of dirt. You then let it "cook" for awhile and can plant into the ground. We spend a beautiful saturday outside our house making our lasagna. It was very simple, but took a lot of dirt to cover. In the end, this is what we came up with. The trees were there before we moved in and couldn't be removed. So we decided to keep them in our garden. We will wait now to plant something in the front.

We went to a Japanese festival in American Village this month too. It was to celebrate 10 years of American Village. We had a good time with some of the neighbors and had some yummy Japanese festival food and watched Japanese fireworks. Japanese fireworks are VERY different then we are used to. They are so much better! They have fireworks that expode into hearts and smiley faces! And the Japanese LOVE fireworks and will use anything as an excuse to shoot some off! We often see a show from our front porch on a random night. It is really cool.


We had another ultrasound this month. This time was much more enjoyable then the last. We were able to make out the head, arms, and legs of our little one. What an amazing sight! Our little one was moving around a lot in there. His/her arms were moving towards the head a lot. I'm guessing he/she was sucking their thumb. It was so cool to see and made us very excited for the next ultrasound. Here is another belly photo... i am 11 weeks in this photo and the baby is the size of a lime. This was taken in our backyard.