The Japanese Life of a Military Wife

Kitten Cuteness Overload

2012-02-11T07:46:00.001+09:00

In my couple months away you've missed out on some extreme kitten cuteness. I can't resist showing you what a ridiculous cat lady I'm becoming.

Christmas Kitten:

Kitten in a basket:

Kitten tee shirt time coming soon.

Winter Wonderland

2012-02-10T21:44:00.017+09:00

As a post deployment trip and to celebrate our 4 year anniversary Brad and I set out to explore the winter wonderland of Nagano, Japan. It was kind of a lot of work getting there with having to take, taxi, plane, monorail, train, bullet train, and a bus ride to get there (and back), but it was totally worth it.

Nagano is completely beautiful. It snowed a lot while we were there making it extra special. We were going primarily to ski/board. Brad had gone snowboarding once before and I was excited to try skiing for the first time. We stayed at a pretty nice resort right on the Shiga Kogen ski slopes. Our breakfast and dinner were included in our room package, so we enjoyed an extensive buffet breakfast with plenty of strange Japanese options and delish Western choices. We loved the fancy resort multi coursed dinners every night. After skiing all day we ate every bite of our meals! The dining room was a big room full of floor to ceiling windows looking out onto the ski slopes to maximize the breathtaking mountain views.

So, prior to this trip I've never skied. I tried to take a ski lesson, but one wasn't available, so I was on my own. Bunny slope?? Ummm my first time having skis on my feet was going through the gate and sitting down on the lift and going up a huge mountain. Freak out central. I was panicked! Somehow I managed not to crash off the ski lift (that time) and proceeded to careen down the mountain with absolutely no control. No way to turn or stop. I was crying and praying and falling A LOT. Man, getting back up onto skis after falling took some practice. But, I did eventually get the hang of it and by our third trip down the mountain I didn't fall. I did fall a lot the 3 days we were out there, but I have officially caught the ski bug. I loved it! Can't wait to go again.

While we were in Nagano I insisted that we take a trip over to the Jigokudani Monkey Park to see the Snow Monkeys in the hot springs. You had to walk through this snowy park along this snow covered path and snow covered trees. So pretty. And it was snowing at the time too. Perfect. Oooooh my gosh the monkeys are the cutest things ever and they were everywhere. The babies were especially adorable. You could get right up next to them, inches away. It took all my self control not to touch! This was an amazing experience.

I could have stayed in Nagano for a while longer. We were having a blast out on the slopes, the food was great, the place is generally beautiful and who doesn't love being on vacation. I'm so glad we did this trip and would really recommend it!

Homecoming, holidays and what's been happening

2012-02-07T10:55:00.071+09:00

Have I really not blogged since November?! Bad girl. Sorry for the break in the blogging. I feel like I blinked and months have gone by. I have so much to catch you all up on. If you're still there, thank you for sticking around! Life's been busy!

After 6.5 months apart my husband is HOME from Afghanistan! I will totally blame him on why I've been sucked into a black hole since December. In a good way. His homecoming was pretty high stress for me, even though I was so happy he was coming home. I was really nervous standing in the hanger watching his plane come in for landing. Seeing those wheels hit the ground gave me such a feeling of relief and then seeing him walk towards me was a whole new emotion that is really hard to describe. When he was back in my arms all was right in the world again. He said something funny like "Hi, remember me? I'm your husband."

Then, a few days after Brad got home my sister Mary flew in for a 3.5 week visit for Christmas and New Years. My sister is my best friend and having her here was amazing. We went around and did a ton of touristy stuff around the island, ate a ton of yummy food, and laughed a lot. I absolutely loved having her here. Time went too fast.
We celebrated our first Christmas on Okinawa (last year we celebrated in Australia). Mary was here making it extra special. On Christmas Eve we went to huge Christmas light display and show at the zoo. Christmas morning we all opened up presents, we had a big breakfast of my moms baked french toast and we spent the day making a big Christmas dinner, watching movies and drinking wine. It was lovely.

Even the kitten and hedgie had a great Christmas!

For NYE, Brad, my sister and I celebrated with a bunch of friends up at the O-Club. We went to a big dinner then moved over to the bar for drinks and dancing. (Unfortunately the duck-face-peace sign was out in force that night.)Fun night to kick of 2012!

Brad and I celebrated our 4 year marriage anniversary Jan 5!

Brad and I took a post deployment/anniversary trip up to Nagano in mainland Japan. Separate post on this soon!

So on top of all this stuff, I've been working a crap-ton. I'm working on an upcoming show and all the workshops that come before it. I love my job! And I've been doing some really great work with Makoto these days. I started him in the double dressage bridle and he is going great in it. Fancy-shmancy. My friend and co-worker Alexis also started Sky in the double too. Makoto and Sky happen to be best buds. Cute.

My kitten is doing great! After skin infections, ear infections and eye infections she finally got a clear bill of health a few weeks ago. Yay! She's getting big. I kinda miss her being coffee cup size. 4 months old already.

Remember Lucy, the adorable baby piglet? She is HUGE now. But still as adorable and sweet as ever.
And, I'm blogging on my new MacBook Pro! I am kind of obsessed with it. And, if you couldn't tell from the pictures above, I have brown hair now! See ya, bleach.

So, there is 2 months in summary. I'll try not to be such a stranger around here in the future!

Giving Thanks

2011-11-27T21:42:00.007+09:00

Thanksgiving flew by at the speed I should be used to by now. Everything is going by so fast! I celebrated with my barn friends and about 30 people total at my girlfriends house this year. She made 2 delish turkeys and a ham and we all brought the sides and desserts. I wish I had taken a picture of my apple pie, it was a beauty this year. I spent the morning cooking, afternoon napping and snuggling my new kitten, Jade (I finally named her), and generally being homesick and feeling a bit lonely, despite the good kitten company. That all disappeared the moment I walked into Alexis's packed house and suddenly it felt like Thanksgiving. I cannot thank her enough for inviting us all into her home, she is such a gracious hostess. It was the first year I ever saw sushi and Okinawan foods included in the Thanksgiving spread. It was so fun to share our Thanksgiving celebrations with Japanese neighbors and friends. I spent most of the evening on the rooftop next to a fire holding my friend Madie's newborn baby laughing until my cheeks hurt. The food was amazing, but for me Addison stole the show. She was the highlight of my night. So in love with that little angel!

It was a wonderful Okinawa Thanksgiving and it made me very thankful that I have horses, horse friends and a newborn baby girl in my Okinawa life. I missed Brad for sure and I really missed my family. Brad is still deployed, but the days are quickly winding down. He and a lot of the guys out there participated in Movember. Check out that stash. Awesome. Not. I hate it, but it was for a good cause and as long as it's gone before he comes home, whatever! Also, the group Brad's with made this lil video to say Happy Holidays. I don't see Brad in it, but maybe I just don't recognize him with that horrible mustache.

Hope you all had a very Happy Thanksgiving!

Baby Kitten

2011-11-19T12:36:00.011+09:00

So, this is a bit of an add on to the last post. Yet another baby girl has come into my life! On Monday during a lesson the rider told me she could hear a cat meowing, but couldn't see it. I walked over and saw a tiny ball of fluff crying her head off practically right under the horses feet. I scooped her up and knew I was instantly in love. She stopped crying and would purr and fall asleep as I carried her around an taught the rest of my lessons that day.

I took her to the vet that night to have her checked out. Other than a minor eye infection requiring eye drops and medicine for any possible parasites I was told I don't have to worry and that she's in pretty good shape. She is about a month old. She weighs almost nothing at all. The vet told me she was probably dumped, not a stray because she didn't have any mites, fleas or ticks. Who could dump this adorable little girl?!

So, she came home with me. She is such a sweet little kitten and she loves to snuggle. I hope she stays that way. I don't think my husband (who is still deployed) was too happy with this at first, but I know that he will fall in love with her too. And if she turns out to be a total terror she can always become a barn cat. We could use a good mouser. But for now, she is just loving her new life I think. She is eating and sleeping a ton. She is great about using her litter box and hasn't had any accidents. The worst thing she does is wake me up at night wanting to play. Fortunately playing only lasts about 5 minutes before she's tired again. She thinks my fingers and her tail are great toys.

So I guess I have a cat now. I'm not exactly a cat person, but I didn't exactly go out looking for a cat either. She just walked into my life and I can't turn her away. I'm very glad my apartment changed the rules and lets us have cats now. Because I'm in love!

I have still yet to find the perfect name for her. I just can't decide. I need to just pick one. She is starting to think her name is Kitty or Mowser. My life is so full of babies right now. What is going on?!

New Baby Girls

2011-11-09T10:35:00.026+09:00

I love rainy mornings. I'm currently listening to Edith Piaf, enjoying pumpkin spice coffee with my spiced pumpkin candle lit beside me and I just made pumpkin spice pancakes for breakfast. This gray, rainy day makes it almost feel kind of chilly and Fall-ish. And I got an unexpected morning off from work since most moms don't want their kids riding around in the pouring down rain. So I get to enjoy a nice, slow morning and I get to share my latest news with you ... which is...

Addison!

aaaaaand

Lucy!

Two beautiful baby girls came into my life last week. My co-worker and good friend Madie had Addison on Friday. I got to go visit them in the hospital on Saturday and I have to say that Addison is one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen! She is so little, soft and warm. I could just cuddle her all day. So very happy for Madie and her husband, Justin!

This was also my first big shoot using my fancy camera. I totally love it. Glad I got to capture some Addison on her first day of her life.

I got Addison that headband along with a matching zebra print with hot pink trim tutu and zebra print shoes with the same hot pink poof on them. Adorable. It will be a while before she fits into them though. "Aunt Eve" plans on many future photo shoots involving Addison in pink, fluffy outfits.

And now Lucy:

On Sunday the barn owner delivered a very special bundle to the barn. We got a 2 month old baby piglet who I promptly named Lucy. I have wanted a pig for a very long time and I am overjoyed! She is pink, playful and curious. I spend most of my free time with her now! She will grow up to be a very large piggie. I'm not exactly sure if the owner plans on eating her... I sure hope not because I'm overly attached already. I don't eat pork, haven't in a long time, and pretty sure after this I never will.

When she first got to the barn the owner put her in this awful little wire cage. She had to sit on the metal and had no room to move and I felt so bad for her. I knew there was no way I would sleep at night knowing she was in that cage, so I moved her into the back of the barn to an unused stall. She now has room to move and play and sleep comfortably on the stall mats and shavings. Like most babies, she sleeps a lot! I'm going to get her a harness and so I can walk her around and let her get out into the grass and sunshine.

I'm having fun bringing her food and treats. She has tried watermelon, cantaloupe, carrots, peanuts, raisins and apricots. She is a fan of watermelon for sure. Check out the video:

I'm totally in love with these new baby girls in my life!

Happy Halloween!

2011-10-31T09:41:00.010+09:00

Makoto and I want to wish you all a very Happy Halloween!
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I don't know why he puts up with me. Probably because of days like this when I let him do his favorite thing, jump! This horse would be an amazing eventer in the States. He is so stinkin' talented I just can't believe it. He is coming back from an injury however, so this was one of his first days back to jumping some actual height and not just cavalettis. Yay Makoto!

My eventer friend Alexis has turned this horse, Sky around. He's like a different horse. A really springy and talented jumper horse. I had a blast jumping some pretty big jumps on him yesterday with Alexis.

Baby!

2011-10-24T21:01:00.010+09:00

Last Thursday we got a special delivery. Meet our new 7 month old baby pony!! He is the cutest, softest and most adorable lil baby. He is curious and playful and smart. Today we decided on his name. Kokopelli. Koka for short. I am totally in love!

Check out this little cutie playing and running around:

The owner is in the video and he doesn't speak much English, but he says "Bambi" which is really funny because so many people have said he looks like a baby deer or reindeer. Love it!

We are going to have a lot of fun with this little colt. He will be so showered with love, that's for sure.

Halloween Horse Show

2011-10-23T20:18:00.022+09:00

The Fall Horse Show earlier this month was a huge success. I worked my tail off, so I'm thrilled that it went off without a hitch. I think everyone had a really good horse show experience and had a lot of fun.

The week before the show is always crunch time. It's long hours at the barn and a ton of prep work at home. This time it was extra time consuming with 4 injured horses to nurse on top of everything else. But, as always, the kids make it so worth it.

The afternoon and evening before the show is the Horse Show Prep time where the students come out and help get the horses ready for the show day by giving baths and braiding manes and tails. My least favorite chore of the day is putting up the dressage arena... loathe. But, it was my third time, so it's easier each time. I topped the dressage letters with yellow and orange fall flowers (that's my favorite part). The whole barn area was decorated with a Halloween theme. We hung up lanterns in the trees, taped Fall and Halloween decorations everywhere and draped Halloween garland around doorways and around railings. I had a bucket for bobbing for apples and carrots. It was wonderful!!

The morning of the show I set out all the Halloween plates, cups, food/drinks and decorated the picnic tables. Of course there were buckets and boxes over flowing with Halloween candy on every table. I made each rider a Show Folder with a program, their show number and copies of the courses for the other events. Each rider got a goodie bag with Halloween Chex Mix when they checked in and received their folder.

The morning started off with dressage. The students had practiced their tests so many times and many had memorized them. We did USDF Intro Test B, USEF Training Level Test 1 and my young determined and totally focused 9 year old student did a USEF First Level Test 1.

We had a "short stirrup" class of two 5 year old and a 6 year old. Totally adorable. All these youngsters came away with blue ribbons since the judge just "couldn't make up her mind." :)

Next was the jumping classes. We had a trot jump class and a trot/canter jump class. The jumps were prettied up with fall flower boxes and pretty fall leaves decorating the standards.

Each participant received a horse show trophy. Ribbons were awarded 1st-6th place for dressage and jumping.

And then came the really fun part. The Obstacle Course. This fun class wasn't judged 1st-6th, but rather each participant got a certificate award for their best aspect of the course. And riders were encouraged to wear Halloween costumes! We had witches, cats, bat girl and bat horse, Mario and Luigi, a hippy, goddess, vampire, fairy, lady bug and other fun outfits. I was a candy corn/arena cone. Madie, the other instructor who's pregnant, was a cat who swallowed a fish bowl. Alexis, the judge, was Rainbow Bright.

The riders were timed and had 10 obstacles to navigate such as getting a treat out of a Halloween bucket and giving it to the horse, going over a wooden bridge, halting in a square, a small jump and "around the world." This was so much fun and such a good way to end the day, with lots of laughs! And one of the horse show moms was sweet enough to give the me, the other instructor and the 2 judges flowers at the end of the day.

So, no one fell off. All the horses were angels. No one was crying or a poor sport. It didn't rain. I think this was the best show yet!

1st Birthday

2011-10-20T12:05:00.024+09:00

A very happy first birthday to my spiky lil monster, Gojou (pronounced Go-Joe, his name means Joy in Japanese!). My lil Goji Berry turned one today! He has blessed my life in so many ways. I love him to pieces and enjoy his cuteness on a daily basis. I haven't blogged about him as much as I would like, but he is the usual subject for many of my pictures. Speaking of pictures, all these were taken with my brand new Canon super duper fancy camera. My generous husband bought his for me recently. Maybe because he felt like he needed to get me a lil something after buying himself his deployment present, a PRS Custom electric guitar. It is quite beautiful and was the first subject for my first photo shoot with my new camera. This is my first "real" camera and I'm just starting to learn how to use it. I love it already!

Anyway, back to Gojou. He is a grumpy lil guy and has been very resistant to my love and affection. So, he just has to deal with my force-loving him. I thought he would grow to love me as much as I love him, but it's been a year and I'm pretty sure that his personality is quite established. Goj loves to sleep and eat. That's about it. He does love running nightly marathons on his wheel too. But, when it comes to me he'd rather just go back to sleep. Even so, I enjoy his funny little personality and I love taking care of him.

Today I celebrated his birthday by giving him an extra helping of meal worms, a nice fresh cage and then making him fresh and clean too by giving him his usual bath. Goj is supposed to like baths, but he just can't seem to get into it. Still, I find it adorable, and he needs regular baths, so he just has to deal.

Today Goj reminded me of how much he hates baths by biting his bath towel and hanging on! Crazy Hedgie.

Goj also got a pink shirt to let the world know just what a crazy Party Animal he is. Wooo yeah. Party. Don't worry, Goj is quite comfortable in pink. He just showed how manly he is with the towel picture.

#1 reason why I love having a hedgehog: they curl up in the most adorable balls.

So, happy birthday to my not-so-baby-anymore hedgehog, Gojou!

Riding Workshops

2011-10-14T19:34:00.001+09:00

In preparation for the Fall Horse Show we held a couple of workshops to help the riders get ready. The horse show judge gave the students some advice and pointers on what she would be looking for on show day. I think the kids really benefited from these rides and I think they had a lot of fun too!

The jumping workshop went off without a hitch. The horses and riders rode through a jump course that was very similar to the course planned for the show. All the rides went well, we stayed pretty much on schedule and the horses were well behaved.

The dressage workshop the next weekend was a different story. Essa was extremely sick at the start of this clinic and I was dealing with getting the rides out for Alexis, helping all the kids, dealing with Essa's colic and a million other things at one time. We got about half way through this chaotic clinic before it became obvious that Essa was not getting better, but worse and that the kids needed to leave right away. And I've already told you the sad outcome of that day. Poor Essa, I miss him every day. So the last half of the dressage clinic was made up the following week. Despite the Essa situation the rides went well and all the riders got to practice their dressage tests.

I never thought I could ever have this much fun working!

Okinawan Afternoon

2011-10-13T18:04:00.001+09:00

Last month (yes, I am so totally behind on blogging) a friend of mine asked for company as she went shopping for items to re-do her living room. I gladly went along and offered my advice that we go to Nitori. Nitori is like a Japanese Ikea and I had been meaning to figure out where it was and check it out. Nitori was pretty easy to find and offered up tons of ideas for making our Okinawa houses comfortable homes away from home. I relaly need to go back over there and order some of their custom made curtains for my apartment.

We also went to a home store in Awase and it was a massive furniture store. I couldn't help giggling at the tiny Japanese style furniture, couches and chairs. They looked like children's furniture. But, the Japanese are much better at conserving space than Americans are.

After all that shopping my friend and I were hungry for lunch. I took her to a place I had been a few times before and totally love. Green Green is tucked back in a neighborhood and offers beautiful views of the green jungle trees from their large deck. The menu is limited, but I always get their Pho and lovelovelove it. My friend enjoyed their green curry. We splurged on dessert and split the apple pie a la mode. Amazing!

Such a fun afternoon out shopping and enjoying the company of a good friend!

And We're Back

2011-10-11T09:27:00.009+09:00

Oh my goodness. I swear I'm still here, alive and kickin'! Sorry about the disappearing act, but my life has been taken over by the horses the last few weeks. I am usually totally busy before a horse show, but this time I was stretched to the limit with 4 horses hurt requiring hours of daily care and a packed lesson schedule. I was getting far too good at giving injections, soaking hooves in buckets and wrapping standing wraps on horses legs while they were on stall rest. Ugh! But, we are out of the woods now for the most part.

I have so much blogging to catch up on. So many new posts are in the future. But, I just had to share this highlight with you. Makoto, my favorite horse at the barn, is better. He had a horrible abscess in his back hoof. Got a horrible infection requiring rounds of antibiotics and steroid injections. We battled it out daily with me forcing him to soak his foot in a bucket of epsom salts and water and him completely refusing to keep his foot in the bucket and him refusing to hold his hoof up for cleaning and wrapping (he did slightly get used to this eventually over the weeks). About 2 weeks ago I found a stick about an inch and a half long stuck in the frog of his hoof. Yup, that was the culprit. I got that bugger out and Makoto improved the next day, and the day after and the day after. He had been on stall rest for quite a while and when I finally let him out he was so adorably happy. Grabbing up mouth fulls of grass between kicking up his heels and squeals of joy.

Last week I let him run around the arena needing no encouragement from me. He was feeling so much better! He would gallop around, stop, roll and get up and gallop some more. Made my whole heart swell with love for this amazing, beautiful horse.

Then yesterday, after a month of fighting daily for him to get better, I finally got to ride him again.

It was just a little baby ride to see how he would do, but he was completely sound and feeling great. I was smiling ear to ear, so incredibly happy to have "my horse" back. I'm elated.

Saying Goodbye

2011-09-25T20:04:00.005+09:00

Yesterday was a terrible, very bad day. I had to say goodbye to two amazing lives.

My Grandpa passed away yesterday. He was at home and went peacefully in his sleep surrounded by family and people who love him. Grandpa lived a wonderful, long life. I remember him taking my sister and I for walks to the ice cream shop for ice cream. I remember how he could talk for hours about books and chemistry. I am so very glad that I got to spend time with him when I was home in the states this past summer. I got to see him and tell him how much I love him. I got to ask him where his favorite places to travel were, how his life was when he was my age, and what it was like to be married to his wife for 65+ years. Grandpa died at 89. He served in the Coast Guard and fought in WWII. You can see his obituary here.

At the barn one of our horses got very sick. We were holding a dressage clinic and the barn was very busy yesterday morning. We held half of the clinic while still treating Essa before I looked into Essa's eyes and knew. Everyone had to leave immediately. Essa was dying. Everyone who could have been there to help was there. The Japanese vet, all the Japanese employees, the owner, and all the American instructors were there to give Essa every attention. Everything that possibly could have been done was done. We made sure he was pumped full of pain killers so he could be as comfortable in la-la-land as he could be. He was humanely euthanized after fighting colic for 4 hours. He was exhausted and ready. It was a very emotional 4 hours for everyone. We fought so hard to keep Essa fighting for his life, but there comes a point where continuing the fight is doing more damage than good. It absolutely broke our hearts to see Essa's life slip away, but we were all relieved when his pain was over. I will miss this amazing lesson horse.

TEN miles!

2011-09-20T22:53:00.007+09:00

I just ran 10 miles. Totally proud of myself right now. And totally in love with my body that can run me that far. I set out to do my usual 6, but my path at the beach was blocked (maybe because of the gigantic waves we're getting from the typhoon off the coast), so thanks to the good 'ol iPhone I found a new running route I really liked. It also took me through some parts where if I was in the states I would have been really freaked out, but good thing I'm in Japan where there isn't much crime. Did make me run pretty fast through those parts though!

It was such a beautiful night. It's really getting a bit fall-ish out there! Hurray! I snapped this picture on my iPhone around mile 5. How did I ever run before having an iPhone?! I was listening to music, taking a picture, tracking my speed and miles and looking at the map. Love it.

Today was a really busy day. I had a early dentist appointment (loath), went to work, took care of poor hurt Makoto, rode and taught lessons and then came home and ran.

So now I'm rewarding myself with a nice glass of Riesling made from organic grapes, Autumn Leaves candle, fresh flowers from my favorite florist and feet in my comfy bunny socks (and knees covered in icy hot). By the way I'm watching Thor. That Chris Hemsworth is quite pretty! Yum.

Also, this past weekend in celebration of this new fall-ish weather I made vegan Pumpkin Brownies. So, I'll probably reward myself with one of those too.

Funky Feet

2011-09-18T19:34:00.006+09:00

With all the running I've been doing, I decided to make an appointment at the Mizuno Shoe Measurement. I was hoping they would tell me if I was running in the correct type of shoe, if I needed a wide shoe and why my big toe on my right foot kills me after my long runs. So, when I heard mccs was doing a foot analysis at the gym at my base I jumped on the opportunity.

Saturday morning I got up bright and early and had my feet scanned to determine my foot type. Unfortunately I wasn't really told anything new. I was told I have "normal" feet with "perfect" heel and ball of the foot weight distribution and very, very high arches. There was a bit of a language barrier to get in depth with my toe problem. They had me try on a number of different Mizuno shoes, but nothing felt better then when I put my Asics on again to head home. I think an appointment with a doctor/podiatrist might have to happen to figure my foot problem. Cest la vie.

Organic Goodies

2011-09-18T18:27:00.008+09:00

This past week I set out to find Tenbusu a natural and organic store. I'm always on the lookout for a Whole Foods substitute over here and this cute little store (while not quite a Whole Foods) was full of wonderful organic and macrobiotic options.

I came away with some wonderful local, organic eggs from down south on the island, some brown rice and flour bread, blueberry preserves, and some options from their yummy homemade prepared foods.

The eggs and bread with blueberry preserves have been a wonderful breakfast the past couple days!

Big, giant hurt baby

2011-09-15T21:48:00.009+09:00

Last week Makoto was suddenly horribly lame. He was in a lot of pain and he would barely walk on his back right hoof. There was a lot of heat and swelling in his fetlock and up the tendons in his lower leg. The next day I could see an abscess in the bulb of his heel and it was starting to drain. He was in a ton of pain, poor thing!

A hoof abscess is a localized bacterial infection in the hoof. The infection causes pus, pressure and pain. In Makoto's case to relieve the pressure in the hoof the pus burst out of the bulb of his heel.

Then, I was treating the abscess in the back hoof when he started totally freaking out stomping his front right hoof and an abscess burst out of his front hoof. Seriously. Oh. My. God. Saturday had at least 3 crying meltdowns, it just broke my heart.

I think this abscess happened due to the introduction of bacteria and moisture into the hoof. Or it could have happened because of compression and poor blood flow. So what to do? To treat an abscess it is important to keep the hoof as clean and protected as possible. I've been soaking his abscess's in Epsom Salt baths and using poultice on the bottom of the hoof to help pull any remaining infection out of the hoof. I then wrap his hoof in vet-wrap and then cover that with duct tape (or I used a special treatment boot) to help cushion and protect the hoof to keep dirt and manure out to prevent even more problems (infection). I've been wrapping his back legs in standing wraps to try and keep the swelling down.

This week the vet came out and confirmed the abscess. He gave me some black tar like paste to put on the abscess and 5 days worth of huge, heavy duty IV antibiotic shots.

Makoto is a huge baby. A horrible patient. When he feels bad he makes everyone know it. I've been totally abused taking care of him this past week. My back is killing me from bending over to treat his feet. It is a battle every day to soak his feet, clean them, poultice them, wrap them, duct tape them, give his shot and wrap his back legs. All in all it is a ton of work. Good think I love this horse like crazy.

To make up for stabbing him with needles, scrubbing his painful wound, forcing him to stand for long periods with his foot in a bucket of salt water and not letting him get turned out with the rest of the horses, I'm trying to make it up to him with lots of love, treats and private turn out on the nice grass. I really hope my poor baby heals quickly and feels better soon!

Half Way Mark

2011-09-14T22:19:00.020+09:00

I adore September. Love. It's time for cooler weather, sweet pumpkin treats and it just happens to be the half way point for my husbands deployment. That's right, half way done! I've been rather quiet on here about his deployment and honestly it hasn't exactly been easy for us thus far. Deployment has had it's own unique set of challenges and we've never done this before. So, we're learning as we go and trying to grit our teeth and bear it. We both have been incredibly busy and that sure has made time go by fast for both of us.

Without giving out too much information, here are some cool pictures my hubby took thus far. The 10th anniversary of 9/11 just passed and it makes me incredibly proud that my husband is over there. I hope you enjoy getting a peek into his life these days.

Owl Shower

2011-09-11T22:04:00.024+09:00

With today being the 10 year anniversary of 9/11 I thought it was a very appropriate day to celebrate new life, new beginnings and new hope.

Today I threw a baby shower for my dear friend and co-worker, Madie. She is due to have a baby girl in November. Madie is going to be an amazing mommy and I think I've told her about a hundred times that I can't wait to babysit. And dress her baby up in hats that have ears.

Madie is doing an owl theme in her nursery, so I continued that theme onto her shower. I never knew or noticed how popular owls are until Madie told me about her theme and then I started seeing them everywhere. I had a ball planning this owl shower!

Following in my amazing hostess mothers footsteps I had to make sure this shower was overflowing with food and drinks. The menu included:
Mimosas, lemon aide, juice or sodas
Chicken salad cups
Cucumber sandwiches
Tortellini and grape tomato skewers with pesto dip
Stuffed mushrooms
Banana bread with honey butter
Veggie plate with dip
Fruit kabobs
Salad with baby romaine, craisins, candied pecans, feta and strawberry vinaigrette
Shrimp cocktail
Baked brie (contributed by my wonderful friend Alexis)

And of course what kind of party would it be without cake?! A very talented mom from the barn generously offered to make the cake for the shower. This cake was a work of art! She also made the most adorable cupcakes too. Not only was the cake beautiful, it tasted as good as it looked. Amazing!

As Madie opened her adorable predominately pink baby loot we played baby gift bingo and the winners got little baby shower themed prizes.

Everyone left the party with a snicker doodle owl cupcake with cinnamon butter cream frosting and a shower lollipop.

This was not only my first time throwing a shower, it was one of the first I've ever been to. It was my first time buying diapers and various baby paraphernalia, and my first try at making a diaper cake. Throwing this shower was a lot of fun. Especially because the woman I was throwing it for deserved every ounce of the love showered upon her today! I love parties and I'm so glad that this went well and that Madie enjoyed her shower. I absolutely can't wait to meet little Addison!

Loving Every Step

2011-09-10T23:33:00.001+09:00

I'm still running. I'm no where near where I would have liked to be considering I had that goal of running a half marathon before Brad gets back from deployment, but I'm still getting out there. And loving every minute. Every time I go out I say to myself, "this is amazing, why don't you do this everyday?" I hate to say it but I have been so stinkin' busy and I hate running in the morning. There, I said it. I need to, I must, get myself motivated in the morning. Ideas?

One of the best parts of running for me is the gear! I love running outfits. I recently saw in Runners World some running outfits from Running Skirts. Mostly I saw their cute knee high running socks and wanted them bad enough to shell out $32 for them. Of course I had to buy a new outfit to go with them while I was at it. I bought the socks, a running skirt to match and this tank top with sparkly hearts on it.

I also recently (finally) got my new running shoes in the mail and I love them per usual. New gear is so motivating for me. And I love feeling comfortable, confident and cute (that is until I'm drenched in sweat with a bright red face) while I'm out there. Whatever works right?!

Good words to run by and live by:

"Believe that you can run farther or faster. Believe that you're young enough, old enough, strong enough, and so on to accomplish everything you want to do. Don't let worn-out beliefs stop you from moving beyond yourself."-J. Bingham

Seriously Good Smelling Stuff

2011-09-05T13:59:00.001+09:00

LUSH! Why have I never heard of them before? I've been missing out. When we were strolling around Roppongi in Tokyo we happened upon this handmade cosmetics store. The other girls knew about this, but I was a Lush neophyte. This Lush in Japan was pretty incredible, but everything was in Japanese so I only had my nose to guide me. There was a store lady there who spoke a bit of English, but for the most part we had to figure it out for ourselves.

They had a huge table covered with giant hunks of soap. These smelled incredible, but I fell in love with one in particular. I loved the smell. It turns out it was the Figs and Leaves soap. The website explains that figs are wonderfully nutritious and good for your body, and their little brown seeds exfoliate the skin and aloe vera extract has soothing properties. The scent is the best part: floral, orange blossom and ylang ylang "with an undertone of eastern exoticism." Lush claims this "soap is one of our sexiest." No wonder I loved the smell of it! I also love that this soap is vegan.

I also bought this Vanilla and Jasmine bath bomb. I haven't used it yet, but it smells incredible.

I bought a Gorilla Perfume stick that is like a push pop that you can rub on your skin. I love the smell, but I have no idea which sent I bought. Mine is a bit sweet like honey or vanilla. My girlfriend is a huge fan of Karma, with a fabulous spicy sent.

My friend also bought this amazing charcoal face stuff. It is supposed to brighten the skin and it leaves it silky smooth! I don't see this on the American Lush website. It may just be a Japanese thing. The Japanese ladies are really big on the skin lighteners and I know that they use charcoal soaps for that.

Reasons I love Lush: They make products from fresh, organic fruit and vegetables, the finest essential oils and safe synthetics. They make them fresh by hand using little or no preservatives or packaging, using only vegetarian ingredients, and they do not test on animals.

I mega heart Tokyo

2011-09-04T13:12:00.022+09:00

Tokyo is fabulous. I got the chance to stay in Tokyo again last week for our Fuji Adventure. We were in Tokyo for 5 days and we had a ton of fun. I got to stay at the wonderful New Sanno Hotel again. I absolutely love this place. We walked around our hotel area, shopping and eating as we went along.

We also got to spend some much needed down time at the hotel pool and hot tub and booked ourselves spa treatments. I treated myself to a massage and facial. The facials there are fantastic in case you ever get the chance!!

We went out exploring. We rode the subway system like pros and oogled the Harajuku girls in the Harajuku shopping and entertainment district. We went shopping at rare commodities such as Forever21, Gap and H&M.

I fell in love with the Roppongi area. Loved it. We did more exploring, shopping, had amazing views of the Tokyo Tower, and drank margaritas at the Hard Rock Cafe.

We got really lucky and there happened to be a Blue Man Group show the night we were in Roppongi. We got "poncho seat" tickets right up front, so we had to cover up with plastic in case some of the Blue Man paint should fly on us. It was a weird, but really fun show!

I just love cities!

Mt Fuji Adventure

2011-09-03T13:25:00.008+09:00

Last Saturday at this time I was slogging up (or down) the massive Mount Fuji. I cannot even tell you how amazing it is NOT to be on that mountain today and be warm, dry and not feeling like I might die. Ok, so here we go. I will tell you the adventure of my Mt Fuji struggle.

My girlfriends Becky and Brandy (and her friend from the States, Deb) invited me to go along with them first to Tokyo and then onto Mt Fuji and I excitedly said yes! It was something on my Must-Do-Before-Leaving-Japan list. So, we booked the trip and bought some hiking boots. So, August got really busy. I had tons going on at work and then my friend suddenly came to visit. Never once did I google Mt Fuji or do more than ask a few people who had done it before what they thought of it. I figured I was in good shape, I can run like 8 miles right now, so I'll be fine. We got a list of things to bring on this trip and I really hadn't even looked at it until I was packing the night before and really didn't worry about it. Wrong! I was SO not prepared for this hike.

#1 I hadn't looked at maps or anything prior to arriving on this mountain. I figured kids and grandparents did this hike, it was easy... we got lost TWICE.
#2 I didn't pack appropriate gear. The weather on Fuji changes incredibly quickly. It was cold. It was pouring down rain. Nothing I had was waterproof. Or all that warm. This made for a horribly uncomfortable hike (understatement of the year).
#3 This hike is challenging. It was not easy. In fact it was one of the hardest things I've ever done.

Our bus left Tokyo for Mt Fuji at 2:30 in the morning. Yes, 2:30 am. It took about 2.5 hours to get over to Mt Fuji so we started our hike at about 6am. There are a bunch of different trails to get up and down this mountain. They range in difficulty. We were supposed to take the yellow trail all the way. Well, right off the bat in the start of our hike, back when we actually still were excited about the whole thing, we took the wrong fork in the trail and ended up going the wrong way. Oops. We probably should have realized we were going down when we were supposed to be hiking up the dang thing. Anyway, we got back on track and it immediately sucked. It was like stairmaster hell. It was tough going and it only got harder. The trail has all these stops where you can take breaks and get your Fuji stick stamped. Well, from station 5-6 is long. Really long and a huge wake up call for people like us who thought this would be a walk in the park. We started looking at each other and exclaiming "This is HARD!" and "oh no, I immediately regret this decision." We kept going up and up. The stations started getting more frequent and we started racking up the stamps.

Meanwhile, the trail is super crowded. You can only really hike this trail during July and August, and we did it the last weekend in August, so it was packed. When the going gets hard I start going fast. I just want to get it over with as quickly as possible. This has always been my hiking method and mentality (my sister and husband can totally attest to this annoying habit of mine). Fuji is 2.34 miles above sea level, so we were all feeling the strain on our lungs. I/we are passing people left and right, scrambling up the sides of the "trail" on hands, feet and knees if necessary while trying not to fall to our deaths off the side of the mountain. In the US we get so accustomed to railings and safety. This mountain sometimes had ropes guiding the way of the trail but those babies would do nothing if you were to fall. There was nothing between you and death. In fact on average 3 people die on Fuji every year.

And to top off this situation it was a cloudy and misty mess. We couldn't see any of the amazing views that Mt Fuji offers. We were in the middle of an annoying wet, cold cloud. But, it got worse, so much worse. We kept going up and up past stations 8 a, b, c and d (these stations just kept going on and on and we were like "ummm come on seriously we have to be to 10 by now!") and we are getting our stamps and slogging up and up the rocky mountain cliff face. We keep going and we felt like we couldn't be that far off. We asked a friendly stick stamper how much further and when he announces an hour/hour and a half we all want to cry! Around this time the sky opened up. It starts doing this icy, cold, bone penetrating rain. We whip out our jackets and ponchos and try and cover up as best we can. I was wet to the bone in minutes. Completely soaking wet. Miserable. So the huge finale of getting to the summit was completely lost on us unfortunately. We were running up the mountain at this point and knew that the summit would have shelter and something hot to drink. My hands were numb. My feet were squishing in my boots, my whole body was so wet and cold! We couldn't see anything. We could hardly see a foot in front of our face it was so foggy and rainy. We got under some shelter and with shaking hands took our group summit pictures and got our final summit stamps on our Fuji sticks. We found a seat in the completely packed noodle shop and got hot coffee and soup to try and warm us up. We expected temperatures of about 40F, but with the rain and wind I know it was way colder than that. But, we did it! We were on the top of Mt Fuji! All 3,776 meters or 12,388.45 feet of it.

So, here are the facts. Elevation rise of 12,388 feet, it has a circumference of 78 miles and a diameter of 30 miles. I climbed from station 5 to station 10. It usually takes 8 to ascend and another 4 to descend. We got to the top in just over 6 hours.

This point of the hike was so incredibly mentally challenging for me. I was so tired, sore and miserably wet and cold, but knew it would be hours before I could get warm and dry and I knew that the way down was going to be even more challenging. There was no other option. I had to get myself down that mountain. So, we went back out in the rain and started our decent. Very soon we were confused. We saw a trail that veered off, but it was a red trail, not yellow. And might I add that all these color trails have multiple sub trails all with different names. So, we wanted the yellow trail, but had to pick the right yellow trail. And this trail led us back to the same trail we came up on. Were we supposed to take the same trail down as we did coming up? We didn't think so... but what else is there? That red trail?? We tried asking, but had no luck there. We were out on top of this mountain in the rain looking at maps and I started shaking so bad and for a minute I really thought I was going to be on that I Shouldn't Be Alive show. Words like hypothermia kept ringing through my head. We had to keep moving to stay warm-ish. We figured out (after the fact) that you could have taken that red trail down, but we took the yellow trail down the same way we came up (super challenging by the way) and then at the station 8 hotel our trail veered off again for the actual decent trail.

Going down was no less than awful. At first when we were going down the same trail we went up the "steps" were huge and full of loose rocks. You had to get yourself safely down these natural monster steps and straight down the mountain. After the trail split off it was even harder going. The trail consisted of extremely steep switch backs down the mountain and the footing was rocky. Big rocks, little rocks, all of them moved and shifted when you took a step. At first we started running down this decent trail, but after slipping, falling and almost careening off the side of the mountain we had to slow down. These switchbacks seemed never ending. On the way up at least we had all those stations to break it up a bit. The decent was awful. It seriously felt like my toenails were floating around my sock somewhere. And The loose, gritty red and black volcanic pumice on the descending route got everywhere on my rain soaked and frozen body from head to toe.

On the up side, on our way down the sun miraculously appeared! When that sun came out I think my whole mind, body and soul drank up every second! It was beautiful and most importantly warm. We stopped and snapped a bunch of pictures. That bit of sun was incredible. I only wish we had been able to have some sun at the summit, but I gladly took that little bit we got.

When we finally got back to the bottom I celebrated with a change into dry clothes and we shared a Fuji cake. I'm not going to lie, I was hurting. My body was upset with me! I got this horrible charlie horse in my right calf that made me seriously consider that I had ripped or torn something in there. That pain pretty much eclipsed all my other pains in my feet, knees, hips, butt, and shoulders. How do kids and old people do this hike?! Oh my gosh it was horrible! The hike was challenging enough, but the rain and cold was too much. It was quite a mental and physical feat for me. We may have been miserable, but I tell you what... We laughed so much up and down that mountain. It was either laugh or cry. I will never ever forget that hike and the ladies I got to experience that hell with. I'm glad I did it, but I will never do it again!

So take my advice: plan ahead and do your research, pack your gear light and wear waterproof everything and mentally prepare for a long day (and day after) of pain!

Check out my picture slide show from Mount Fuji:

Outstanding Organics

2011-08-31T12:40:00.004+09:00

Introducing my new favorite restaurant on Okinawa: Ukishima Garden!

Ukishima is 100% organic and vegetarian. All the veggies are locally grown and most dishes are macrobiotic. No meat, fish, eggs, or dairy are used in most of the dishes. And to top it off they have a great selection of organic wines!

Hope found a brochure for this restaurant while we were having bagels at Cactus Eatrip. We immediately called for a dinner reservation that night. We were so excited and weren't disappointed. We both knew we wanted to indulge in the organic wine, so we took a cab ride from Kinser and the poor cab driver had to all the restaurant twice to figure out where they were located (even though the location did not seem hard to find so close to Kokousai Street).

At the restaurant we completely indulged. We ordered a fresh, crisp salad that was picked from their very own garden out back. We also ordered an appetizer of Orion beer battered veggie fritters that were also so incredibly flavorful and yummy. We both got the amazing veggie pasta with a tomato cream sauce for our main dishes. We had pieces of sugar and dairy free hazelnut and chocolate cake for dessert. How they got that cake to be so incredibly good without butter and sugar is beyond me! To top it off we first ordered a bottle of sweet sparkling wine and lingered so long over our delish meal that we ended up splurging with a second bottle of Riesling. (Good thing we had already decided to take a cab!) It was an incredible meal and I will be going back for sure!!

Ukishima Garden is located in Naha near Kokousai Street. 1400 - 1800 cafe time. 1800 - 2400 dinner time. The address is 1-12-3 Matsuo Naha Okinawa 900-0014. Phone for directions or reservations: 098-943-2100.

Zombie Octopus

2011-08-29T22:14:00.005+09:00

While my friend was visiting she requested that we go to the Arin Krin Garlic House Restaurant. I had gone once before when we first got to the island and wasn't impressed and never went back. But, of course I was more than willing to try it again with my visitor.

After having quite a time waiting for a parking spot and parking in their tiny lot we went in and ordered some of the dishes that got raving reviews online such as the garlic pizza, shrimp spring rolls, and fried mashed potatoes. We also ordered a dish described as octopus and asparagus with garlic sauce. We're thinking calamari... ummm no, not so much. This dish came out from the kitchen wriggling. As in alive. We were horrified. The octopus was chopped up and it looked like it's skin had been shaved off and these shavings were waving and moving around on the plate. Nightmare central.

During our entire meal (meal that did not include any of the octopus dish) we watched this poor octopus slowly die a second death. My friend is a vegetarian and I'm not far behind, so we were appalled, but my science mind was at work. I knew it couldn't really be alive alive. After some poking around on the internet and you tube it turns out that soy sauce reanimates the dead tissue of the octopus, squid etc and makes it move. Zombie octopus!

Article and video can be found here.

So, if you go to Arin Krin and want to loose your appetite order the octopus and asparagus dish. Otherwise, I'd just stick to the meat and wriggle free garlic pizza.

Hope's Visit

2011-08-23T20:55:00.004+09:00

My little sister from my college sorority came to visit me in Okinawa last week! She was the first visitor I've had and it was great to finally use my guest room and take her around to my favorite Oki sights.

We had a totally jam packed week. Since we only had about a week we had to be picky on what made the list of Top Must Sees.

Aquarium - duh. This place rocks. Dolphin/whale show, sea turtles, sea horses and a giant, huge floor to ceiling aquarium tank. Awesomeness.

Forest Adventure Park - zip lining!

Cape Zanpa - lighthouse and beach picnic

Cocok's pedicures

Mihara Horse Club - (my work!) My friend got to ride twice and of course we had to take a trip down to the beach to swim with the horses.

Chula-U Onsen (hot spring) - Yes, we did the naked part and all!

Mihama American Village

Snorkeling at Maeda Point

Hiking Tadake Falls

Day boat trip on Destiny Charters to snorkel the Karama Islands

Former Japanese Headquarters

Peace Prayer Park

Naha Kokusai Street

Food! We did a lot of eating, of course.

Pineapple Park - pineapple wine tasting, pineapple ice cream and free samples! I have yet to buy a ticket to the park, I just like going to the store area and sampling. Is this bad?! The store is huge and sells mass quantities of everything pineapple. We came away with some sweet sparkling pineapple wine, pineapple chocolate covered pineapple cookies, and a dragon fruit.
Bagels at Cactus Eatrip
Sam's By the Sea
Transit
Pizza in the Sky
Arin Krin Garlic House - I have a horrifying story to tell you about our meal here.
Ukishima Garden - this is my new favorite place. I love it so much it will get a post all to itself!

It was an incredibly busy and fun week. Even though I still worked, I feel like I got a stay-cation during her vacation. It was wonderful getting to catch up with my dear friend again. I took a ton of pictures, but here is a slideshow movie of some of my favorites.

Right now I need to be packing and getting ready for my Mt. Fuji trip! My friends and I leave for Tokyo tomorrow morning and climb on Saturday. Wish me luck! I'll tell you all about it when I get back.

This too will pass

2011-08-11T22:04:00.014+09:00

Life has been beyond stressful these days. My stress level may be a great weight loss diet, but not so good for my blood pressure and sleep habits. When things like this happen I try and stay focused on the positive and a good friend reminded me tonight that we are never handed more than we can handle. I am so thankful for the positive people in my life, their support and wonderful guidance.

I am also so very thankful for this special horse in my life. These are a few shots from last week, unfortunately it was from the very fist day of breaking in my new boots, so my lower leg is a bit willy-nilly in these pictures. I will blame it on the boots completely. ;)

He is so pretty. And so very special to me. I absolutely adore him. Lovelovelove.

Some more exciting news is that I'm getting a visitor! My little sister from my sorority is coming to visit me and she gets here on Saturday. Lots to do before then to prepare for her visit. It will be so fun to actually get to use my guest room and show someone my favorite Okinawa spots.

Work Shoes

2011-08-01T07:31:00.018+09:00

This is what took over my life last week:

Horse Summer Camp! It was a lot of work, but worth every minute. The kids are so dang cute!

So, my running totally took a nose dive last week. I was going to run early yesterday morning, but I got to talk to my sweet husband on skype for a whole 50 minutes, that's the longest we've been able to talk so far! And skype was working reasonably well for once so I wasn't missing half of what he was saying. So, my time avalible to run got shorter and also later in the day so it was hot as blazes outside. I ran along the road, mistake #1, where is was even hotter and Okinawa seriously needs to get on the tree band waggon. I need some shade, people! After feeling like I'm going to die and soaked like I just jumped into a pool of hot water after 4 miles I called it quits. Some days are just not going to be good runs.

I did however do one of my favorite things this morning though! I ordered new running shoes. I've mentioned before how I'm huge Asics Gel Nimbus fans and so I bought the 13s. I could feel how my current shoes were just breaking down and not giving me what I need in the foot department. Any runners out there have a problem with the side of their big toe rubbing and hurting? It's only on my right foot.

I also bought new hiking boots for my upcoming Mt. Fuji hike. I hope they come quick so I can break them in!

Speaking of foot hell, I'm breaking in my new riding boots this week too. Ouch!

Don't you just love new shoes!

Mountain Horse Victoria Dressage Boots

Hi-Tec Light Hiking Boots in Grey/Violet

Asics Gel Nimbus 13 Running Shoe (in pink of course)

And since we can't have all work (shoes) and no play: BCBG Ballet Pump in blush - I had to just throw these babies in. I got them and this hot little pink BCBG dress while I was in the states. That store is a little slice of my heaven.

Time for me to get off to work. We have a big field trip of kids coming out today!

Lobster and Lighthouses

2011-07-23T19:15:00.001+09:00

If you haven't been to Maine, go ahead and add it to your list right now. My grand parents started the tradition my becoming friends with a couple who built a cabin on the lake, my parents followed suit and passed on this wonderful place to my sister and I. My parents have been going up to Maine, to the same lake and the same areas for 40 years, that's just how much they love it. I've been going my whole life and my parents love to tell the stories of my sister wanting to see her brand new baby sister and tumbling me out of my bassinet, my sister dumping melted butter for the lobsters all over herself moments before I split my lip open from bouncing on (or rather off) the bed and the septic tank decided to back up too, and how we've taken the same picture beside the same cove of rocks every time we've come. Maine is not only a vacation destination for my family, it's full of memories, familiar places and nostalgia. I love it. It is something so very special.

Pemaquid Lake, Damariscotta, Maine. The lake we always stay on is Pemiquid Lake. Damariscotta is about the cutest little town ever. It's small, quaint and picturesque. It is so beautiful it's a small wonder why there are so many artist galleries. Small, non chain stores and restaurants thrive in Maine and the locals love to keep it local. There was a huge stink a few years back when the town got a McDonald's. We stayed in the very same island cabin that my grandparents used to come to and I'm pretty sure that the cabin and the things in it are exactly if not perfectly the same from when they used to come. This cabin is rustic. I'm pretty sure it qualifies as camping. No heat or AC, no phone, maybe 5 tv channels if you're lucky, and lake water is pumped into the cabin for washing and bathing so you have to use bottled water for everything that's going in your mouth like brushing teeth, cooking and drinking. We did wash the dishes in the lake water and I tried not to think about that. Don't get me wrong, the lake is huge and beautiful and wonderful to swim in (you can see your feet it's so clear or rather brownish from the tannins in the leaves). Ok so there is the inconvenience factor of having to row ourselves and every single thing over to land in a row boat every single time you want to go anywhere. And there is the bug factor, hordes of mosquitoes and moths and god knows what would get into the cabin and as I read with my kindle book light at night the buggies would dive bomb my light. But, big but here, it was fabulous. The nightly fires in the big old fireplace, the smell of the old log cabin, the views of the lake and the haunting calls of the loons at night made every second a treasure. Plus, I had my parents blissfully all to myself. Since the cabin owner is an old friend of the family we got to stay for free in exchange for my dad doing some minor handy-man repair work around the cabin. My dad is a fabulous woodworker and repaired a bed and a bunch of other wooden things. We swam, floated, rowed and kayaked around the lake and had a grand 'ol time.

Red's Eats, Wiscassett, ME. This place has won all kinds of fab reviews and rewards. I have dreams about these lobster rolls. Yes, they are that good. These rolls are huge, piled high with fresh Maine lobster meat. We accompanied ours with sweet potato fries and onion rings. It was the perfect start to our Maine trip.

Rachel Carson's Salt Pond, New Harbor, ME. This is a very cool spot to see even if you aren't nerdy and into biology like me. This tide pool captures all kinds of see life, the same ones that inspired Rachel Carson. We love this spot because of the incredible panoramic views of the spectacular Maine coast and my dad happens to be a big fan of "the big rocks" a short walk and around the bend from the tide pool.

Shaw's Wharf, New Harbor, ME. This is our favorite fish and lobster restaurant. Right on the water, the views can't be beat. And you can watch the lobster men coming in with their catch. You know the lobsters and fish are the freshest they can be.

Back Cove. Back Cove is off the beaten path a little bit and it's a bit tricky to get to, but if you ask locals they will point you in the right direction. This quiet, beautiful spot also has a big field of wild lupines, my mom's favorite Maine flower.

Boothbay Harbor, ME. We all love this adorable town. It's got a ton of interesting shopping and places to eat. All of which are local and of the kind you've never seen before. We always go Duck Pin Bowling when we're here too. It's like regular bowling, but you use a little ball and the pins are super skinny. This town has a little shop next to the bowling place and they make amazing fudge. We also had an incredibly good dinner at The Boathouse Bistro.

Monhegan Island, ME. I had my birthday in Maine and I got to pick what we did, so we went to Monhegan Island for the day. We took the Hardy Boat Monhegan Island Ferry over to this magical little island. There are no cars and no paved roads and I think someone told me there are only something like 70 people living there year round. The island has a village, an artist colony, a beautiful 17 miles of hiking trails, an old shipwreck, lighthouse museum, art studios and boast the tallest seaside cliffs. 3/4 of the island remain "forever wild." This island has a lot going on for only being 1.5 miles long and 3/4 mile wide. I never thought I'd go hiking with my parents and my yorkie, but we did and had a wonderful time. On the boat ride back we even saw a bunch of harbor seals.

For my birthday dinner we went out to the Schooner Landing in Damariscotta. We went back to the cabin for angel food cake with local Maine strawberries and whipped cream (my favorite cake ever) and sipped on almond champagne. Happy 27th to me!

Mt Battie, Camden Hills State Park. Another one of my favorite things is to have a picnic up on Mt Battie. "Camden Hills State Park signature location is the scenic vista high atop Mt. Battie where sweeping views of Camden, Penobscot Bay, and surrounding islands await." We stopped briefly in Camden on the way home.

Kennebec River Cruise, Boothbay Harbor. We took this 44 mile scenic river cruise and saw the beautiful Maine coast and 7 lighthouses.

Pemaquid Point Lighthouse, Bristol, Maine. "Pemaquid Point, with its dramatic streaks of granite reaching to the sea, shaped by massive movements thousands of years ago, would be a fascinating place to visit even without its pretty white lighthouse. The spot is one of the most frequently visited attractions of the Maine coast."

For 4th of July we went into Damariscotta for their adorable small town 4th of July celebration. There was a nice big town turn out and a pretty good local cover band kept us entertained as did a spectacular sunset as we waited for the fireworks to begin. I was thinking small town, dinky fireworks, right? Ummm no. This fireworks show knocked our socks off. It was so loud and close over our heads pieces of the fireworks were falling on us and the sound was overwhelming. We were in the right place, everyone was packed into the same place by the waterfront around us. Poor Sparky (my yorkie) was freaking out. I was freaking out! It was scary, a whole sensory overload for your eyes, ears, nose and whole body absorbing the explosions. The show was long and wonderful. I may go deaf a few years sooner in my old age because of this artillery/fireworks show. I was too busy trying to cover up my pups ears to cover up my own. My mom totally loved it and she said it's the fireworks show she's been waiting for. Who knew my mom was such an adrenaline junky!

This is a slideshow I put together for my parents.

I hope you all enjoyed learning some of my little Maine gems, you seriously just have to get up there. I know I'll be going back before too long and one day I'll bring my kids to continue the tradition.

Setting the bar high

2011-07-23T12:52:00.008+09:00

Well, I got out of the habit of blogging when I was on my trip and man alive, it's hard to kick start myself into doing it again. Ok, I'll be honest, it's been hard to kick start myself into doing much of anything after this trip home. I have the post vacation blues, majorly. While my motivation levels were sky high in the states now that I'm back here I'm struggling to hang onto those feelings and keep myself pushing forward. I found myself again when I was in the states. I got the feeling that I was strong enough, smart enough. I remembered who I was and what was important to me. I got my confidence back and I'm going to run with it. Literally.

I ran a lot when I was in the states. I ran a 5k right before I went home and kept up with my running. I loved it. I loved running at dusk when the fireflies came out, I loved running on the trail around Burke Lake and around my neighborhood. I was running fast, feeling great. The day before we left for Maine while stocking up on chemical free bug spray and sunscreen at REI I grabbed a women's running magazine at the register. I didn't open it up until a few days later and saw there happened to be a half marathon training plan in there. I got to thinking. Then a couple weeks later, after finding the first magazine so motivating, I grabbed a second running magazine and it had an article about running your first half. So... here it goes. I am going to see if I can train for a half. Just see how it goes. Ok, I've said it on here, announced it. So now I have to do it. I'll keep you updated and posted about how this goes for me. I'll say this, I ran 7 miles this morning and thought I was going to pass out or barf, but I didn't and I'm super proud of myself. I haven't picked the half I want to run, but I want to do one in the fall before Brad gets back. And preferably one with the least amount of hills possible.

Massive, overwhelming and scary goal #2: In the states I got a crazy thing in my head, the desire to go back to school. It crept up on me suddenly, hard and fast like a wave. I graduated college in 2006, I have no idea if I could even get into a grad program and how I would navigate starting a program while overseas or if I'd have to wait until I get back to the states. If I have to wait I'm worried this desire for school will wane and I'll never do it. I feel like I need to do it now. So, there are a lot of questions, a lot of areas that I need to explore, but I'm just thrilled that I want to even think about going back to school. Up to now this was unheard of for me, college was hard, borderline hate-my-life hard and on my graduation day my friend reminded me of my exclamation of "thank god I never have to do this again!" So, I'm going to talk to some people, do some poking around on the internet and see what I can see.

Of course I have other more attainable, small goals like taking a scuba class this summer and I have my usual horse related goals. Bring it!

Is it really over?

2011-07-11T22:32:00.000+09:00

I cannot believe how fast these 4 weeks back in the states have gone by. I fly back to Okinawa tomorrow and I have so much to catch you up on once I get back. I went to Jersey to visit family, Maine for a relaxing week and a half, back to Jersey and even snuck in a quick trip to NYC to visit my dear friend. I'm back in VA now and have been just savoring every minute. I don't feel ready to go back and there was a lot I didn't get to do that I wanted to, but I have 7... yes 7 boxes of USA goodness that I am shipping back to Oki. I'm usually not a huge shopper, but I went into a shopping frenzy these last 4 weeks apparently. This trip has done so much for me mind, body and soul. It was exactly what I needed.
Saying good bye once again to mom, dad and Sparky, my friends and to this place that I love so much will be terribly hard. I have been literally feeling sick about it all day. But, all good things must come to an end and it's time to get back to real life. Bye USA!

VA has my heart

2011-06-22T21:55:00.023+09:00

Aside from the awesome plethora of shopping and restaurant choices, Northern Virginia will always have a special place in my heart. It's home. I love Virginia for so many reasons. For it's quick access to the city as well as horse country. For the convenience and for it's beauty. Definitely not for it's horrible traffic, but even that won't keep me away. I love it here. Going down every street had a hundred memories. I think it is the sense of belonging that makes me love it the most. That super comfortable, I'm-in-my-element kind of feeling.

This is what I've been up to this week:
Eating. Shopping.

My favorite bread store. Great Harvest.

Farmers Market.

Wine Festival.

Friends! When out at Icons in Fairfax my high school girlfriends ran into more high school friends. It was a mini high school reunion. Nothing like running into your high school flame when you're least expecting it.

This trip home is just what I needed, for so many reasons. I feel re-charged, happy and back to my old self. This trip has been so good for my soul!

So now we are packing up the car to go visit family in Jersey and then going to a cabin on a private island in Maine. Wifi is going to be hard to find! So, there may be a real break in the blog posts for a little while. But, don't worry I'll have tons to update you with when I get back!

America the Beautiful

2011-06-17T11:38:00.001+09:00

Oh, my apologies for slacking on the blogging. I had so much to blog about, but it all got put on hold for a bit because I've traveled to the States! Yes, surprise, I took a trip home to visit the fam and friends. I got home a few days ago and will be here for 4 weeks. It seemed like the perfect time to take a little trip home to relax and reconnect. I love the good 'ol U.S. of A.! I will never ever take what we have for granted ever again.

So far I've enjoyed a lot of American food and time with mom and dad. I've been going on walks with mom around the neighborhood, running around my favorite lake, working with dad in his workshop, hanging out with mom and dad on the deck around the outdoor fireplace, watching the fireflies come out at night and listening to the tree frogs. Getting used to driving back on the right side of the road was just like riding a bike, although I do tend to turn on my windshield wipers instead of my blinker. I was worried that my pup Sparky wouldn't remember me, but he did! He is getting so old, but he is still my lil baby.

Today was a really special day! My good friend had a baby 3 weeks ago and today I got to meet him! I'm totally in love. I just love friends that no matter how long its been since seeing them when you get together it's like no time has passed. Except this time she has a new baby! He is such a doll; he pretty much sent my crazy baby fever into overdrive. Congrats to my beautiful friend!

Tomorrow I'm going to the farmers market with mom and then heading over to a wine festival with my girlfriends. I love America!

Feeling down? Saddle up.

2011-06-14T12:29:00.002+09:00

Photo by Donna Demari

Thank goodness for good friends

2011-06-11T19:53:00.002+09:00

This weekend my friends and I had a really fun day celebrating a good friend's birthday.

We started out the day getting pedicures at Cocok's.

Had a delish lunch at a cute sandwich shop near the seawall called Big Midows Sub Stand. I will be going back here. This sandwich was so good! We all got the herb chicken sandwich which came with coconut chicken soup and fries.

A bigger group got together for dinner at Me Kara Uroko next door to Transit on the seawall. They had a large menu with lots of yummy options. It was really fun to have dinner with so many friends, but it did make me miss Brad pretty bad.

We finished the day off going to see Hangover 2 and laughed our butts off. Thank goodness for good friends! What a fabulous Friday. I love birthdays. Happy Birthday Jess, so glad I could celebrate with you!

GHO Review

2011-06-11T10:42:00.006+09:00

So, I'm pretty much in love. On Thursday 3 mamma-sans ushered me out of my apartment and preformed cleaning magic all over my apartment. That's right, I broke down and finally hired a professional cleaning service. I've wanted to do this for months (if you remember my spring cleaning post), but my feeling that I was just being super lazy kept me from doing it for a while. I mean, it's just me and Brad... and now it's just me in the apartment. But, we've been living in this apartment for over a year and that's the longest I've ever lived in an apartment since college. And, I could really tell. It really bothered me, and I'm not super in love with this apartment anyway, so it was incredible how uncomfortable I was becoming in my own space. So, cue the angels of cleaning.

I have a lot of friends on the island that have used Good Housekeeping and they rave about them, but I've never used a cleaning service before. After looking at their website and the service list I was sold. I booked a deep cleaning and it ended up being worth every penny. They completely surpassed my expectations.

GHO upgraded me for free from 2 housekeepers to 3 (totally awesome) and they were in my apartment for 4 hours so that's an equivalent of 12 hours of cleaning. In addition to the basic cleaning you would expect from a cleaning service let me tell you a few things these ladies did that just blew me away: organized the massive heap of shoes in my closet, organized the massive amount of crap magneted to my refrigerator, organized the books on the bookshelf, cleaned under the couches and beds, made the beds hotel style with the sheets and blankets perfect, took my massive amount of recycling down, cleaned the inside (and outside) of my trash can, and basically made my apartment totally sparkle. There is no dust anywhere. How to they do this?! Amazing. Part of the deep cleaning was that they would clean my stove/oven and refrigerator. They threw the microwave in there too. I don't want to use my kitchen because I don't want to mess up the perfection that's going on in there.

Plus, while they were cleaning I got to go out and do some shopping and had a totally nice morning. Then I got to come home to a perfect apartment! Bliss. GHO housekeepers were super nice, professional and I will totally be using this service again, shame free, because what these ladies can do is pretty amazing. I mean, they cleaned in that tiny crack between the counter and the refrigerator!

Because animals are always fun to blog about

2011-06-08T22:41:00.024+09:00

A few days ago Brad sent me an email with the most amazing message:
"Guess what....I held a slow loris today!!!!!! It was so so so soft. And it was nomming some bread while I was holding it and kind of licking my hand. It was so nice and held my finger with its little hand. I attached some pics of that little cutie. You would have died. I so want one now." This might be my most favorite email ever. He got to hold a slow loris! Oh my god. You may remember me mentioning that I'm totally obsessed with slow loris and his email made me green with envy and made me kind of want to die from the over excess of cuteness. I pretty much told Brad that he's taking me there. End of story.

While the love of my life is away I've been spending lots of quality time with the other love of my life. My favorite horse, Makoto. He is pretty much totally amazing and I love him to pieces. I don't know what I would do with myself if I didn't have my work with the horses here. It's times like these, the first week of my husband being deployed, that makes me really appreciate the horses and my friends.

Makoto is so beautiful. He is so thrilled that I have my iphone in his face taking pictures. He even sticks his tongue out to just make sure I know how excited he is. Humm kind of like some husband I know. He started looking pretty when I started shaking the sugar cube box in his face to bribing him into putting his ears up and not look like he's half asleep. I kinda wish that worked with my husband.

Makoto and I had a fabulous ride today. I had a friend snap a few pictures on my iphone basically because I'm lame and can't think of anything else to blog about other than work right now. Yeah, I'm pretty much obsessed with him.

And it's been quite a while since I've updated you on my little monster. He is 8 months in a few days, quite a big boy now. I'm a pretty lucky girl to have all these great guys keeping me company!

Let the Countdown Begin

2011-06-03T21:32:00.015+09:00

"The Day" has come and gone. The squadron had us out to the hangar this morning to say goodbye and watch the plane take off.

Yesterday I took this picture on my iphone and sent it to him at work saying I was ready to go with him. He got a kick out of it. Luckily, it happened to be a rainy day, so my lessons got canceled and I got to come home early from work and spend a nice last night at home with Brad. I made him his favorite cupcakes and we had a nice dinner. It was over too soon!

Today was much harder than I imagined it would be. Saying goodbye was super tough, but I know that Brad has trained long and hard for this and I am so incredibly proud of him.

*I had to turn the first few photos we took black&white or sepia because I was nervous and my neck and chest got super red! So hot. Not.

When the time got down to the last 10 minutes I started to loose it! But, I tried to hold it together because I knew how hard it was for him to leave me regardless and it would have been harder for him if I didn't show a brave face. Brad said he had to bring his stuff out to the plane and that he'd be right back. Well, he wasn't able to come right back and I was beginning to think he wasn't able to. But, then someone said "here comes your hubby again." I think it was extra hard watching him walk away twice, but I wouldn't give back that last extra hug for anything.

Video of Brad taking off:

Once the plane was out of sight some girlfriends and I went out to a nice lunch. My insides felt like they were melting, but it was nice to have company. Before going home I stopped in at my favorite flower shop for some pretty peonies. Nothing like good friends and pretty flowers to cheer me up.

When I got home to my apartment I just felt like I needed to check out for a while. I hibernated for like 4 hours. That's a long time even for me who totally loves naps. It was a very emotionally draining morning. 200(ish) days and counting.

Good Luck to my amazing, super smart, strong and brave "aerial warrior" husband!

Enjoying the time left

2011-06-02T09:25:00.022+09:00

As Brad's time before he left got shorter and shorter we managed to squeeze in one last really nice date night. I tried not to think about it like our "last" date, or last time we held hands in the car, last snuggle on the couch watching a movie, last laughs in the kitchen making dinner or last time we went for a run together. It of course isn't the last time. But, it sure makes me appreciate our time together more.

So, back to our date. We went to a Thai place in Mihama called Jai Thai. It was pretty cute in there, all Thai-ed up and all. Brad surprised me by ordering a bottle of champagne. We had never splurged on Moet before, so it was quite a treat.

We ordered a few dishes of the menu to share including the mandatory Pad Thai. The food wasn't anything super spectacular, more like Japanese Thai, but I did like how the pineapple dish we ordered came in an actual pineapple and the carrots in it were cut into shapes like hearts and flowers.

After dinner we had dessert over at the amazing Yogurtland. Then we walked around and had fun window shopping and going into a few interesting stores.

We did find this adorable wine and cheese shop that I totally fell in love with. They had fresh breads, snacks, a variety of cheeses and lots of wine and foods imported from Europe and the USA. What really caught my eye was that they had some organic foods and candy. I asked the wonderful Japanese store clerk if they carried any organic wines and he took me over to a whole organic wine section! He helped us pick out a nice bottle of organic white wine and I got some organic cherry hard candies too. Really good find!

We went home and talked over a nice glass of wine out on our balcony. Such a sweet, romantic night with the love of my life. So blessed.

I've been secretly working on making Brad a video. I've never made one before, so this is my first try. For some reason youtube kind of squished some of the photos, but this will give you the gist. I put it on a DVD and also made him a mix CD and will sneak it into is flight bag so he'll find it on his trip out.

Introducing Prince and Wild

2011-06-01T11:07:00.023+09:00

Last Friday was a really exciting day at work. We went to pick up 2 new horses! We've been asking the owner for more horses and he finally pulled through. Two prior race horses from mainland Japan were put into a shipping container, put on a ferry and boated on down to Okinawa.

We went to the Naha seaport to watch the boat come in, dock and unload the containers. A huge crane picked up the horses container off the boat, brought it down to the dock and then a fork lift tractor thingie picked up the container and moved it to it's assigned spot. Of course it was pouring down rain, but nothing could make us more excited to see the new boys for the first time. It was like Christmas!

We don't know too much about these boys except that Wild was never in a race. It looks like he has a prior injury - blew out his knee. And he was gelded only a few days before transport. Prince has been used for riding off the track already, we think. They both sure look like race horses!

The shipping method here in Japan is sure different from what I've seen before. The horses were put in a metal container in non break-away halters, tied to the side. Prince broke his lead rope leaving a metal clasp hanging off his halter and Wild untied his so his was just hanging down so he could trip all over it. The bottom of the container was disgusting, as in like inches of muck. They had buckets of water that promptly spilled everywhere leaving them nothing to drink and even more icky stuff to stand in. Fabulous. But, they both seemed very calm and totally fine with all of it!

I was pretty nervous about how the horses would load onto the trailer, but they both went on just fine. As you can see the "horse trailer" is totally not what we think of in the states. Once we got back to the barn they both came off the trailer fine too except Wild decided to totally skip the ramp and just jump from a stand still cross country style all the way down to our surprise, especially Madie's since she was leading him.

We immediately turned the horses out into the arena so they could stretch their legs after their long journey. Here is a video of them when they were first set loose:

They had fun showing us their moves! Both are super pretty movers. As a side note, in the video I call the horses by the wrong names. Yama goes "I made a mistake!" The names are opposite! Prince is the chestnut and Wild is the young bay.

They also got to go out on the grass for a little bit before we brought them in to look them over and shower them off. Then into the barn they went to meet the other boys and eat their first meal.

I'm totally in love with them already!

Typhoon Party

2011-05-30T09:00:00.001+09:00

This holiday weekend was very rudely interrupted by super typhoon Songda that rolled in Saturday night. Since all the planes have to be flown out by our husbands to avoid the storm my neighbor had a typhoon party for the wives. Wine, lots of good food and fun music is the perfect way to let the storm pass. Since Brad didn't have to fly out the planes since he's leaving soon I left the party a bit early and we snuggled up on the couch and watched a movie when we weren't watching the crazy storm out the windows.

The cat3 typhoon got pretty strong around 10pm. Our doors and windows were shaking so bad from the wind, it was actually pretty scary. Our lights flashed a few times and the street light kept going off and on, but fortunately we didn't loose power. A lot of off base places were without power all night and into the next day.

The next day we went for a run over to Tropical Beach check out the damage. This storm was not very friendly to the trees and plants that's for sure. So many trees went down. And all the plants look totally dead now. Everything looks brown and bedraggled. But, knowing how fast these island plants grow I'm sure they'll make a comeback in no time. I've heard a lot of people say that this is the worst storm that's come through here for a while.

It's not even officially typhoon season yet and already two storms have come through. Lets hope that Mother Nature is just getting them done early this year.

The Big "D"

2011-05-28T14:39:00.008+09:00

There is a country song I heard a while ago with lyrics about The Big D, and while we're not going through a divorce or Dallas like in the song, we are getting ready for a different Big D. Deployment. Things were really up and down there for a while, weather he was going or not going, but it ended up that he is going, for about 6 1/2 months. I debated if I was even going to mention it on here. I'm not going to get into any specifics about where he's going and what he's doing (opsec! ha), but I know all you out there will have lots of good advice and will keep my spirits up while he's away.

My guest room is under here somewhere and so is my yoga mat. What you can't see in the picture are 2 closets with it's contents spilling out and more in Brad's office. It's a pretty incredible amount of gear.

As Brad gears up, I'm trying not to feel like the next half of the year is looming ominously ahead of me. I'm trying not to think about how the bottom of my stomach feels like its falling out. I know I'll be able to talk to him, see his face on skype and I know he'll be fine. I'm going to work on setting up some goals and milestones to work towards while he's away to keep myself motivated. And of course I'll be busy with work and friends. And I'll throw some traveling in there. I'm pretty excited about making the next 7 months go by as quickly as possible!

Good Advice

2011-05-23T22:17:00.004+09:00

Travel light, live light, spread the light, be the light.

Good advice on Yogi tea bag this evening.

I have been seriously slacking on blogging lately. For one big reason that I'll share with you soon. Stick with me, I promise I'll get back to adventuring and posting interesting things.

This weekend was full of friends, parties and bbq's for us.

I hope you all had a fun weekend too!

Rain Rain Go Away

2011-05-17T11:12:00.024+09:00

We've been getting an awful lot of rain on Okinawa lately. Last week we had a tropical storm. It seems like it's been going on for weeks. Hello rainy season. Rain sucks a lot as is, but when you work outside it sucks even more especially when it means people won't be coming for lessons. Yesterday it down poured all day and once again all my lessons were canceled. So, the day was filled with playing with the horses and bunnies! Lots of fun.

The horses don't get a lot of turn out time as is, but when it rains they get even less. So, I turned them all out into the arena yesterday afternoon and they were running around having a blast.

They all rolled, of course, and got totally covered in wet sand. I had to give all 9 of them showers when they were done playing.

*Sky thinks he's a giraffe!

Recently some new baby bunnies were born at the barn. Ummm can you say overload of soft adorable cuteness?! These bunnies just opened their eyes. Love. Last week all the bunnies in the "bunny stall" were freed! Freedom! All the bunnies now come and go from their stall and they seem much happier. They are fast and there is lots of places to hide if something was to chase them, so I think they will be fine. They are staying close by to where they know they'll get food and water too. One night a bunny hopped into Makoto's stall and he was so careful to tiptoe around the bunny and even put his nose down to smell him. Adorable. Makoto has a little bun bun buddy.

Seaside Lunch

2011-05-16T11:13:00.018+09:00

This weekend I wanted to take Brad to a wonderful cafe right accross the street from the water. I went to the cafe with my girlfriends a few months ago and wasn't sure if I remembered how to get there, but after only one wrong turn we found the Seaside Cafe. This cafe has a homey and comfortable atmosphere, an amazing view of the water and delish food.

All the outside seating was taken, so we settled into a comfy table inside. I got a tuna sandwich and lemonade. Brad got a french toast set with eggs, sausage and hash browns and a banana chocolate smoothie. We shared our lunch with the owners adorable little dog and enjoyed every bite.

After lunch we went for a stroll down the seawall over to Araha Beach.

Simple afternoons like this make me love this island!

Weekend Recap

2011-05-11T23:27:00.003+09:00

Hope all you moms out there had a wonderful Mothers Day! I spent the weekend mothering my spiky baby monster and missing my fabulous mommy.

This weekend we also celebrated Cinco de Mayo with the squadron at the Hail and Farewell party. I had a blast and may or may not have paid for it the whole next day. Maybe less tequila next time. Oops. And sadly this is the only picture I have of the night.

Sunday we headed out to spend some time in the great outdoors. We went over to Ishikawa People's Park for a nice hike (found on this hike list). Well, this park was so strange and appeared to be abandoned. The grass was unkempt and while the trails were passable you could tell that they hadn't been traveled in awhile. I think we were the only people in the whole park and it was creepy! There were 3 different hiking loops ranging from short to long. We started out, Brad kept going on and on about zombies (we just finished watching the show Walking Dead and Brad has a thing about zombies) and I was in front taking the brunt of the spiders/spider webs. We didn't last too long. We turned around and agreed that something was definitely weird about the park and that we shouldn't be there if no one else was.

Disappointed and not wanting to call the day a total loss on the way home we stopped at Cape Zanpa. I was here once before, but Brad hadn't seen it yet. We climbed to the top of the lighthouse, watched the fishermen and took in the seascape. It looked quite different from my first visit. The first time the waves were huge, scary and smashing against the cliffs. This time there was hardly any waves at all and it was peaceful rather than powerful.

We went over to see the goats and there were 3 adorable babies playing together. I wanted a baby goat immediately. On the other side, we explored a bit of the beach. It was extremely low tide making fun tide pools.

Hope you all had a fun Cinco de Mayo, Mothers Day and weekend in general!

Favorite Food Finds

2011-05-05T11:14:00.014+09:00

One thing I miss a whole lot over here in Okinawa are normal food stores, like Whole Foods, Harris Teeter, HEB and even Safeway -especially the 24 hour ones. Brad and I just walked over to our commissary to get something for dinner and the darn thing was closed. Sure, there are Japanese grocery stores and they do have better produce, but unless you know how to read Japanese you may be guessing a lot of the time on what you're buying.

Back in the states I always tried to eat organic and never shopped at the commissary. Here I just had to come to terms with the fact that the chicken and fish I would be buying were frozen, the produce is crappy, and of course the organic options are slim. But they do exist! You just have to hunt. Here are some of my favorite recent commissary finds:

Lara Bars - fruit and nut bars. Whole foods, simple ingredients. I like the apple pie bar a lot. The ingredients list reads: dates, almonds, apples, walnuts, raisins and cinnamon. That's it! They are gluten free, low carb, free of colorings, additives, and preservatives, raw, and vegan/vegetarian.

Green and Blacks Organic Chocolate - Cocoa one of the most highly sprayed food crops in the world. Green & Black’s chocolate is fair trade, organic and ensures that the ingredients are grown using natural, sustainable farming methods with no pesticides.

FruitSource bars - I am obsessed with these delish 100% fruit and veggie bars. Each bar as 2-3 servings of fruit/veggies!! And fibre, potassium, Vitamin A. The Mango Strawberry bar is my favorite.

Coastal Range Organic Chicken - I was unable to find organic chicken here for a long time. I was so excited to find this! The chicken breasts are still frozen, but they are organic, without steroids, hormones or antibiotics, they are natural, vegetarian fed and free range. It's important to me to know that the chicken are free-range, meaning they have a much better quality of life. The Coastal Range website claims "Our chickens and turkeys live in spacious ranch houses and have access to the outdoors which allows them to get exercise, fresh air, and sunlight."

While the commissary doesn't have a lot of organic fruit and veggie options they do sell the frozen kind. I love making smoothies so the frozen organic strawberries and blueberries are perfect. I love the SteamWorks organic veggies, especially the broccoli. I And they do have some organic salad greens. The commissary recently got a shipment in of Pacific Natural Foods soups. A lot of their soups are organic and all of the ones I tried are delish. My favorite was the cashew carrot ginger. I'm a big fan of the Lipton superfruit green tea. My fav is the goji raspberry, but I've also tried and liked the acai blueberry. I'm so glad that the commissary has organic milk and yogurt. They even have blocks of organic mozzarella and cheddar cheeses. One thing I really wish they would get are organic eggs.

So, I've learned that the commissary isn't all that bad. And on the plus side, I think I spend a lot less on my commissary shopping trips. But, I sure am looking forward to going back to the food stores in the states!

Double Happiness Celebration - Shanghai

2011-05-02T11:06:00.039+09:00

Let me start by saying that the title of this post almost became the name of this blog. At the time I didn't know that Double Happiness was even an actual Chinese/Japanese symbol. It is a character used often at New Year and in weddings. We saw this symbol all over China and see it frequently in Japan as well. It's my favorite!

Shanghai did feel like a giant celebration. I loved the vibe of this city and the big, international feel. When we first got to China we had a layover in Shanghai for a while before continuing on to Beijing. Brad and I left the airport to explore a bit until it was time for our flight. We took the MAGLEV magnet train that goes and in incredible 431 km/hr (or 268 mph).

From there we got on the metro and rode up to Peoples Square stop. Right out side of the metro stairs we were greeted by a fabulous skyline and 3 very friendly Chinese people who were eager to talk in English, take pictures and invited us to go along with them. We declined the offer preferring to make our own way and plans. Right down the street from the metro stop we saw a pretty park entrance and a tall clock tower. We found out it was an art museum with a restaurant and bar on the roof. We went up to Kathleen's 5, riding in an elevator with beautiful people speaking French and they told us they were all there from Morocco for an art exhibit downstairs. Upstairs on the roof there were more amazingly dressed people and I felt a bit out of place with my flight carry on and casual travel clothes, but we were seated without a problem by staff speaking fabulous English. Soon we had drinks in our hand and could enjoy the panoramic view of the Shanghai skyline and slowly watched the lights come on as the daylight faded.

We spotted a cool looking restaurant down in the park and decided to try it for dinner. We went to Barbarossa - a Moroccan style lounge - the coolest restaurant I've been in since I left the USA and had the best dinner I've had since leaving USA! Great start to our China trip. We made our way back to the airport with the metro and MAGLEV and got back without a problem.

After Beijing and Xi'an, Shanghai was our last stop in China. I was exhausted already, drained by the massive amounts of people and from the sheer amount packed into a weeks trip. But, that didn't stop us from continuing at break neck speed to see and do all we could. We got off the plane and took the MAGLEV again and rode the metro over to Nanjing Road East. We got to the hotel at night and it was beautiful seeing the city all alive and lit up. We took a night walk to see what was around the hotel before asking the tour guide to point us in the direction of the bars. On the trip we were lucky enough to make friends with the other tour-goers and it was fun getting to go out with them. We took a taxi over to this fun bar street and sat on the sidewalk with our beers and had fun talking to people from all over the world. We even saw a bar fight from a few bars down which involved lots of pushing, a glass table being flipped over, rapid fire Chinese and the cops descending.

The next day started with a visit to The Bund. This pretty waterfront area has beautiful historical buildings, fancy hotels and restaurants/bars with one of the best Shanghai views.

Next was the Xintiandi area with more beautiful places to eat and relax. We took a Shikumen Museum house tour to see how the people in Shanghai lived in the 1920's before having lunch at a cute German restaurant.

After lunch we went over to the Yu Garden Market where massive amounts of people were milling around in the huge market area. I was SO DONE with being grabbed for pictures and stared at like a zoo animal. The sights, smells, shops... it was a bit overwhelming.

In this crazy market place there is the beautiful Yu Garden. This garden was packed to the rafters like the rest of China, but even so, it was incredibly beautiful, detailed and conveyed a peaceful feeling. There were pagodas, flowers in bloom, koi fish, carvings and beauty everywhere. It was a fabulous last bit of sightseeing.

Before leaving Shanghai, Brad just had to go over to the Gibson guitar store and check it out. In fact, if the store had taken credit cards he would have left China with this incredible souvenir. He sadly couldn't get the guitar but, we did end up coming home with a bunch of wonderful souvenirs such as a huge, beautiful silk bed quilt and duvet from the Beijing silk factory, various items from the Silk Street Market in Beijing (Brad did find a guitar to play with, but didn't get this one either) and jewelry from the jade factory in Xi'an and the pearl factory in Beijing. My husband is the best ever, I swear.

To properly end our China adventure we went to a beautiful spa and got fabulous massages our last night. To make a long story short, this was our third attempt for a nice, relaxing spa experience and I guess the third time was the charm!

It was back to reality for us, but after any long, exhausting trip it is so very good to be home! I would totally suggest going to China. It was incredible. I would suggest going with a tour group only because it took out the major stress of the transportation aspect of the trip. Having a Chinese speaking member of your group, or a Chinese speaking tour guide is a huge benefit. If you can, I would suggest going for longer than a week if you do 3 cities like we did because it was so fast paced. Otherwise, I loved all the cities, the culture, the food, the history and the whole experience in general. I hope you all have enjoyed hearing about our China trip!

Royals!

2011-04-29T18:36:00.006+09:00

I am WAY more excited about this than I probably should be, but OMG!!!

I've got it on TV while I'm looking here, http://www.officialroyalwedding2011.org/ and here, http://www.youtube.com/user/TheRoyalChannel.

Ahhhh I love weddings -- especially ROYAL ones!! So excited. I can't wait to see her dress! Going out to Naha tonight to toast the royal couple.

Xi'an - "Western Peace"

2011-04-27T11:25:00.036+09:00

Xi'an is an ancient former capital city that literally means "Western Peace." This city has over 3,000 years of fabulous history.

Terra Cotta Warriors. The highlight of Xi'an is of course the famous and massive Terra Cotta Army that the 13 year old Qin Dynasty emperor created for his mausoleum and afterlife. This royal tomb was discovered by farmers digging a well in 1974. The life sized warriors and horses are impressive enough on their own, but the sheer size of the pits and the massive amounts of warriors and relics found in the pits is astonishing.

One of the many shopping stops on our tour was at the Terra Cotta Reproduction Factory and we had fun posing with the replica warriors.

Great Mosque and Moslem. This mosque was built during the Tang Dynasty in 742 and is a very interesting combination of Muslim and Chinese architecture and culture. Arab merchants and travelers came to China and married Chinese women and so, these Muslim Chinese people came about. Prayer services are still held at this mosque daily, well that is, 5 times a day! Silly me wore a sleeveless dress this day and I had to buy a pashmina to get in here, but it was well worth it and I got a pretty shawl out of it too.

Wild Goose Pagoda. This pagoda was built in 684 AD during the Tang Dynasty. Amazingly this pagoda has lasted all this time and through all the earthquakes. Only the top 2 levels were damaged and are now missing, so there are 13 levels to the pagoda instead of the original 15. The pagoda is surrounded by beautiful buildings and pretty park area.

Xi'an City Wall. This city wall is "the most complete city wall that has survived in China, as well being one of the largest ancient military defensive systems in the world." The city wall has four gates and I just love the Chinese names for things: the names of the gates mean eternal joy, harmony peace, eternal peace and forever harmony. We rented bicycles and rode around the entire rectangular wall. This happened to be at sunset and it was totally amazing!

Drum Tower. In ancient Xi'an the Bell Tower sounded in the morning and the Drum Tower sounded at night. These sister towers were used for the whole city's time. The Drum Tower is one of those amazing constructions that didn't use a single nail in it's construction (like the Temple of Heaven in Beijing I believe).

Traditional Chinese musical and dance performance. I loved going to the Tang Dynasty Dinner Show. The food was awesome and they served this awesome warm rice wine. The performances were completely amazing, the costumes were ornate and complicated, and the music was wonderful! This was a very interesting and entertaining insight into Chinese culture.

In Xi'an we went out with some of our new friends from the tour group one night. Our hotel was at a great location and we only had to take our life in our hands to cross the (crazy, dangerous)street and went to a couple bars in Xi'an. These bars were located on the edge of the City Wall and we could see the moat and the edge of the wall and ramparts all lit up with lights. It was one of the prettiest views I've ever drank a beer next to!

I totally loved Xi'an. It wasn't the little rural town I somehow thought it was going to be! I loved all the history of this city. Of course all the spring trees were blooming here too. The wisteria, magnolias, cherry trees and it all made the city all the more beautiful with the frothy pink, purple, yellow blossoms and the bright green of the baby leaves. Xi'an was a nice break after Beijing because even though this is a big city, everything seemed close together because it didn't take us an hour to get every single place. In fact, like I mentioned above, our hotel was in a wonderful location and we could walk to the bars, city wall and other great locations.

Shanghai is next!

Good Luck and Congrats!

2011-04-26T09:48:00.003+09:00

This past weekend, other than it being Easter of course, was important for a couple of other reasons. My big sister had a going away party because in a few days she will be moving to Georgia (the country, not the state) to teach English for a year. Read all about who/what/when/where and why she's doing this on her new blog. Mary has always been the writer in the family and her upcoming adventure will be entertaining to read about for sure.

Also, my amazing hubby passed his check ride on Friday and was upgraded! Hurray! We went out with friends on Friday night and celebrated his success. Way to go babe!

And to stick on the military thread for minute... by now you all probably know about my unabashed love and border line obsession with Brit. It's good to know that these Marines feel the same way!

The China Diet

2011-04-25T10:03:00.024+09:00

When we first signed up for China I jokingly referred to the trip as the China Diet because I, being a "weird eater" didn't think I'd be able to eat much on the trip. I am not an adventurous eater, and I had a feeling that the Chinese were rather creative in their food tastes and choices... like boiled chicken feet. Nope. I'll pass.

One evening soon after getting to Beijing we walked down the Wangfujing Walking Street. We'll go ahead and add all this to the list of things I Did Not Eat on my trip to China. On this list includes but is not limited to: testicles, scorpion, silk worm pupa, centipede, shark, sheep, snake, sea horses, sea urchin, starfish, (what looked like) fetal pigs, grasshoppers, crickets, beetles, honey bee cocoons, cicadas and "sweet edible fungus". Basically if you wanted to eat any type of bug or animal from the sea or land you could get it here at this market.

Even though there were these types of food choices available, there was also plenty of Western food available and the Chinese were super accommodating to my food questions and requests. We went to a Tang Dynasty dinner show in Xian and when the set course main meal was beef they made me my own special chicken dish. So sweet! They answered what was in every single, countless basket of dumplings that were brought to the table so I could know which ones I could eat. The dumpling dinner was probably my favorite dinner!

The tours lunch and dinner meals were "family style" and while I didn't like not getting to order what I wanted at first, it was a fun way to try a lot of things I normally wouldn't. Such as breaded fish with frosting and sprinkles. I tried it and surprisingly it was good! I ate very adventurously on this trip. I even participated in the "very special" Peking duck dinner in Beijing. I don't eat duck, but I did promise Brad I would at least try it and you know what? I actually really liked it. Being really really hungry (and not having another option) always helps broaden horizons and makes things taste better.

I totally ended up being on the opposite of the China Diet on this trip! Tons of great food and drinks are to be had in China. Just don't drink the water. You cannot drink the tap water in China. They say it is ok to brush your teeth and wash in, but I was sure in and out of the shower a lot quicker than usual!

Easter! Eggs, candy, hedgie, sun and sand

2011-04-24T16:46:00.017+09:00

Happy Easter to all of you! We are having a wonderful Easter today. I love holidays, especially ones that involve candy, which is usually all of them. I am a total freak for Cadbury cream eggs and it is a battle with my 500 lbs inner person at the commissary each week to bypass all of the Easter candy amazingness. I did get some though, I mean who am I kidding. My mom also sent us a big chocolate bunny each and one of those bunnies was gone within about 10 minutes after opening the box. Fatties! I also treated myself to some pretty white Easter lilies that smell awesome. It's a tradition in my family to watch Jesus Christ Superstar movie around Easter, so today we watched it as we dyed Easter eggs and ate our french toast with bananas fosters breakfast.

Gojou was jealous of those pretty Easter eggs, and wanted to be in on the fun, so I decorated him with Easter stickers. Awww my little Easter egg! Pretty much the highlight of my day! HA!

After our lazy morning we headed out to the beach near our apartment and camped out in the sand for some sun and relaxation. We haven't had a beach day in a long time, so it was fun to pack a lunch, play Frisbee and paddle ball and read a good book on the sand. Glorious.

Back to China posts tomorrow. Still have lots to tell you about the trip!

Happy Easter!

Beijing - Palaces, Temples, Hutongs, and Split Pants

2011-04-21T08:24:00.027+09:00

Beijing was a whirl wind of sightseeing. Every day was packed full of history, shopping, food, and of course people. More on shopping and food later. I'll tell you about the places we visited in Beijing first.

Tiananmen Square. This is the first place we visited and it was the first time I experienced being bum rushed for photos. So weird. This place was packed (as was every single other place we went to in China) and I felt like I was getting stared at as much as the Tower, Monuments and Great Hall. Brad and I took a picture with Chairman Mao, his photo is on the Great Hall.

Forbidden City. This place is right next door to Tiananmen Square, so we went here right after the Square. This former imperial palace is really a city, it's huge! There are 9,999 rooms, a moat, a huge wall, huge gates, and beautiful buildings. It is the worlds largest palace complex. There are different halls named such wonderful things as: Hall of Supreme Harmony, Palace of Heavenly Purity and Palace of Earthly Tranquility.

We went on a rickshaw tour through Beijing's hutongs and got to see how Chinese people live and get a taste of the local flavor by being invited into a hutong to make dumplings. Ummm the hutongs were not in great shape, and not to sound snobby, but they reminded me of the slums or the projects and I wanted to get out of there. Not that it was unsafe, it is just always hard for me to see people so poor. There were children playing in rubble and garbage in the alley. And plus, I felt really really bad for this poor man who had to take Brad and I around on his rickshaw. The poor old man was huffing and puffing and even had to get off the bike and walk us up a hill. Yikes!

The Summer Palace is another massive palace complex, but this one is on the water and we got to take a dragon boat cross the Kunming Lake. This royal park has beautiful Chinese gardens and traditional style Chinese buildings such as towers, pavilions, bridges and corridors. Here you can find places with names like: Hall of the Sea of Wisdom, Hall of Benevolence and Longevity and Garden of Harmonious Interest.

I was really excited to go see the Temple of Heaven because, as I mentioned before, I had read a travelogue book on China with that temple in the title. The Temple of Heaven is not only beautiful, it's surrounded by park land. We went here in the early morning before catching our flight to Xian and the park was full of people doing dance classes, Tai Chi, and other workouts. We even saw one man practicing his swordsmanship! The locals also make these feather things with a weighted end that they kick around in a group like hacky sac. They were really good, it was so fun to watch them. People gathered to play card games and dominoes. People brought out their pet birds, grasshoppers and crickets. All the trees were blooming and the park was just so picturesque and peaceful.

Beijing was a dichotomy of beautiful flowering trees under a smog filled sky, streets full of buses and cars and also rickshaws and bicycles, and mountains of modern buildings and commerce interspersed with ancient hutongs and historical sites. China is truly where there is an in-with-the-new mentality, but not out-with-the-old. They seem to have a mix of old and new mentalities that somehow mesh and work for their culture. Fascinating.

Above you can see the packed-to-the-rafters bus. All of them were like that! Everywhere in China was like that. And you can see a mom with her young sons in front and behind her on the scooter. Yeah, that seems safe with the insane amount of traffic and drivers on the road! In Beijing our tour guide was explaining that there is something like 700 new cars on the road every day. People have to go through a crazy application process to get a license and a car. And even when you have a car the government tells you what days you can drive to try and limit the huge amount of cars on the road. Chinese government wanted to support the automobile industry, so they told the people they would pay for part of the car if they bought one, so everyone went out and bought cars. The traffic in China is insane! It is like a giant free for all, traffic rules and lanes are kind of just guidelines and no one really pays attention to lights. It was really something!

And ok, one more important thing about Chinese culture... the babies, the kids, wear split pants. Split pants as in from crotch to crack it's open, they just let their junk hang out. This is so when the kid has to go all they have to do is squat wherever they happen to be and go. Aren't the moms worried the kid is going to poop down their arm when they carry them? Aren't the dads afraid the kid is going to piss down his back when he gives them a piggy back ride? I have no idea how this works, but I saw a lot of little kids squatting and going right out in the busy street, market, park, anywhere. On the plane ride from Beijing to Xian a child in split pants actually shit all over the seat and no one (Chinese) seemed to blink an eye. Talk about a cultural difference!

On top of a Wonder of the World

2011-04-20T09:11:00.019+09:00

We are back from our incredible China trip! First, I'll tell you about my favorite experience in China: climbing The Great Wall at Juyong Pass.

Now, this experience probably tops the coolest experience I've ever had. The Great Wall is one of the 7 Wonders of the World. The Great Wall is massive. It's sheer size and how it snakes over and through the mountains is something that you can only appreciate in person. The wall and mountains seem endless. The wall stretches for 5,500 miles east to west and goes through the mountains, grasslands and desert and it's 2,000 years old!

I don't really know what I was expecting, but we got to the wall and I was in awe. I was even more in awe when I got on the wall and saw the enormous stone stairs we would be climbing. Needless to say we got a crucial workout. The views were spectacular. And it was a total bonus that we happened to be in China when all the Spring trees were in bloom.

Once we got to the top we relaxed for a little while (or tried to - Chinese people were going crazy with the photos) and I wrote a post card to my family. As we were doing this another couple from our tour group arrived and got engaged on top of the Great Wall!! Ahhhh so amazing!

The decent was easier, but still when we go to the bottom my legs were shaking (and I'm in pretty good shape)! We rewarded ourselves with a big 'ol Chinese beer and enjoyed it with one of the best views ever.

I loveloveloved this vacation even though an enormous amount of time was spent in planes, trains, buses and metros. China is huge! The cities are massive and there are so many people which makes for congested transportation. But, even getting around the country was a cultural feast for your eyes and ears. I generally loved the Chinese people and were surprised by their outgoing and welcoming nature. For some reason I expected the Chinese not to like Americans, but it was quite the opposite! I could hardly go anywhere without being stopped by a Chinese person for a photo. It felt really strange to have strangers take pictures of me/with me all the time, it was quite exhausting. Someone from our tour group said "you're like the Group Unicorn." I wanted to say to the camera-happy Chinese "you know my hair is dyed, nothing special here!" China was a non stop, busy and totally amazing adventure and I loved my time in the big cities of Beijing, Xian and Shanghai. I have so much to blog about, so stay tuned!

Wanted this Spring

2011-04-09T17:53:00.013+09:00

Spring is in full swing around here and with it comes the desire for some new, fresh duds in pretty spring colors. Here are a few things on my Spring Wish List - Equestrian Edition:

The polo wraps, polo shirt and gloves can be found on Jeffers. The riding pants are Kerrits. And the saddle is the old edition Isabelle, my fav saddle.

I got those adorable pink pony boots from my parents today! I love them. Perfect, and just what I needed because I'm going through boots out here like crazy. These are so cute, I hope they last a long time!

And just to update you on the Makoto situation... most of all, the thing highest on my wish list is for him to get better. His hock will most likely stay swollen, permanently. His injury is most likely due to over work (a 2 1/2 hour + work out from a Japanese person, ridden hard and incorrectly), resulting in a blew-out tendon or capped hock. He had 2 weeks off, plus some. He is fortunately sound. This past week I got on him twice to check the hock and see how he's feeling with some extra weight. He was feeling great. Really ready to run! On the days I didn't ride he ran around in the arena a bit with his buddies and he even jumped a small jump all on his own. So, we'll just take it slow and see how it goes. I actually cried when I got to ride him again, even just at the walk. I adore this horse!

I've enjoyed my week off from lessons. Sure, I still went up to take care of Makoto and check on everything, but it was a nice break. All the American instructors take a week off after the show to give the hard working boys a break. I totally spoiled myself this week with a massage, facial, mani and pedi! I got a ton of things done this week and I feel caught up with life again. I have one more week off because ... we're going to CHINA!! We leave tomorrow morning, so I'll see you all when I get back. Eeeee so excited!

Food, Flowers... (something else that starts with F for a catchy title...) Fun

2011-04-07T13:08:00.003+09:00

A few weeks ago I saw my friends post about a beautiful garden cafe and I couldn't wait to go up there and check it out myself.

N's Garden is located near the stable, so one day after taking care of Makoto with hubs we headed over for a late lunch. Even just driving out to N's Garden I was smitten. It is back off the main road a ways and you drive past all kinds of little farms. When we parked I was greeted by the moooo of a nearby cow.

We were walked past the baby grand piano and taken to a table by the large glass wall looking onto the garden. Our table was set with champagne flutes and fresh flowers. Since we got there later in the afternoon, we had to order off a limited menu, but it wasn't a problem. I knew what I had came for. The croissants!! I ordered the croissant plate that came with soup and salad. Brad got the chicken curry. After tasting my croissant-from-heaven we ordered another one and also ordered a chocolate croissant. We had to wait 20 minutes for the chocolate croissant to be baked, and it was well worth the wait. It was the thing dreams are made of! I actually caught myself eating the crumbs off the plate. On top of the delish food, I love all the pretty china they use. Each meal came with a drink, and if you order hot tea (which I suggest you do because it's amazing) it comes in a pretty personal teapot with a teacup, saucer and mini spoon. And cream and sugar come in a mini pitcher and bowl too. I'm more of a coffee person and this is the only way I really like to drink my tea.

After lunch we wandered through the garden overflowing with flowers. Every available spot was bursting with colors and blooms. The air was heavy with the smell of roses and jasmine. I was in flower heaven. The narrow winding paths lead you right through the flowers, under blooming arbors and to little goldfish ponds. In the back there was a small garden of the most beautiful basil I've ever seen.

The garden:

And because the flowers were just too pretty not to take a bunch of pictures, here's a little flower montage since I haven't done one in a while:

To check out their website/blog click here.

Spring Show Success

2011-04-06T10:06:00.023+09:00

The long awaited day finally came and went!

Saturday, April 2, was a bright sunny day, just perfect for a horse show, or basically anything that requires you to be outside all day. We got extremely lucky with all the beautiful weather for every single event leading up to the show and the show day itself. Hubs and I and the other instructors got to the barn bright and early at 6:15 am to put the finishing touches on the horses and stable. Each rider got a folder with their show number, program and good luck chocolates. We gave out ribbons for 1st - 6th place and 1st - 3rd got prizes for each class.

The day started out with the opening ceremony, the Japanese and US national anthems were sung, and we had a moment of silence for the victims of the earthquake and tsunami in mainland. Then, we were off with the dressage classes! This show we had 2 classes of the USEF Training Level 2 and 2 classes of the First Level Test 2. There was also an exhibition ride of 2 riders that wanted the 2nd Level Test 1 judged. On top of that there were 2 Japanese Quadrille teams and an exhibition ride by the Japanese instructor, Yama, on his favorite horse Rocky.

Pizzas were ordered for lunch and people brought all kinds of yummy sides, drinks and desserts to snack on throughout the day. After lunch and after the dressage arena was taken away we had the Hunter classes. These are classes on the flat where riders are in the arena with other horses and riders and have to demonstrate the calls of the announcer while keeping space from other horses. Keeping space is a huge challenge for these riders when all the horses want to follow each other! We had an adorable walk trot hunter class of little riders in their first horse show.

After the 6 hunter classes the winners of each class got to participate in a bareback class! Their names were put in a bucket and drawn out at random so they could pick the horse they wanted to ride. I was a bit worried that this could potentially go very badly, but it went great and everyone got some laughs.

Jumping Equitation finished up the day. We had a trot jumping class with 6 lower jumps and 2 canter jumping classes with 8 jumps a bit higher.

One of my students fell off during the jumping, but fortunately wasn't hurt. She just scared us to death! Other than that one hick-up, the day went extremely well and I'm so very proud of all the riders who worked so hard and I'm really proud of all the hard working horses too!

It amazes me how much work goes into pulling off an event like this. This is my 2nd time coordinating a horse show, and while this time was easier since I had done it before, I couldn't have done it without an enormous amount of help. The other instructors, parents, riders, and volunteers made this day a huge success and I love getting to work with such amazing friends!

Pretty Ponies

2011-04-03T17:26:00.008+09:00

Phew, ok so the show was a huge success yesterday! Before I go into the show details, we had a pre-show prep day at the barn where the kids could help get all the horses all prettied up and show ready.

All the horses were clipped, scrubbed, lathered, and conditioned, hooves were polished, tack was cleaned, manes and tails were braided, the ring was dragged and the dressage arena got set up. It was quite a busy day! Putting on a show sure is a lot of work. Good thing I totally love my job.

Barn Black Hole

2011-03-31T22:27:00.009+09:00

This week has been totally barn crazy. So busy every second of the day. I feel like time just disappears at the barn, there aren't enough hours in the day.

The show is ... ummm... only a day away. Yikes! So much still has to be done tomorrow like getting all the horses bathed and braided, setting up the dressage arena and like a zillion other little things. The kids are coming out tomorrow to help with all the show prep. Should be fun/busy/stressful/productive/exhausting. Not particularly in that order. And to keep you all updated, on top of it all Makoto is still lame. His hock is still swollen. He is still out of commission. I'm super bummed he's not going to get to be in the show. So much has happened the last few weeks with horses getting sick or injured. It is seriously the worst timing ever. But, with Makoto it's more than inconvenient. Sure, I love them all, but with him my heart is breaking!

Even though he can't be ridden I'm giving him lots of attention everyday grooming him, cold hosing his leg, giving him lots of turnout and lots of special treats and meals. I sure hope he hurries up and gets better soon!

Wish us luck at the show on Saturday! I'll be back after it's all over and I'll tell you all about it.

Gojou's New Duds

2011-03-30T07:53:00.005+09:00

Last post I mentioned that on Saturday when I went to American Village I went to PetBox for some hedgie stuff. I walked in the store and saw something I just couldn't resist. A ferret shirt that looked to be a great hedgie size. It was just one of those things that when you see it, you know you're not walking out of the store with out it. The Japanese pet owners love to dress their animals up in ridiculous outfits. This includes the "normal" dog stuff, but they also have outfits and harness/leashes for cats, ferrets, bunnies, hamsters etc. So, when I saw this bitty, hedgie sized shirt I was totally in love. I couldn't wait until the evening when Gojou would wake up so I could put him in it.

Whelp, as you could see from the ridiculous video that the adorable bumble bee shirt does not in fact fit Goj. He might win some adorable hedgie picture of the year from these pics at least. Seriously... cutest lil monster ever. Gah I love him.

Officially hedgie obsessed!

Exploring Mihama

2011-03-29T10:03:00.000+09:00

Saturday was just a really, really good day for no particular reason. I set out to run some errands and spent a nice hour or two roaming around Mihama American Village. On the island the American Village Ferris wheel is a common sight and landmark.

I headed over there initially to get Gojou some stuff at the pet store, but after that since it was so chilly, I stopped into Starbucks for something hot and treated myself to one of their new lil cake pops. I found a nice seat in the window and watched humanity pass by as I browsed the pictures in a Japanese Marie Claire. I haven't done this in a very long time and it felt great to just relax in the familiar Starbucks setting.

I then decided to walk around and check out some of the cool shops. I somehow hadn't done this before and I had been told about the neat stores in this area. While I've been to American Village a few times before mostly it has been to visit Yogurt Land. I didn't buy anything, but was seriously tempted by some of the crazy Japanese shoes they had for sale. But, I didn't even want to attempt trying to fit my behemoth feet into any of the little sizes.

I love the garden center at the Makeman - DIY store and I found a great one right there in American Village. Flowers always brighten up my day and on Saturday I walked away with a big, puffy pink hydrangea and a pretty mini tree with yellow flowers.

I went to Foster to do my usual Exchange and Commissary errands, but I did treat myself to these fab sunnies:

I love making even the mundane errands fun!

Gojou Swimming

2011-03-28T09:23:00.001+09:00

Ok so my hedgie is not so great at keeping clean. Remember his first bath a few months ago? Well, he has been getting frequent baths ever since then because he is always dirty, especially his feet.

If you are interested you can read more on how to give hedgies baths here, here or here. Hedgehogs are supposed to like baths, but Gojou still isn't super relaxed or loving his bath time yet. He's adorable. And he is getting to be a pretty good lil swimmer!

I have another hilarious post and video to share with you later this week. You will love it. Stay tuned for more hedgie cuteness shortly.

Classic Date Night

2011-03-27T18:37:00.010+09:00

This has been a fabulous weekend. Fabulous since it was the first one Brad and I have spent together in a while. And also fabulous because we did some really fun stuff! I have lots to tell you about.

First, I'll tell you about our dinner and movie date on Friday. I've gone to eat at Sushi Zen like 10 times, but I don't think I've ever really told you guys about it. It is an amazing sushi place where the Japanese chef and owner who previously lived in NYC makes up the most delish rolls ever. Sushi Zen is also in a really cool neighborhood on the Sunabe Seawall and has some really fun bars nearby. I have been wanting to check out these places for a while now, so before dinner we stopped into a couple of places. I loved these bars and I can't wait to go back there for a fun night out with friends.

At Sushi Zen there is only one sushi chef and this is an extremely popular restaurant, so you have to be ready to kick back and relax while you wait for the sushi to come out as it's ready. We started out with a plum wine for me and edamame, and ordered 4 sushi rolls: the Odyssey, Bull Dog, Caterpillar and Red Dragon. I've only recently gotten into spicy sushi and we kind of went overboard ordering 3 out of the 4 rolls with the spicy orange sauce topping. The Odyssey roll was my favorite!

After dinner we headed over to Foster to see a movie and then we went home to drink wine, read China guide books and got really excited about our upcoming trip... well I got excited, Brad fell asleep on the couch! It doesn't matter that we've been married for years and have gone on hundreds of dates. Each time I'm reminded of why I love this man... we have SO much fun together!

Doggie Day

2011-03-25T10:28:00.012+09:00

Last Sunday I was invited to a friends house for a girls afternoon and a puppy play date. While I was sans pup, I was reassured there would be an extra one for me to borrow. So, we all met up at my friends awesome off base apartment in Yomitan and then set off with the pups for a walk on the beach. Okinawa is pretty unusual and unique in that there is no zoning, or none that I can detect. Animal farms and vegetable farms are crammed into every available space between apartment buildings, shops and single family homes. As we walked down to the beach near Torii we passed beautiful homes, cows, sheep, ponies, farms growing all kinds of things, and flowers popping up out of every crack in the pavement or any available soil not being used for farming.

When we got down to the beach we let the pups go play as we collected shells and sea glass. The dogs had a ball playing together and running around in the water.

After our beach walk we dropped the dogs off and then went to my friends favorite soba shop for dinner. Delish! For dessert we walked to the bakery in the MaxValue and sampled some of the Japanese sweets. It was such a nice day and so good to hang out with my new friend and meet some new ladies. It was nice getting to play with the pups too, I miss having a dog so much!

Temporary Memory Loss

2011-03-24T11:16:00.000+09:00

My hunny is home!! Yay! But, ok, lets all take a minute to make fun of him shall we? On Monday he flew home to Futenma and couldn't find his car. Luckily, I was already planning on leaving work early since my lesson canceled and was on my way home when he called and said he didn't know where his car was. He couldn't remember where he parked it and it wasn't at the squadron. I said oh, maybe the MP's towed it since it was sitting so long... who knows. I told him I'd come pick him up. After our reunion I said we should stop by and talk to the cops to see if they knew where the car was. Even though Brad really wanted to just go home, I reminded him how with both of our jobs, being a one car family is not going to work, even temporarily. So, in he goes to talk to the police. They have no idea where his car is, it's not impounded. So, we think, oh crap, the car was stolen. So, all night we are perplexed by the car situation, wondering if theft is covered by our insurance and wondering if Brad's car was off somewhere with a dead body in the back. We go to sleep and at somewhere between 4 and 5am Brad sits up in bed and says "I know where my car is! It's at Kadena." Dumb dumb! When he left he flew out of Kadena instead of the normal place at Futenma. I was so relieved to know what happened and so glad we didn't have to deal with the car issue. My husband blames his temporary memory loss to exhaustion, poor thing. Sometimes I forget where I've parked my car and have to make an effort to make sure I make note of where I leave it, but basically he can never make fun of me ever again. Silly husband!