Since You've Been Gone......

We have missed you so much! Thankfully, we have really great friends that have looked out for us and kept us entertained. The following pictures are some things that we've been up to in the past couple of weeks. We wish you could have been here to do them with us, but we'll see you soon!!

We went to Naha with friends. We to to watch the Japanese kids participating in Sports Day. Sports Day is a big event that is held once a year at all of the schools in Okinawa. Our friends teach English culture at this school and have been kind enough to invite us to a few of the school's festivals. We were treated like dignitaries. They reserved a spot at the front of the gym for us, and fed us drinks, snacks, and bento lunches. The kids actually loved the bento lunches (despite the looks on their faces in the picture). McCall especially loved all of the fish she got to eat. Juniper thought the music and dancing was a blast, as you can tell by the grin on her face.

Denver had a day off from school and we went with some friends to the Okinawa Zoo (Don't tell McCall since her school was still in session). Denver loved showing Juniper all of the animals.

A couple of weeks ago, Juniper decided to start pulling herself up on everything, and walking along furniture. She loves her new mobility, but it is stressing Denver out! He is a worrier anyway, and he can't stand it when she falls down. He has even been having bad dreams about her falling off things. I try and reassure him and tell him that when he was her age, he used to fall down all the time too.

We had a nice, relaxing day at a secluded beach with friends. We were the only ones there. Juniper enjoyed eating her first tastes of sand and rocks. Denver enjoyed snorkeling, boogie boarding, and collecting shells and sea glass. McCall enjoyed entertaining herself in whatever random way she could think of at the moment. The picture that my friend Melanie took of McCall laying in the sand captures her perfectly. Who knows what is going on in her head most of the time?

Oh yeah - this is the picture I took of Juniper the first time I discovered she could pull herself up into a standing position. I thought to myself, "I guess it's time to lower her crib now". I captured this cute "first" moment and then she fell out of the crib. Maybe I should have been more concerned with her safety and less concerned with capturing the moment.

McCall's first day at school. This is her second year of pre-school at Kuwae. She is in the "big kid" 4 year old class this year. The boot on her foot is from another of her stitches incidents. Watch out for those packing tape dispensers! The serrated edge cuts deep when you step on it!!