Christmas Festivities!

Alright, this website is being a pain... so the pictures are up top because it's too complicated to drag them to the bottom of the post. Anyway, I meant to post this several days ago, but I've been busy and got frustrated uploading pictures. Here's just a few highlights of Christmas Eve...

Joe and I decided that since this was going to be our first Christmas being spent without any family, that we'd make the most of it and celebrate with friends. We had a big group of friends over on Christmas Eve and it was a great day! We had about 18 friends over (we were worried how we were going to manage it in our tiny house, but it turned out to be ok!) to hang out all afternoon, eat yummy food, open presents, play games, watch movies, and just spend the day together relaxing and having a good time! We're so blessed to have so many amazing friends here in Okinawa to make times like these when we can't be with family so much better. It was our first time hosting a party for such a big holiday, but all went well. Only a small glitch with the ham (we couldn't figure out why it was taking so long to heat up) and learned our lesson to let it defrost longer. We'll keep that in mind for next time ;) I convinced Joe to open presents that night since it was almost Christmas Day anyway (10pm). We did and I love all my gifts! Joe was really thoughtful this year and I feel a tad bad the majority of gifts I got him were clothes, but I did manage to get him some good ones.

Christmas Day was great as well. We spent the morning Skyping with our family to wish everyone a Merry Christmas. We even got to do a virtual Christmas with my parents and got to watch them open the gifts we sent them! It was really neat and almost felt like we were together in the same room. Hopefully next year we can all spend it together! We also brought some cupcakes over to our neighbors who are a bit older than us, and are always looking out for us (they're like our "parents" here in Okinawa which I admit, is comforting). They invited us in to chat, have some tea, and then offered us sushi and snacks. We ended up chatting with them for hours and before we knew it, it was already 5pm!

We later went over to Sani and Jay's house for Christmas dinner. It was delicious, and much more intimate with only 6 people (plus one toddler and baby), which was nice. We spent the evening eating great food and playing a few games of Scrabble (our latest addiction). Before we knew it, it was 2:00am and Christmas was over. It was a great two days, and we are so thankful for such great friends. We missed our family a lot this year, but are crossing our fingers (and toes) that next year we can make it out to the states!

Birthday celebration/Girls Night Out

Last week, a big group of us got together to celebrate Carmee and Sani's birthdays!!! We started the evening with dinner at Macaroni Grill (yummy!). It was great food, good company, and we ended the dinner with two cakes!

After Macaroni Grill, all the ladies went out for a much needed Girls Night Out! It was decided earlier that we deserved a night out; Carmee's husband is currently deployed and she's workin full-time and taking care of her three year-old boy, Sani's been busy taking care of 2 month-old, Isla alone while Jay had been out in Diego Garcia and Alaska, and as for me, Joe had been gone for a month in Diego Garcia (living the life of luxury!). After being here 10 months, I've DDed for Joe everytime, so I figured he owed me one night. The boys stayed in and baby-sat (stayed busy playing video games and watching movies), while we went out on the town. We started at a new place advertised on OkinawaHai, but it turned out to be a bust. One drink and $10 later, we decided it'd be a good idea to walk several blocks to Big Echo (karaoke). We soon realized "a few blocks" in high heels was a longer trek that it sounded. We settled in at a bar at the "Crocodile" restaurant. It was an outside bar, but they set us up with fleece blankets and space heaters! It was a great night of chit-chatting, laugher, yummy drinks, and good friends! Can't wait for our next girls night out (whenever that will be!!!).

December Pedi

I finally got the chance to get my December Pedi! Carmee and I enjoyed our morning of pampering!!! :) It doesn't snow here in Okinawa, but I'm in the holiday spirit anyway. :)

I've been so extremley busy subbing and tutoring lately, I haven't had the chance to update the blog. I recently used some of the money I've saved from tutoring to buy myself a Canon Digitial SLR camera. I've been eyeing it for quite some time and finally decided to get it! It takes amazing pictures and I'll be sure to update with some new ones very soon!!!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

It's definitely beginning to feel like the holidays, YAY, it's my favorite time of year!!! As you know, I spent Thanksgiving in the states with my parents. I had a great time, but it was difficult to adjust to the 15 hour time difference and 24-hours of traveling. It was great to see my parents, have a great home-cooked Thanksgiving meal, do a little (okay, a LOT) of shopping, saw some great movies, and had ate out at some yummy places! It was a short trip considering all the traveling, but it was worth it. I can't wait until I get to go back (with Joe!).

Friday was the squadron Christmas Party! I was excited to go and see everyone, but I was soooo exhausted from waking up at 4am (jetlag). We bought some raffle tickets, because rumor had it there were some really good gifts this year! I never win those things, but I bought some anyway. To my surprise, one of my numbers was called and I was super pumped! I went and picked an ornament off the tree which had a number on it. Then "Santa" and his "elf" found the corresponding number and they gave me a really big and heavy box!!! Boy, I was excited thinking I was something AWESOME. Scratch that. It was a....

box of Gatorade. To be more precise, expired Gatorade. Oh well, I still won something. :)

Yesterday, Joe and I decided to get some breakfast at Coffee Casa (our favorite breakfast place). We ran into some friends and ended up having a fun morning. The place was very festive, decorated with Christmas ornaments and Joe even had a little surprise in his drink:

After breakfast, we went on a bike ride on the Habu trail, but it was more of an "advanced" trail than "easy" like Joe claimed. It had lots of steep hills... the ones going down were a breeze (obviously) but going up was killer. I'm out of shape and had to stop. Next time, we'll have to go on a more "flat" trail.

Later on we met up with a group of friends at a place called Round 1. It's a 8 story place with games, sports, & arcades to play! You pay for 3 hours and get to go play anything you want. It was similiar to Mr. Biggs in Colorado Springs (some of you know what that is). We started off playing different sporting games (soccer, tennis, golf, etc.) and then watched the guys do their mini-bike race. It was hilarious! We then went upstairs and played 3 mean games of volleyball. Our (Joe, me, Lydia, Audrey & Chris) team wone 2 out of the 3 games. We called it quits at the end because things were beginning to get a little heated (debate about score) so for the sake of our friendships, we walked away... haha! My wrists and arms are so bruised today! We had a great time playing games and I was so worn out from the bike ride that we got home, ate a quick dinner, and I passed out on the couch almost immediately!

We have plans to hang out Christmas lights this weekend but then came to the realization we don't have a ladder, and we only have icicle strands which might not look that great on our house (and the BX has been sold out of lights for about a month). We'll play it by ear. It's also been rather "cool" which has been great !We're all really getting into the Christmas spirit and I'm so excited!