Going Private

After thinking about it, I decided to make our blog "private". This just means for all of you who follow our blog, you'll need to let me know so I can add you to the allowed list to access our blog. With Joe's job, we're continually being reminded to have good OPSEC (operational security) about things we talk about, write about, and well just about everything we do we need to be careful. Soooo, with that said, for all who follow us, I'll need your e-mail address so I can add it to our list. I'll wait a week or so before going private... so make sure you send me your e-mail address soon! Thanks for understanding!

New Year's Resolutions

I've taken on quite a few new hobbies and I really want to make my resolutions this year to become more proficient with these skills! I also have several personal goals as well that I hope I can follow through with!

1. Study up and learn more about my new digital SLR camera. I'm really anxious to master all the different features it has to offer!

2. On that note, I also want to make time to learn how to use PhotoShop so I can edit all the pictures I take! We have the program, and I've checked out two books from the library... now I just need to find time to sit down and go through it!

3. Learn to sew. Over the summer, my friend Lydia and I decided we needed to domesticate ourselves and learn to sew since so many of our girlfriends were making the cutest little baby dresses for all our pregnant friends. Joe got me a brand new sewing machine for Christmas and I'm so excited to start some sewing projects! I have a table all set-up and bought some supplies... now I just need to buy some fabric and decide what I want to make first!

4. Have more patience. This goes for basically everything. It's no secret that I have a short fuse and my patience level sometimes gets the best of me (although I must admit, when it comes to teaching/tutoring, I have an amazing amount of patience with students). I need to remember to stop, take a breath, and remember it's not the end of the world if traffic is taking forever, if the dogs are being brats, when Joe makes a mess in the house (lol, sorry Joe), or when something little goes wrong. I just need to keep in mind it's not the end of the world!

5. Stay more organized/tidy. A lot of you may know, I have a bit of OCD... but only when it comes to certain things. It doesn't apply to everything, but I wish it did because then I wouldn't have the need for this resolution. It's no secret I love to shop. The only downfall is that this creates a problem trying to keep all my clothes organized and put away neatly. I have two entire closets (poor Joe only has 1) and a dresser (and I also stole the bottom drawer in Joe's!) and I still can't manage to keep all my clothes put away. They just seem to pile up waiting to be hung up or worn after I've quickly discarded it and decided to try on another 5 outfits. I was forced to organize my closet after seeing my husband organized his closet better than my own (color coded and everything!).

6. Eat healthier and stay in shape. This sounds simple and I'm sure it's an easy task for most people. I however just broke my 24 year streak of not drinking water. Yes, you read that correctly. For my entire life, I have loathed the idea of drinking water. I recently have been forcing myself to consume some (very little at a time) and I'm forcing myself to keep drinking water until I reach the point of no return! I also have started eating some vegetables and cutting down on fatty snacks. Hopefully I can keep it up! I also want to start using the elliptical I begged Joe to buy for me because I pleaded that it's so much easier to work out at home instead of going all the way to the gym... and I've used all about a dozen times. Or all the "cute" workout clothes and spiffy new tennis shoes I had to have. I think they need more use than being worn to walk the dogs.

7. Continue saving money. Joe and I have been doing a good job of putting money into savings and not spending it just because we have it. I also save all the cash money I make from tutoring. It was nearly burning a hole in my pocket, but I saved up until I had enough money to buy my SLR camera and all of the accessories to go with it. It was totally worth the hard work and long wait! I started saving up again, but so far we haven't come up with anything to save up for. Guess I'll just keep saving. :)

8. Stop being so judgemental. Again, another thing a lot of people say, but rarely actually do. I need to refrain from automatically "sizing" people up, judging by what they wear or say... but what they actually do. I think everyone judges people. It's how we formulate opinions about others, and leads to how we make choices about what to do from that point on (i.e.- based on whether you like them or not will determine if you decide to spend time with them again in the future). I want to give more people I encounter a better chance and let their actions speak for themselves more because one's actions are so powerful.

9. Stop reading into things. I'm sure this could be tied in with a few other ones I already mentioned, but I really do need to do this. I tend to read into things too much and take it personally, even if it wasn't what I thought it was about/meant. I tend to take it personally when old friends don't stay in touch, when I get left out of something, etc. I need to learn I'm a big girl now and things like that shouldn't matter as much as I make it out to be.

10. I wanted to make 10, but I'm drawing blanks on other big things/areas I want to improve on. If I think of something... I'll come back to it. If not, then my 10th one will be to hopefully keep my resolutions and not slack off! :P

Happy New Year!

For New Year's Eve we were invited by some friends to go ice-skating in Naha. Since I've never been, I decided to jump on the invite!!! We got to the rink and I successfully was able to skate around without falling even once! I was pretty proud of myself. It was alot of fun and I can't wait to go again. Later in the evening we went to Chili's (it was one of the only places open, and man it was packed!) with a group of friends, and hung out at our house afterwards. It was a fun night with good friends and we were happy to have them to bring in the New Year with us! The night flew by as we entertained ourselves with some tv shows, Scrabble, yummy snacks, good conversations, and popped open 4 different bottles of champagne (yes, I think we over indulged a bit). We were bummed not to be able to watch the ball drop (since that didn't happen until 9am the next day our time) but we had a good night! I'm excited to see what 2010 will bring! Hope everyone had a great New Years Eve & Day! I'll post more pictures when my friend Sani posts hers... but here were a few shots from the night I was able to capture!This is what baby Isla thought of her dad and Joe debating about Mozart... hahaha. It was sooo funny I couldn't resist taking a picture. We didn't stage this either!

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!