long day

I am so tired today that I feel I could topple over at any given moment. Matt is on night shift for this week and although HE should be the exhausted one, I get very little sleep with him gone at night. The dumbest thing is, that I find myself staying up until all hours of the night to watch things that I would normally never give a second thought to. I have probably watched more TV this past weekend and the beginning of this week than I have since I have been here. Not tonight though...as soon as Colin goes to bed I am forcing myself to lay down as well.

Above are Colin's 1 year pictures. I only bought one picture of each pose as just that cost me $52. As a girl who is accustomed to Sears $6.99 deal, I cannot fathom spending the $300 dollars for the whole package. So, as that stands, let me know what sizes you want because I figure this is why I bought a printer with a scanner. Mom, I know his mouth is open in these pictures as well, but I figure maybe that adds to his cuteness.

Matt has a four day weekend coming up...we can't wait. We don't have any special plans, but it will be nice after this week of 12 hour shifts for him. Matt also got his grade in Biology, which he got a pretty strong A in. He is very happy.

I kept my neighbor's daughter today and yesterday as my first official client for the daycare. It was very time consuming trying to keep everything picked up and exactly as it needs to be. It only made it harder that we had to be very quiet so as not to wake Matt up and it was raining outside. However, on the bright side, since Matt has a four day weekend today is like Wednesday instead of Tuesday!

Colin must be getting more teeth because he bites me every chance he gets. He especially likes to bite my leg right where it is at the level of his mouth when he is standing. I have several little bite marks all around right below my knee.

Well, I hope this finds everyone well. I miss all of you. Send an email and let me know how you are doing.

Love you all....

Okuma Trip

Hello everyone! I figured it was about time I update this this so here it goes...

We went to Okuma, which is a military resort, this last weekend. We had an okay time considering it rained the whole time we were there. Thank goodness we got a suite with a tv and dvd player instead of a cabin or something. The beach up there is really nice and there isn't much coral so your feet don't get hurt from walking there. Island kind of bends around close to the beach so it is a truly beautiful view. Even though it was raining we made the best of it and did the glass bottom boat ride, the bike rentals, and the putt-putt golf. We can't wait to go back in July, I just hope it is nicer weather. Up above are some pictures of our trip.

Colin is walking everywhere now. He still falls a lot, but he continues to get back up. He ate his cereal with a spoon the other day, so that is also new. He loves the water. He has no fear of the water at the beach. I have to watch hium really closely, because he thinks he can swim! He lays on his belly and moves his arms and legs around.

Ryan is doing well. We went to the elementary school to get him an application for the pre-K program here and he was so excited. He kept saying.."Is this going to be my room?"..."Is this where I will eat luch?"..."Is this the library where I can read?"..."I they going to be my friends?" We passed several classrooms, the library, the lunch room, and several kids on the way to the office. I am glad that he is so excited, I hope he stays that way for awhile at least.

I finally got my licsense for the daycare, but I haven't had any kids yet. I am going to keep my neighbors daughter on Monday and Tuesday, so she will be my first. I am keeping busy with other things, the gym and trying to explore the island a little. I think I am going to take a couple of classes this next term here, but I am not sure.

Matt has an exercise going on right now, so he has to work horrible hours. He goes up for BTZ (where he would move up in rank early) in about two weeks. I really hope he gets it. We probably won't find out until the middle of June. He is only taking one class this term, which is the last class he needs to finish his associates degree. He needs to take Chemistry and A&P, but they are not offering either right now. Unfortunately, it looks like they are not going to offer A&P for a long while, so we are not sure what he can do...I guess we will have to wait and see.

Well, I hope everyone is doing well. I will talk to you soon.

 

 

 

Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to all you Mom's reading this. I hope you all had a great day. My day was just okay. Matt had school on Sunday morning, so I took the kids bowling. I got to take a short nap in the afternoon and then we went out to dinner at what is my favorite place here so far. I did some housework and then went to bed.

Colin is walking a lot more now. He can walk from one room to the next now and not just inbetween  the furniture. He can even stop and change directions now. One of the pictures above is of him walking outside. The other pictures above were taken at Monakids. It is sort of an inside playground for the kids. Similar, I guess to a Chucky Cheese.

On the way to Monakids we went to McDonalds to eat lunch. At McDonald's we ran into two little Japanese kids whose parents had let them go there by themselves. They were 4 and 6. They were bad little kids, as I am finding many Japanese children are! The Japanese just let their kids run wild in some instances where Americans are much more strict. The little boys tried to take Ryan's food, but he couldn't understand them so he just said Konchiwa! It was an interesting encounter.

We went to the Okinawa Children's Zoo on Thursday, which was fun for the kids, but sad. The animals at this zoo have very little room and most of them look sad and underfed. It was children's day which is May 5 and is a national holiday, so they had tons of stuff for the kids to do and the zoo itself was packed.

This weekend, we are going to head up to Okuma, which is the military resort here. I can't wait because I hear the beaches there a beautiful. Then on June 5th we start our scuba diving lessons.

Well, I better go. I hope this finds you all well. We miss you and love you all.

 

Colin Is Walking

Colin started walking the other day. He is only walking to and from things and still crawls most of the time, but he is on his way. The first day that he really was walking a lot he passed out on the floor that night at 7 o'clock! That is when I took the picture above. Walking sure is hard work!

The kids and I went to the beach yesterday. It was a beautiful day, but the beach that we went to was not all that great. I took a couple of pictures though. Ryan sure does love the beach, as does Colin.

Anyway, not much else is going on and Ryan is bugging me to go outside, so I guess I better go.

We love you all!

Sad Today

I am not really that sad as much as I am just feeling down. I got an email from my friend from nursing school and she gave me her journal address (which I had lost), anyway, it was so nice to hear from her, but sad to hear about nursing school. On her journal I get to hear what my old classmates are up to and what I am missing. I sure wish I was there with them. It is almost like I can feel any knowledge that I had slowly slipping away. When Matt comes home from his biology class asking for help studying things like gametes and genes I have to rack my brain and then sometimes look it up for things that used to be just like second nature to me. As far as anatomy is concerned, I may have totally regressed! I just feel so useless here. Matt wants me to help him with his classes and my brain is filled up with what time the baby needs to take a nap. Don't get me wrong, I love spending time with the kids and being totally involved, I just get a little tired of it I think.

This brings me to my next problem, I have recently been feeling like maybe I want to have another baby. I have been trying to talk Matt into just that, but before I do I need to make sure that it is not my lack of purpose feeling that is pushing me to want more and that I really and truely want one more child.

I guess I will have to think about it awhile longer. I guess I better end this now though as we are all still in our pajamas on this lazy morning.

Days Off

Today is a rainy day so we are all sitting around doing very little. Today is Earth Day, so I took Ryan down to the park where they were having an Earth Day Festival. We had an okay time and we got to tie-dye a couple of T-shirts.

Matt had Thursday and Friday off and we all had a great couple of days. On thursday Matt took Ryan golfing on the real golf course. It is only a 9 hole course, but it was Ryan's first time, so that was big enough. I guess Ryan did pretty well. Matt says he even hit one shot all the way to the green (about 110 yards)! It doesn't sound like it is very far, but it is good for him.

Friday Matt and I took the kids to a sitter and had the day to ourselves. We had planned on going to the beach, but the weather wasn't nice enough. We played tennis in the morning for about an hour and a half, then we headed out for lunch. We went to an authentic Japanese steak house and had some great food. There were a couple of big differences between the one here and the one we went to in the states. The biggest one is that the chef doesn't do any tricks or entertainment while cooking your food. Then we headed over to a store called Uni-Qlo, which is the Japanese equivilent of an Old Navy. However as far as clothes for Matt is concerned he has to buy an extra large which fits him like an American medium. I guess since the people here are generally small, there isn't much accomadation for people who are tall or overweight. Then we went to a huge 100 yen store. That is like a dollar store in the states, but there is much more at this store and the stuff is a lot nicer. Then we went to a plant/ walmart type store. Matt had been looking for hat like the one in the picture above and this is where we found it. All the Japanese people around here where hats like this when they do yard work. They usually cover them with some sort of material, but Matt hasn't found any that he likes quite yet.

Colin finally took a step today! Just one and then he fell down, but at least that is something!

Well, I am going to take a nap on this rainy day. I hope all is well with everyone else.

 

Busy Days

Well, where do I start? It has been awhile since I have updated. It has been really nice outside so we have been going for a lot of walks as well as going to the beach. I had my inspection for the daycare and I passed. Now my package of information has to go up in front of a board to see if they approve.I don't plan on actually taking any kids until June. We will see...Matt isn't too thrilled about the whole idea, so if it disrupts our family life too much I may not continue.

Ryan has been riding his new bike like crazy. Whenever we go for a walk he rides his bike. I try to wear him out by riding on a lot of hills, but he is always full of energy. He loves going to the beach. The water here stays shallow for a long way out so he has tons of fun just running around and splashing. Of course he loves to play in the sand too. There aren't very many waves most of the time, so I can just let him play. Ryan has been really itching for time with Matt lately. As soon as he wakes up in the morning he is asking to go outside and play football or golf. Yesterday we spent about three hours at the beach and then Matt took Ryan to play soccer out at the soccer field.

Colin is doing great. I can't believe he is almost a year old. We are going to go down to the park next weekend and try to have a cookout for his birthday. We mainly just invited all the neighbors. Colin loves the beach as well. The water is so shallow that I can just take him down and sit him in the water. He has a great time splashing and crawling around. He has been trying ot color lately. He likes to pick up a crayon and then he will look for a paper, crawl over, and try to draw. He has been thinking about walking lately, but still hasn't made that leap.

Matt has been busy with school and work lately. He is still working on that one big job and he has a test coming up in his biology class. I hope he gets an A because he has been working so hard in the material. He was able to go to the beach with us yesterday. I know he hates to be leaving for work and have to see that we are heading to the beach. He hasn't made tons of friends here to do things with outside of work and I know that kind of bums him out. Most of the guys he works with here are young and not on top of things. People who act like idiots at work and don't know thier job drive Matt nuts.

I myself have been keepingbusy running errands, doing stuff with the kids, and exercising when I can. I am going to take a knitting class at the craft center that starts in about a week, so that shold be fun.

Well, I hope this finds you all well. Love you all.