Oooooh-kuma!

Our first night at Okuma was rough since Shawn woke up every time we made even the slightest movement. He went down for his first nap at 7:30am if that's any indication of how the night went. By then Sydney was up and ready to go, so Spencer went back to bed while Syd and I walked right out our front door to the beach! It was a cloudy day, but the water was still incredibly beautiful. 

 I'm pretty much convinced that Okuma is paradise, and what's even more awesome was that we had the whole beach to ourselves!

Sydney's favorite game was to run in to the water, then run back out to get away from the waves.

She also had a blast playing in the sand. It took her quite a long time to make the "ice cream cone" in her bucket.

The sun poked out every now and then and made the water sparkle.

Spencer and a much more cheerful Shawn joined us after a few hours. Shawn was a champion in the water and loved being pulled on the floating donkey.

On the beach, Spencer made quite the castle- complete with lots of trenches to protect it from the waves. It was still standing the next day.

During Shawn's afternoon nap, I rested on the couch and Spencer took Sydney to play miniature golf. He said she lasted about 2 seconds and then was done, but he still finished without her. When I woke up, she was conked out at my feet.

This little girl was tuckered out!

When the kids woke up, we geared up for a family bike ride. Sydney has a crazy good memory and somehow remembered that she wore that princess helmet the last time we rode this bike.

We thought Shawn looked extra cute in his little helmet. I have no idea how many other kids have sucked on that strap, but he sure enjoyed it.

This picture was an attempt to recreate the one we took when we were here for Labor Day weekend 2011.

Such a sweet little face, he looks like such a big boy!

One reason we chose to go to Okuma was to use it as a launching pad to check out a few places up north that would otherwise be a pretty long drive. One of those places was Hedo Point, the northernmost tip of the island. Since Spencer is kind of obsessed with getting good pictures of sunsets, he wanted us to head up there close to sundown. We stopped at a lookout point on the way up and busted out the camera.

It certainly paid off! It was really gorgeous.

Shawn was pretty grouchy in his car seat, and he was squirmy and whiny in my arms. Then I passed him over to his dad so I could take some pictures, and BAM!, he's all smiles. He is certainly a Daddy's boy, and Spencer loves it. He likes to give Shawn to me then hold out his arms to see if he'll come back to him (which he usually does).

This picture cracks me up! It was pure dumb luck that I captured it, but I think it's so cute.

Then Spencer wanted to get some pictures with me and the kids- but Shawn wasn't too happy about it.

We continued on to Hedo Point, where we enjoyed even more beautiful views while Sydney burned some energy running all over the place.

Manzamo Point & Hiji Falls

For the last three days of Spencer's paternity leave, we booked a suite at Okuma. We decided to head out a bit earlier in the day and do some other fun things on the way up there to kind of break up the drive. Our first stop was Manzamo Point, which is also called Elephant Point and the toilet bowl. Spencer's biking crew took a break there on the big ride a few weeks ago and he wanted us to see it too.

There were some vendor tents set up near the parking lot, and while we browsed the Japanese ladies were going gaga over Sydney's hair. One lady kept telling us she looked like a movie star (maybe it was her 8 necklaces and her blinged out headband?). Another one put a fake flower on a bobby pin and put it in her hair. Sydney was totally eating it up.

People were also admiring this cutie pie. Check out those squishy legs!

See the elephant?

Not quite sure which area is the toilet bowl, but I know it's a popular diving spot for scuba divers.

We couldn't have asked for better weather!

Our next stop was Hiji Falls, which I'd heard you get to by going up a lot of stairs. In my mind that meant a bunch of stairs going up some huge hill, but I was mistaken! Turns out it required hiking a mile (each way) on a path through the woods with stairs going up and down, up and down.

We checked out some smaller waterfalls at the start of the path.

And then up, up, up we went!

Good thing my little girl likes climbing stairs, cause there were lots of 'em.

The path for the hike was right along a river. At the half way point, we crossed over it via a suspension bridge that was up pretty high.

Sydney and Spencer, who was putting on a happy face for the camera. Not a big fan of heights, that one.

He crossed the bridge with one hand firmly on the rail and took slow, cautious steps. I may or may not have jumped up and down a few times to freak him out... but he didn't even notice.

Some of the steps got pretty steep, but Sydney just kept on plugging. There was a Japanese girl in front of us hiking in platform wedge heels. I mean, really??

After lots more stairs, we finally made it!

Spencer was afraid Sydney was going to ask him to hold her for the hike back, but she totally did it all by herself. She did eventually ask him to, but it was when we were like a minute away from our car. She was quite the trooper. We got to Okuma just in time for dinner, then went up more stairs (ha!) to a lookout point to watch the sun set.

It was a good day.

Roller Slide'n

I finally got "the call" from the Youth Center on Kadena telling me there was a spot for Sydney in a gymnastics class! I put her on the waiting list in January, and they told me I'd probably get a call in February. Since I didn't hear anything for a long time, I called at the end of March to make sure she was actually still on the list. They told me she was, so we kept waiting. On our way over to pay for her first month of gymnastics (she starts June 6), we went to another roller slide park. We even bought these plastic butt protector things last time we were at the hardware store, so we were prepared! These slides make your bum vibrate a lot, so people will usually bring a piece of cardboard or the plastic seat things to make it a little more comfortable.

I've heard that this roller slide is the longest one on the island. 

 Sydney LOVES going up stairs. She walked up all the stairs going up the hill, then went up all four levels of stairs in the observation tower too (with Spencer of course).

 I sat Shawn on the ropes so I could be at the ready with the camera when they came down. He kept trying to reach through the holes to get that grass.

 Spencer & Sydney going down the slide.

The curvy parts of the slide were pretty slow, but when it started going downhill they were flying! I was impressed Spencer didn't land on his bum at the bottom. Once they were done, we all headed back up the steps together to check out the view.

When it was my turn to go down, I opted to go solo. I didn't dare risk having Shawn on my lap for this one!

 Me slightly freaking out when picking up major speed.

We also got to take a walk along some trails and play in a little park that had a rocking weiner dog. The sun was out in full force, we were all pretty sweaty.

Is The Sun Eating the Moon?

Spencer got ten paternity days when Shawn was born, but he only used five of them before going back to work. Well, they run out if you don't use them within a certain period of time, so he took the remaining five days off last week so we could have some good ol' family fun. We started off his week of vacation by waking up at 6am on Monday morning to watch the annular eclipse!

 Cannon & I checking things out on "the hill."

 See all those kids on that building? They're middle schoolers, and they got special permission from their parents to miss a few classes so they could watch the eclipse too. This picture makes it look like the school's in American Village, but it's really on our base.

It was kind of blinding to watch at first, and then some clouds rolled in. We thought that would ruin the show, but it actually blocked the sun just enough that we could look at it easily. Spencer took about a billion pictures, and these were my favorites:

 

When I was growing up, my dad always quoted Phil Hartman's SNL character Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer, who's closing argument in every courtroom involved cutting him a break because he was a caveman.  His favorite episode was when Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer said, "And when I see an eclipse I think to myself, 'Is the sun eating the moon?' I don't know, I'm just a caveman and that's the way I think." So naturally that's what came to mind while we watched this eclipse. I shared that with my neighbors- they'd never seen it, so I think they thought I was a little crazy :)

Sydney woke up about a half hour into the show, and strategically held her blanket to shield her eyes. She thought it was super cool to be playing outside in her pj's.