Happy Birthday Sydney

On November 4, my little Sydney turned 4! It was a Sunday, so she was excited to get her bracelet and gum birthday prize in Primary. I knew she ate a piece right after the kids sang "Happy Birthday" to her, and when Primary was over, I asked her if she wanted me to put the rest of her gum in my purse. She responded, "I ate it." 

"You ate all five pieces of gum?" I said.

"Mmm hmmm." She had totally chewed and swallow every piece! So sick, but what's a Mom to do?

The many faces of Sydney:

She opened up presents from Grandmas and Grandpas first, then I hid all of her presents from Spencer and me and sent her on a scavenger hunt to find them.

Opening up a movie from Grandma and Grandpa H.

Delighting us with a tune on her new xylophone.

Following clues to a present hiding behind the chair.

Opening the present: a new bike helmet.

Checking the storage closet to find her last present.

A new bike!

I knew Sydney wanted a new bike, as she'd told me several times and sat on a few at the BX. My friend cued me in to balance bikes, which have no training wheels or pedals. The idea is to get kids to learn to balance, and there's a little foot rest they can put their feet on when they're gliding along. Supposedly it helps them learn to ride a two-wheeler faster. I found a really cute model online and was surprised to find they shipped here, so I ordered it.

Fast forward to her birthday. I was so excited for her to open up her new pink bike! After Spencer assembled it, she sat on it for about two seconds and said, "Why is it so wobbly?" Then she refused to get on it again.

Shawn, however, thought it was great. He plopped himself down on the foot rest and wanted me to push him around the house on it for like ten minutes.

Sydney: Not interested. Shawn: Having a ball.

He also enjoyed playing with the packaging to her presents.

Next it was time for cake! Syd had requested a princess cake, which I knew there was no way in a million years I could pull off. So I sort of convinced her to want a crown cake, and threw a few pictures of princesses on it to act as the crown jewels. Not my best effort, but she seemed happy enough with it.

Happy Birthday to my sweet girl!

She has been reminding us every day since her birthday of all the things she can do now that she's four (i.e. jump higher, reach things that are higher up on the counter, run faster, etc.). Pretty silly.

Halloween

We bought our pumpkins at the commissary pretty early on in the fall in fear that if we didn't buy early we might miss out entirely. In fear that the humidity outside would destroy them, they just sat on top of our dryer for weeks. By the time we finally carved them Spencer's was rotten, but he didn't seem too hurt at the prospect of not participating.

Getting our hands dirty. 

I did my best to let Shawn get in on the action without making too much of a mess. Scraping out the seeds was a lot more work than I remember! We kept our carving designs simple, then did a test lighting to preview how they'd look on Halloween night.

Halloween ended up being kind of rainy. Nothing too terrible, but a constant light drizzle. It was still warm enough outside that it didn't deter Sydney from wanting to collect candy.

My favorite part of the evening was seeing all the Dad's who dressed up with the intent of scaring as many children as possible. Needless to say, we skipped quite a few houses :) My second favorite part of the evening was eating all the good candy out of Sydney's bag after she went to bed.

Ryukyu Mura

We finally made our way out to Ryukyu Mura, a park-esque place similar to Okinawa World that highlights different aspects of Okinawan culture. The detailers for Spencer's command were in town, and this was kind of a "highly encouraged" field trip with them and all of Spencer's co-workers. I've driven past the sign for it several times and been curious, so it was fun to finally check it out.

Giant shisa dogs welcomed us at the entrance.

Shawn & Spencer

Syd had a ball hanging out with her new friend Colton. We sponsored his family when they came to Okinawa in September, and their kids ages match up with ours. They are also LDS, live on our same base, and the husband works with Spencer. Needless to say we all became fast friends.

Colton & Sydney

Shawn wanted to be right up in the action with the big kids.

Spencer & Shawn checking out traditional houses and huts.

Sydney, Colton, Seth, & Cameron admiring the water buffalo.

There were a few restaurants there, and the seating was situated around a stage with performers. I loved their brightly colored kimono and the dancer's killer hat.

Most of the audience appeared to be elderly Japanese women that were part of an assisted living community. They were so cute and would get up and dance to the music, and their helpers would pat their bums when they walked back to their chairs. It was pretty funny.

This cute little old lady was feelin' the beat!

Trunk or Treat

Just days after getting home from mainland, we were getting ready for Halloween. That weekend was a Trunk or Treat at church. Sydney wanted to be Belle and was so excited to wear her costume. I never let her wear it around the house because it's covered in sparkly glitter and it gets everywhere. Shawn's costume was a Japanese guy. He wore these cute little Japanese pj's a neighbor gave him when he was born, and a cute little hat I found at one of the local gift shops completed the outfit. While Spencer planned to be the candy passer-outer, and I wanted to take the kids around to all the cars, we actually did the opposite. And when they finally made their way to our car, I was able to snap a few pics of the kids in trick-or-treating action.

My little Belle.

That hat stayed on Shawn's head for about 2 seconds before he pulled it off.

Me & the kids, getting eaten by our monster van.

Syd was in heaven with all of her loot. Shawn was terrified of President Rupp's freaky costume and cried several times when he was talking to Spencer. Poor kid.

Tokyo Day 4 & Going Home

Our last day in Tokyo ended up being kind of a bummer, mostly because of travel woes. Our flight the following morning was flying out of Narita around 6am, and there was no public transit available at 4am when we'd need it. Since a taxi would have cost upwards of $250, we cancelled our last night at the beautiful New Sanno and got a hotel closer to the airport for the night. 

Luckily the hotel was able to hold our luggage for the day so we could still do some more exploring of Tokyo.

The New Sanno

Our first stop was Ginza, the shopping district that's Tokyo's equivalent of Fifth Avenue in New York City. Spencer had heard that Tokyo has one of the busiest intersections in the world (like most people cross it per day than anywhere else in the world), and since our guidebook mentioned the famous 4-Chome crossing in Ginza I figured they must be one and the same. Turns out it wasn't.

Capturing the moment anyway.

Regardless, it was fun to see familiar stores, albeit high end ones that we could never in a million years afford. The highlight for me was getting to peruse the merchandise at The Gap! It's been a year and a half since I've walked in one, so it was a treat. It was pretty expensive too though (more so than in the states), so we didn't buy anything. We enjoyed lunch at a restaurant under one of the department stores before heading off to a new place.

I was glad we were seated in a separate room by ourselves because Shawn was being very wiggly.

The kids were entertained with chopsticks while we waited for our food.

When it came, Shawn was ready to dig in!

Mmmm, tempura.

Our final stop was the Imperial Palace East Garden, another recommendation from the guidebook. I had unrealistic expectations of this place, since I was fully expecting it would provide at least some view of the Imperial Palace. Unfortunately I was wrong.

The entry gate was pretty cool though.

We walked past several Japanesey buildings and lots of stone walls, with Shawn testing his walking skills the whole way. Then it opened up into a giant park, with a promising lookout at the other end of a huge grassy field.

Once we made our way over to the lookout and trudged up the steep hill to hopefully see the Imperial Palace, we were disappointed yet again.

Womp, womp. That cool green rooftop in the background was non-palace related.

On our way out, we explored some other paths and enjoyed the pretty scenery. One section had trees planted for each prefecture in Japan, so we found the one for Okinawa.

That poor Okinawan tree did not look very healthy.

The rest of the park was actually quite lovely. Some of the leaves looked like they were on the verge of changing colors.

While our stay at the airport hotel worked out fine, our taxi to the airport the next morning was ridiculous. It was literally a 3 minute ride, and the guy charged us like 1300 yen (around $15)! Spencer was livid and sent me to find a security guard to report the guy, since he'd seen signs warning travelers about taxi drivers who rip people off. Unfortunately there wasn't really anyone around at 4am, and he ended up finally paying him when another couple who stayed at the hotel next to ours were charged like 1700 yen and didn't complain. Such a rip!

When we walked in the door to our house later that morning, I was sooooo happy to be home. It was so clean and welcoming, and then we unpacked and turned it into a crazy house. I think it took me almost a full week to recover and get it all cleaned up again.

Even though our last day in Tokyo was kind of lame, we were so glad to have a trip to mainland under our belt. I certainly learned a lot about foreign travel and will hopefully be more prepared on our next adventure.