Lessons

Sydney started swim lessons the first week of July. I (mistakenly) thought the 8:30am time slot would be a good choice because of Shawn's napping schedule, but boy was I wrong. I had visions of us going to the pool early and staying for a little while after lessons to swim, but it just ended up being easier to take her and then leave right after it was over. Getting us all ready and lathered up with sunscreen sure does take a lot of time!

Unfortunately, she didn't ever really get into it. Her teacher, Miss Flo, always came and talked to me about her performance after the lesson, and often times referred to Sydney as "Miss I-don't-want-to." I was actually impressed with how many times she would do a bob in the water, but every time the teacher would splash them or pour water from a watering can over their heads, Syd was cowering in the corner.

Sydney at swim lessons.

I thought if water going in her eyes was the issue, goggles would do the trick. She was really excited to wear them, but that only helped for one lesson and then she was over them.

Using the kick board (her teacher said she was crying when she was doing this).

There were far too many mornings where I was trying to get on her swimsuit, and she would cry, run away, and whine that she didn't want to go. So I'd have to force her into her suit, then into the car. I told her we could just skip on the last day if she would do a swim lesson with Daddy that afternoon instead, and she was all over that idea. Overall, I felt like a terrible Mom making my child do something she didn't want to do just because it was already paid for. Maybe we'll try again next year?

Shawn climbing around by the chairs.

Gymnastics, on the other hand, is a totally opposite story. She LOVES going, and she tries to do things that even surprise me! It also helps that Coach Lynn is super nice and patient with Sydney when she's being a little more timid than the rest of the kids. 

Sydney on the balance beam.

Finishing up the balance obstacle course.

My favorite part of this video is when she does the "ta da!" arms after jumping off the balance beam. 

It is so fun to see how much more confident she is these days. I was SO impressed when she did the bear crawl on the parallel bars:

As of last Wednesday, she even mastered doing a front somersault all by herself! She has now been doing them all over the living room rug. Some other favorite new tricks are donkey kicks (her feet get like 3 inches off the floor, but she is very proud of her skills) and jumping jacks, which she does so wildly that it always makes me laugh

Lately

Last weekend we caravaned with some friends from church to a beach that was off the beaten path on Ikei island. When we arrived at the alleged spot, there was no where to park (narrow streets surrounded by jungle). We drove around and around until someone made the executive decision to go to a different beach. It was pretty ridiculous, but afterwards we joked that after an hour and a half of driving on a tiny island, we finally found a beach! And we took our camera but failed to take pictures, so here's a shot stolen from my friend's Facebook:

It was a beautiful day!

We saw several little jellyfish and did our first snorkeling since we've been here- which has been a whole year now! Where does the time go? This wasn't a "snorkeling spot" so there wasn't anything spectacular, but we did see a few cool fish. I also collected lots of sea glass on the beach, a little free decor to put in some apothecary jars in my family room. 

After several hours of swimming, we went home to clean up, then jumped back into the car to go to the Futenma Flight Line Fair. 

 We felt pretty cool driving on the tarmac to get to the parking area.

We got there at dusk, which was nice since it wasn't blazing hot. The downside was that we didn't get very many pictures before it got dark.

Big American flags and cool airplanes immediately had me thinking of my Dad.

 Sydney was so excited to actually go inside all these planes that we see flying over our house all the time.

 Spencer requested a "waist up" shot here so it would look like he was climbing the rope. Ha!

 Future pilot? She really wanted to get in one of the jets, but they were just for looking.

 My sweet boy, happy even though it was way past his bedtime.

There were lots of food booths and kid's rides in the "fair" part of the event, so we let Sydney choose one ride. She opted for this spinning one:

I felt like she was so brave to do this all by herself. Spencer asked if she wanted him to ride with her, but she said, "no."

As a totally unrelated tangent, I wanted to post this video of the kiddos. Shawn is almost 11 months (what?!?), and he's still army crawling his way around the house. He's pretty quick when he's on a mission to get something, but it's Sydney's behavior in the movie that had me giggling:

I asked Spencer if it would be bad if I just stuck a Swiffer to Shawn's belly so he could clean my floors while he scoots around :) No matter how often I sweep/Swiffer, his clothes still get dust and hair all over them. Just this week I went into his room in the morning and he was standing up in his crib! That's happened several times now, and he's pulling himself up (from his belly) to the toy boxes so he can now get all the toys I don't want him to have.

Week Two + One Day

Spencer was back at work the second week of Barbara's visit, so we took her to some low key places that are a little closer to home. We spent one afternoon at the Mini-Mini Zoo, a little covered "zoo" with a random assortment of animals (e.g. ostriches, snakes, birds, a donkey, a pig, monkeys, an armadillo). The best part is that it's free! The zoo is hooked onto the Zukeran egg shop where they sell local eggs and baked goods made with said eggs. We always stop in a get one of their delicious (and ginormous) cream puffs for 100 yen. Yum!

Sydney's chocolate dessert tasted like 1% sugar with 99% cocoa. The cream puffs were much better.

 Silly photo op.

 I guess we didn't take pictures of any of the animals...

Wednesday morning we went to Nakagusuku Castle ruins. It was a beautiful day, which was great because the views are a million times better if you can see the blue-green color of the water.

 Barbara and Syd just outside the castle.

 Syd using the bum slide method to get down the steep steps.

 My happy boy with Grandma B.

In the central enclosure, I let Barbara go up the stairs to the castle wall before me so I could see her reaction to the view.

The beautiful Pacific.

 Sydney wanted to walk all over this wall on her own- it made me nervous!

 Love Shawn's smile in this one.

We ate a picnic lunch at the ruins, then the plan was to take Barbara and Shawn home while I gave Sydney a quick wardrobe change and then take her to her first gymnastics class. Well, she fell asleep in the car on the way home, which made her a crying mess when I woke her up to get her out. Then I wrestled her into a different outfit and back into the car we went. It was kind of a nightmare, but she settled down by the time we got there. I was curious to see how my timid little girl would do. She hung back at first, but by the end she was willing to take a turn on the trampoline like all the other kids. I think she ended up having a really good time. 

That night she ended up having a fever of 104. Apparently Barbara came into our room to try to wake me, but I didn't wake up. Spencer heard her and they were able to get the fever under control. Barbara stayed up with her for several hours, and I was totally oblivious to the whole thing! Needless to say we laid low the next day... but then she was acting sick again on Friday. I took her to the doctor, and she had an ear infection (which she referred to as her "ear confection"). She was awarded two bottles of bubble gum flavored Amoxicillin. I may or may not have wiped the excess from the outer rim of the bottle with my finger and licked it many times over the next 10 days. Ahhh, childhood memories of strep throat. But, I digress...

The following Monday was Barbara's official last full day with us, and since everyone was feeling good we packed it pretty full of fun. Our first stop was Round 1.

Then we picked up Spencer and went out to lunch.

We chose Gen restaurant so Barbara could try some good sushi. I couldn't believe Sydney didn't want to eat anything! She's usually my good eater, and is especially talented at pounding mass quantities of rice.

Later that day we went stopped by Spencer's clinic so Barbara could see where he works and meet some of his co-workers.

 Miss Uehara, his assistant, gushed about him to his mom. It was really sweet.

That night I took Barbara to Cocok's to get a foot massage and nail art for her belated Mother's Day present. Fancy toes are all the rage out here, and this was my first time to do it too!

 It took us 100 years to choose which designs we wanted. There were so many choices!

 Getting pampered.

I don't think I mentioned that while Barbara was here, Spencer and I went on FOUR dates! It was basically awesome, we almost didn't know what to do with ourselves. It was so great having a visitor!

For Shuri

On yet another rainy morning, we drove down to Naha to visit Shuri Castle. We had never been there before, so it was fun to take Barbara somewhere that was new to us too. Shuri Castle was where the Ryukyuan king lived and conducted the affairs of the Ryukyu kingdom. It was completely destroyed during WWII, so the current building is a total reconstruction.

I loved the ornate dragons decorating the outside of the building.

Once inside, we had to take off our shoes and carry them in bags they provided. They also gave us umbrella bags so we wouldn't be dripping water all over the floors (I thought that was kind of funny... I mean, where else do they have umbrella bags?).

Pictures of all the former kings of the Ryukyu kingdom. We didn't last long here as Sydney could have cared less and wanted to move on.

I tried to buy Spencer some reading time by having Syd show me how high she could jump. She LOVES showing me this every day, always pointing out that she can jump even higher since she's getting bigger and bigger.

This section of the castle was where the king conducted business with foreign officials. There were signs on the floors in these rooms that said  "Please do not walk on mats." There were workers standing in different locations to make sure you didn't touch stuff, knew where you were going, etc., and one got our attention to look at Syd. Sure enough, she was half way across the room, walking all over the mats. Oops.

The surrounding garden was pretty cool. I felt like I was carrying 1.5 million things :)

Looking out into the main courtyard.

Sydney and Barbara by the king's throne.

Fierce looking stone dragon by the steps to the castle.

Overall I thought the castle was kind of... empty. Other than the main room with the king's throne, it was pretty much rooms with red walls and nothing inside of them. The outside of the buildings were much more interesting, and it was fun checking out the grounds as well.

This was an entrance to the house where the king actually lived with his family, but it was blocked off.

It obviously wasn't clear enough the see it well, but from here we got view of the city and the East China Sea down below.

I loved all of the pagoda roofs on the watch towers at each entrance. Before we moved here, I thought we would see that kind of Japanese-y architecture pretty much everywhere we went. But as most people seem to live in high rise apartments or concrete fortresses not much better looking than the exterior of our base housing, it's still a treat for me to see it.

Afterward we did a little shopping on Kokesai street, sticking to the covered market so we could stay dry!