Normal Fun Stuff. Because I can't think of a title...

These are neat steps, huh? They go up from our neighborhood playground, which is also very neat... kinda tucked away in this pocket of jungleness. On wet mornings, you wouldn't believe how many snails are all over theses stairs! Well, okay, you probably would. A lot. There are a lot of snails.

Big leaves. I told Maeve to "smile a princess smile!" She said, "Like this?" and thought she was hilarious. 

This is our house.  They are still... STILL... working on it.  It will be lovely and beautiful and all new on the inside once they're done.  Sigh.  I think the most recent estimate for us to get in is the last week of October.  We're really, really, really, REALLY ready to settle.  Right now we live down the street, in a fine little house, but it will be so great to actually be in our own place again.  And get our stuff. We've been transient since June. That's a little bit long...

The kids love to collect sticks. They really wanted to drag this one home.  This "stick" was a victim of one of the three typhoons we had in our first six weeks here.  I can't remember which one. They all run together now... ;)

Right across from our neighborhood is the 18th Wing Headquarters. There are a bunch of cool Air Force jets sitting out on the lawn.  The kids and I walked there one day. It was exciting trying to cross the busy road. That was a bold-faced lie. It was lame. It took us forever to get across because it's very wide and there are no traffic lights nearby, and I was waiting for a gigantic gap between cars so we would all survive. It took so long, in fact, that some nice concerned lady with a couple of kids in the car turned around to see if we were okay, since we were standing on the side of the road for so long.  Obviously people don't normally try to dash across the street there.  Once we got there, it was fun, but knowing I had to cross BACK over the street put a slight damper on it in my mind...

We read about all the different planes, and then went over and whacked them. Yep, tough machines.  Look verrrry closely at the wheel on this jet... do you see what I see?

NOW do you?  A nice huge cockroach!  I've gotta say, I have much warmer feelings towards the roaches here than I had towards the ones in Uruguay.  Most likely because I have not seen a single one in our house! Woohooooo! I've seen one outside this little temporary house, and then I've seen this big fella, but ya know... if they stay where they belong (though right outside our house was pushing it...) and do not set one nasty little scuttly roach foot INSIDE our place, then I'm okay with them. Yes... yes, I do think I am. But jets... we were talking about jets, right?

Here's one zooming overhead.  We're really close to the runway, so we see cool planes taking off and landing all the time.  And hear them. Ohhh, we hear them.

And, here are the tykes, huddling under a bush for a shade break. Maeve is NOT in the shade. I think she thought it was just a "fun" huddle.  Then we braved the big road again.  On the way back some car totally stopped for us, and that made everyone stop on both sides of the street while the kids all stuck their hands in the air and ran for it. Well, I carried Maeve. She's still a bit of a smidge.  Despite it being right across the street, we'll just drive there next time.

A stop light. And various signs in Japanese. Wow, this really doesn't need to be in here, but I'm too lazy to hit "delete" and will instead just keep typing...

The beach! I'm ashamed that this beach picture is just buried in this post.  And only one picture! What was I thinking?! We have more. I will find them.  The water is GORgeous here. Just gorgeous. The sand is... sand. But there are soo many hermit crabs! And tons of really cool shells! And we love to snorkel! Well, to be fair, I'VE only gone snorkeling once, but Zachariah and the twins go a lot.  We are about 5 mins from the seawall (which is not beachy, just a wall... with stairs down to little rocky places to enter the water...), so Z'll take N&B and just go down there for 1/2 an hour on Saturday mornings. Once they totally snuck out on Maeve. It was so sad. I was still in bed (ahhhh.... bed....) and she came in, all distressed: "Mama, I canNOT find Nuala, or Bran! Where they are?"  Poor babe.  She does not snorkel yet.  Anyway, the ONE time I went, we were just at a beachy place, and Z and I switched off and on,since my snorkeling stuff is oh-so-handily still in transit, and it was so beautiful! Lots of little electric blue fish, and angelfish, and spotted fish, and stuff like that.  It was really fun.

Japanese car dealership.  Huh. Also kinda random to have in here. Doopy, doop...

Oh! We've been having Japanese night on Thursdays.  Z will cook us up something delicious. This was soba, just kinda a noodle soup, with tofu and cabbage and other veggies. Enoki! Delicious skinny mushrooms... Bran is getting quite good with the chopsticks.  The girls... workin' on it.  Zac was quite the Japanese cook on his mission. Not that HE was Japanese, but quite the cooker-of-Japanese-food, just to clarify.  He learned well from his Japanese mission companions, and is just basically a tall, white, red-haired Japanese guy.  Seriously, his Japanese is so good still. He can have any sort of conversation, get anything done, all to the amazement and great admiration of the Japanese people he is conversing with. It is awesome. HE is awesome. They are always so in awe of his speaking (and reading) skills. Especially when they realize that he hasn't lived here in... what? 13 years?  Yeah, he rocks.

We've been to a couple of little festivals/parades nearby. Zachariah's been pretty excited to show us all the neat stuff he loved seeing on his mission.  These Taiko drummers are performing at the Eisa festival, which celebrates ancestors.  See them, there in the back? All out-of-focus? Yes, this picture is obviously in here because Maeve is too cute to not put up. And because Z is too studly. You're welcome.

They were quite fun to watch, and at another parade after this one we saw little Taiko-drumming kids. They were adorable.  In fact, when a friend and I went to a nearby pool, we walked past a big gym with a whole little preschool in there practicing the drums and doing the neat dance. They were so darn cute.

Imagine a tiny version of this. Awwww....

And just a fun picture. I know Bran is happy and smiley here, but about a millisecond after I snapped this pic, he was a lot less smiley.  At least it wasn't 'cause anyone pooped in the tub!  He just needs to keep it all in perspective...