November - that month when things really start to speed up

I am always amazed at just how quickly November sneaks up on me.  One minute it is October and we are enjoying all the nice fall weather then BAM!  The next thing you know, it is November!  Just a hop, skip, and a jump away from December!  November also means Lilly's birthday is fast approaching, but first we have some other items to discuss.

Lucy, as stated previously, is on the Okinawa Dolphins Swim Team.  She was lucky enough to be able to attend a meet in Taipei the first weekend of November.  Since Jim had just returned to the island and Ben and Lilly both had other sporting commitments, only Lucy and I went on this adventure.  

There was some "discovery learning" involved.  Because we are constantly moving we rarely get the privilege of knowing what to expect or how the system works.  This was certainly true of this swim meet.  I bought our plane tickets and reserved our room at the recommended hotel but other than that, I did very little planning and was more or less clueless.  Luckily we fell in with a few other swim families that had been to this particular swim meet before and they graciously took us under their wing and showed us the sites.  Granted, we were there for a swim meet so there weren't many sights to be seen, but we did get three fabulous meals, experienced our first night market, and generally had a great time!  I almost feel like I can take the kids to do some off-island exploring - ALMOST!  

Off we go!  

Now to get through customs.

But I am getting a bit ahead of myself.  Let me back up just a bit.  We made it to the airport and found our gate without too many surprises.  After a quick hour flight we land in Taipei and after getting through customs I start to get concerned that now I really needed to start paying attention.  Once we got linked up with the other families that were sharing our bus to the hotel I started to relax.  The real planning got underway on the ride to the hotel.  We were blessed with a family that had attended this meet for several years and they were only too happy to have us tag along!  First stop was to get some dumplings!  The Din Tai Fung was the perfect introduction.  My oh my the dumplings were delicious!!  

This place was soo good, we came back the next night too!

Where the magic of the dumplings happen

Someone really likes dumplings!

I mentioned the night market visit earlier.  This is a thing over here.  Basically the streets are closed down and vendors sell all manner of things, mostly food and touristy things.  We had a ball down there people-watching and sampling food and gawking at some of the stranger food items.  Most notable of the food items were cups full of frog eggs which is as disgusting looking as it sounds - sadly no picture, strawberries on a kabob covered in a candied apple glaze and giant calamari on a stick - I guess you could compare it to the turkey legs you see at amusement parks. Apparently this night market is known for its stinky tofu.  Not sure why anyone would want to eat stinky tofu because it truly smells to high heaven but what ever floats your boat I guess.  We finally got back to the hotel in order to rest up for the long day at the pool.

The dumplings must have been the secret to her success, because this girl really did an amazing job in the pool the next day!  She makes everything look so easy!  We are really proud of her willingness to come.  She wasn't exactly sure how she would do, but she shouldn't have been.  She killed it! 

Again, we felt like quite the newbies that we are.  This is Lucy's first international meet even though it really wasn't that big of a meet.  I mean the regional meets the kids did in Phoenix were definitely a bigger venue in scope and teams invited, but still we were duly intimidated.  Our swim team has done an OK job of preparing us but I think it would be helpful if someone who hasn't been on the team that long write the welcome aboard brief to answer all the questions you don't know you need to ask.  Same is true for this meet.  The people who have been on the team have forgotten what it is like to be the new people who are clueless.  We pretty much live in the clueless zone all the time.  But we figured it out!  One nice thing about always being the new guy, you get used to asking questions to people you don't know very well.  That is a life lesson worth learning - or that is what I tell myself anyway.

Swimmers holding room where they hung out between events

Last minute team chat

Lucy in action

They won first place!

Not a bad haul kid!  And she qualified for a meet in Tokyo in March! 

We survived!  

Meanwhile, back at home, Jim is holding down the fort.  Ben's football season is in full gear and Lilly is winding up her JV volleyball season with an all day tournament.  Jim actually had the audacity to text me that he felt like a taxi driver on the one day he had to basically be in two places at once.  He is lucky I was in Taipei when he sent that text.  Welcome to my world General Wellons!  

We got back to Okinawa just in time for the USMC ball season to really kick in.  Jim and I attended an early ball at the end of October which was a new experience for me.  I am much more accustomed to November balls.  However, I do not feel the need to attend ALL the balls.  Jim and I differ on this point.  We had to attend three together, but he went to several without me and a few he just attended the pre-ball cocktail hour.  Thankfully the majority of the balls were held within walking distance to our house.  This is a great perk to living on Plaza!

Believe it or not we are still in the first week of the month!  After all the swimming/traveling/balling we needed a few days of catching up and chilling.  We decided to look for some slider parks near our house.  Okinawa has many fantastic parks that have these insane sliding board contraptions.  It is basically a slide made out of rollers you would see on assembly lines.  You can ride down them on plastic sleds (identically to ones used on snow).  The kids enjoyed them but once you do it a few times, the thrill wears off quickly.  I am just glad they are still excited about going to a park.  I know that time is coming to an end.

Next up is Lilly's birthday!  Well actually in this case it is also Carson Cicchi's birthday party!  The "always up for a good time" Cicchi's had planned to do Carson's birthday party at a local Adventure course park and needed some additional adult support.  Since this place was on our bucket list and it coincided with Lilly's birthday - it was a no brainer! 

Checking out the beach while waiting for the shuttle

All geared up

The kids had a blast!  I think the adults did too!  I know I did.  There were a few zip lines I like better then others and some obstacles gave me flashbacks to the ropes course we did in Flagstaff but all in all it was an afternoon well spent!

As is the usual tradition, we have been celebrating Lilly's 15th birthday all week!  She had a sleepover movie night with friends, the adventure course and now the family celebration at a really cool "yakiniku" restaurant!  I still can't believe I have a 15 year old in the house.  It shouldn't surprise me since we have been pinching ourselves since she and her siblings came into the world that we are lucky enough to have the three of them.  They are great kids despite our attempts to totally screw them up by having them move all over God's green earth!  I guess we need to start having her practice driving soon ... yikes!  

Another weekend, another ball.  Mercifully, my last.  Jim, God love him, attend 5 that I know of while I got away with only going to three.  

Every time we move we make a bucket list of things to do and places to see.  We also attempt to try out as many restaurants as we can without repeating.  Unfortunately, we have not been as successful this move.  Jim is doing his best to remedy that, but I have to tell you sometimes it is nice to go back to a place that you know you can get something you like.  Especially when he isn't with us.  One such new place was called Volcano Ramen.  Apparently you can get ramen spicy like curry, this place had ramen that went up to the spicy rate of 100!  I am not a fan of spicy so I ordered my ramen mild.  Jim on the other hand decided to go for 30.  The waitress wisely told him that he would die and she recommended 15.  Surprisingly he agreed with her recommendation and by the end of his meal he was super glad he had.  Me too!

Ben has been busy during PE trying to earn the King of the Jungle which is an award given to the best boy and girl in PE that semester.  The qualifications are to have the best score in the PACER test, sit and reach, sit ups, push ups, and the mile run.  Pretty impressive!  

He has also been busy with his scout troop trying to achieve his Tenderfoot rank.  He had missed a few camping opportunities when his father was off island and a few others due to bad weather so when one came up - even though the weather again looked iffy, Ben and Jim decided to roll the dice and do it.  The rain was torrential shortly after they left so I was expecting them to come home but they stuck it out and had an awesome albeit extremely wet time!

Pathway to the campsite washed out - no problem - build a bridge

Here is Ben's wilderness survival shelter

By comparison, this is where Jim slept.  On a cot no less

Ben has been having a pretty good time playing football.  I will admit, I wasn't exactly thrilled when Jim signed him up. But I have come around.  Ben's teammates are all pretty nice boys and they all seem to have had a good time. So far they are second in their league.  Not too shabby!

Now time for Thanksgiving planning ... Originally we were planning on traveling to Vietnam to visit some friends who live there, but when it came down to buying the tickets and we looked at the calendar and decided 4 days was just not going to be long enough.  We briefly considered joining other friends on their Thailand trip but ultimately decided to just stay on the island and check off a few more items on our bucket list.  With that decision made, we joined two other families on our street for Thanksgiving dinner!  Everyone contributed different dishes and a great time was had by all.  Jim lamented after the fact that no one took any pictures.  In fact he only took these two pictures the whole afternoon.  Oops!  Well, you just can't take a picture of every single thing you do right?

There isn't really much of a Black Friday event in that there are only really two stores available for us to go - the Kadena exchange and the Foster exchange.  We elected to let the kids sleep in a bit and drove over to Kadena around 10 am.  The place was SLAMMED!  As soon as we walked in the door, Jim got in line at the register.  We wandered around and deposited a few things into the basket while Jim slowly made his way through the line.  We walked out of there with very little considering the pain we went through.  Next we cruised over to Foster.  The crowd was nonexistent!  We picked up a few more things and then called it a day! 

The next day we decided to head south to Naha to do a little sight seeing.  First stop was Kokusai Street, which is billed as the best place in Okinawa to pick up souvenirs.  We wandered up and down the streets looking for some deals.  Several times we almost pulled the trigger on buying some bigger shisa dogs but in the end we decided to wait.  We did pick up some Christmas gifts for each other and family members.  

The kids also checked out the Owl Cafe which wasn't a cafe, more like a dark smelly room full of a weird assortment of animals.  PETA would have a field day with the Owl Cafe.  Jim and I didn't join them down there, the smell alone was enough to make us pass.  

We also checked out a seafood market where you can purchase the food downstairs and have it cooked to your specifications upstairs.  The kids decided they weren't feeling all that adventurous that day and chose ramen instead.

Next up was Shuri Castle, a reconstruction of a Ryukyu Palace and an iconic site to visit.  It is a huge tourist attraction for Okinawa.  Unfortunately the actual castle had caught on fire on Halloween so we weren't able to tour the structure, but the grounds were still open so we walked around and took in the sites.  It was surprisingly crowded considering the fire damage.

We are pretending this is our Thanksgiving Picture since we were slackers and didn't take one

I will close out the month with a Yoshi update.  The boy is fully healed up and even the fur on his backside has almost fully come back.  He has been released to do whatever he wants.  What he wants is to eat and sleep.  If he isn't doing one he is doing the other.  He is slowly coming around and spending time in the room with us.  He still doesn't care to be picked up and cuddled but once you have him in your arms he immediately starts to purr.  He and Wesley have recently begun to both sleep under our bed at night and there is a bit of hissing and spitting at first until everyone settles down.  Wesley usually retreats to the kid's room to escape.  Poor Wesley.