We have been hearing murmurings of restrictions on the horizon for us here in Okinawa so we need to make some things happen before they are no longer an option for us. First up, Jim is still in Thailand doing all the Thailand things. He texted us on this first day of March with a bunch of pictures of some temples (so many temples) and said he was doing a little sight seeing.
We too were doing a little sight seeing and I immediately sent him back some pictures of the breaching humpback whales we were watching!
He rightly conceded that we won! YES!!! Whales trump ancient ruins!! All kidding aside, I had been wanting to go whale-watching since I had heard that Okinawa had birthing and calving grounds. The humpbacks spend the spring and summer near Alaska and travel to Okinawa in the fall and winter to give birth and raise their calves. After Jim, Lucy and Ben saw them in January in transit to a dive site, I knew that it definitely HAD TO HAPPEN! Luckily our friends the Shulers also wanted to go - these kinds of excursions are always more fun with friends! The whales did not disappoint. We found a mother and calf fairly quickly and followed them around for a bit. Not too closely but within a few hundred feet. We were rewarded with a breach of the mother AND a fluke shot! Ben was in charge of the good camera and he had the cat bird seat on the bow. I was not in a ideal location but was able to snap the breaching shots with my phone. I had no idea if I was getting anything - I just held up my phone on burst and luckily captured it!
Jim finally came home and was greeted by a very excited Wesley. Wesley tends to lose his mind whenever Jim returns from long trips, and his reaction went a long way to making Jim's homecoming great!
Jim discovered elephant pants while he was in Thailand. They are some of the most comfortable things you will ever slip on. Appropriate for all occasions but mostly for lounging. He brought home Ben a pair and Lucy decided to wear the set I bought in Sri Lanka. Seriously, everyone needs a pair of these!!
As stated earlier the rumor mill is running rampant about upcoming new restrictive movement orders, so the adventure group I have joined decided to take advantage of a crazy deal for some go-karting in downtown Naha. This is street-karting, meaning we were on actual streets of Naha, the Capital of Okinawa. Luckily the speed limit here is generally 35K which is roughly 21 mph. We may have topped out at 15 due to all the stop signs and stop lights. There were 10 of us in our group and they encouraged us to put on the costumes. Sadly they made us put our phones away so there are only a few action shots. One of our group had a go pro. It was hilarious. I highly recommend everyone try this!
When the kids were little, the Leprechaun would show up every St. Patrick's Day and ransack a room, litter the house with shamrocks and leave a treat. The kids never suspected it was really me, because there was NO WAY Mom would make that kind of mess. HA! Last year the Leprechaun left a few treats but spared the house. This year when the kids got up for school the house looked normal and everyone was disappointed about the No-Show by the Leprechaun. So while they were at school, look who showed up!
It was a lot harder to find the "treat" from the Leprechaun. Usually he leaves yogurt covered pretzels with green M&M's stuck on them to make shamrocks. However, Okinawa doesn't really have that, so I had to get creative -- the Leprechaun made sugar cookies this year. The kids did not care and inhaled the cookies. No surprise there.
I know I have complained about how the locals drive here, but let me illustrate just how bad it is with these pictures. This is the intersection just outside our housing area. If I am traveling to Camp Foster (where the commissary and exchange are located) then I generally take this route. At the light I would be taking a left. Here I am sitting at a GREEN light waiting to move up in order to get in the lane to turn left. The white car in front of me is NOT turning left. But instead of pulling up (there is a good 20 feet between him and the car in front of him) so I can access the turning lane, he sits there. So I miss the light. I added the second picture to further illustrate my point. This is totally NORMAL occurrence. AAARRRGGGHHHH!!! The Japanese have a lot of really good things going on over here - this is not one of them.
Ben has been bugging Jim since last year with the claim that he could build a better, cheaper computer than what we could buy. Basically he told us he could build a computer that was twice as good as our iMac, for half the price. I am not sure what kind of bet Jim lost, but he finally allowed Ben to do it. Of course he had to buy all the components with his own "grass-cutting" money. He ordered all the parts from Amazon and when they arrived he got busy. We have to admit, the computer is awesome ... and much faster than our iMac. Jim and I are in awe of him -- We may never hear the end of this.
A little Yoshi update. We had him clipped and micro-chipped this month. Our vet has this whole medicine thing figured out. Instead of giving us a pill and pill pusher to administer the medicine they give you a powder form which is easily sprinkled on some wet food and Yoshi licks it up! They even package it with morning and night so it is truly brainless! Another great Japanese innovation..
Lilly tried out for the Kubisaki High Soccer team. She figured she would probably make the JV team - but she made the VARSITY team! How exciting!!! Of course she may only play the other DoDEA team on the island due to the Corona Virus limiting the sports on the island, but she made the team! I must say I would have given anything to be on my high school soccer team. Of course SHS didn't have a girls team when I was in high school, but still. We are super proud of her!! She started the first game of the season at attacking mid. Kubi started out slow but rallied in the second half. They still came up short, but all in all they played well.
Spring in Okinawa means rain - lots of it if my friends who have been on island longer then me are to be believed. We had a particularly heinous storm overnight and when I went for my soggy run the next morning there were THOUSANDS - maybe tens of thousands of worms all over the road. GIANT WORMS! Apparently Okinawa is the home to giant snails and worms. I had to take a picture of the size of these worms. I threw several hundred back in the grass but I couldn't save them all. Did they fall from the sky? It was truly a sight to behold!
Well the rumors of transitioning school to on-line learning have proven to be true. We are two weeks away from our Spring Break. Two weeks away from what I had hoped would be an opportunity to travel off island to somewhere fun with the kids and friends. Instead we will be here on Okinawa practicing our social distancing and trying to keep our kids from spending 15+ hours staring at a screen. Yay!
 |
| Ben and Friends "practicing" social distancing. Some more successfully then others |
As we wrap up the month of March, school is on-line and school-based sports are on hold - sorry about that Lilly - but at least you got one game under your belt! Intramural sports are still on for now so we go into the last weekend of the month with a weekend of soccer. Ben is up first. We traveled up to Camp Courtney to watch his team win. Ben had several shots on goal but was only able to get one past the goalie. His team started the season a tad rocky but have really gotten into a groove. Hopefully the season won't be cancelled.
The girls had Saturday off but had a full day of games on Sunday. I know they don't enjoy playing the same teams over and over again, but as of now we can only play teams that are willing to play us and with the Japanese schools and sports on hold we don't have any other choice. I have noticed the scores of the games are slowly decreasing so we are improving! Not to mention having the girls play on the Co-Ed team will make them better players whether they believe it or not.
End of March also means it is my birthday!! Last year Jim pulled out all the stops and threw me a surprise party for my 50th! This year, it will definitely be a much quieter affair. Since we can no longer eat in local off base restaurants (Take out is still available) Jim and I decided to walk up to the club and have a drink and order some take out for the family. Lucy had made me a delicious carrot cake and of course there were presents to be opened. All in all while not as much fun as last years, it was still great to be able to spend it all together!
In addition to queuing up movies the kids need to watch, we are also spending some quality time playing games. Current family favorites include dominoes, Uno, speed and of course all the video games. Not sure how long this will last, but so far so good.
No comments:
Post a Comment