Wow it's been a while.....

Been sick for about 2 weeks and not quite over it yet, but I'm getting better. Juanpablo was able to take off for a day and Sam was at school most of the time so it wasn't so bad. I've been told that coughs last forever here because of the coral in the air...I'm not happy about that. They put coral in everything here, it's even in the asphalt! We have to be extra careful during rain because it is slicker from the coral in the road. Since we aren't used to it when we get sick it makes it worse. But, it's almost gone and so that is good.

We had a great Christmas! We were able to talk to our families on Christmas day and that was great! We made everyone open their presents early so we could see them. hahaha...I'm sure they didn't mind. Since we are 14 hours ahead of most of our family it was Christmas Day for us but Christmas Eve for all of them. It's still so weird to be a day ahead of everyone.

A few days before Christmas I was talking to Bella and I asked her what we celebrate at Christmas. She said Santa. I asked her what else? And she said...Jesus. I thought that we so cool! We had been trying to teach her about Jesus but since she is only 19months old we didn't know how much she was actually learning. It was so cool that she is understanding. We were reading in the Book of Mormon, the one for LDS families with pictures and quotes, and Bella saw a picture of Christ healing the sick and she got all excited and started pointing and saying Jesus! It was pretty cool...of course then she started pointing to everyone else in the picture and saying Jesus! So, I guess we still have some teaching to do...hahaha...

Bella is getting so big. She loves babies now. She got her stroller the other day and was pushing her babies around in it. Then she went into her room and got a diaper and tried to change the babies diaper! It was so very funny! She was trying to make it fit the baby and of course it wouldn't, but she was determined.

She couldn't do it herself and so she enlisted her brothers help to make it work! She is just so funny!

Bella also seems to have gotten her Dad's luck. At Juanpablo's work Christmas party they had raffles and Bella won a Build-A-Bear and a huge Barbie Castle. She is such a lucky girl!

The other day Bella was tired...she was eating some pizza and then all of a sudden she was asleep....she is so funny! She can fall asleep anywhere!

Here is a cute picture of Sam since this blog seems to have just pictures of Bella. She has just been doing some crazy stuff this month!

This is Sam with just a small amount of his superhero collection. He has like 5 times more than are shown in this picture! He is a big superhero fan. Lately he likes Spiderman the best of the traditional superheros. His favorite of all right now is still Ben 10. He was very excited that he got a Ben 10 Omnitrix (it's like a watch) and Santa brought him a Ben 10 game for the Wii. It was a Ben 10 Christmas for Sam. I think all but like 3 gifts were Ben 10 related! So, he was very happy!

What a great weekend!

Friday we went to explore a bit of the island. We found this fun arcade place that Sam and Bella had fun playing games. Most of the games didn't have any english written on them so it was fun trying to figure out what we were supposed to do! It was fun though! We aslo got to meet Sam's kindergarten teacher and her assistant. She seems very nice and Sam had fun getting to know them both.

Today we went Ms. Phai's Auction again! We got some beautiful pieces! Juanpablo was able to get almost all of the things that he had wanted. I got some pretty stuff. I got cups and saucers to match the plates and bowls that I got at the last auction. And a really pretty tea set. The funny thing is that I don't drink tea of any kind, but now I've got 2 beautiful tea sets!

The set in the front is the newest tea set, the one behind it is the one that I got the last auction.

This is a wooden sword called a 7 Ring Sword. On steel swords the rings on the top are used to catch the enemies weapons while fighting!

This is a wooden weapons set with 8 different weapons. Behind the weapons you can see the wooden Katana sword that Juanpablo also got.

This is a dresser that we got. It's all wood and beautiful! The drawers are really deep and it's really nice!

This weekend was pretty fun so far! Tomorrow we have church. And on Tuesday I have a meeting with the Branch President....I have a feeling a calling is coming my way! Oh, Juanpablo also has off Monday and Tuesday! So, we have an extended weekend to spend as a family! I'm very greatful that Juanpablo is with the Marines right now instead of blue side(with the Navy). The Marines have off Monday and Tuesday, the Navy only has off Monday!

Fun, Fun, Fun!!!

On Saturday we went to the MCAS Futenma Flightline Festival. It was so much fun! We all got a little tanner after being in the sun all afternoon too! They had the different helicopters and planes and you could walk through them and the kids got to pretend to fly them. It was tons of fun! They also had lots of different types of entertainment. They had the Japanese police department there with the K9 unit showing what the dogs could do. That was pretty cool! And they had something that really made me laugh, a Mariachi band! Can you believe it! Here in Japan! It was just funny to me. They also had Salsa dancers and Belly dancers. We ate some weird Japanese food. It wasn't bad actually. Juanpablo got some rice with veggies and some noodles, kinda looked like Chinese food. Sam got these pancake type stuff with some kind of weird filling, looked like refried black beans, but so did not taste like that. It was kinda sweet, I'm still not sure what it was! I got this thing that was like a pancake on the bottom and then cabbage and some other stuff and then a piece of bacon on top of that. It wasn't bad, and I don't usually like anything with cabbage. Bella ate a little bit of everything. I should have taken pictures of the food but I didn't. We were surprised by the amount of fried food they had there. We didn't eat any of that. It was really hot! They had all sorts of games set up where you could win prizes. Sam played lots of games and Bella even went fishing for a prize! There was also a kids play area with moon bounces and mazes and slides. Sam had a really great time. We all did! Bella got into some of the planes and trucks and tried driving. She didn't want to get out of the cockpits of the helicopters. I think we just might have a future pilot on our hands! Sam got to do some wall climbing too! He did pretty good. He didn't make it to the top of the wall because his arms just weren't long enough. But he did make it about halfway! Here are some pictures from our fun day!

Finally!

We are in our house and we have some furniture that we have on loan from the government. So, our house is not so empty any more. We just got a couch and a dinning room table with 6 chairs. We get to use them until we leave from here. I think that's a pretty cool thing that they do. We left our couch and dinning room set in storage in the states. Next week we should get our first shipment. And then by Sept. 15th (our 7 year anniversary) we should get our last shipment with our beds (Yeah! No more air mattresses!). Right before we left the hotel to move in here Sam got a new toy....the funny thing is, Bella loves it.





We have a pretty nice house, the rooms are pretty big and it's really pretty nice. We have 3 bedrooms and 2 baths. We also have 2 balconies! One off the living room and one off the master bedroom. The MB balcony is a little smaller than the LR one, but they both have pretty nice views! The first is from the master bedroom and the second is from the living room.






We went to the beach for the first time today. It is less than 10 minutes from our house and is really beautiful! We went to Araha Beach and there they have this big pirate ship for the kids to play on. It has a zip line and slides and all sorts of fun stuff for the kids to play on. The water is beautiful! And something that I loved, it has a net around the swimming area so you don't have to worry about getting stuck in a current and getting carried out to sea and you also don't have to worry about jellyfish or sharks getting to where you are swimming! It was Arabella's first time at the beach. She didn't really like it very much. She didn't really care for the water and she hated having the sand on her! She got really upset and started complaining whenever sand got on her foot or leg. It was kinda funny. She loves to color on herself with pens and get dirty that way, but don't put any sand on her! Here are some pictures from the beach.






Oh, so we also got a second car today. Juanpablo will be stationed here on Camp Foster where we live, but the rest of his unit is on MCAS Futenma. So, if he needed to go over there unexpectedly and the kids and I had gone out somewhere then he wouldn't have the car and would have no way to get there because it's kinda far. So, we went to the same place we got our van (B.C. Motors, in case any of you ever need a car in Okinawa, they are really good!). I still haven't taken any pictures of the van, I keep forgetting and when I remember I don't have the camera. I'll take pictures of both cars once we pick up the other one. It's a really cute little car. It's big enough that we could fit the kids in if we needed to, but it's pretty small! It reminds me of a mini cooper. All in all it was a pretty great day! Lots of fun! I also got my license so now I'm legal for driving in Japan! So, yeah, it was a good day.