Birthday fun!

Well, yesterday was my birthday - woohoo! So, after a rather normal day (washing dishes, grocery shopping, washing dishes, cleaning the shower, spending far too much time online), Mr. A and I went for a scrumptious dinner at (cue fanfare) a Brazilian steak house! Apparently, to our utmost pleasure, if it's your birthday, you eat for freee! Yes folks, that is correct. Delicious beef, chicken and sausage, as well as a glorious salad bar all for free. AND, they had fantastic beverages, including (but not limited to) acai, starfruit, and cherry juice, all juiced fresh at the bar. The cherry was the best out of the juices we tried, I think (also, it was my choice, so of course it was good).

In addition to such a lovely dinner out, my lovely husband gave me two of my favorite things ever: flowers and coffee. And not only did he get me flowers, but he got me INCREDIBLE orchids. I mean, look at them! Also, look how cool the Starbucks card is. I just think it's fabulous.

Lastly, if you want to be REALLY impressed, here is a picture of the seriously deliciously awesome to-die-for chocolate cake that I made (that's right) in a crock pot. Yep. That's me. Crock-potter extraordinaire.



Now, I started with a recipe that I found online. However, that didn't work out so well. I just disagreed. SO, here are my 'Mrs. A' style directions to making such a lovely slow-cooker cake:

Ingredients:
- 2-3 c cold milk
- chocolate chips (whichever kind you prefer and as many as you'd like in your cake - I used about 1 1/2 cups of the semi-sweet variety)
- 1 package (the larger one) of instant chocolate pudding
- 3 eggs (the other recipe called for 4...)
- olive oil (well, you're supposed to use vegetable oil, but I didn't have any, sooo...) - about 1 1/2 cups
- water
- 1 chocolate box cake mix

Directions:
1. Smear some of that olive oil in your crock pot. You could use Pam, but that's so easy.
2. Make the pudding. Well, ish. Make sure you use cold milk, mix the milk into the pudding mix in a medium/large bowl. The recipe calls for 3 cups of cold milk, I used a little less than that.
3. Beat the eggs in a small bowl.
4. Add the eggs, oil, and cake mix to the bowl with the pudding. Mix until well-blended. Add more oil/milk in order to make the 'batter' moist. It should flow at about the same rate as molasses when it's about ready.
5. Add as many chocolate chips as you want.
6. Pour the whole mix into your well-oiled crock pot.
7. Cook on low for 3 1/2 hours or until the cake bounces back when you press the top gently with your finger (aka, it just feels 'right' and 'done'). The recipe I used said to bake it for 6 or 7 hours, but mind DEFINITELY didn't take that long. I don't know if my crock pot just doesn't do 'low' well or what the deal was, but 6 hours wasn't gonna happen.
8. Eat warm with vanilla ice cream. Mmmmm Enjoy!

Another idea is to make 'ice cream' with bananas. I'll be doing that tonight. The bananas are in the freezer as a blog and I will blend them with my handy-dandy hand-held blender and possibly add some vanilla ice cream to it, too. I've heard this is delicious, and I can't wait!

Good luck following those directions, and happy eating!

Parks and Beaches

The past week has been eventful! We finally got to go outdoors and experience some of the local attractions. Two local parks were explored, both with beaches and playground areas. The first one was a fairly small park with awesome rock formations. You could walk under, through, around, and on top of the rocks. The water is gorgeous - the beautiful teal that you see in pictures (the picture doesn't do it justice). The beach is made up primarily of ground up coral and shells, as are most of the beaches here. The beach at this particular park was very small - just a little cove to enjoy.






The coolest part of this park is actually the slides they have. Look at these things! The one on the left has little rollers all the way down it. We saw another family playing on it (the dad was enjoying it WAY more than the kids), and they came up with an interesting method to minimize the pain of sliding down on 8,000 little rollers: They would take a toy shovel and sit on it while holding onto the handle! The other slides are made of concrete. They are VERY slick and look really fun.


The other park we went to has this up front - it's a statue of a phoenix next to a statue of a sun. This park has a stadium where they have track and field events. They also have other fields, a building with lots of tennis and basketball courts, as well as lots of walking trails and ponds.









This is a pond where we fed ducks, water chickens, turtles, and fish. We fed them from the little bridge that you see in the picture. It is really quite pretty.




Then we found the beach! It was low-tide, so the water was REALLY far out. There were a bunch of locals out with buckets and nets. We -think- they were out looking for crabs. We saw one man leave with a crab that was, no joke, at least a foot across. It was enormous. Given how people eat here, I believe that one crab could feed a family of four, if not more.

We also came upon a large 'rock' (for lack of a better word) in the middle of all the flat area that is normally covered by water. If the tide were in, it would be an island. So, naturally, we climbed up on it! The picture on the left is a from the vantage point on top of the island.

While up there looking around, we saw a coconut hanging from the tree in the center of the 'island'. Naturally, we needed to check it out. It turned out that it was a geocache! A geocache is where someone places an object for others to find, often with some 'treasure' in it, then documents the location using the coordinates. People then go looking for the 'treasure' using hand-held GPS systems. The one we had included three sharks teeth and the little guy on the right (I don't think they meant for him to be in the coconut). The idea is that you leave a different treasure for the next person to find if you take what's in the geocache. You also log your visit both on paper and online here.

Completely unrelated, I particularly enjoyed the signs that were around the park. In addition to signs warning that it is unwise to leave the trail because it is habu territory (a rather poisonous local snake) with a somewhat cute caricature of a snake, there were some other fun signs. Here are a couple of them:

Typhoon a-comin'!

Well, there is no guarantee yet, but it LOOKS like Typhoon Nanmadol (who comes up with these names?) could be hitting Okinawa, possibly as early as Monday of this upcoming week. Okinawa is so funny - "Happy birthday! Here, have a typhoon!" There are never any guarantees about whether or not a typhoon will hit us this far out, but I think I might go to the commissary today and pick up a few extra canned goods just in case... So, you may be hearing much on this blog (although, not necessarily anything interesting) in the upcoming week as we hunker down for some lock-down time.

Another week, another post

Nothing too new to report, but hey! My life is exciting in its normalcy, I'm convinced.

So, just to prove my point about the crazy little figurines, here is a picture that yours truly has taken out the window while Mr. A was driving. This was on Gate 2 street in a place where music is often played in the open air. I've never heard particularly -good- music, but, it is free and it is live.




Also, a trash truck with a face, just for your entertainment.









Well, I suppose that you would like to know -something- of what we have been doing (other than driving around taking ridiculous pictures out the window) for the past week. Mr. T has been busy at work, taking on a position of leadership for a two week exercise. Mrs. T has been becoming a microwave ninja. Yes, you heard me. I microwave ninja. For instance, she made this fantastic shrimp and sausage paella using solely a microwave! Be amazed, be very amazed. The first batch was not for the faint of heart, given the amount of green chiles involved. However, round two was much more mild and fit for a fellowship meal where we sent off a dear brother who is PCS'ing (Permanent Change of Station) back to the states this week. It was a sweet time to spend with our little church singing Psalms to God and praying for Mr. S as he heads back stateside for a new assignment; well, two, actually! He'll have a new job and he's also getting married! We all love weddings and marriages, they are wonderful things. Perhaps his wife will also learn to be a microwave ninja, although, hopefully she will not have the need to be one.

In other news, we have been told that we should be expecting the 'okay' on Mr. T's tour conversion package (what allows Mrs. T to be legal here in the far east) by the end of the week! Praise God! Of course we will be waiting on the Lord for the full completion of all this, and once the tour conversion happens there is much work to be done (drivers license, application for housing, etc), but this is fantastic news.

Well, that's all that's fit for print, and possibly even a little more! Until next time, happy paellaing!

Okinawa trends

So, I have noticed several trends in Okinawa that I was completely unprepared for. Brace yourselves for the top three strange Okinawan trends, in no particular order:

1. Random large figurines used to advertise or just as 'lawn' decorations outside of homes or businesses. Take the one to right, for example. This is a sign outside of the base that we live at. It advertises Eisa, an Okinawan drumming dance. I am told that it was created because Okinawans were forbidden from practicing martial arts after they were taken over, so they created a dance that kept them active and used many of the same motions that were used in martial arts.


2. Nail art. Mostly I've noticed this on Americans, which is extremely odd, since generally the women that I knew in the states didn't have flowers on their toenails. However, this seems to be a pretty common trend here in Okinawa. I rarely see nail art on fingernails, but I have seen many a lady with brightly painted toenails with flowers dotted over at least the big toe toenail, if not all the subsequent toenails as well. So, in efforts to be less of an oddity around here, I too have joined in the trend. Here we go, trying to be feminine. I foresee this trend lasting no more than a couple weeks for me. But we shall see.

3. GIGANTIC ice cream shops. We went to this ice cream shop a couple days ago and it is enormous. Think of a normal sized steak-and-shake, and that's about the same size as this place. But it's really all about the ice cream. No joke. And there's TONS of them like this, some of them bigger. Blue Seal ice cream is big, as is Big Dip ice cream. It is a far cry from the small shops in Georgetown where there's barely enough room for the line, let alone an entire seating area with booths and tables and partitions.

So there we have it. Three of the more surprising aspects of Okinawa that I have discovered thus far.

One week down

Well, We have officially been on-island for one week! Three of those days were taken up by typhoon Muifa, but the other four have been glorious!

Amanda had a 'all new things' Sunday. We went to church and Amanda got to meet her new church family. Afterwards we went to the weekly fellowship meal at Pastor Mark's house where the church gathers to have lunch together and enjoy each others company. Next we went over to the BX on Kadena to buy hangers (getting things put away is a priority!) and other household goods. After that, we stopped and got Amanda a new phone (feel free to e-mail if you'd like her new Japanese phone number!). The next 'first' for Amanda was stopping by the commissary to buy groceries for the week. Last 'first' of the day was to go to a favorite local sushi joint to get authentic Japanese sushi- yessss. So good. You haven't had a rainbow roll until you've had one here. They had a Chef's Special of 7 nigiri, one roll, and soup for about $6. It was delicious.

Brent went back to work on Monday to begin an exercise where he is the camp commandant. Typhoon Muifa seems to have pushed back the timeline a bit, so for the next two or three weeks, that will be Brent's primary focus at work. Thankfully, it's right on base, and he is often able to go home for lunch.

Tuesday afternoon Amanda went out with Pastor Mark's wife, Jen, and their three children (6 year old daughter and 3 year old twins!). They went to a Japanese pizza bar where they ate pizza with corn, bacon, and fish on it, then headed down to Naha to a Chinese garden - Fukushu-en Park, to be exact. Here are some pictures:



This is a Shisa dog (and Mark, one of the twins ^_^). Shisa dogs are a combination lion/dog, often put in front of houses etc. in order to ward off evil spirits and keep spirits in.

Here we have some beautiful wall art on the left and the view from the front of the garden on the right. There are a whole bunch of passages up into the structure on the top of the hill there, and even some through the stone base! I can't wait to go back and go exploring...

Also, Brent brought Amanda home some flowers the other day - gorgeous light pink lilies. What a wonderful husband.


Until next time!
sayonara

Made it!

Well, doubtless you are wondering whether or not we made it across the ocean to Okinawa. Praise God, we did! It is amazing what 48 hours can hold.

Monday night we went to Ted's Bulletin for a last hurrah of DC food. In case you were wondering, they have a Monday night pasta special where they bring out a red checkered tablecloth, light a candle, and you eat pasta to your heart's content. We opted out of pasta night. As we were sitting there, Brent lamented that he hadn't gotten a haircut yet and would have to go into the office out of regulation if he didn't get one that evening. Lo and behold two marines from 8th and I walked into the restaurant at that moment! Brent decides to ask them if there are any barber shops open late on a Monday night. He comes to find out that while there are no barbershops open, he has stumbled upon Marines from only platoon that is allowed to cut their own hair, and the roommate of the only Marine in that platoon who is allowed to cut hair. Not only that, but the Marine Brent talked to is happy to volunteer his roommate to cut Brent's hair. So Brent was able to get his haircut and Amanda had her first experience in the barracks.

We had an early start the next morning (after a late night of packing... who's really surprised?), and to our great delight, four of our five checked bags had less than 50 lbs each, and the last one (the MONSTER - seriously, three small children could fit into it) could easily be brought down to 70 lbs.

Most of our flights were without much incident, although on the last flight somehow Amanda was issued a child's ticket (not completely sure how that's different than an adult seat...), so my seat got changed for the last flight from Narita to Okinawa.

Brent went off to work the morning after we returned to Okinawa, only to be sent home about an hour later, due to an approaching typhoon. It has now been going on for over two days, and we're still in the thick of it. For a while, the winds were so intense that they were pushing water and air in past the seals around the doors and windows. Thankfully, Brent is well-prepared with many towels and several mops, so we have been able to stave off the water, keeping our apartment dry. It's been great to have an extra few days added to our honeymoon, though!

The weather has prevented running errands like ... buying groceries (praise God for Brent being well prepared with frozen bread, meat, crackers, PB&J, etc). We also haven't been able to go out and look at getting me a car or a cell phone, but... I couldn't use either of those right now anyway, since there's a typhoon outside our front door.

Well, that's all for now!
<3