Things You'd See in Okinawa: Drink Machines

I realized I haven't posted in a while but when I finally got the chance, I realized we've not been up to much. So I thought this would be the perfect time for a "Things you'd see in Okinawa" post.

I have probably mentioned to all of you that in Okinawa there are drink machines everywhere. I know you are probably thinking, well, yeah, we have drink machines in America too...in places like this, right?

No, not the same thing.

When I say we have drink machines everywhere, I mean EVERYWHERE!

Here's an example.

A while back we took the kids on a drive. It was one of those long drives, no destination in mind, heading in no particular direction, just to enjoy the scenery. There were no other cars, no buildings or houses, no people. Then we saw this...

Can you see it? Here's a closer look!

The funny thing is we actually stopped here, in the middle of nowhere, and bought drinks.

Not impressed?

OK, Here's another one.

We took this picture for some friends who work at Komatsu in Chattanooga.

On this crazy freeway, we had to pass the place and double back around just to get a picture, but look...right there by the construction gate...

Here, in some one's field..

On this very narrow road...

Love this one! On the way to our mailbox we pass this bull farm.

Seriously people, I couldn't make this stuff up!

Now look, right there, in front of that bull...

That's right, a drink machine!

Now you know that if you ever visit, even during one of our hot summers, you'll never dehydrate, never go thirsty, cause in Okinawa, they've got that covered!

Sushi Go Round

For my birthday the kids gave me a wonderful gift... I picked a restaurant for my birthday dinner and they went, without complaining, and actually ate and enjoyed themselves!
I think it helped that I picked a "super cool" place....

At the head of our table, there was this touch screen menu.
We had no idea what it said because it was entirely in Japanese, but we chose sushi by picture and hoped for the best!

This little guy truly was the key to the kids' happiness.

With a three beep warning, our little race car driving Ducky, happily and quickly brought the food right to our table.... and with the push of a button, he was off again!

The kids were thrilled as we clicked through the menu and found fries and American dogs, but having their food come out in these cool Swan shaped baskets made them down right giddy!

Ok, Luke wasn't so impressed...

After a wonderful meal, we finally figured out how to wrap up our tab and have a waitress come over and tally our bill.

See the tall stack of plates?

Well, each color plate has a designated price, so the waitress came out with a scanner (like the kind you use for a Target registry), scanned all our plates, and printed out a little receipt with our total on it right off the scanner gun...so cool!

Oh, and they had a playground for the little ones to hang out in while we all got our shoes back on and paid our bill.

I never would have guessed that for my 36th birthday, I'd be at a sushi go round, in Japan, with my 4 kids, and amazing husband...What an amazing surprise...Ah, Life is Good!

Catfish Friday and Wet Feet

For most of my parents' visit, we were fortunate enough to have Wade home, but he eventually had to go back to work. I missed him, so I suggested we pay him a visit.

We drove over to Camp Hansen, where Wade works, to have lunch with him at The Palms. It was Catfish Friday and the club was full...unfortunatly, I didn't take my camera in to get a picture of my big ol' family eating lunch with a bunch of Marines, but we know why it was so crowded...YUMMY!!

Afterwards, and to walk off lunch, we drove over to Camp Schwab, a base my Dad was stationed at years go, and since the day was so nice, I let everyone out at the beach and this time I took my camera.

Finally a day warm enough to kick off our shoes and get our feet wet...what a blast!

Blink...and it's over!

We woke up this morning to very dreary, rainy weather; I told my mom that Okinawa was sad she and my dad were leaving. I can hardly believe that 3 weeks has passed and they are already on their way back to Texas!

More than once today the little ones have asked for Grandma and Grandpa, and when Georgia noticed it was still raining at lunchtime she said, "Look, it's still raining, maybe the plane will bring Grandma and Grandpa back until it stops."

We loved having you here, Mom and Dad, and miss you already!!!

I'm just glad that the trip was such a success and I'm hoping we showed you a good enough time to convince you to sit through that plane ride once more while we are still stationed here.

I'm also glad that despite feeling sad, we still have happy memories to post on the blog.

So without further ado...here's our trip to the Zoo.

As small as Okinawa is, I really didn't expect much from the zoo, but we were all pleasantly surprised. The zoo was definitely smaller than ones we've been to before, but had all the animals the kids wanted to see, and in a small enough space that the kids didn't wear down.

Check out the name of the train...even in Japan, you see Texas!

The Elephant doing tricks was a big hit...

Luke was loving the reptiles...I think this was a snake.

Don't get to close to the lions...apparently they spray.. ha ha ha!

We had to take pictures of the turtles for Lor-Lor...

And the flowers for Auntie...

There was a small Children's Museum right on site,

and it was so inexpensive we had to stop in for a little while

before we headed home.

Georgia playing with some rainbow blocks...

little Luke......................................BIG Luke!

Such a Great place...glad we tried it; we'll defnitely go back!

Slippin' and Sliding with the Oldies

We took the kids and Grandma and Grandpa to a new rollerslide park.

Pictures just don't do this trip justice!

View from the top of the slide.

We had so much fun, and the kids now have great memories of Mom and Dad sliding with us.

The funniest has to be my Dad coming down so fast that he forgot to put his feet down and actually flew of the end of the slide. According to Georgia the fall left him with a "broken butt".

I just wish we'd have gotten it on tape!!

This Drop Slide was new to us... and scary to me!

Not being a fan of heights, I could only make myself finally let go, by reminding myself (repeatedly) that my 4 year old and 2 year old down had gone down before me!