My ramblings for today…

I almost went to bed without posting anything today!  Oops…

I had a pretty good day today, despite the fact that it didn’t get off to a great start.  This morning, I was planning to volunteer at the Gift Corner while Madison had a play date with some friends we’ve made here.  Unfortunately, on my way to drop her off, I discovered I had a flat tire.  No idea how that happened.  I have the worst luck with tires.  I was very concerned and not really sure how to solve the problem – Matt’s gone, I can’t change a tire, and I was off base.  Considering my past history with tires, you’d think I’d take the time to learn how to change one…  Luckily, the Auto Hobby Shop here will come out and put on your spare for no charge if you have an AF Club Card.  Awesome!  And after it was fixed, I drove straight to the car care center on base, where they had the right tire in stock and were able to fit me in right away.  Crisis averted   And my friend who was babysitting even let me borrow her car so that I could volunteer at the Gift Corner as planned and we took care of the tire situation after lunch.

Besides that, we had a pretty good day.  I took Madison to get her haircut (just a trim), we went out for pizza, and we rented the Kit movie for family movie night.  When I realized that I had a flat this morning, I thought it was going to be a bad day, but it turned out pretty good after all.  I think we might go get pedicures tomorrow – check out these awesome toes – I’ve been looking forward to that since we found out we were moving here!

Our Thanksgiving Menu

So after hearing several horror stories about Thanksgiving grocery shopping here on Okinawa, I decided to get my act together and buy all of my non perishable items now. Seriously, I’ve been told the week of Thanksgiving, they will be sold out of canned pumpkin, turkey, stove top, cranberries, even butter, although they generally do have sweet potatoes available – purple Okinawa sweet potatoes.

I have never made Thanksgiving dinner. This is only the second year in seven years of marriage that Matt and I will not be spending Thanksgiving with our families. Two years ago, we were moving to Florida the week of Thanksgiving and living in a hotel. Instead of trying to prepare a meal in our hotel room, we went on vacation. We drove down to Tampa and spent Thanksgiving Day at Busch Gardens – which was a great idea. I don’t think we waited in line for more than 3 minutes anywhere that day. Unfortunately park closed at 6:00 and we ended up driving around for quite some time trying to find a restaurant that was open… any restaurant. We did finally find a very bad buffet (although they did have turkey).

But this year, I am planning on a traditional Thanksgiving meal.  I guess a “traditional” Thanksgiving meal is different for everyone…  I’ve planned for enough food for an army, but I’m not sure who is going to be sharing it with us.  We invited a few families from Matt’s squadron, so we’ll see who can come.  Here is my proposed menu – I might not make all of this, but I bought everything I need to make all of this, just in case.  I don’t want to change my mind at the last second and not be able to find corn.  Anyway, here it is:

• Turkey
• Mashed Potatoes and Gravy
• Stuffing
• Spicy Green Beans  – my recipe
• Sweet Potatoes – my mom’s recipe
• Corn Casserole
• Sweet Potato Rolls – my recipe
• Relish Tray – olives and pickles
• Pecan Pie – my grandma’s recipe
• Pumpkin Pie – still looking for a recipe
• Pumpkin Cookie
• Spicy Pecans
• Apple Cider

The nice thing about this menu is that a lot of it can be made a day or two in advance, so maybe I won’t be too overwhelmed on Thanksgiving morning.  What do you think?  Too much?  Not enough?  Am I missing anything?

WW: So Adventurous!

Rock climbing at the Chili’s Fest…

It’s a boy!

So I don’t know if any of you noticed the clue in my post yesterday, but we had a sonogram a couple weeks ago and found out we’re having a boy!  Matt, of course, is thrilled.  I didn’t care either way, so I’m happy too.  Madison is, well, a little disappointed.  A few days ago, we were going to go shopping a buy a new crib.  When I told her, she didn’t want to go.  I’m pretty sure she thought if we didn’t buy a new crib, we wouldn’t have to have the baby…  I’m sure she’ll get over it, but she seems to be taking it pretty hard

And while we are on the subject of babies and pregnancy, why is it that people think they need to touch your belly when you’re pregnant?  Today I was at the store, standing in line, when the lady in front of me touched my stomach and asked if we knew what we were having.  It’d be one thing if it was someone I knew, but she was a stranger!  And since we were standing in line, I was stuck making akward conversation with her until she got to the front.  It was a long line.  Then we saw her again at a restaurant – I had a sudden craving for cheesecake, which is very weird because I don’t really like cheesecake – and she stopped to talk to me again like we were old friends or something.  I don’t understand…  maybe I was just cranky today…

And before you ask, yes, we have chosen a name.  Matt chose one and I chose one.  Unfortunately, we haven’t chosen one that we can both agree on.  I’ll have to keep you posted on that.  Any ideas?

Happy Halloween!

Matt is back in the states for some training, so for the third year in a row, he missed Halloween with us… At least he was here for Madison’s birthday this time, and this is definitely not the worst holiday he could miss. Luckily he hasn’t had to miss Christmas yet, and he did get to take her to a Halloween party on base before he left.

On the 30th, we carved pumpkins. Last year, my dad was able to visit a couple weeks before Halloween and carved a pumpkin with Madison, so this year, she kept saying how sad she was that Pap wasn’t here to cut everything. I think she thought I was incapable of carving a pumpkin, but it turned out really well.  Madison drew the face herself and I cut it out. And she actually reached in and pulled out some of the guts herself…

I also took Madison to a Halloween craft class on base the day before Halloween. They made bags for collecting candy. She made hers all by herself and was very proud of it.

Then, for Halloween, Madison was (surprise!) Supergirl! Maybe she has gotten all of that out of her system now. She was a very cute Supergirl though.

Our neighbor’s kids were Tinkerbell and a tornado. I thought the tornado was a very clever idea. I’m going to keep that in mind for the future (for any sons I might have…)

Halloween in Japan was… interesting. Apparently, Halloween is not something they traditionally celebrate here, but they all seem to want to. Americans can sponsor the locals onto base and they can go trick or treating here. And not just the kids – there were adult locals trick or treating too. Very strange. While we were trick or treating, I think I heard as much Japanese as I did English, and when I was passing out candy, kids were thanking me in Japanese.  Which was cute and was definitely a unique experience.  Unfortunately, I don’t know how to say Happy Halloween in Japanese. I guess they probably understood anyway…

FYI, all of our Halloween pictures are online at Flickr if you want to check them out

My baby is five…

So apparently, November is National Blogging Month or something, and you’re supposed to try to blog every day for the whole month.  Since I’m not doing too good at updating and I really would like to do better, I’m going to try it.  We’ll see how it goes…  I’m already a day behind, but I didn’t know about it yesterday, so that’s okay, right?

Madison turned five last Saturday.  I can hardly believe she’s that old.  It definitely does not seem like it’s been five years since she was born.

In the past, we have always done family birthday parties, but this year we were too far away from home to do that.  Instead, we had a family party on Friday night, before her birthday, ate pizza (and dessert pizza), watched The Little Mermaid, and opened family presents.

Then on Saturday we had a party with some of her new friends in Japan.  She picked a Supergirl theme and we had it at the park, which was a great idea.  That saved a lot of clean up for me and Matt.  Although I will say, after our first real party experience, I am really glad that we don’t have to do that for another year.  Maybe we can make it two.

And by the way, here is the cake I finally came up with…

Not what I had originally planned, but not too bad either.  My mom was suitably impressed, and Madison loved it, which is all that really matters.

Normally on her birthday, we also go have birthday pictures taken, and we haven’t gotten around to that yet.  There really aren’t a whole lot of portrait studios around here, and the few I have found are outrageously expensive.  I think I’m going to try to take them myself, so wish me luck…