Beach Day!

We finally had nice weather on a weekend! So we took full advantage of the sunshine and went to the beach on Friday and Saturday.

Grace LOVES everything about the beach. She could play in the sand for hours. She even found a crab to chase!

And as much as she loves the sand, I think she enjoys being in the water more. She got to test out her new floaty!

The beach was crowded on Saturday. I guess everyone was so tired of all the rain we got last weekend and wanted to get out to the beach and enjoy the sunshine.

On Friday we went to the beach for some type of Army function. It was grill your own steak night at the little restaurant which is always good.

And, of course, we had all of our beach toys and a bathing suit for Grace so she that she could get wet.

Rain, Rain, and More Rain

We had planned on going to the park on Thursday (which was a really pretty day) but with all of the errands we had that morning we ran out of time. We started by taking Dustin to pick some stuff up from work on the small Army base about 20 min away before dropping him off to pick up our new car. This is car #5 for us since we have been on island. A guy he works with summed up our car buying habits pretty well: "You got ANOTHER new car?" The car he was driving we purchased in November for a pretty cheap price but the JCI (Japanese Inspection) was coming up in October and we knew there was no way it would pass. It was about to break down and we really didn't want to put any many into it and we knew the JCI would probably cost us well over a grand. So when we heard our neighbors were leaving and planning on junking their car we offered to give them a little money for it and then we turned around and junked Dustin's car. So this led to me and Grace running around doing everything needed to deregister the car.

As we were about to head home Grace saw the playground and wanted to play. It was almost 1:00 and we still needed to eat lunch but I let her spend about 5 min on the swings (her favorite!). We had planned to go back on Friday but we woke up and everything was wet outside. And since then I don't think the rain has stopped. I think if we have rainy weather next weekend we are going to take Grace to Mona Kids Jungle which is a big indoor playground!

Best Buds

Grace got to spend a lot of time with Maggie this week!

On Tuesday we went to the park together. Grace is growing up so fast and becoming pretty independent. She loved running around the park!

{Grace playing peek-a-boo in the train}

{the girls sitting in the train together}

On Wednesday was the Dragon Boat race so they got to play together again that day. Thursday they played at the gym together. And on Friday night we went over to their house. It is always fun getting together for dinner and a game night and it had been way to long since we had done that. Since we would be putting Grace to bed while we were there I packed a new pair of pj's that I new Maggie had just got too. They enjoyed wearing matching strawberry jammies!

{aren't they just so cute?}

Productive Saturday

We have had a very relaxing but productive Saturday. First we started out by making a list of dinner ideas and a shopping list. We added a few new meals which should be fun to try!

Since Grace can't really help us plan out our meals (I am sure we would be eating a lot of goldfish crackers, bananas, and chocolate if it was up to her!) she got to do a more fun task.

PAINT!

She is definitely right-handed.

Then it was time to get ready and off we went to shop. We started out at the BX since we had some things to return. As we were waiting in the check out line Maggie ran up to us. What a nice surprise! Grace and Maggie got to play in the toy kitchen they have on display for a little while before we had to go. While I did the grocery shopping Dustin and Grace went to clean out the van and go to the post office.

We made it home right at lunch time. I had bought several new things for Grace to try so for lunch she had a hotdog. She had tried one at the dragon boat races that Maggie had shared with her and seemed to like it. Today she LOVED them. She ate one and then asked for more. There was not a single piece left of the 2 hotdogs we have her!

After a very short nap it was time to play again. We were needing a few things from the 100 Yen store so I took off to get those while Dustin and Grace stayed home to get the car washing stuff ready.

I came home with these cute sunglasses for Gracie!

We had to have a little snack before our next big project.

As you can see, Grace is VERY good at using her fork and spoon!

We washed the van!

Grace was such a good helper!

And now the outside of my van is finally clean.

Busy Week

I have been very bad about updating our blog and letting everyone know what is going on over here. I am sure there are some people out there who are a bit anxious about seeing new pictures of Grace. I have been really bad about remembering to take the camera with me!

I thought I would share this picture from last week. Grace has really been into her baby dolls lately. So much so that we ended up buying her a new smaller baby that she can carry with her places. The baby you can see in this picture gets drug around a little too much. The smaller baby is hiding in there somewhere too!

On Saturday I went to a baby shower for Kelly's new little girl that will be arriving sometime very soon. Since that was in the afternoon we decided to stick around the house that morning and Grace got an early nap so she could go shopping for a Mother's Day gift. It was a nice day so she enjoyed a little time out on the balcony that morning!

Dustin hung our Koi noborubi that we bought at the 100 Yen store. If you look closely you can see the carp streamers (koi) hanging on the balcony railing.

This week was Golden Week in Japan and yesterday was Kodomo-no-hi or Children's Day. We spent the morning in Naha at the Dragon Boat races.

The boats above are the Navy women's team (black boat), Army women's team (yellow), and the Marine women's team (green boat). The Army Women ended up coming in 2nd in their heat and the Army Men's team took 1st in their heat.

Grace had fun playing with Maggie. They like to give each other hugs!

After a picnic lunch of PB&J we went to check out the rest of the festival. Grace rode on the boat ride!

It was getting to be nap time and it was a pretty warm day so we decided it was time to head home. Grace slept the entire way and we were getting close to home and she was still asleep so we kept on driving so she could nap a little longer. We ended up driving to a Marine base and checking out the beach there. This is the first time Grace had been to that beach!

She loves to play in the sand! And she has had a thing for rocks lately. We met Dustin at his office last week to have dinner with him and she had a rock with her then. Some of the people he works with kept asking coming and asking her where her pet rock was. Needless to say, she found a few rocks on the beach!

On the way home we stopped to take pictures of the carp streamers across a river that we passed by. The bridge was lined with lots of the little one just like the one we have at home!