The BIG 40!!!

October 20th was a big day. It’s one of our most favorite days of the year because we get to celebrate our favorite person...RICH! This year was a big one. Rich retired his 30’s and moved on to his 40’s kicking and screaming. Haha, not really kicking and screaming. It’s hard to be upset about getting older when your life is so sweet. 

Sadly, he had to work, but his pharmily had a birthday feast for him and the kids and I joined the celebration.

Then, the kids and I went back home to get the house ready for daddy to come home. The kids wrapped gifts, finished up their coupon books and helped blow up balloons!

He’s home!!!! We sang Happy Birthday and he opened his presents. He was most excited about the coupon books filled with coupons for foot, back and head rubs. He has been redeeming them, too!

We had a sitter lined up for that night and we spent the rest of the night with friends playing games. I made him this specific chocolate cake recipe that he requested and it turned out so ugly I just had to laugh. It was good though!

He had an awesome day and so did the kids and I. We love celebrating THE BEST dad and husband!

Recent, random happenings

Sometimes, the every day happenings get lost amongst all of the big events and trips. Here is a reminder for me of how great the little moments are too.

Sunday selfie from when dad was on a TDY.

Arabella loves to read to Eva. They fight 50% of the time and play really well the other 50% so I would say they have found a good balance, haha!

Every day, Eva asks me if she can have a “mimp”. She is a “mimp” addict.

I love how she only drew our heads!

This made me laugh! Maya drew this of the time Aidan got stung by a jellyfish at Okuma😂

Maya and I went to her first Women’s conference, last month. It was such a special experience sharing that with her and watching her take notes of the things she wanted to remember. Love my sweet, spiritual girl!

I don’t always write notes in the kids lunch but this particular day I did and I’m not even sure why I took a picture of it. Now, I’m grateful I did because on this day, right before lunch, Aidan had a bad experience at recess. I was grateful that he had a note from me that reminded him of my love. I should do this more often.

We got a surprise in the mail from our mainland friends! Last year, we hosted a little boy named Shota and fell in love with his family. His mom sent us fresh Udon noodles and these beautiful little sugar drops! We are excited to see them again in January.

One of the biggest perks of Rich being a pharmacist is that I can drop Eva off at the pharmacy if I or one of the kids has an appointment in the clinic. I love this perk. I also love the markers they give her to draw with...only in a pharmacy😂

Sweet big brother carrying his not so little sister because she fell and scraped her knees.

This is not an uncommon sight in Okinawa. Gotta protect that skin!

A few weeks ago we went to the beach for FHE with a bunch of families from our branch. Eva is such a social little butterfly and just loves attention from pretty strangers. She spotted these two couples watching the sunset and slowly made her way up to them. Before we knew it, the two girls had abandoned their dates and were talking to Eva, playing with her hair and catching crabs with her. It was the cutest!

Eva loves to do her makeup. She asked me, is there too much on it, mom? Nope! It’s perfect, baby.

She is my favorite lunch date, every day.

Our Oki pumpkin patch😂

Naha Tug of War

We finally made it to the Naha tug of war, this year. For one reason or another we missed it the last two years. This was our last chance so we made it happen.

We got there about an hour and a half early so we went to see the rope on 58 before going down Kokusai.

The rope was laying down the middle of the road. There were two separate ropes that would be combined by a gigantic wooden peg. 

We took a quick little stroll down Kokusai street.

Always an adventure.

We headed back to 58 pretty quickly because we wanted to make sure we didn’t miss the beginning. Turns out the opening ceremonies last about an hour. We had no idea so we threw ourselves in with the crowd of people and were squished up against each other like I’ve never been squished before.

Once the actual tug of war was going to start and people were getting into place to get their piece of the rope, we quickly realized this was entirely too dangerous for Arabella and Eva. I gladly volunteered to take them to safer ground. After about 20 minutes of tugging and chanting there was an outburst of cheers! One of the sides had won! After a side has won it is time to cut the rope and it is said to be good luck to take home a piece of the rope. We got our rope!

My favorite part of the whole event was watching them remove the rope.

What a neat ‘once in a lifetime’ experience. I love checking things off of our Okinawa bucket list. 

We headed back to where our bus was going to pick us up and had some Snapchat fun.

Love our family adventures, even when they are hard and crazy!