Too hot to go out!!

Hey Everyone! Sorry it's been awhile since I posted last... we haven't really been that busy - I just haven't made time to do it! Anyways, here are a few pics from last weekend...
Chris and I had a "game night" with a few other couples from the squadron. Here's a pic of Lydia, Courtney and me...

And here's a pic of the boys... so, if you had to guess, who do you think won all the games that night???
Yeah, the girls. We beat them in Cranium and then killed them in Pictionary... so, here they are moping on the couch. Chris was definitely in a bad mood that night! :)

Then on Sunday, we went to a baseball game... One of our friends from church plays on a semi-pro baseball league here as a pitcher. It was pretty fun! Although, as evidenced in the picture below, it was SO hot out... I thought I was going to die either from 1). my lungs shutting down or 2). dehydration cause I had sweat out all my liquids.

They were playing a college team at the college, but the field was really poor looking... most of the elementary school baseball fields in America have better fields. They didn't even have bleachers, so we just sat on cement blocks outside the field. It's interesting that they love baseball so much here, but don't really put much money into it...

This is a pic of our friend, Rob, pitching...
And a picture of Chris with Rob after the game...
One thing that Chris and I think is so hilarious is that the team yells out stuff the entire game to their own players and the other players... they get pretty loud! But then we've also been to other games were everyone is very quiet and "respects" the game.

Last Friday, Chris and I went out to dinner to celebrate our 6-month wedding anniversary! Can you believe it?? Those 6 months have flown by!! And I'm sure the next couple of years will fly by as well!... Love and miss you all!

Happy 4th of July!!

Every 4th of July, Kadena (the giant Air Force base here) puts on AmericaFest and opens it up to all of the military families as well as the public. This is one of very few opportunities where Japanese civilians can come onto base, so they're very anxious to see what it's all about. They have many booths full of food and games, rides, blow-up things, concerts, and plenty of airplanes (of course) for people check out during the day, followed by a big fireworks display at night. So, Chris and I volunteered to man his squadron's booth for 4 hours in the morning, where we sold ice-cold Gatorade's and ice cream. Here's a pic of Chris helping a kid put sprinkles on his ice cream.

Keeping the Gatorade cold and the ice cream non-soupy proved to be a bit of a challenge since Okinawa is so hot, but there were a bunch of people from his squadron helping us out. The Japanese have a plethra of drinks, but they don't have Gatorade, so they were pretty quick to buy it all up! Here's a pic of just a fraction of the crowds there that day... there had to be at least 20,000 people that came out for the event, although it's hard to estimate when there are so many people!

Chris never gets tired of checking out planes, so here's a pic of us in front of an F-22. We couldn't even get close to it since many of its functions are still top-secret... but that didn't stop the Okinawans from going picture-crazy with this plane!! I've never seen so many high-tech cameras in one place in my whole life... I now wish that I would have gotten a picture of them taking pictures instead of this one of the plane...

For all you American Idol fans, Melinda Dolittle (season 6, I believe) made an appearance there, putting on concerts Friday and Saturday for the public. Most of the audience was up in the stands, so I had no problems walking up really close to the stage to get a pic of her!

Here's a pic of Chris, looking like he very desperately wants to play this basketball game with all the other 8-year-old boys in line. Let me tell you, he can never get enough sports!!

And here's our last pic of the day, looking very exhausted (and my hair looking very frizzy). Let me tell you, I've given up fixing my hair here. If the humidity isn't enough to destroy your hair, then you're in a constant state of sweating... it's never pretty, so I just don't really even try anymore!! :)

Hope you all had a wonderful 4th of July too!!

Puppy (and Husband) Problems...

Look at what my ornery husband let our ornery puppy do while he was washing our car...

...play in the mud!! Just in case you forgot, Koshi is all white!! We just had a huge downpour of rain and Chris thought it would be funny to let her play! I must admit it was pretty cute... but he's lucky that Koshi needed a bath anyways... :) Even her entire stomach was caked in dirt!
And here she is covered in dirt and licking up bugs off of our driveway... I thought only little boys did such things!
And I had to snap a picture of this sign... Chris and I went to a restaurant called "The Garlic House" the other night. They pretty much serve garlic in every single item on the menu... my eyes burned from the garlic by the end of the night. They even serve a huge clove of garlic battered and deep-fried. It was delicious, but on our way there, we caught a glimpse of this sign.
You see... there are many things that get "lost in translation" here. The Japanese often attempt to translate things into English and either they're spelled incorrectly or the wording is just completely off. A friend once told me that translation is very difficult for them because they often tell stories to illustrate their points. For example:
English sign = No running.
Japanese sign = There once was a little girl who was running through these halls and she stepped on a water puddle, slipped and broke both of her arms. We don't want the same thing to happen to you, so we would ask that you please do not run in these hallways.
Anyways, this is the worst example of spelling/translation on a sign that I've seen here... check out the three lines of English and see if you can understand them!

This country never ceases to amuse me!!