Cakes!

So, I had a few requests that I share some of my cake pics with everyone... so here they are!

I never actually sold this first cake to anyone... but I was playing around with freezing cakes as well as this decorating technique, but I think it came out pretty well, so I took a pic of it.


This is the cake I made for my friend Audrey's shower. The cake matches the bedding that she has in the nursery...


This is a cake I made for a little one-year-old's birthday. I love how girly it turned out!


This last one looks a little scary, but I made it for a fighter-squadron party here. Not sure if you can tell what it is, but it's a scary looking bat. The cake is a replica of the plaque they have in at their squadron. This is definitely the meanest looking cake I've made...


That's all for now, but I'm doing my friend Ally's wedding cake this week and then a Michigan cake on Saturday (I know, I know... I feel like a real traitor for making a Michigan cake, but I need the money! And I feel much better knowing that we beat them today! :)

Cheer Drama!

So, I don't think I told many of you that I was coaching cheerleading over here... but I am! I coach with an all-star squad. They just put on performances at various events on the island and are hoping to travel back to the states to compete. So, here are a few pics of their practices and first performances...The good news is the girls are adorable and oh so much fun!
The bad news is that the coach who started the program is on a serious power-trip and unfortunately running the program into the ground (in my opinion, but I'll save you all the very over-dramatic details!) So, I may not be with them much longer... :(

But, I had a blast while it lasted!

Back in Oki!!

So... it was a little difficult getting back into the swing of things again, but it definitely helps that there is so much to do on this island!
Chris got sent to some little island for a weekend to help a chaplain with some kind of session he was putting on... it looked pretty beautiful.
It's finally cooling off here... no more hot August sun! However, with the hot weather passing, the strong winds have been moving in. This is a pic of us on the seawall... which is exactly what it sounds like - a wall the borders the ocean. It's a pretty popular place for snorkelers and scuba divers, as well as walker and runners.
Hooray for my friend Ally, who told us about this place called YogurtLand! Favorite place so far on Okinawa. Okay, so when you enter YogurtLand, and entire wall of the place has frozen yogurt machines in about 2 dozen different flavors. You start by picking out a bowl, dispensing your own yogurt and then piling on the toppings. Being a frozen yogurt fanatic, even this picture doesn't accurately depict the excitement I was feeling... I'm pretty sure my heart skipped a few beats when I walked in... So, the price of your yogurt is based on the weight of it when you're finished. Congrats to their marketing team, who figured out that people would fill their bowls with a lot more yogurt if they only had one giant bowl to choose from when they walked in.
So, if you check out Chris's big bowl of yogurt below, you'll see that it was pretty big... but at 200 yen per gram, his tasty little treat ended up being $8!!!
My friend told me later that her neighbors went to YogurtLand one afternoon and their family of 4 ended up spending $40 on frozen yogurt... ouch! Don't worry though... I won't let their steep prices deter me from eating there anytime I get the chance! :) ... cause it was DELICIOUS!

Every year they have a Christmas bazaar on base, so Chris and I hung out there one afternoon. Of course he was hungry, so we grabbed some yakisoba to eat for dinner... I actually wasn't "posing" for this picture... I just figured out that this was the easiest way to eat Japanese noodles...
One afternoon, Chris and I went to a basketball game on base... I guess there used to be this really popular tv show on espn called And1...?? I've never seen it, but it used to be espn's #1 show... it was about a bunch of really good streetballers who would play pickup games and just annihilate their competition. Anyways, they quit the tv show to turn their basketball skills into a community thing for kids. So, they traveled all the way to Okinawa to put on a show for the military. I must say, they were pretty good, although our favorite part was the dance competition they had at halftime with the little kids... I've seriously never seen little kids dance like that in my whole like!
And here's a pic of my friend, Audrey's shower... she's due in just a few weeks and they're having a boy! Can't wait to have another cute baby around here to play with and then give back to his parent's when he's crying! :)

Fun at Home!!

Ok, so I'm starting to catch some slack because I haven't updated the blog in forever! The best excuse I have is that I've been really busy!!!
So, our visit home was amazing! We had so much fun seeing all of our friends and family... it definitely seems like we haven't been gone that long at all because very few things have changed back home...
The trip home was pretty long though... this is a pic of me in the cockpit of a C-17. I'm attempting to keep my lunch down, as they climbed to a very high altitude in a very short amount of time! I very much missed these two people (my mom and nephew, Calvin)... along with many others!

Chris and I just happened to get home during Cedarville's Homecoming weekend (it was my 5-year reunion, can you believe it?!?) While I was there, I ran into almost our entire cheerleading squad during my junior year!... I can't believe how quickly time has flown by!


While we were home, we had parties at both of our parents' houses. We also went bike-riding with my grandpa...
carved pumpkins...
played football with his brothers...
and went to an Ohio State game with his parents...
Thank you everyone for making our time at home so wonderful!!!