The good ole days

It's been a long time since I've seen a tire swing. Mary and I ventured to a new park today and she was wondering why there was a tire hanging from chains. After explaining that it was a swing made out of a tire, she was anxious to give it a try. The pictures truly capture her thrill.

She also had a great time exploring the 3 slides

Can it be?

Can we be diaper free? We just finished 8 days of being totally without diapers. Yea!!! I hate to jinx it, but I'm thinking we're done...if not in the final home stretch. I was even impressed that when we were at the pool today, Mary said she had to go "pee pee potty". When do kids decide they're too lazy to go to the bathroom and just pee in the pool? I was pretty impressed. So yes, she's finally pooping on the toilet on a daily basis and we've had no accidents for days. I love it. Now I just have to break her of the habit of lining the toilet seat with toilet paper when we're at home. But that's nothing.

I did it!

I guess I'm not so helpless after all...

Doug's out of town and I suddenly had the urge to clean today. Hmmm, am I nesting already? I opened up the hall storage closet and dodged the boxes that came flying out at me. Time to straighten this thing up. I pulled everything out, much to Mary's distress, but she calmed down when she realized I wasn't going to vacuum. Yep, she's still scared of that thing. She starts crying if I even mention the word vacuum. I even bought her a toy one hoping that would help. Nope. Anyway, back to the story. Once I had the closet empty, I decided I really wanted a shelf. We had talked about getting one a while back, but after Doug had drilled into these concrete walls to hang pictures, he decided we didn't need one. He was tired of drilling. Today, I changed my mind. Mary and I headed out to the self-help store on base to pick up a shelf. Of course, they were all out, so we had to drive to the Air Force base because their store is bigger and better and always stocked with what we need. Go figure. An hour later, we returned home and the fun began. I estimated the job would take about 30min-1hr. It took all day. Drilling into cement isn't as easy as it looks especially, if you've never used a drill before. Took me forever just to figure out how to keep the drill bit in place. You also have to factor in Mary's nap and my nap. So finally, it's done. It's shorter than I had wanted, but Doug can just watch his head. At least I can put things on the shelf without standing on a step stool. I'm pretty proud of myself. I've never done anything this big by myself before.

My successful job and the organized result!

Wish I had taken a before picture so you could see how everything was crammed in there.

Araha beach

Mary and I headed over to Araha beach again today. Now that I have my camera back, I thought I could actually get some shots of her playing near the water. She had a great time grabbing handfuls of sand and throwing them into the water. She would stand at the water's edge and when a wave came in, she would turn and run back to me. Too cute. It was really hot out and I was glad when she looked at me and said, "all done beach." These are some of my favorite shots. It's hard to get her to look at the camera now. Maybe there was just too much to see.





You can really see the blond highlights next to her face. Thanks, Doug.



"Oooo, I like the water...Hmmm, not so sure."

Futenma flightline fair

Since Doug's out of town, Mary and I headed to the neighboring marine corps base for their flight line fair tonight. She really loves airplanes and I thought she'd get a kick out of seeing them up close and looking inside.

Mary has started to show quite an independent streak when it comes to wardrobe choices. She now picks out all her shirt and shorts combos and if I don't grab a pair of shoes to put on her, she automatically grabs her pink cowboy boots. She does a great job getting them to match. Tonight, she let me put her in sandals, but refused to part with the butterfly headband. Oh, she's too cute.

In the car ride to the fair, Mary was so excited about the airplanes...until she saw the choo-choo train. Oh boy! I told her we needed to look at the planes first before the sun went down and then we could go on the train. We ran into her friend, Jessica, while exploring the C-130, but Mary took off for the train as soon as we left the plane. We never saw our friends again. That was a girl with a mission. On a quick side note... since when did prices for these rides get so darn expensive? This was the most sedate choo-choo train I have ever seen and it cost $3 per person. What?! That's why I'm not with her. I told her she was big enough to ride by herself. Oh, but look at that grin. It was so worth it.

We took a break from all the fun and excitement to eat some dinner and watch the Eisa drummers. We really enjoyed the grilled corn on the cob. I figured of all the "fair" food to choose from, this was probably one of the least likely to kill us. Of course, since I had the corn, I felt I deserved a funnel cake. How can you go to a fair and NOT have a funnel cake? Besides, I shared with Mary...some.

Our last big adventure was a ride on the swings. Mary kept asking nicely to ride the train again and I had said ok, but once she saw the swing, she changed her mind. Of course this one was $4. What?!!! Oh well, how many of these things do we go to? She LOVED it. I knew she would. She loves to swing. I wish I took a picture of her crying when it was finished and the nice carnival man was trying to usher her to the exit. She really wanted to ride again, but I knew another $4 was out of the question. It was getting late and we had already spent most of the money Doug had given us for the whole week. Oops! My wallet was getting very light. I had told Doug that since he was going to be gone, I'd take Mary both nights to the fair. I've changed my mind. One night was enough. Maybe we'll go to the beach tomorrow.

Get out your fishing rod Papa!

Our wonderful friends, Matt and Nicole, invited us to partake in the spoils from Matt's fishing trip today. I headed over with a small grocery bag and quickly returned home for Doug, Mary, the cooler and of course, the camera. We came home with some beautiful Mahi mahi. I can't wait for fish tacos! Yum!

Say "FISH...I mean CHEESE!"

daily chores

Mary now calls the push toy her "mower" and pretends she's mowing the lawn like Daddy. The other day, she wanted to "mow the lawn", but needed to get properly attired. She decided she needed her boots for proper footwear and her raincoat for...I don't know. So out she goes in 90+ heat dressed for impending heat stroke. Luckily, the toy doesn't push so well on the grass, so she gave up the idea pretty quickly. Luckily, I was able to talk her out of the raincoat before we decided to "mow" the sidewalks in the neighbrohood. Luckily, she's kept the toy inside ever since.

chopsticks

I guess it's time to buy kiddie chopsticks. Mary was bound and determined to try to use hers with dinner tonight. Good thing she wasn't starving, since most of it ended up in her lap. She was very patient...much more than us. The Japanese stores have cute kid chopsticks with finger holes to help learn to grip the sticks properly (though it looks like she's doing a pretty good job here). Doug said that it's in her blood.

The dancer

Mary loves to dance. She usually will dance for 3-4 songs straight, but I have to be dancing with her. I figured I wouldn't subject you to seeing my version of Elaine (from Seinfeld) dancing. It would probably scar you for life.

The return of the camera!!!!

Yea! I have my camera back and it's a night of movies. Mary was pretty cooperative, so I only had to do a couple of "takes." I've been wanting to get these on video for a while. Enjoy! My next post will be of her dancing.

Surprise!

For those of you that haven't heard the news, here's the story...

We went for my 21 week ultrasound today. The technician said she was going to take pictures and measurements of the baby and we could find out the gender if we wanted. I told her we really wanted to know. I had an ultrasound at 16 weeks and the Doctor said it looked like a girl, but we wanted to make sure. So there we were looking at the body parts, seeing the cute little hands and fingers, the legs...and what's that between the legs? A penis? Total surprise. I'm having a hard time putting into words all the emotions I was feeling at the moment. I was so excited and yet a part of me was kinda sad. I had spent the past 5 weeks thinking of this little being as a girl and suddenly had to switch gears. Of course, when we heard it was a girl initially, I was kinda sad that it wasn't a boy, but then I had never had a sister and thought, "what a great opportunity for Mary." What an emotional roller coaster. I will say that looking through the bag of Mary's baby clothes was much easier now that I needed to weed out all the pink, flowery, girly items. I guess I need to get some blue.

I miss my camera

Can you remember back in the old days when you actually used a 35 mm camera? Better yet, how about a disposable camera? Remember not being able to view your pictures immediately, print them off or even load them on your computer the instant you want them? Remember having to wait until you used the whole roll, send it off and wait to have it developed only to have just a handful of those pictures turn out the way you wanted? Well, I have just had my memory refreshed and I'll honestly say I didn't like it. My camera broke and I had to send it back to the company for repair. Thank goodness it was still under warranty, but unfortunately, we had Doug's promotion and party coming up, so I bought a disposable. Let me tell you I got a lot of ribbing at the party for that piece of antiquated equipment. I finally used up the rest of the roll by taking Mary to the beach and snapping some shots. Of course, none of the ones by the water turned out as well as I had hoped. These are some of my favorites. The scanner doesn't do them justice. They look so much better in person.

The promotion party

We had Doug's promotion party Saturday night at the Officer's club on base. 2 other men promoted at the same time, so we combined money and friends and had a great time. There was a huge amount of food. I don't know why I forgot to get a picture of the buffet, but I'll tell you that no one went away hungry. Add that to the open bar and you know it was a good night. Here are a few pics from the event.

Do over

Have you ever had one of those days that nothing seems to go right? I honestly hadn't had one in a long time, so I guess I was due. It all started with the oncoming typhoon. It's supposed to hit us on Friday, so I thought I'd go to the self help store this morning and pick up sandbags. I had no clue that I would be 5 months pregnant, standing in the sand pit in flip flops and a skirt shoveling my own bags. Don't they have any pre-made? Thank goodness Mary was content to sit in the car in the a/c and watch. I guess the local Japanese maintenance workers felt bad for me (or wanted to see my amazing cleavage up close) cause they rushed over to help after I had filled 5 bags (5 more to go). They took the shovel from me and took over. Thank goodness. Next stop was the grocery store to buy non-perishables. It was crazy busy, but Mary was so good sitting in the cart that it made it much easier. We then went to our friend's birthday party where I proceeded to fall on my butt on the sidewalk while getting Mary out of the car. Now I have a nice imprint of asphalt on my as..er..right cheek. The day would have been ok if Mary hadn't decided to bite the birthday boy on his face for no apparent reason. I was mortified and horribly embarrassed. Maybe it's the raging hormones or maybe it's because the boy's mom cried, but I just lost it. I couldn't stop crying. I rushed out of there as fast as possible. I felt so bad. I know she was tired. I know she's teething. I know it's a "stage" she's going through, but I just want it to stop. Mary was supposed to go back to the boy's house this afternoon while I went to my doctor's appointment, but there was absolutely no way I was going to send her there. I took her with me and guess what? They had no record of my appointment. Somehow, I wasn't in the computer. Why wasn't I surprised? It was that kind of day. The lady rescheduled me for Monday and said, "I'll give you a reminder card so you won't forget." I wanted to shout, "I didn't forget this appointment!" But I didn't. I thanked her and left. And I thanked Mary for not being an absolute terror. We picked up the mail and I grabbed a pizza for dinner (I was not cooking after today) and headed home. The wind picked up and it rained off and on. It was a little after 4pm when we returned and I saw on my e-mail that the caterer decided she needed payment and a signed contract for Doug's party on Saturday today. Sigh. Back in the car we go...in the rain. Can I have a do over?

Congratulations Sir!

On Monday, Doug was promoted to Commander. Mary and I went to his office (for the first time) and were so happy to be able to watch/participate. I was quite surprised when Doug asked me to pin on his new rank. What a special moment. Mary wasn't quite so sure about the whole thing and during the oath, decided she wanted him to hold her. She started walking toward him and I gently grabbed her shirt to keep her by my side. She lost it. Started crying so loud I had to walk her out in the hallway. Oh well, we made it back in time to pin Doug and she got her wish...Daddy held her. Congratulations Doug! We are so very proud of you.