Fun! Fun! Fun!

Last week was another great week on Okinawa. Haha enjoyed her usual routine of Kindermusik, playgroup, and the park--and Martin and I even squeezed in a VERY nice date night! The Officer's Club was having a special all-you-can-eat seafood buffet--featuring snow crab and shrimp! Ha hung out for the evening at her friends' (Beverly, 7 months & Brieannah, 3 years) house. I know the gals' ma from playgroup and scrapbooking. They are a really nice family, but the daddy just deployed. So, every time we came to the door, we would hear Brie run excitedly down the hall inside, saying: "is it Daddy?" So sad. It's even more of a shame, because, while there's no really good way to prepare for such an absence, they only had about a week's notice. :O( Ha and I did a 5K fun walk with them this weekend.

Here are some pix from our great week:
Ha multitasking at playgroup...Mmm...Nilla Wafers!
Cute shots of Ha's friends:
Braylen...
Jackson...
Brieannah...
Ha & I decided to organize bonus playgroup sessions on Thursday afternoons. Generally our Wednesday sessions are indoors, but Ha loves the great outdoors, so we are organizing weekly park outings. Added bonus: great way to explore the local area! Last week we went to Wakamatsu Rollerslide Park and this week we are off to Kurashiki Dam! This week we are also pushing the playdate back from 1:30 to 2:30 to give the afternoon a chance to cool down a bit, since last week our first playmate didn't show up until we were just getting ready to leave, lol!

Here are some pix & flix from our day at the park:
What a big girl!What a view!Ha really enjoyed braving the rollerslide (on my lap, of course--she is still Little Miss Safety First!)Ha really REALLY enjoyed watching all the airplanes!

Here are some pix from our super-yummy date night at the O'Club! We DEFINITELY ate our money's worth!Ha & 'Tunia playing with socks. Thanks to Kindermusik, Ha is absolutely obsessed with taking socks on and off her hands! Too cute!On our 5K this weekend, I spotted this lovely slide in someone's trash pile--so Ha & I zoomed by on our way home & nabbed it! We actually found this same slide (also for free), back when we lived in Cali, lol. As you can see, she LOVES it! She asks to go out back now about 3-4 times a day, lol!

This past weekend we also enjoyed Oktoberfest, hosted on one of the Marines' camps. We surprised Martin with some post-fest b-ball tickets to see the Ryukyu Golden Kings (Okinawa's first pro-basketball team--in their first game [if I understood the ads correctly...]) v. the Tokyo Apache. The Marines were giving away free tix, so we snatched up a pair. Can't tell you who won, lol, since we headed home around 1/2 time because Ha was exhausted, but it was a lot of fun! Here are some pix:
Ha loves her hot diggity dogs!
Ha & Da w/some festival entertainment:
Da looking quite pleased at the game:
Haha effectively distracted by the toy rhinoceros beetle Da won for her at Oktobefest:
The Golden Kings warming up:
The Apache entering the stadium:The game in action:Worthy of note: You may notice that in more and more pictures now, Ha has her hair up! That is a testament to how hot it is out here, lol! Under "normal" circumstances, she won't stay in a ponytail past 5 minutes!!