Xin Nian Kuai Le---the year of the dragon.

We had a wonderful time celebrating the Chinese new year. We ate lots of great food and had fun decorating our house.

We hung a few lanterns in her room.

Picking up some of our food at a Chinese restaurant.

Waiting to pick up some of our special dinner at Kitakaisen.

Mika helped bring dinner to the table.

Sharing her almond cake with Daddy. Our friends sent these from Taiwan especially for the new year.

MONEY, money, money for the new year!!!

Mika had fun with the poppers! We couldn't light fireworks on base, so we used poppers instead.

Time to move....again.

It's official. We received our orders and we're moving to Camp Pendleton California on June 25th.
Max is very sad about leaving....which is making me cry. Nippon honto ni skii des ne.

Military Appreciation Performance

A performance troupe visited Okinawa for a military appreciation event and gave us a free acrobat show. The seating was first come first serve, so David went early and stood in line to get our tickets. The line was wrapped around the building, it was crazy! The show was great though, and it was fun to see something new.

Mika LOVED the hula hoop girl!

We stayed afterwards and asked to take a photo with the performers. They were very nice.

A fun day with Mika

Mika wanted to pretend that she was the Mommy today. We did finger painting and made cupcakes. Max helped us frost them when he came home from school.
She wore her apron for most of the day and also helped me clean a little. We had fun! These photos were taken in January, sorry it took me so long to post them!

She made a shopping list for the supermarket. (cupcake ingredients!)

She used a big rubberband to attach her Mickey Mouse to the scooter and said she was drivng him to school!

Max showed her how to frost the cupcakes.

TA-DA!!!!!!

Max and Mika photos

Max couldn't eat an ice cream on this day because he can only have sweets when he eats a meal before it. He went with us though and showed Mika how to play an IPod game-Sushi Ninja. It's fun!

Mika got treated to an ice cream because she took her step stool to the laundry room and tried to put the wet laundry into the dryer by herself!! She was too short to reach into the washing machine and came and asked me to help her. That's when I found out what she had tried to do. I was SO PROUD of her!!!

Having fun in the bubble bath.

Mika's video....

Mika has memorized part of "The Night Before Christmas." We read the story to her every night during the holidays and I guess she was paying attention!! She amazes me.

Celebrating David's Birthday

David celebrated his 43rd birthday with a sushi lunch (his favorite!) and then going home for cake and presents.
Max was at school and then had piano students after school, so he's not in the photos this time. We saved him a piece of cake though!

Happy 2012!

Happy new year! We visited Futenma Shrine on new years day and then went shopping for "lucky bags." It was a great day and a great way to begin the new year.

Prayer cards at the shrine.

The fortune wall at the shrine.

Mika wanted to take our picture.

Mika got cotton candy after our visit to the shrine!

The Hello Kitty lucky bag had a giant pillow in it! Yea!

What's inside??!

We got Mr. Donuts in a lucky bag. Yummy!

A chanchanko.......(it's the Japanese version of a dressing jacket or bathrobe)