Saying goodbye....

The most trying part of the life we lead is saying goodbye to friends we have made along the way. Melissa McClendon and her girls, Jadyn and Isabella, have become fast friends with all of us during our life in Okinawa. Melissa and the girls are headed home to the States for a two month visit with their family while their daddy is once again on military assignment. When they return we will be settling into Korea. Friday we spent all morning at the park together....feeding the huge Coy fish, climbing and sliding and getting filthy, eating lunch and throwing rocks into the turquoise sea.

Out and about with friends.....

We went to the north of the island to an underwater observatory and a glass bottom boat ride! Hitomi is with us for the weekend and two boys, (Koun (7) and Tensei (10) whom Nykolas worshipped the entire day, went with us as well. Koun and Tensei are Chad's secretary's boys.

Fascination with the lawn guys.....

Unfortunately it doesn't get mown very often so it's a big event when it does! :)

Shell Seekers.....

Mia's first haircut....

Claudette from Gatlinburg, Tennessee was here visiting her husband who teaches for the Franklin Graham Festival preparation...she is a wonderful hairdresser and came to our house and gave everyone a cut.

Missing the change of seasons so....

"But this little room....was rich in good smells. Wistaria covered the wall outside the window, and in the summer great bunches of blossoms, heavy and pendulous as grapes, filled the world with scent. But even when the wistaria wasn't in bloom the smells were delicious. In spring there were the hyacinths and all the summer through there were the roses, in autumn came the sharp smell of chrysanthemums and the pungent scent of wood smoke and fallen leaves, and in the winter were perhaps the best smells of all, the faint scent of the very earth itself and that delicate perfume of the frost that is hardly a perfume at all, but rather a distillation of crystal cleanliness."
Elizabeth Goudge 'A City of Bells' (1936)

Today was wonderfully dreary and autumnish. The more I live on a tropical island the more I realize what a rainy day girl I am....I like the sun, mostly because it makes me long and cherish the drizzly days. Ok, so I wouldn't want to live somewhere where it rains ALL the time but too much sunshine gives me headaches....give me quiet rain, a wonderful cup of tea and a old smelly book and I will be happy all day.

(Dear Lorna~ our love of words and delicious smelly old books are two of the MANY reasons we are kindred spirits...wishing we had more time to use them with one another. Bother lack of money, geographical distance and so many needing our prescence.)

The pregnant people...

For those of you who see this picture and worry that I am THAT big and only four months...No, I am not pregnant with quads! I have stuffed a blanket up my shirt just as the kids have stuffed their 'babies' up their shirts.....all for a laugh and to satisfy those people who desire to see me fat!!! See what happens when you are trapped inside during a typhoon.

Weathering the storm...

So we are getting the brunt of the category 4 Typhoon!! I've seen trees and cows flying by our window....o sorry I'm getting Wizard of Oz mixed up with reality. Really it is windy but this house is built so solidly that you barely hear it. Upstairs it whistles and roars more than down. We are all shuttered up, except for one window we couldn't bear to close as we wanted to watch all the wind and rain. We've had a day full of Little House on the Prairie, new plastic dishes, fun beading necklaces and new books. The house has been full of yummy smells of Indian curry and wasail....and of course the occasional dirty diaper. :) We are snug as bugs in rugs....for those worriers amoung you......