December

December was our month to try our hands at parenting and of course celebrate Christmas and the New Year. But I’ll first begin with the parenting. A family in our ward was planning a trip to Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam, and asked if we would be will to watch their two older children for 12 days while they were gone. I love kids and the opportunities to help people out, so I jumped at the opportunity. We had an incredible time and enjoyed these two kids’ great personalities. Breck is 4 and he is one of the smartest 4 year olds I’ve ever met. They are bilingual, too, and so I got to practice what little Spanish I knew from high school. It must have been impressive because Breck told me once, “Bre you know a lot of Spanish. You know more than me! My dad knows like 30 words, you know like 15 words and I only know about 12.” Well, it made me feel good. Jade is 2 and likes things done her way. They took turns opening presents from their grandma and if Breck helped a little too much, I’d have to re-tape it before she would continue opening it. Despite the few days she was sick, she really warmed up to us towards the end. We taught her the game, “I’ve got your nose.” We would pretend to take her nose and put it somewhere. She’d play along and go grab it and put it back on her face. Too fun! Here are some pictures with the kiddos.

Breck and Jade with one of the Christmas gifts

Araha Beach

Drumming on a Sunday morning

Building with blocks

Chris needed a nap

A cool slide park!

Chris and Breck before riding the roller slide

Smile!

Silly faces!

Making gingerbread houses

I think Jade just enjoyed eating the candy.

Thanks Neal family for the fun times!

 

One thing I miss from back home is the temple and being able to see the temple Christmas lights. So the Wednesday before Christmas, since there was no mutual, we convinced our friends, the Olsons, to accompany us on yet another Okinawa Adventure. Down in Itoman, there was a display of lights in one of the parks, claiming to have over 1,300,000 lights. We decided to try out the well praised Garlic House restaurant and then continue on to see the lights from there. Parking was an adventure in and of itself. But Whitty used his mad car skills and managed to squeeze his car in. The food was good, but it didn’t match the hype it’s received. We also discovered that the magazine that told us about the lights didn’t give the greatest directions and it was much further than anticipated, but we made it. The lights were nice, but we were more impressed with the show put on by two Japanese men. Chris was even pulled out of the audience to help. Oh, and this was the night our camera decided to stop functioning, so these pictures are from our friends, the Olsons. Thanks guys!