#31

 We celebrated Justin's golden birthday, (turned 31 on the 31st), up North at Okuma with some friends. He's so lucky because his birthday usually falls on Labor Day weekend or close to it, so we are usually doing something fun for the holiday and we add his birthday into the excitement. 

 Justin and Anderson even managed to squeeze in a little R&R while we were there.

(For some reason, I can only find pictures on my phone from this weekend. I know I had my nice camera up there, but can't find the pictures! So excuse the poor quality.)

 We kept with tradition and brought up the Birthday bucket, presents and sang to the man of the hour. He requested blueberry cobbler for dessert and it was very yummy.

He looks mighty handsome for being in his thirties. :) 31 wasn't nearly as traumatizing for him as 30 was. I guess he is getting used to the thought of being older and wiser!

 There were lots of little boys to sing happy birthday to him.

 We played a couple of rounds of miniature golf and I totally beat Justin! I guess I could have let the birthday boy win, but where's the fun in that? I never beat Justin at anything, so this was quite an accomplishment for myself. The boys LOVED playing. They were running from hole to hole with a big smile on their face the whole time. Jack even got a hole in one more than once! It was way too hot the last time we were up there to play golf, so this made for a fun night for everyone.

 The next day we had promised the kids that we would do the go karts. It was just our two cars on the track, so we had fun racing back and forth. Both Jack and Anderson decided this was their favorite part of the whole weekend.

Justin is a good man. He's a great husband and an even better father. Not to mention extremely good looking! It's easy to get excited when you are celebrating someone as wonderful as he is.

8 years

Back in August, the 19th to be exact, we celebrated our 8 year anniversary. 8 years with this guy has FLOWN by! It's been 9 years since we met and I can hardly remember my life without him. We had no idea when we got married where our life would take us. 

We've lived in the most random places imaginable...Cleveland, OH, Biloxi, MS, and Okinawa, Japan. When we found out we were moving to Ohio, we kept telling ourselves...we can do this. 4 years, and then we will be back in the West, close to our families. Well, then we joined the Air Force, which never in a million years did we think that would happen. So then we moved to Mississippi. Ok, we thought, one more year far away and then hopefully we can be at a military base in the West for our 3 year pay back. Then somehow (I'm still trying to figure out how) we ended up putting all foreign bases for our top five of our ranking list and we ended up in OKINAWA! Every time I see where we are on a map, it throws me for a loop. We are on such a tiny island in the middle of no where! It has been a crazy ride, that's for sure. But we have grown closer together and have enjoyed each place that we've been in. I could not have done it without Justin. He is much more adventurous that I am.

We have two beautiful boys who are loud and active and a little crazy at times, but we would not trade them for the world. We tried to add to the craziness with a third child for a couple of years, but for some reason Heavenly Father needed us to wait until we were 5,700 miles away from the nearest family member before we could do it. Go figure! 5 more weeks and we will get to see this little boy that we have waited so long for.

Justin and I both feel like being on our own and living so far away from family has made us each other's best friends. We really would rather be with each other than with anyone else. We completely rely on one another for so many things and it has been fun to see our relationship change the longer we are married. I can't wait to see what our relationship is like 30 years from now!

Back to School

 As always, summer went by so fast and before we knew it, it was time to go back to school! I was anxious to get back into a routine, but Jack wasn't too excited to be missing out on our adventures during the day. So we tried to make a big deal about heading back to school and make it a little more exciting for him. The night before school started, I told him he could pick whatever he wanted for dinner. He chose macaroni and cheese and sparkling cider. Fancy, right? We talked about school and how much he would learn and that he would make new friends. We made cookies after, by request, and also had Justin give the boys a father's blessing. It was a great night. 

 The next morning was a little crazy, getting up and getting everyone ready in time. Obviously I was not in the groove of a routine yet! Fortunately, we made it in time, but I felt like everything exploded that morning as I tried to get everything ready. I should have done a little more prep the night before. Lesson learned, and we now have our mornings under control.

 I don't think they could be any cuter.

Just saying. :)

 Jack told me he wanted a picture by the panda, but that was as close as he would get to him.

 The school met outside in the parking lot where you found your teacher and listened to the principle welcome everyone to the new school year. It was SO HOT that morning. Everyone was dying of heat, but Jack waited patiently. More so than his mother.

 After the principle finished, Mr. Parker took his line and headed to class. Jack did really good that day. He told me that he had a nervous feeling in his stomach all day, but that he had fun. For some reason he has struggled with being dropped off at school this year. When you pick him up, he is always happy and excited, but in the mornings he does not want you to leave him. Now that he has been in school for a while, he doesn't have a problem anymore, but those first couple of weeks, he really struggled. He has told me a few times that he wished he never had to go to school. We've had many conversations about what he wants to be when he grows up, and that if he doesn't go to school he won't be able to do those things. He told me that it wasn't fair that I got to stay home all day and I quickly reminded him that I definitely paid my dues and completed all 12 grades plus college. He didn't seem too impressed. It's hard to battle with him over it. He's so smart though and is doing extremely well with all of his school work. Hopefully this anti-school phase will be just that....a phase!

McKenna wrap-up

 McKenna ending up being with us for a whole two months this summer. The time went by so fast and we have definitely missed her since she left. Especially the boys. They have two cousins named McKenna, and Anderson refers to this McKenna as "our McKenna". We will always remember that summer we had with her. It was fun to get to know her a lot better and learn things you can't learn in a week long visit. Hopefully she wasn't scared by what she learned about us!

 While she was here, we did some crafting.

We did LOTS of swimming. We went to the pool probably a couple times a week, or more. She helped Jack with his swimming skills and her lessons definitely paid off! He's a little fish now and you can hardly get him out of the water.

 We went to the One Republic concert.

 She was with us when we found out that our baby was another boy! I'll go into more details on that later.

 She got to come to the hospital with us to see our friend's little baby Audrey. The Hurst's make some very cute babies! 

 We had one Okinawan adventure after another. This was at Nakagusuku castle ruins.

 She played and played with Jack and Anderson. They really loved having her here and were so sad when she had to leave. I'm glad they have those memories with her.

She is also one of the main reasons we ended up with this little guy! Her family has a yorkie and she did some major rallying on Winston's behalf. She made sure we knew every benefit of having a dog and how much our boys would love him. She was right. :) They do love him. 

We are so glad she came out and hope she misses us as much as we miss her!

Come back soon McKenna!

Thai in the Sky

 The Pinnau's invited us to go up to Thai in the Sky restaurant. It is quite a drive there, but the experience was totally worth it. Not to mention the view! I don't think that water can be any prettier than that. The whole time we were driving there, we were all in awe at the beautiful scenery that was around us. Sometimes I have a hard time being in Japan and feeling so far away from family and all things familiar, but it's days like this one that get me through it and help me enjoy our time here. 

 You can't tell from these pictures, but once again, we were all sweating to death!! Not sure we will ever get "used" to the humidity.

 Jaydon is Anderson's "first favorite friend". They are two peas in a pod. I don't even want to think about the Jenks leaving next summer. I don't know what Anderson will do without him! I'm already sad about it and they still have 10 months left. They are so cute together. They can't quite stay reverent in primary though and often get separated, which ends in tears from both boys. They keep us entertained, that's for sure. 

 This is the whole group that went. One thing about Okinawa that we love is all the wonderful people. We have made so many new friends, and love spending time with our old friends even more. Heavenly Father knew that I would need all the support I could get being so far away. It makes us feel like we have family here.

 Here is our yummy pad thai. Pad thai has become one of my favorite dishes!!

And don't forget the banana spiders. This sucker is huge!! Seriously, if it's legs were stretched out, it would be the size of my hand. These are everywhere. The kids are always looking up in the trees to see if we can spot one. They make a huge web too. Nasty!!

Scuba/Snorkeling Excursion

 We went on a snorkeling and scuba excursion with a bunch of friends. It was so much fun! They took us to two different locations and we had a BBQ on the boat for lunch in between. The weather and the views were awesome and the company was even better.

 Don't mind my nasty salt water/wind blown hair!

The boys scuba dived and the girls snorkeled.

Look who we found scuba diving below us! 

Justin is on the left and Adam is in the shorts on the right.

 McKenna took these with her underwater camera.

Just one more awesome adventure we get to check off our Okinawa list!

Aquarium

We took McKenna to the Chaurami Aquarium up in Nago. Even though we've been there before, the kids loved every second of it. And even though we were sweating to death, the dolphin show was our favorite. 

 I mean, you just can't beat that view. Thankfully we were in the shade, but we were all melting.

 I love looking back on all these pictures with McKenna here. She was here for two months and it went by so fast! Almost like it was a dream. Hopefully she had as much fun as we did.

After the aquarium the kids played at this park. I wish I had this in our back yard. They could have played on here for hours! I don't know how they could stand to be out there for more than two minutes in the heat. It was seriously miserable outside. The humidity makes everything feel like a sauna. But they were crying when we told them it was time to go home. I need to figure out their secret!