It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!!

Welcome to our home :)

Just a touch of Christmas color to offset the eggshell walls with peachy-beige trim.

Our tree with the balcony lights peeking through the sheer

Who would have thought AC/heating units could look so festive?!?!

And the stockings were hung by the air conditioner with care....

Wishing each of you a very Merry Christmas!!!

Bird's Eye View

Our neighbor, Diane, invited Truman and me to take a nature walk with her and her dog, Scout. So we walked a trail to a bird sanctuary/observatory.

We were headed to that lookout for some wonderful views of the area.

An energy plant

A marina and fish market

Went to that fish market once---could have bought a parrot fish for dinner!!

 The prefecture (city/county) of Uruma

 Our tower! 

We would have loved to stay and watch the sun set, but we didn't want to walk down in the dark! May do that another time with my protector, Rodney :)

Open Water Divers

We are now PADI certified Open Water Divers!!

Even before we got here, we'd been talking about wanting to take diving lessons since Okinawa is a diving "mecca." We knew the sooner we take them, the more time we'll have to dive, therefore, we decided lessons would make a great Christmas present to each other!! We took them through Tsunami Scuba, which is a dive shop on some of the bases. We had two evenings in the classroom, then two evenings in the pool for confined dives, and finally two days/two dives each day in open water!!!

 This is Sunabe Seawall where we dove. Along the outcropping of wave breakers is a dive chain which we followed out to the deeper areas. Our first day took us down to 22 feet, our second day to 60 feet!!

This is just a picture I thought would be cool :)

A couple of people brought underwater cameras and will be sharing the pictures they took, so I'll post those ASAP :)

Our Tower Home

Count up five balconies and that's ours. The two windows to the right of the balcony go to our guest room and our office/craft/storage/workout room :) See Rodney and Truman standing out on the balcony??

There they are!!

(Over Rodney's right shoulder is the lovely wind chime given to us by our Chapel family at the Amphib Base in Coronado:)

 This is the view of our building when you pull in...

One of our watchful "Shi-sa"s. This is a Japanese tradition: two Shi-sas sit outside your door or on your rooftop above your door like this. One has its mouth open to catch all the evil spirits, the partner Shi-sa has a closed mouth to then hold all the evil spirits. Traditionally, the opened mouth one is the male, while the female has the closed mouth. But, many say that should be reversed!!

(Sadly, our partner Shi-sa is missing!!)

One view across the street. I'm not sure what the building is in the background, but the building that looks to be behind the fence is a bento (Japanese boxed lunch) place. What's hard to see is the row of  four or five drink vending machines sitting out in front of it. They are everywhere!! You can get both hot and cold drinks from them: coffees, juices, teas, sodas,.....!

 A couple of views from our balcony....

Even though there are other towers in our view, we enjoy having as much green as we do, including a river, which actually is green in this picture....hhhmmmm...

I'll get pictures of the inside of our apartment once we get a little painting done and are able to get the final details all settled in :)

Our Island Rig

 This is Rodney's island run-around rig....a Suzuki X-90!!

It's a two-seater about the size of a Mazda Miata, but has a 4-wheel drive and a 5-inch lift kit!! It really looks like a baby monster truck :) It's so funny to be driving behind him and see the heads turning to watch that little red machine drive by knowing they're probably trying to figure out what it is!!!

 Here's our "nice" car :)

It's a Toyota Funcargo. It is fun to drive, too! See how little the tires are?? That's why its so funny to see REAL tires on the X-90!

And, yes, the steering wheels are on the right and we drive on the left. The pedals are all in the same place, but the column gear shift and wipers are on the left, while the turn signal is on the right. It's not uncommon to turn on the wipers when intending to turn on the turn signal!!

The catch with driving over here is this: as Americans, we are considered "professional drivers" to the Japanese, so if we are in an accident, whether its our fault or not, its our fault because we are the "professional drivers"!! So, gotta be careful!

Having another "Ball" or two!!

The cake from another Marine Bday ball....

And a couple of pictures of us from the Chaplain Corps Birthday ball....

Off to the Beach

We found out from one of our neighbors that there is a beach right here on base! So, we took Truman one afternoon and went to explore..... 

Our first glimpse of the beach...

 The tropical path down to the beach gave us the idea this was not going to be the type of beach we were used to in San Diego!

Sure enough, this is not the wide sweeping kind of beach, it is a tropical island beach!!

Here are a few pictures of the "backdrop"..... 

 

 

 

 

 

 Rodney's grinning at Truman who had been walking along with him, then just as I started to take the picture, took off running down the beach!! He really had a fun time, but avoided the water :)

 

 A couple of views across the "bay"....

 Truman stopped to take a little break from all his running around.

What might look like a gravel bar is actually washed up shells and pieces of coral!

 Rodney's collection...

Shells, coral, and sea glass.... And Truman's paw prints :)

Having a "Ball"!!

Not the best picture, but us with our table mates. The Marine sitting across from Rodney is from St. Louis! Met a couple that night from Webb City and Joplin---such a small world!!

All Smiles!!

This was our first Marine Ball, but have since attended another and still have one more to go just for this Marine Corps birthday season!