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!

Our Temporary Lodgings

Rodney made arrangements for our temporary lodging at Eagle Lodge.

 I was expecting another hotel room, but we actually had a small 3-bedroom apartment! Looking at the picture above, the door to our apartment is on the right side (back) of the building and goes the width of the building with sliding glass doors out from the living room and two of the bedrooms to the balcony on the left side (front) of the building.

This picture shows the back of the building. Our apartment was on the 2nd floor at the far right.

Here are a few pics of the inside of our little place. (Please, ignore the clutter--we were getting ready for another, our FINAL, pack-out!!)

 This was an interesting feature...a step up to this little "outer" bathroom with a small utility sink. It made a great place to give Truman a bath after our long trip.

 Then, a second step up to the bathroom itself.

Here is the view from the balcony. Not that you can tell from the picture, but where the trees kind of "V" on the right side of the picture, we could see ocean! The building on the left is the East West Montessori School. It's a preschool for both Japanese (East) and American (West) children. The cool thing is the location of their playground---its on the roof!! Don't worry, it's covered and totally fenced in :)

 This is the view when we'd leave the apartment. The forest-y/jungle-y area is actually on US Gov't property. Between the trees off to the right in the picture are buildings on one of the bases. Those heavily vegetated areas are very common all around this tropical island and are inhabited be some HUGE bats!! They can have a wing span of about 1.5-2 feet, if not a little more! Their bodies are the size of some small cats! Thankfully, they eat fruit :-)

It was very comfortable lodgings, but we were so ready to get into housing, get our household goods, NOT live out of a suitcase any more, and sleep in our OWN bed!!

Welcome to Okinawa!! (Finally! ;)

October 15, 2010 ~ I was honored to be met at the airport by my own little greeting party--a few of the Chaplains and spouses!  The Command Chaplain's wife brought a basket of goodies from the Chaplain Spouses Club a couple of coffee mugs, rice cakes, chop sticks, dish soap and sponges, and an Okinawa hand towel. Even a fun little toy for Truman!!

The wife of the outgoing Chaplain brought me a little bag of Okinawa goodies, too!

Here a few pics of things that I thought you might find interesting....

a bag of rice cakes, a bottle of dish soap, a bag of little sugar packets, and a can of tea. In the front are some packs of gum, which were also in our welcome basket.

I find it kinda funny that we still get to drink California milk!! But, its not a gallon--its 3 qts! Also, its ULTRA pasteurized to have a longer shelf life. It does have just a little bit of a different taste, but not much.