Three months later...

 It is hard to believe Ella is three months old already.  She has been keeping us very busy. We even managed to fit in a research trip to Taiwan.  An hour away by airplane, but a world away by any other measure.

Ella makes an excellent world traveler, apparently enjoying her 10 plane rides (we were doing lots of  research!).

Ella's second plane ride

We spent our trip with Ryuji, our host while in Taiwan, and Ying, his excellent assistant. 

Of course we had to eat, so we tried lots of Taiwanese food.On Peng hu (one island we were collecting samples on) the seafood was outstanding!

Easy cleanup table cloths!

We did a lot of diving and collecting on our trip. Ryuji and Ying were incredibly helpful with everything.  The coral was beautiful and of course, the pictures do not do it justice. Unfortunately Nate spent most of his time on land with Ella, but he enjoyed his time with his daughter.  And thanks to him, Kris got lots of research done!

Ying hard at work

Ryuji hard at work

Heading back to the lab with lots of samples!

  

Nate's birthday/Father's Day cake

Happy Hour

Kris and Nate both had birthdays in Taiwan, and Ryuji and Ying very thoughtfully got us birthday cakes! Kris' birthday was on Peng hu and Nate's birthday was in Taipei. We celebrated his birthday at Happy Hour after Kris' presentation.

Drying fish on Peng hu

Xiao Long Bao

 We enjoyed delicious Xao long bao (dumplings) with Ryuji in Taipei.

Ella was quite famous on this trip. Everyone on Peng hu and Green Island seemed to know who she was and were very excited to say hello.

Like father like daughter

Chinese Medicine shop

Military police changing of the guard

We managed to fit in a bit of sightseeing as well.

Kris, Ella, and Ryuji at a night market in Taipei

Ying, Ryuji, and Ella at lunch...they all made fast friends

Sleeping beauty on the right and her pet dog on the left

 

Ella was smiley as usual. She has also started vocalizing a lot!

Drinks for sale in Taipei

Ying and Ella on Green Island

Nate, Ella, Kris, Ying, and two ladies from the Yin Mansion in Taipei

We had a great trip, but are happy to be home in Okinawa.  Kris starts teaching again next week, so we have a lot to do this week. 

Big changes

Ella is finally here, 10 days late and with a lot of coercing.  So, we had our first cold cold beer in a long time!

Needless to say, we have been keeping very busy with our new addition.  We've already had a visit from Grandma, just two days after we were home from the hospital.

We're getting used to each other and have had lots of visits and help from our friends here on Okinawa.

Nate made us some delicious fruit pancakes for breakfast and w
e've even managed to go eat some stretchy Turkish ice cream (see video below).

Diapers, mullets, and turtles

Here are a few random photos from the last couple of weeks. Nothing too exciting has been going on.
Kris' Biology class surprised her on the day of their final exam with baby gifts, flowers, cupcakes, and a cake made out of diapers for Ella!   They were a really great class!

Make sure you don't go the wrong way!

Perhaps the best Mullet ever.

 

This man is regularly spotted walking his pet turtle down the street near our apartment. Today he was scolding the turtle, telling him "Let's go" in Japanese!

Back on Island Time

After a fun-filled trip back to the states for Christmas, we are back to life as usual on Okinawa. 

The hallways of our apartment building are being painted and as we are gaijin (foreigners) they kindly put a sign in English to let us know there was wet paint around our apartment. We suspect they meant to say "Wet paint."

Nate found this cool car antenna ornament.  Japanese people love their weiners!

It never fails...there is always trouble with Ls and Rs...below a sign for the cafe and bar "Glamorous."

And  below are the directions for a prescription skin lotion to apply to the affected "Legion".


Of course, life on Okinawa wouldn't be the same without the delicious food.  Saturday was 9 scoops for 525 yen day at 18 degrees ice cream shop.  Don't worry, they are Japanese-sized scoops and we shared.   Miharu had 9 scoops all to herself though!

We went to a new ramen shop and noticed that the fried chicken had it's own take-home bags and salt shakers. 

We also went to Cafe Carucuma, also known as Thai in the Sky down at the south end of the island. We've been meaning to go for some time, and we finally made it.  The food was delicious, but the view was even better! 

Kris' Marine Biology Lab went to Toguchi beach today.  One of the students found this 3 foot long squid trapped in a tide pool at low tide which raised quite a bit of excitement as it changed color and squirted water at anyone who got too close. 

Omedetou gozaimasu

Yesterday, we went to our first Japanese style wedding reception!  Our friends Yuka and Eric got married and although we didn't spend much time with the bride and groom, we saw most of our friends from the MISE lab.

Nate, Obuchi-san, Masaru, Haruka

Japanese-style wedding receptions are set up like American ones minus the dance floor and band. There is constant entertainment and the food is served izakaya-style, with large dishes brought to the table all night.

Takuma, Megumi, Kris

Course 1: Sashimi on the lazy Susan

When you arrive at the reception, you sign in with your name and address and present the fancy wedding envelope containing your "Wedding Participation Fee," as one friend explained it to us.  The envelope should be wrapped in a scarf so that you are not touching it.

Once everyone is seated, the bride and groom enter in traditional Japanese attire.  After this, there is a series of dances, music, and presentations given by friends and family. There are clips of most these events in the video below.

Eric and Yuka in traditional Japanese attire

Eric and Yuka in modern wedding attire

The bride and groom both performed, Yuka joined her belly dancing troop and Eric played the violin. And after their third change of clothes, they ended up in a modern wedding gown and suit.

There were several cameramen with pretty serious cameras and spotlights to make sure they caught it all on tape.

Toward the end of the reception, there were gifts given to the bride and groom and the parents. Yuka made a speech to her parents, Eric's father made a speech, and finally Eric made a speech.

We all had a lot of fun! Check out the video:

In other news, Nate has recently had his ingrown toenail ripped out.  See photo below.  He is recovering nicely, and is actually in less pain now than he was before. 

And our last bit of news for now:  it looks like we are expecting a baby girl in April! 

Long time no turkey

It's been awhile since our last post. We've both been working a lot and haven't had much of anything exciting going on.

It's been about three years since we've had turkey, so this Thanksgiving we had a Turkey party.  Having access to base made this possible.  We were able to buy a cooked 14 pound turkey to share with our friends, some of whom had never had turkey before!  (Turkey is not common here in Japan.)  We also had the regular sides, stuffing, mashed potatoes, cranberries, and some sweet potato casserole.











We ended up having a big turnout, with some friends from Ryudai (Kris' old job) and some friends from Macaroni Grill. There were three rounds of guests, but unfortunately we didn't get photos of everyone.

 

The turkey was delicious and I guess everyone else liked it because there were no leftovers!  Only Masaru had to season his turkey with soy sauce because "it doesn't have any flavor"!!! .

Some of our guests brought some desserts, which also disappeared fairly quickly.

It's almost time for Christmas and in Okinawa it seems that Christmas is synonymous with fried chicken.  Even this Santa has a piece of chicken in his hand!

Long time...

It's been awhile since our last post, but we have lots of good reasons. Since last time, we've moved to a new apartment, Kris' started her new teaching job, and Nate found himself a new job as well!  We've also finally completed all of the paperwork for getting access to the bases here on Okinawa.  The U.S. military rivals Japan when it comes to paperwork!

Teaching has been keeping Kris busy with writing lectures, grading quizzes, and midterms (only 8 week terms, so this one is almost over!) 

Nate was recently hired to work at the SCUBA diving shop on base, so he will be saying goodbye to the Macaroni Grill and starting there in the next week or two.

We are enjoying our new apartment and have finally taken some pictures for everyone.  It is a bit smaller than our other one, but has a lot more character! Hopefully, we'll have a bit more free time now to let y'all know of our goings on. 

The entire apartment as seen from the front door.

The kitchen/dining room - note the pink tile on the walls!

The blue tiled toilet room and sink area and purple tiled shower/bath room.

The office (with the kitchen in the background).

The bedroom.

The view from our balcony...note the ocean in the distance.