Christmas in Okinawa

Hey everybody, we're in Okinawa, Japan with our son, Ed, and his family and our daughter, Nancy and her son Jaron. Our Christmas stockings were way cool with jade chop sticks and little Japanese dolls.

9 stockings lining the couch - Santa was busy.

Lots of Barbie - dolls, clothes, cars, horses.

Presents filled the room.

Kimmee dressed up like Grandma in her Christmas apron and hat.

Bonka got an ornament from the Kadena Okinawa AF Base.

Bonka and Grandma sooo happy to have Christmas with family.

Ed and MaryAnn prepared a fabulous ham dinner.

Jaron's favorite Christmas present was his sucker from his stocking.

Graham Cracker Houses

Wahoo! Making gingerbread houses or should I say graham cracker houses. Lots of frosting, candy and smiles.




Ed gets serious about his house. It was a masterpiece.

Ed made us his famous shish kabobs. They are to die for. The best I've ever eaten. Then for dessert, we got to eat our gingerbread houses.

Church

Sunday we attended church in Ed's ward. The church house was way cool. It is narrow and tall instead of one-story and wide. No lawn. Just a building among a miriad of similar buildings. I didn't see any English words, only the Japanese as shown in the picture. Paul and I would have missed it if we had been by ourselves. Our family helped to boost the attendance in the branch. Ed was our gospel doctrine teacher which was way cool.

Toes

MaryAnn, Nancy and I went to Cocko's exclusive spa for pedicures. I thought I was in heaven. This spa was very fancy with a marble fountain and leather recliners. First my feet soaked in lemongrass water and then my feets and legs were massaged with warm oils. It was heavenly.

MaryAnn, me and Nancy's fancy toes - custom handpainted artwork. Very Japanesy designs.


Came home and I painted Keira and Kimmee's toes and nails so they could match Grandma and Aunt Nancy and their Momma. The Anderson women living the good life!!

Table Rock

It was a beautifull day today and Paul and I had the day off work, thank your Parent/Teacher Conferences! We decided to take advantage of a sunny 55 degree day and hike Table Rock. Table Rock is 100% uphill - so 55 degrees was great. Actually, we were hot and sweaty and could have enjoyed even cooler temperatures. The views were wonderful from the top even with hazy conditions. It's fun to try and pick out landmarks and, of course, throw rocks off the cliffs. But alas, when we reached the top, Paul remembered that he was supposed to go in for his allergy shots today. We didn't throw rocks, took a quick picture and did a walk/run down to the bottom. We were probably quite a sight when bounding downhill, - his gut and my boobs bobbing up and down. Sorry to the people we passed going uphill.

Thought you might enjoy seeing Paul in pain. He gets shots in both arms once a week.

Dead Mice and Blood Sauce

It's Halloween and time for our annual Dead Mice in Blood Sauce party. Our guests chose their dinner from a menu and then had to eat what they had circled!! Dead mice, blood sauce, gangreen delight, new arrivals, osteoporosis bones, two varieties of brains Uncle Paul's special collection of little blue shirt toes and coffin nails.










Who's this eating little pink toes? I bet it's Bonka. Ever wonder what Bonka does with his toe collection? He saves them up to eat on Halloween.










What's this? A witch's cauldron of severed fingers. Hmmmm, they look like Irene's -complete with beautiful long fingernails. Tasty.














Irene's fingers were a great hit. Trying to reafix a severed finger back onto my hand.

Lori brings "New Arrivals". All of our names on the tombstones in Cloverdale Cemetery. Dirt and worms brings on a whole new meaning.

After our creepy dinner, we gathered round to watch our favorite BSU Broncos win another football game. Go Broncos. Touchdown!!

Happy Halloween from Bonka and Grandma!!!

A Little Bit of Italy

This weekend we traveled to our part of the Italian vineyards to pick, stomp and play in the grapes. Our personal Italian vineyard is owned by a real Italian woman who generously lets us pick her grapes every year. Packing ladders, buckets and scissors we pick grapes for 3 hours filling 12 4-gallon buckets.

Always being careful to wear my official canning shirt, I welcome grape splats as a sign of an Italian want-a-be. After hours of juicing, my imagination runs wild and I remember the cool movie of the beautiful Italian woman falling in love and squishing the grapes with her toes in a family dance in a beautiful white dress that never seems to get dirty. You remember the movie, the vineyard starts on fire and the mother vine remains intact and the beautiful woman and lover will spend the rest of their lives rebuilding the vineyard... It's amazing how my mind goes after hours and hours of juicing. Now I'm dancing around the kitchen, stomping the wood floor feeling the would be grapes between my toes...

Reality check.... My Italian lover needs the bottles to put into the water bath. Oh, Romeo, Romeo come dance in the grapes with me....

All done. Now to wash the grape stains from my toes.

Hike to Stewart's Falls

Our adventure begins at a really cool outdoor stone theatre situated at the beginning of the trailhead in Provo Canyon.

It was a beautiful sunny, warm day with the foliage colors in the Canyon beginning to turn.

We stopped on this log for our lunch.

Just before the falls, the trail got somewhat narrow and rocky!! We held on for dear life!

We made it! And the falls were worth it. A gorgeous hike with my two sweet sisters. A memory forever.