Gift#334- Space A Travel

Island Hoppers

The terminal announced that there were only 17 available seats on the flight to Okinawa.  Guess how many people were ahead of us?   12!   So the five of us made it on to the flight and we are now enjoying a little getaway on this beautiful island.

Gift #333- Macy's Drawings

You never have to wonder if someone loves you when you have a Macy around.  

She 'tells" you all the time!

Ok-  She is a lot of "sweet", but she can also be full of spice-

judging from the caption on her gatorade bottle!

Gift #332- A Very O-tanjoubi Omedetou (Happy Birthday)

My sweet friends came today and brought a Japanese potluck birthday lunch!  It was a wonderful way to spend the day.  Great food and wonderful company.  The Happy Birthday song sung with a Japanese accent is very beautiful and I will remember it forever.
39 is going to be a good year!

Gift #331- A Family of Seven

Last night we had my early birthday celebration.  Hank leaves today for a few months and we all wanted to celebrate together.  We went to our favorite restaurant- Kikutei.  We were aware that this would be our final dinner together as a family of six!  When Hank returns, I will be in Yokosuka waiting to meet this little girl.  And when I return home, we will be a family of SEVEN!
So very exciting!

Gift #330- My Personal Chef

For two years now, Jack has volunteered to make my birthday cake!  I just love this kid!

Gift #329- Our Wet 4th of July

No fireworks again this year in Iwakuni and enough rain to float the ark, but we had so much food and fun with friends that the day was a big success.  We had a block party in the early evening.  Some of the guys rented tents and tried tying them together.  The rain made huge puddles on the top of them and every now and then one would give way and someone would get soaked.  The funny thing is, no one had enough sense to get out of it.  There were 8 adults huddled together in sideways rain telling stories and laughing at ourselves.  The kids were out in the rain- skim boarding in the grass and splashing in the puddles.  It was a very memorable 4th here in the land of the rising sun.

Mom would have been proud!  :0)

Gift #328- Being Little

Just loved this little image of Sam this morning bending over playing with his Legos.  

Stay little sweet Sam!

Gift #327- Origami Paper

I don't know how Macy would pass these long rainy days if we didn't have origami paper!

Gift #326- My Cousin Jeannie

Jeannie and her "little" boys!  They are as sweet as she is!

I don't think that I could have been anymore blessed as a kid.  I lived right next door to my cousins and grandparents!  We had some fun days together.  The best days with my cousin Jeannie were spent on a slip and slide in her front yard.  Not the new-fangled slip and slide that you buy at the store that comes neatly stored in a box and has inflatable safety rails and a big bumper at the end.  No.  We used tarps and big black trash bags.  And just to add a little excitement, we would add some Tide or Palmolive.  Those were the good ol' days!  Happy Belated Birthday Jeannie.  40 is going to be your best year yet!

PS- Jeannie has two very sweet boys of her own and has raised another sweet boy and girl that needed a family.  She found out last week (after a long time trying) that she will officially be a able to adopt the two youngest!  

Gift #325- Beautiful Words

I stumbled across this blog post this afternoon.  It was a well-timed stumble.  
(I underlined my favorite lines)

I am stretched and tired and fearful.

I am wild and brave and broken.
But this one life is on purpose and it’s not by accident where I woke up this morning.

I have lost it, yelled it, fought it, cried it and apologized it all before 9am.

I have fingerpainted, caffeinated, and run out of explanations for a line of why questions that stretches around the living room, out the front door and around the block.

I have tripped on Legos, stepped on scooters, slept on bottom bunks, and strung yards of white, twinkling lights to ward off the dark and their bad dreams.

I have been woken up, shaken up, thrown up, loved up, and shut up. I have never quite, completely, ever given up.

Love sleeps in my bed. Curiosity eats at my table. Delight runs laps around my back yard. Exhaustion is a faithful friend. But so is grace.

If I started tonight and counted backwards all the gifts of this wild and furious season I would still be counting when the grandchildren were standing on tippy toes with noses pressed against these same smudged windows.

So I count dimples instead.

And piles of stray socks and jeans with knees missing and shoes that only fit for a few months and hair cuts and loose teeth and how many times I look at them and say with the disbelief of the proud, “I can’t believe how much you’ve grown!”

I am overwhelmed, infatuated, love struck and completely unhinged. Especially on the nights they bring in wild flowers and all the ever-loving mud in the world.

I am out of my mind and in my calling and desperate for five minutes alone and a lifetime together.

I want to stop time, tame my fears, bottle their dreams, live a hundred summers of dripping, sticky, chocolate swirl ice cream. And in between I hang onto my faith, my temper, and my sense of humor with my fingernails.

These are the good days, the glory days, the slow-as-molasses days. These are the fast years, the wonder years, the how-do-I-find-words years.

But we do. They usually start with “help” and end with “thank you” and the middle?

The middle is a thick layer of reliable wonder sometimes whispered, often shouted, always answered.

The middle is me. The middle is you. The middle is just this one, sacred, take-off-your-shoes-worthy syllable,

“mom.”
(http://momastery.com/blog/2013/06/10/for-the-dog-days/)

Gift #324- Uncle Paul

When Macy found out that it was Uncle Paul's birthday last week, she immediately went to her art basket and made him a poem.  She wanted me to mail it to him, but I thought that I might just post it instead.  Happy Belated Birthday Uncle Paul.  We love you!

PS- Random fact about Uncle Paul-  He is responsible for teaching the Thomas boys about the Wedgie!  A lesson that they have perfected and use often.  Thanks Uncle Paul.  :0)