Christmas Vacation

I really like Christmas vacation I've decided...Adrienne and I had decided when we first started this crazy year that if we made it to Christmas it would all be down hill from there...and I think we were right! We've settled into a good routine, school is ok for the most part, church is awesome and we're starting to get involved - Pastor Wes asked if we'd do children's church once a month so that should be fun, we've gotten good use out of our tour book....and we survived...even enjoyed Christmas in the wood box :) Our first official vacation day was supposed to include a trip back to the waterfall....it was more of the three hour tour...I don't like being in the car that much so it was kind of a bust, but that's ok! Tuesday we spent the entire day baking...with a short massage/facial break (still haven't found a great place, but it was relaxing)...anyway, some of the teachers and their kids were all at Lori's for baking...WOW...these ladies are overachievers! We made 11 kinds of cookies, yes, crazy, messy, and yummy. We took our plate home and have been munching away on our goodies :) Wednesday was a quiet PJ morning and then we went to a new restaurant for Christmas Eve dinner - YUM!!! We got to cook our own food...all you can eat for about 2,000 yen ($20) it even included a drink with refills and soft serve ice cream....I had sirloin, lamb (AWESOME!) mushrooms, and corn, along with some soup and ice cream (and my refillable drink of course!!!) We had so much fun and it was all so yummy...if anyone comes to visit that's gone on the list of places to go!

Part of our yummy dinner!


Christmas Eve service was nice - the people there have been so welcoming and I'm definitely getting attached (we even got invited out for lunch after church on Sunday!) Afterwards, we headed home to open up a Christmas Eve gift...Adrienne had never been allowed to do that - she was a little excited :) Afterwards, we watched a White Christmas (one of our gifts) which I had never seen and had hot chocolate - good stuff! In the morning we woke up and chatted with family and Cheryl...ok family....then we finished opening gifts from home and our stockings to each other. We made monkey bread in our toaster oven using our mini bundt pans...BRILLIANT! and had my traditional fruit salad (pineapple, oranges, and bananas...still good with the tangerine type oranges here...) It was my touch of home so that helped start the day off well. After we got dressed we headed to Lori's house for lunch and playing with the girls and their new toys...if you get a chance to play The Cat in the Hat I can do that game...you'll giggle through it! Afterwards we left to go to Pastor Wes and Carol's Open House...FUN! We all hung out, ate, talked, watched videos, ate, talked, giggled...it was a surprisingly good day! We even got some new silverware...Pastor had broken a fork when they were over for dinner and it's become a bit of a joke so that was pretty funny!

Did I mention that Adrienne was a little excited about opening a gift on Christmas Eve?

All nestled in our pj's ready for Santa ;)
Christmas morning :)

Today we headed up to Nago to stay in the Marriott for the week - plenty of tour book days to come :) Our "partial" ocean view is spectacular...sometimes I have to shake my head and remind myself that I actually live in this beautiful place! I enjoyed reading overlooking the ocean and Adrienne's napping right now before dinner...wish us luck finding something up here we like...SO in the wrong country for food....oh well :) an adventure of a lifetime right?

Seriously, does reading with this view get better?
Can I take this chair back with me?
Or the view?