Up & Go

It's not always easy keeping up with the spontaneity of the military but we also can't help but appreciate the freedom we have to just "up and go" at any moment, plus have the support we need from friends and family to maintain sanity through the whole process. It sure makes life exciting for all of us! By now many of you know, Danno's temporary assignment for the next 6 months brought all of us to visit CA sooner than we expected. With only one week's notice, we hustled our way out of Okinawa so he could catch a few days of leave back home, at the same time Leyna and I could begin a nice CA vacation.

The flight was Leyna's 2nd time to fly, but of course severely longer than her first trip to Tokyo at 5 months old. Anticipating the difficulty to take such a long flight alone with her, I was thrilled Danno was able to get the same commercial flight as us. Actually, I was relieved that he even made it on the flight, considering he left base with his orders in hand just 50 minutes prior to departure (and still had to pick up his luggage at home and get to the airport)! I stepped into the check-in line still not knowing for sure if he'd make it on time. Yes, it couldn't have gotten any closer...we were those people you see running to the gate while they make the final call for passengers!

That adventurous start made anything following seem not so bad...even the 3 hr delay of our connecting flight in Tokyo equaling 5 hrs layover really didn't bother us. Leyna practically slept the entire flight to CA and only woke up once to throw up all over me and go back to sleep (thank goodness I brought extra clothes for the both of us!) Nothing could overshadow that fact that we were able to be with each other!

Killin time in the airport mall, Leyna-Chan can't get enough of Sato-Chan, famous mascot of Japan's Sato Pharmaceutical company. Part of the list of things Danno is sure to miss...gotta enjoy some sushi before leaving Japan!Its been just 2 weeks since we up and went, and there's lots of CA fun to share, so stay tuned...

Leyna's 1st Birthday!

4th of July for us will never be the same now that it's also a day to celebrate the birth of our lil angel Leyna! You can revisit her birth story on our old post here. Oh what a blessing she has been to us this past year, and it has certainly made our lives all the more exciting and made the time here on island fly by so fast!

The big day began with Leyna's dedication ceremony at church. We had waited until now to do it since we wanted to make sure we had a church that we could call "home"...and we're very happy to say that we finally do have one! So here's some pics of our pastor presenting Leyna to the church and explaining our commitment as parents to raise her according to God's Word and to guide her in His ways. The congregation then responds with a commitment to support us in this task as well. What better way to start the day than to have so many pray for Leyna and vow to love and care for her!Since we couldn't make it to CA to throw her big 1st birthday as we had originally planned, we wanted to make sure to give her a nice party here in Oki. We were fortunate to reserve one of our favorite little Japanese cafes as the venue, and of course mommy had a great time getting carried away with planning all the details! All the late nights of designing, crafting, assembling, cooking...sure was worth it! Most importantly Leyna had a no-fuss time as Birthday Girl and happily played with her lil buddies, enjoyed opening her gifts, and got to dig into her first birthday cake. She was surprisingly a "dainty" eater, didn't seem as interested at first and just barely nibbled the icing, and then only cared to eat her cake using a fork! Well done Leyna, though that was the one time everyone was eager for you to get super messy! haha. We were also able to video conference the party with the grandparents so we were glad they could catch a glimpse of all the fun and wish her happy birthday live from across the ocean.

Since we were so caught up in the party, we didn't take photos ourselves. So here's a video slideshow of the photos from the photographer ! (I'd understand if some of you stop reading after watching the slideshow...so all the stuff below it is for those would appreciate hearing more about all the little details of the party!)



So here's to breakdown all the details since I don't have photos of everything... Decor: The theme was Surfer Girl "Ready for the Big One" which meant a birthday Luau. My cardstock didn't come in time to create physical invites, so we went with a much more practical online invitation via her website. Instead of balloons, we went with the modern look of tissue paper pom-poms, along with cute signage, hibiscus flowers, leis for people big n small to fashion, and scattered mini beach balls for the kiddos (to also take home with them). Simple cups adorned with mini leis and filled with tropical starbursts were centerpiece treats. As a guestbook, we had a custom 3ft surfboard shaped from wood in which I applied a personalized logo, and we had people sign messages on the back. Leyna always likes playing with it and standing on the board =)Food n Favors: I had a great time with the food, making everything and coming up with creative names for them and labeling them with tented cards. The adult menu included...Kahlua Pork Sliders, Cowabunga Croquettes (provided by the cafe), Maui Macaroni Salad, Paradise Eggs (I tried to make the deviled eggs look like pineapples), Big Kahuna Crudite, Rainbow Kabobs (skewered fruit), Sunset Jello (multi-layered strawberry, orange, lemon jello in a cup). The kids menu included Tsunami Sandwiches (wave shaped pb&j), Shaka Swirls (tortilla spirals of cream cheese, deli chicken n avocado), Five-O Fruit Packs (Fruit puree in pouches), Da Kine dipped sticks (choco n strawberry pokey sticks) and lil snack pails for them to fill with various goodies like Grom Puffs, Hang Ten Honey Grahams, Longboard Rice Crackers, and Humuhumunukunukuapua'a (playing off the actual state fish of Hawai'i, but they were just goldfish crackers). And of course we hired someone to make a cake and cupcake tier that resulted close enough to my vision. Favors were Luau rubber duckies and sunglasses for the kiddos, and Surfboard cookies..all with custom labels of course!
Now I must mention the cafe's staff (we had 2 workers) were more friendly and helpful than we would ever imagine. Only in Japan would they take photos during your event, print out "thank you" photos adorned with lil graphics for us to give our guests as they leave, and also give us a mini scrapbook made of construction paper filled with some photos from the day. And that's in addition to normal service, cooking croquettes, refilling food & drink, cleaning up messes...Oh and they took home and washed Leyna's birthday dress and bib for us. What outstanding service!

Well lastly I'll just mention some big thanks...to Danno for enduring the "artistic mess" in the house among so many other things you did to help!...to Esther for supplying all the cute lil signs and leis (which as you can see we really found a use for al of them!)...to Bryn for helping assemble the ducky favors and especially letting me utilize her American oven that allowed me to bake the batches cookies much faster than if I used our Japanese oven!...to Precious for helping me with tissue pom pom experiments and both you and Mike for helping us with clean up afterward!...Narumi for the wonderful venue and super staff...Lolo & Lola for helping us throw a great party for Leyna...and thanks readers for surviving this long post!

Leyna Grocery Shopping

Gotta love the mini grocery carts at the market. Here's Leyna's first time with them. Can't quite reach the handles yet, but she sure looks like a natural! Who would have thought shopping could be so cute...

An Eventful Start

We began the month of July with Danno's promotion ceremony to Captain. That's right, no more "Lt. Da-an" I was happy to witness it this time around, and proudly pinned his new rank insignia with lil Leyna by our sides. Way to go Danno, we're so proud of you!
Along with his promotion came news that soon he might be sent on a "vacation" as they call it. Of course we will spare any of the details here, but certainly if it goes through Leyna and I plan to visit CA sooner than you may expect. There's always the potential that things can change last minute. So first thing's first, Leyna's 1st Birthday was next on our list! We'll be sure to post the pics from the photographer soon...