Behind the Scenes

When we first moved to Okinawa, I discovered a modeling agency just down the street from of our home. I figured it wouldn't hurt to put Leyna into their database, so she's been in there since the minimum age of 10 months old. It wasn't until last October Leyna was chosen for a photoshoot for Nissen, an online retailer of Japanese clothing. I was eager to see the resulting photos, but since there's so many children in their catalogs, the agency doesn't track down which one your kid would show up in, so it'd be up to us to order catalogs and hope to find her in one at some point. Well, we never ordered their catalogs but just the other day I was lucky enough to stumble upon her photos on the company's website. The clothing line is for this year's Summer Collection.

Now that these are released I can show you some behind the scenes fun. The day started early and they shuttled all the lil models to a beach resort. All lot of waiting goes on throughout the day between the changes of wardrobe, locations, and models. So basically the main task is to keep the kids occupied, happy, and tear-free in preparation for only the few minutes they will actually be behind camera. Leyna did a great job of lounging around.
This tiny hermit crab kept her entertained for a long time.

Leyna watching them get ready for the first kids .

Leyna and the 2 other models for the day.

It was finally Leyna's turn. Leyna never let me put her hair up before, though I always tried, so I was anxious to see what would happen when they did it!

Amazingly she kept her pigtails in the whole day! phew! I couldn't take photos during the shoot since I was busy directing her - keeping her smiling, getting her to look this way n that, having her chase me around etc. A minute of smiles and done. They said she did great for her first time!

Right back for a wardrobe change.

Keep em happy with sweets!

Round 2 went great. Then back to waiting and enjoying the beautiful weather...

Round 3. This was my favorite outfit for her =)

Final outfit. The hat made me nervous since it has a strap underneath her neck and she's very sensitive to anything touching her throat. Hopefully the other lady could keep her distracted!

...there she goes tugging at it. But they managed to get the shots they needed!

Overall it was a fun experience to have. Leyna enjoyed her Japanese pudding dessert in the end. mm mm good. That's a wrap!

Here's some links to her shots

Link 1 

Link 2 

Link 3

Link 4

Easter 2012: Part 2

Our church family has been such a big part of our love for Okinawa. After 3 years of watching others come and go, it was weird to finally be that family standing at the front with the mic, talking about what we'll miss and what God has taught us during our time in Okinawa. When we first arrived on island, we were approaching our 2nd year of marriage, with our first baby on the way, and it was our first duty station -- life was already extremely different from when we were back home. But God knew the kind of support we needed and didn't fail to provide it! We found our place amidst a small intimate church where we connected with families young and old, where we could be influenced and nurtured by those more experienced than us, and we even became close friends with our pastor and his family. Easter with our church was the perfect time to spend some last moments with everyone.

Here's our Pastor and his lovely family. We've never become so close to our church pastor before (quite hard to when always attending large churches!) so we're definitely thankful our paths crossed and that we could serve together. We'll sure miss you guys and the great times hanging out, chatting late night, playing the game Settlers, and of course our awesome arrangement of swapping babysitting! Leyna will definitely miss her best friend Justin!

After a great celebration service, we had the annual big Easter event at Comprehensive Park, with games, egg hunts, potluck picnic, and just good ole lounging around in the beautiful Okinawan weather(thankfully we were rain free this year!)







The wonderful Fernandez family was in our first small group, so they've watched Leyna grow since before she was one. Leyna was always drawn to their daughter, Danielle, so naturally Danielle became Leyna's first babysitter and a great one she was! They're a solid family of the Word and we've gained so much valuable parenting advice from them. We're definitely thankful for their wisdom and support!

Our friend Joe and his cool kids (his lovely wife Wendy isn't pictured). Joe's a super dad, Pampered Chef rep, great scuba instructor, and has been an awesome spiritual accountability for Danno in our church's men's ministry. Leyna had a blast with their family when Courtney would babysit her. Their family's fun spirit is always uplifting and contagious - never a dull moment!

April and her sweet daughters. Her husband Zach had been deployed at this time, so we missed him, but he safely returned just after we moved off the island (Welcome back Zach!). Their family had been part of our 2nd small group this past year and it's been such a joy to know them, laugh with them, and grow as a family with them. We always loved to see Leyna having such a great time with the girls and we know she'll miss the good times with them too.

Shastity, Jeremy & Jr. were also in our 2nd small group. They're another wonderful family rooted in Christ and have been a huge blessing and spiritual support to us. Shastity grew to become like a sister to me - a rare friendship you don't come across often, and surely one to value for a lifetime!


Leyna's new classmate, Kaia, started coming to our church so Leyna really enjoyed playing with her friend. The two were having endless fun just jumping in place!

Here' pics of Leyna with her best buddy Justin. Leyna lights up hearing his name, and when they're together, they've got amazing energy that could easily outlast the Energizer bunny! Babysitting is so easy when they're together.

What a great lil group. Leyna will miss Justin & his lil brother Noah!


Finally a pic with mommy =)

Woohoo fun times! Another memorable Easter.

Easter 2012: Part 1

Since this was not only our last Easter in Okinawa, but also our last full weekend in Japan, we wanted to spend as much time with our friends as possible. We were happy to have many opportunities to do so with all the non-stop activities surrounding Easter.  Being in the midst of an overseas move, this could easily be overwhelming and tiresome. We had just been packed out of our house, moved into temporary lodging, living out of our piles of suitcases, let alone many things to sell and many things left to do on the check-out list.  But turns out it was well worth to put the stresses of moving aside for these final moments with our wonderful Okinawa friends!

Our lil bunny's first Easter egg hunt was with her classmates at school.

Leyna was particular about which eggs she wanted to keep. Finding Nemo, yes...Marvel super heroes, no thanks! And I finally saw why she came home with purple on her clothes earlier that week =)

So happy Daddy could be there with us!

Our good friend from church Shastity and her son Jeremy Jr.

All done and ready to go!

As we've done every year, we had Good Friday dinner and service with our church. Afterwards we attended a friend's 30th birthday and I was meeting new people who I would have enjoyed getting to know more (of course that happens just as you're leaving island!) The following day our friends from church had a lil Easter party for the kids since they would be gone in Tokyo on Easter Sunday. It kicked off with some sugar cookie decorating...

Daddy helped Leyna with the decorating. She was the only one who didn't bother to eat any of it, but instead found it more entertaining to mash her cookies together like a sandwich and call it a day. haha

Vera doing a great job decorating and taste testing

Eli kept his cookie in order but snuck in some runaway jellybeans

Line up to get more goodies outside!

The eggs were wiped out so fast. You can see Leyna's lightning speed compared to Harrison. Keep on huntin Leyna!

Started off slow, but pickin up the pace...

Good job Leyna! She even picked some that had money in it! woohoo

Eli jolly as can be. Thanks Burtons for the great time!