Cold Performance!

Sydney and Morgan had the opportunity to perform their little gymnastics routines in the annual Tinseltown event here on Kadena. Unfortunately, the weather was FREEZING - yes, I know not freezing to our loved ones in the States, but it was freezing for Okinawa. Poor kids were blue in their gymnastics leotards. Sydney wasn't feeling well, but performed anyway. They had fun and then got to walk in the parade with their team. Brenna started our morning with an OUTDOOR swimmeet! Again, it was FREEZING! Poor Brenna was shaking and blue, but she cut time in all three of her events! Way to go! (sorry, no pictures for that one).

Sydney Turns 6!

Sydney had a great birthday! We started the count down while we were in Cambodia and the day finally arrived. I swear she has grown 6 inches this year! All of her pants are too short - luckily we live where they can become capris! Sydney wanted to do a party at the bowling alley = totally stress free party for mom and dad! It was a lot of fun. Now the 6 year old kindergartener thinks she rules the roost!

Gabriel Adventure - Cambodia Leg (November 10-15)

Our second part of the trip was a trek to Cambodia. We had a lot of fears going into the trip - mostly about mosquitoes and our safety, but we planned well and ended up fine. I had coordinated our trip with a WONDERFUL young woman, Roath, who took us under her wing and gave us the tour of a lifetime (if anyone wants to visit Cambodia, I will get you in touch with Roath!). She and I prioritized our visit, so we could take advantage of seeing the most significant things in our short visit. Our entire stay was in the town of Siem Reap - home of Angkor Wat, Cambodia's spiritual heartland. Siem Reap is a bustling town (about a million people) with tourism as it's main source of income. We can't even begin to contrast Singapore with Siem Reap - they are of two different worlds. Although we found the conditions in Cambodia to be vastly different from the way we live, the culture and people are rich with happiness and everyone always had a smile to offer. The temples of Angkor Wat were fascinating. At times we felt like Indiana Jones during our exploring. These Buddhist and Hindu temples date back to the 9th through the 14th centuries and most of them are still in fairly good condition. It was amazing to see the details in the walls and to try to imagine how they actually built these great structures (Angkor Wat took roughly 39 years to build). Roath was very knowledgeable on the history, so it was great to learn about Cambodian history through her. We visited Angkor Wat, Ta Prohm, Angkor Thom/Bayon, Banteray Srey and Preah Kahn. Personally, my favorite was Bayon - at one time it had hundreds of Buddha faces, now about 60.

The other side of our trip consisted of learning about the people in Siem Reap and in the outlying villages. We visited a Floating Village on Tonle Sap Lake - the largest lake in Cambodia. It was amazing and different to see how these people live. Evidently, it is free for the people to live on water, so that is why they choose to live there. Most families have a floating raft for houses and they use the lake water for everything (cooking, drinking, eating from, laundry, bathing, toilet and garbage bin). We saw a floating school, church, pig farm, and stores. It was incredible.

One special occasion we got to partake in was the Water Festival in Siem Reap. It is a three day festival and it brought in many people from the countryside. Truckloads of people came into town to make their "wishes" or "offerings". Roath and Sydney had a special shopping trip, where they bought floating wreaths with candles and incense for each of us. We then went to the river and made our wish floating them down the river.

Meeting handfuls of Cambodian children was also a highlight of our trip. We had brought an assortment of little toys to share with some of the kids. It was a big hit and I am glad we took the time to share. The girls were a big hit with the locals and foreigners. Their hair and cheeks got touched many times each day and they had numerous photo ops with various people. We visited the Green Gecko Project, a worthy non-profit organization whose goal is to keep the kids off the streets. They have 65 kids that they are currently seeing through their program. We were impressed with them and the girls had a great time interacting with the kids in the program. I will include a link on our blog to the Green Gecko, in case you are ever looking for a cause to contribute to.

There is much too much to write about to possibly explain our visit to Cambodia. I feel like the highlights from this visit are 1) Meeting Roath and getting the opportunity to gain first hand knowledge about the history and people of Cambodia - we really hope our paths will cross again sometime in the future 2) Seeing the temples of Angkor Wat and surrounding Siem Reap, and 3)lasting memories - our visit will forever change how our small family views life and the lives of others. I'm sure I will add more bits and pieces as I think of them, but enjoy the various pictures I chose to include in the slide show. It really was awesome.

Gabriel Adventure - Singapore Leg (November 6-10)

We just got back from a wonderful 10 Day trip to Singapore and Cambodia. I can't begin to explain the education we got from this outstanding trip. It was by far one of the best trips we have ever taken. Our adventure started in Singapore, a modern city full of beautiful skyscrapers, fun ethnic neighborhoods, great restaurants, shopping, and family attractions. It was a fast paced city, very clean, very safe, and full of interesting things to see and do. We went to a Bird Park, Night Safari, Singapore Zoo, Sentosa Island, Chinatown, Little India, Arab Street, and Clark Quay. Needless to say, we walked and saw a lot in the four days we were visiting. The weather was hot and steamy, so it was fun to relax at the rooftop pool in our hotel. The only drawback of Singapore is how expensive it is, otherwise, it would be a great place to live! It has everything to offer and more. We were glad to have had the opportunity to see it first hand. You'll have to put your cursor over the pictures to see the titles and then we are off to a different kind of life . . .

Happy Halloween

We had a great time on Halloween again this year. We had a Good Fairy, a Wicked Witch, and Dorothy! The kids started right at 6:00 and stayed out until about 7:30 -well, Sydney pooped out early, so she helped me hand out candy to hoards of kids. I ran out of candy at 7:09 and all the kids started yelling, "This house is out of candy!" I really thought I had bought enough, but I guess not. There were probably upwards of 400 kids this year - military kids and Japanese locals. Fun times.

First Day of School - 2nd Year in Okinawa

Okinawa started school on August 25th this year and the Gabriels now have kids in two different schools. Brenna has the privilege of being the first class in the new middle school! So far she is loving every minute of it! Morgan and Sydney are at Kadena Elementary school, and they love it!!! It looks like everyone is going to have a great school year.

Okuma Weekend

We had a nice weekend away with our friends, the Clarks: Keith, Lori, Laci, Landry, Courtney, and Haley, up at Okuma - the Air Force "Motel 6 on the Beach." It was a great weekend. The weather was perfect and we were all happy to be at the beach. The kids had a lot of fun with all of the water activities: jet ski, inner tubes, swimming and even diving! We adults got a chance to take turns diving and it was some of the best diving we have experienced since we started. Okuma is definitely a resort with the best activities!!

Unwanted House Guest

This HUGE Banana Spider has decided to take up residence in our backyard tree. We do not appreciate his decision and will be eliminating him from the premise in the very near future. Keep in mind all of you animal lovers, this spider has a leg span larger than my hand and the body is as big as my index finger. CREEPY!!

Our summer trip HOME to the USA

Med Group Combat Dining Out

We had a fun night of combat waterfighting at our first ever Combat Dining Out. It was a fun night - nothing like I have ever experienced before. We went with our friends Liz and John and Carrie and Steve and that made the night great. The girls and I hired an Okinawan lady to come to our house and alter the BDU's that we were wearing. She was an expert seamstress!! Great fun here on Okinawa!

IE Island Weekend

We took a trip off Okinawa to neighboring IE Island over Memorial Weekend. It was approximately 45 minutes by ferry, and they have a wonderful little resort over there. The island is very small - only took us about an hour to drive around it, and it is mostly a farming and cattle raising community. We loved the quiet beaches and the resort. The resort caters to the Americans, so we actually saw people we knew, but it was still a great weekend of relaxation for us. We will definitely go back for special occasions. There isn't much to see or do on the island, but we hit all of the main attractions. IE Island is known for their lily fields, which are in bloom in early May (we missed the best showing, but still saw some), caves in which 1000's of people hid in during the bombing of WWII, Ernie Pyle's Memorial, and Mt. Gusuku which is the lone high peak on the island. It was about 300 steep steps up the mountain to get there, but the panoramic view was awesome. There was a geo-cache that we found on the tippy top, so the kids were excited about that. Dinner at the resort was ok, but we preferred our night "in town" where we chose via a picture menu - no English anywhere!! Everyone was sad when we had to board the ferry back to Okinawa. It was a great weekend.

Sydney GRADUATES from Preschool!

Little Sydney is no longer a preschooler! As of May 23rd, she is finished with preschool and is officially ready for kindergarten next year. She is feeling pretty proud of herself and now asks, everyday, "what do we have today, mom?" She had a fun year in Kuwae Preschool and she will miss her little friends!! The pictures above are of Mrs. Travis and Kaori-San, Sydney's two teachers, and of Sydney and Amari, Sydney's closest preschool friend.

Morgan's 7th Birthday Celebrations!

Morgan had a great 7th birthday!!! She celebrated over the course of a week, with a family birthday, actual birthday, and friend birthday! It was a beautiful day for a beach party themed birthday bash! My neighbor and I planned the birthday party together, because Emma and Morgan's birthdays were within one week of each other. It was an awesome party. The weather was wonderful (about 75 and NOT HUMID!!), the sun came out, and the kids had a blast on the gigantic slip and slide bouncy house. I think we had approximately 45 people come to the picnic/party. Dan did all the cooking and the manly lifting (our neighbor Mark is deployed to Afghanistan right now), and Andrea and I did all the cooking (or ordering from the commissary). Everyone had a great time!!!

Cast Away!!

The day finally arrived and Morgan was thrilled! Can you tell by her cute smile? She was all smiles - all day! We had a minor panic attack when we arrived at the clinic and they told us her doctor was out sick and we would have to reschedule for later in the week, but mom put her foot down and after waiting an hour and a half another doc worked us into his schedule. It was worth it. Her arm is completely healed and she just needs to use caution when playing!! No big deal and our daily lives are back to normal! She feels "free!"

Spring Break trip to Kyoto, Japan

Hi Everyone!! We just got back from our first adventure off the island of Okinawa!! It was great to get away and travel a bit in this area of the world. We decided our first trip would be to Kyoto, Japan, and it was an awesome choice!! We were there for 5 days and 4 nights, which was enough, but not enough. Kyoto is a thriving metropolis (over 1 million people), but it is the oldest city and Japan's first capitol. Kyoto is one of the only cities that survived the bombing during the war, so despite the modern updates, all of the temples and shrines have survived. It was an impressive visit, to say the least. The kids did really great - even though it was not exactly a "kids" vacation (I'm sure they would have much rather been listening to the Japanese version of "It's a Small World . . .", but maybe another time). We booked our hotel and flight through the base travel company, but other than that, we planned our touring on our own. Dan mastered the bus schedule and we ended up using the express train, subway, city buses, and a taxi - OH! Did I mention WALKING??? We probably put 20 miles on our shoes! I had planned several tours, mostly led by local people, and they turned out really well. Our favorite was a Goodwill tour given by a 2nd year college student. Her name was Shoko and she was a beautiful young lady who spent 9 hours with our family - all for FREE! We paid her way into the places we saw, fed her lunch and snacks, but she was volunteering and wouldn't accept any money for compensation! She was a wonderful tour guide, loved the kids, and we had the greatest day with her. I think we covered almost the entire city with her. I lost count of how many busses we took that day. Anyway, we also took a tour with a gentleman who is married to an ex-Geisha. Now, he was a little bit of a shady character, but the information he provided on the life of the Geisha (about 200 still active in Kyoto, compared to over 1000 in the earlier days) was interesting. I'm hoping the girls don't remember too much from that tour, as some of the information he provided was not so much for kid's ears! We maybe saw two Maiko (Geisha apprentices), but our tour guide thought they were "fakes so I don't know. I included a few pictures of them, because they were the only ones we saw, and it gives you an idea of what they would look like. The food in Japan still is taking some getting use to, so McDonalds was a welcome sight for the kids! We gave in a number of times as a reward! So much for trying the local cuisine! One day, we took a side trip down to Nara, which was about an hour and a half train ride away. There we saw the tallest temple and the largest Buddah in the world. Sydney also got head butted by "tame" deer that wander throughout the parks looking for food. That was another great day, though. The torii gates at Fushimi Inari Shrine were fun to run through and I actually think the kids really liked that day and the things we saw. I guess I better mention one other thing that the kids probably enjoyed most - the Japanese bathhouse. Our hotel had a bathhouse, and every evening we went down to bathe and soak in a very hot and relaxing hot pool. Of course, bathing suits were not allowed, so we got to wear our birthday suits to this venue. Morgan and Sydney had a ball, mom endured it because the hot tub was awesome, and Brenna finally joined us on the last two days. Dan went to the mens bath after I told him of our experience and also enjoyed the relaxation. There were loads of tourists in Kyoto, many Europeans and Chinese people, but I often found people snapping pictures of our girls, who stood out like sore thumbs with their brightly colored rain jackets and blonde hair. I swear we were the only ones wearing any color! Anyway, the kids impressed the locals with a few phrases and conversation with the Japanese they have learned, and it was nice interacting with the friendly people. I've probably written a book, so don't feel bad if you had to skim read!! It was a really neat city! Now it is back to work here. Brenna and Morgan start basketball this week, Morgan gets her cast off, and Sydney gets registered for Kindergarten!!! OH! I forgot to mention that I am now a working mom! Wish me luck! More on that in another blog. Ta-ta- for now folks!

Yoron Update

Just wanted to let everyone know that Brenna arrived home safely last night. She had a WONDERFUL trip, didn't miss us one bit, and wished it would have been longer!! We are so happy for her. Her Minshiku group was very tight knit and she had an AWESOME leader who rallied everyone together. Evidently, there were floods of tears during the good bye. Brenna became close to two Japanese girls, who will try to become penpals. The communication was mostly done through body language and typical girl giggles, but amazingly enough, Brenna said they became fast friends. She also met several new girls from different schools, and we will try to get them together whenever we can. Brenna kept a journal, so I am hoping she will write up a story about her trip, when things calm down. She did admit that she didn't try one bite of fish (it was served at every meal along with some sea weed), but she found other things to sustain her throughout the trip. She is also glad to have our Westernized toilets back - she had to use the squatty potty the whole time on the island! It was hard getting her up and rolling for school this morning, but she only has two days until spring break!!

SURVIVOR -- YORON ISLAND

Team Skoshi

5 days

4 nights

4 hour ferry ride

1 1/2 mile hike

100 American kids

100 Japanese kids

100 Indonesian kids

10 Minshiku houses

30 chaperones

10 teams

rice, fish, seaweed - ALL native food

HUGE AMOUNT OF FUN!

EXPERIENCE OF A LIFETIME!

To view more info on Brenna's Survivor Adventure click:

http://www.okinawa.pac.dodea.edu/Welcome/Gouldman2/index.html

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter everyone! We hope you all had a great day. We had a quiet day with church early then a brunch with 3 other families at one of the Marine O'Clubs. It was a nice, but very wet day!! Luckily, the Easter Bunny had brought a Wii system for the girls, so we had a lot of indoor fun with the new games. Sydney has fast become the bowling champion already. Leave it to Syd to master a game! I think her record is 7 strikes in a row. Anyway, we were thinking of everyone and hope all is well across the continents! We are really looking forward to our upcoming trip to Kyoto on mainland Japan, so look for those pictures in April!

Rare Opportunity

We were out shopping one Saturday, during our "confinement period" and decided to take Dan to the Marine Corp Gift Corner. He had never been, and I thought he needed to see the treasures I keep talking about. Well, the girls each had their own money, so they went off looking at the latest shipment of treasures. I was off browsing the new merchandise brought in from Thailand, and Dan was kind of just wandering around trying to keep track of all of us. Well, evidently, he was people watching and noticed two very beautiful women shopping. I was much too busy picking out some new lanterns for my front door step. Anyway, Morgan and Sydney were standing in line to make their purchases and one of the beautiful girls struck up a conversation with her. After Morgan was done, she wandered outside and sat down to wait. The girls came out and kept on talking with Morgan and then Brenna. Pretty soon we hear, "Can Morgan's dad come out here please?" Well, my heart sank. I was thinking something got broken or something. It turned out that the director of the USO was just seeking permission to photograph our girls. The two beautiful women were Miss USA, Rachel Smith and Miss Teen USA, Hilary Cruz, who were on Okinawa as a morale booster for the troops. I was floored and disappointed that I hadn't been paying more attention to the people, Dan was stunned, and the girls were on Cloud 9. You can view Rachel Smith's blog at http://www.missusa.com/missusa/blog.php She is as gorgeous in person as she is in her photos. It was a great day and experience for all of us.