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.

Morgan's Tough Break!

Well, we have our first ever Gabriel broken bone - or FRACTURE, as Morgan would like us to call it. On Saturday, Morgan fell off a swing at the park (yes, she was swinging very high, but not goofing around), when she slipped off and used her arms to brace her fall. She came running at me with limp arms - all shook up and crying. Dan and I waited overnight, but it became apparent that she needed to be seen first thing on Monday. Sure enough, the X-rays showed a buckle fracture on her radius. Four or so weeks in the cast. She had some anxiety going into the casting, but actually did extremely well. She is getting a lot of attention, which I'm sure will last a little while, but is embarassed about wearing a cast. All is well and it could have been a lot worse, so we are thankful! Now, we just have to deal with the inconvenience of having the darn thing on her arm - I'm sure others out there can sympathize and understand fully what we are going to be going through. She already discovered an alternate use for her chopstick - a good scratcher for a hard to get itch!!

Brenna Turns 11!! EEKS!

On February 22, Brenna turned 11! Where has time gone?? She had a great day - even had her party on her actual birthday! She invited 9 girls. Let's do some quick math: 9 girls + our 3 girls + 1 mom = 13 girls under one roof. Dan was somewhere in the house, I think . . . Anyway, it was a fun filled night with a High School Musical theme. They watched several High School Musical movies, danced, sang and did Karoke. Around 12:30AM, mom and dad had about enough of the loud fun (keep in mind, we live in a VERY, VERY, small house!!!), but Brenna reports that several stayed up until about 2:30AM! UGH! Everyone was all smiles in the morning, so I guess the event was a huge success! Happy Birthday Brenna!

President's Day Getaway

We took a long weekend and went up to our favorite private haven - Oura Wan Beach Cabins on Camp Schwab. It was totally relaxing and the rain even let up for the weekend. We took one day and headed north on the eastern side of the island and found a really neat park. The kids had fun interacting with a group of Japanese kids that were there. It was very cute. The Japanese kids would say "hallo!", then giggle, giggle, giggle! They tittered even harder when our girls responded with "konichiwa!" It was a neat cultural exchange. Of course, this all happened before all of us 'violent, horrible, corrupt' Americans were banned from entering the community. For all of you who haven't heard the latest, due to some idiot Marines, all SOFA status persons assigned to Okinawa have been restricted from conducting any sort of business outside of the bases. This means no restaurants, shopping, going to parks, beaches, etc . . . we can only do this on the bases. It is a period of reflection for us to reflect on how we are suppose to behave in our host country. Long story short, it has made for some uncomfortable times here on Okinawa. It is unknown how long the reflecting will last - hopefully, not too much longer! We are craving some sushi and ramen! I'll keep you posted on the details as they unravel.