Taipei, Taiwan

Today we got to tour around just a few places in Taipei Taiwan.

Our cute little tour bus! It isn't much but it was great considering the whole thing was free!!

The second tallest building in the world (was the tallest in 2004) : Taipei 101 (it has 101 floors).

Back at the airport for dinner. Yummy dumplings! 

Our flight to Sydney leaves tonight at 11:30pm. Tomorrow when we wake up to land, we will be in Australia!

Happy New Year!!

So this morning on the last day of 2013, I thought I would be good by going on a morning run. It was a little wet so I as I ran down my hill I thought I need to be careful and not slip and then right after that my foot hit a slightly raised part of a sidewalk slab and I went down. 

I have a great pic of my hands all bloody but I thought I would spare those that don't like that kind of stuff. I mostly caught myself on my left hand - the tan bandaide just barely covers my really bad cut. I also super rehurt my left wrist, hurt my right wrist, scraped both my knees, and my left shoulder. So instead of going out to party tonight I sat on the couch hurting all over. Even on painkillers my wrists and hand hurt really bad. I just hope they are ok by tomorrow before we leave on our cruise! 

Logan and me watched the first hobbit movie and enjoyed a yummy brisket and homemade rolls I made today. I have to say I'm pretty proud of myself for making such a good dinner mostly one handed. 

Then we finished up the night with Martinelli sparkling cider and going on a short walk to watch the fireworks from the hill we live on that were going off over the ocean. Happy New Year!

What did you guys going to do for New Years?! Have you made any New Years Resolutions?

Christmas Time!

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Logan and me have been having a great break! Sushi for Christmas Eve lunch, hanging out with good friends, eating lots and lots of yummy food and then getting to open presents! 

This is our first year of having Christmas by ourselves. We tried to make sure we still did some of our favorite traditions like candles on Christmas Eve and for Logan sticky buns for Christmas day breakfast. 

Here are a few shots from Christmas morning. We are having our real Christmas present in January when we go on our cruise, so we decided to keep things small this year. Logan totally cheated and surprised me with a new ipod! 

Look at all that great stuff! It was fun but we definitely missed all our family!

Later that night we had a few people over for Christmas dinner and I made Lasagna and bread sticks. I hope you all had a great day too!

Snowflakes in Okinawa

So for a fun Sunday night activity I got Logan to make paper snowflakes with me! (Look at him concentrating so hard!)

Here are our first ones. I had to go and look up how to make them six sided and once we figured that out they looked pretty good after that!

It almost looks like it is really snowing in the living room! Oh well, it was fun. I'll clean it up tomorrow :)

Look what I found!

On our date tonight we went to the bx and were looking at the toys. I found my mini me! If you guys haven't seen the movie yet, you should. It is really cute! 

Maybe I should start wearing my hair in braids. 

The hair on the doll had fallen forward just like my bangs! She had the light stripe of hair in the same spot too! I just parted my hair over further today by coincidence and it was showing one part of my hair that is more blond. 

Me trying not to laugh. It is hard to smile without showing your teeth when you are so used to the other way.

And here are some pics of Logan trying to look like a serial killer with assorted gardening tools.

Scary!

Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium

 Logan and I went to the famous Aquarium here! It was really fun! Here is just a handful of some of the pictures. 

I have a lot more but wanted it to still be exciting and new for when my mom and dad come to see it in April!

Food Fair, Baby Pics, Birthday, Thanksgiving, Black Friday and Farmers Market

I have had some busy weeks and I was trying to decided on if I should do multiple posts or just one big one. I decided on doing one big post so get ready! Here we go!

On Saturday afternoon I went to a food fair with some of my friends. For about $10 you get three tickets that you use to try different main dishes from the venders there.  After that, you take the red pair of chopsticks they give you and vote on your favorite! 

After that, I got to take new born pictures of Claire and Sean's baby! I had been excited for it all week! When I'm finished editing them I will have to post a few pictures. 

The next day, I got to pick up Logan from the air port!! I had to wait all day and then at 9:30pm drive about an hour down to the international airport (always a little scary driving somewhere you have never been and at night). I was pretty proud of finding the right gate he would be coming out of and then got to give him the biggest hug ever! I know he was only gone a month but it is just amazing having him back! I love that boy so much!! 

This week was full of birthday and Thanksgiving prep!! The day before my birthday, Logan and I got a hour-long aromatherapy couples massages! It was awesome and so relaxing! You got to choose the essential oils they used and I picked Frankincense, Peppermint and Grapefruit. I also loved the hot stones they used on our feet. It was a fun experience. 

For my birthday, Logan took me out to eat at the seaside restaurant and I got shrimp scampi pizza (it was really good!) and we ate dinner as we watched the sun set over the ocean. SO BEAUTIFUL! 

After dinner, we meet up with my new friends and saw Frozen. It was really cute, and very funny and I can't wait to watch it again! Then we went back to our house for blueberry cheesecake and ice cream! 

One of the couples know that I also love the show Friends and gave me a themed gift! I was pretty proud of knowing the exact episode they were referencing when I opened it up and pulled out a bunch of random things. It was actually pretty funny and I was impressed with their cleverness. 

The next day was Thanksgiving! We had my friends Claire and Sean and his mother Sue over so they could still have a nice dinner without having to cook it all with a new little baby or go to the church potluck with a ton of people. Sue was so nice and helped me get everything finished! I couldn't have done it without her help! I told her it was my first time doing Thanksgiving on my own but I was still glad I was able to borrow a mother to get everything done! 

The purple sweet potato casserole Claire made was awesome and everyone really liked my homemade dinner rolls. All the food turned out great! Claire also made a pecan pie cheesecake that was so good I will need to make for Thanksgiving from now on. Next year, I also want to work on presentation and to have some cute decorations. Baby steps. 

On Black Friday around noon, Logan and me finally made it out to see how crazy the shopping was. Here on the Island, only the American's have Thanksgiving and Black Friday, so the small stores on base are the only places that have sales. We ended up getting some tupperware and scuba/snorkeling boots! 

Starting on Monday, Logan and me are going on a healthy eating plan before our cruise in January! We learned last time that you need to be at least 5 pounds less going on the ship then you want to be coming off. Plus it is good to be in shape for all the adventuring! We went back to my favorite farmer markets today to get stocked up! 

 

We got lots of yummy, good-for-you food plus some new things to try and Okinawan tofu that was still warm from being made today! Can't wait to try it all out! It was the first time that Logan had been to one of the farmer markets and I have never seen him so excited to be in a grocery store before. He kept walking off and then bringing back different things and asking what they were. I'm actually pretty good at identifying different fruits and vegetables. 

One last thing we did today was find some cushions for the patio furniture. It has been hard because the seats are really deep and I can't get any sites to ship to me (too big) so we were pretty happy with what we found! 

 

Thanks for making it all the way through this post! I hope you all had a happy Thanksgiving and are getting excited for the Holidays!