Sesame Street Live!

We missed Sesame Street coming to Okinawa while we were on the cruise and I was a bit bummed. Elmo is Grace's FAVORITE character. Well, I found out that Elmo & Friends will be about an hour from my parents house this weekend!! We are going tomorrow night!! Grace will be SO excited!!!

New Pictures!!!

Anytime my Mom visits us or we visit her Grace gets new pictures made. We are going to have so many wonderful pictures of her cute little face! One day I need to actually get some large prints and frame them. Maybe when we have a house that we won't be charged for putting nails in the wall.

This visit we are doing 15 month and Easter pictures. We started with a short "play" session. I think some of these may end up on the walls in my Moms front room that now has a play theme because of the HUGE outdoor climber/slide that she put in there. We will probably get around to the Easter pictures this next week. Here is a little peak at the newest pictures though. If you want to see all of them you can either see them on my facebook (if we are facebook friends) or you can visit my Moms website: www.aiportraits.com, click on "clients" and then select "Grace - Spring 2010" in the drop down box. You will have to enter your email address to login.

Deep Sea Adventures

Today I, (Dustin) went on a deep sea fishing trip with some folks from work. Heather and Grace are in the states visiting family, so I took someone up on going fishing. It is something that I have always wanted to do while I was here. We had to all meet at 4:30 in the morning and we drove to the port where we loaded up our coolers and headed out into the Pacific. I couldn't believe it--it was 3 hours out from Okinawa before we stopped. I had no clue what I was doing, but the boat captain was pretty helpful. He showed me how to bait the hook with a minnow and then just let out the line below the boat. There was no casting necessary. Pretty soon someone got a fish, and I was pretty jealous. Finally, I felt a HUGE tug on my line and I had snagged the 2nd fish of the day! I was so excited--it was a tuna, and it looked like an 8 lb fish or so. I did so well the first half of the day--I think it was beginner's luck. In the end I hauled in 7 large tuna fish. Around 2 we started to head back with a huge bin full of saltwater tuna. I attempted to clean my fish (yeah that didn't work too well) and we all split the fillets at the end of the day. It was a good trip--but I think I would rather have my Honey and my Gracie poo.

Up bright and early--the wind was colder than I expected!

The sunrise from the boat was nice

My first two fish--small, but they put up a good fight

Smooches

The guys

Just havin' a good time

We almost got pulled over by the Navy for getting too close to the Destroyer

Shop, shop, shop!!!

One of the great things about visiting the states is the chance to SHOP! I think Grace loves to shop just as much as her Mommy. Today we set out for the mall looking for Grace a pair of summer shoes. In the entire mall we were only able to find one pair in her size that was what I was looking for. So, what did I do? I bought 2 pairs! One that will fit now and one that she can grow into later this summer. Grace also got several pairs of shorts and some cute t-shirts for this summer. Since Grace has leveled off on her growing the clothes I had bought on the after summer clearance last year still have plenty of growing room so she needed a few things a size smaller.

Another nice thing about going to the mall is Chick-Fil-A. Grace finally got to eat some good chicken. She had 7 nuggets yesterday!! And, yes, we may have ate at Chick-Fil-A two days in a row. It IS that good!!

New Words..

It seems that Grace has been saying quite a few new words since we have been in Oklahoma.

• Strawberry
• Papa
• Abby
• Up
• Zip it (talking about the bag of dog treats she wants to be unzipped)
• Whiskers

Those are just the ones I can remember right now. I think having people other than her Mommy and Daddy around makes her need to talk more. We just know her little cues so I think she feels she can get by with just pointing and saying "that."

She is also becoming pretty sneaky. We have been working on breaking the pacifier habit and have limited to only naps, bedtime, and while travelling (planes, airports, etc). So today she has tricked people into letting her have her pacis TWICE. The first time she told my Mom she wanted to climb the stairs. When she got to the top she went straight to her bedroom and found the three pacis she had thrown out of her bed so she would be able to get to them later. Then this afternoon she got Papa Bill to climb the stairs with her and she told him she wanted in her bed so he just thought she was tired. She searched the corners until she found her paci then asked to get out. She is one smart little cookie!!!

Very long day....

Friday was a very long day for us. We left Okinawa on Friday morning and then had all day Friday in Hawaii (since we arrived just before midnight on Thursday). Grace had a lot of fun playing on the playground at the air terminal. Her friend (who was on our flight) would help her get to the top so she could go down the slide!

{Playing at the terminal}

We finally made it to my parents house around 12:30 and we found LOTS of new toys! Grace had a good time going down the big slide and playing with the puzzle.

But by dinnertime somebody was VERY tired!

just a few videos