Halloween 2008

We learned our lesson from last year...and waited until 30 October to carve our pumpkins!  Hopefully (**fingers crossed**) we don't have completely rotten pumpkins in under 24 hours.  Here is Michael starting his pumpkin:

Concentrating hard...

Mine wasn't too difficult so I finished pretty quickly:

Our pumpkins all lit up :)

Happy Halloween Everyone!

Misc Pics of Old

These pictures are a little old...but better late than never, right?!

Little Pigdog got high-centered on my legs while I was on the computer one lazy Saturday morning.  Michael and I couldn't stop laughing at her:

Before we started our training regimen, we went to Fall Okinapa and had a great time with some friends.  Here are our friends Max and Linda:

Michael being silly with his XO and his wife, Shelly.  Shelly is the trainer for both Max and I and has been kicking our butts for 7 weeks now!  It's a good thing that the 3 of us have such a good time at the gym though, otherwise it would be way too much work!

HALLOWEEN TOES :P

I can't wait for Halloween!  We learned our lesson last year and we aren't buying our pumpkins from the commissary until tomorrow (Sunday), and we aren't carving until Thursday night!  Hopefully they won't rot before the next evening so they can go on the front porch for our trick-or-treaters :)

White Beach

The next weekend we were going to take Steve and Jan up to White Beach for some relaxation, but the humidity really didn't agree with Steve and he wasn't feeling well at all.  They ended up flying out a little early so he didn't get sick (sorry Steve!!)  We still went up to White Beach to catch a little R&R ourselves though.

Here is Michael fixin' to grill out (on charcoal...uggh):

On Saturday night all of our friends headed back to Camp Foster for Fosterfest, but since we hadn't RSVP'd we stayed behind.  It was one of the most relaxing nights we've had in a long time.  A couple of rainstorms came through and we got to enjoy them on our patio while enjoying the view :)

Tokyo Trip!

We met Michael's dad and stepmom in Tokyo over a holiday weekend to see some of the sights.  One of our first stops was the Tokyo tower!  Michael and I went out on Friday night for dinner after Steve and Jan flew in (they needed some major shut eye after the long flight!) and hit the Hard Rock Cafe - it was great to have some greasy American food!  However... we were told that everything was within walking distance that we wanted to see.  So we started off on foot.  90 minutes later we were still lost - a Tokyo subway map written in Kanji and a "cartoon" map that wasn't to scale weren't exactly the best guides.  Eventually we found the Roppongi Hills Mori Tower, which was very cool:

The area we were in when I took this picture was up a floor from the street level.  On that same level there was a huge spider sculpture (think 25 ft legs with a huge body suspended in the middle of them) - but it was too dark to get a picture of it.  We also took this picture:

After walking  a bit more we hit the nightlife district (Roppongi area) - where all sorts of club promoters are trying to get (aka "herd") you into their club.  I looked down a random alley and we finally round the Hard Rock!

After a hefty meal we started walking...again.  We found the Tokyo Tower - although we were still a ways away:

The next day we headed to the top of the tower.  At the bottom there was an entertainer with a trained monkey that I liked to watch:

Pictures from the top (Michael took most of these since I am not real comfortable with heights and kept my distance most of the time from the sides of the tower):

We also went to the Imperial Palace and saw some of the gardens:

Steve and Jan at the Meiji Shrine at Shibuya:

There was some sort of race that was about to start so we got to see some really neat cars:

Michael and I headed over to Harajuku Station to experience some of the fun outfits you always see on the travel channel  :)

It was packed!!!  We crossed the major crosswalk where so many millions of people cross a day and then headed up the Omotesando street, which is considered the "Champs-Elysees" of Tokyo with all sorts of high end stores (i.e. Huge Louis Vuitton, Chanel, Prada, etc stores).  After walking and getting lost for a good hour and a half, we finally found a Seattle's Best Coffee where I could reload on some caffeine, and we found a train station that would take us to:

The Tokyo Dome!!

It was a very cool building - across the street was a huge amusement park with roller coasters and all sorts of rides.

Thanks for meeting us over there Steve and Jan :)

Are you kidding me?

I need a second to vent in order to hide my frustration/disappointment. The pricing came out for a trip that Michael and I really wanted to take - an Australia/New Zealand combo. We had prepared ourselves to drop some cash in order to take this trip because its a once in a lifetime opportunity, right? Total price for both of us to go (and its not all inclusive) - $10, 204. How can I justify that?! Thats the price of a decent used vehicle once we get back to the states! We're still trying to figure out a way to get to Australia and New Zealand - it just looks as though it won't be this Christmas/New Year's. :( Ohhh well..... **sigh**

I do have pictures (our trip to Tokyo with Steve and Jan and some random pics) to post but that will come when I get 5 seconds to upload them onto the computer.