Winter Formal or... Marian Goes to the Dance

 The other YW convinced Marian to go to the Winter Formal Dan with them.  She was excited to go. We had grand designs to do cool hair former until I realized her hair is so very long and so very thick and heavy and my skills were not up to the task.  Thankfully one of the other moms had all the girls over to her house to get ready.  Whew!

Lisa did Marians hair for her.

The finished front.

The complicated, braided back.  I know, it is hard to see!

 Only marginally better, but you can see the big braided bun.  Super cute!

Outside for the group shot. 

This was a fun and amazing group of girls.

 They did some fun poses.

And they were really good about taking tons of photos. 

Actually, they loved all the pictures! 

 Look hoe pretty they are!

Adventure to Ojima Island

 Our adventure this week was to go check out Ojima Island.  It is a little island that is barely an island- geographically it is small, and it is close enough to the main island of Okinawa that you could maybe walk over to it at low tide.

There was a fish market.  Bleh.  But we stopped to check it out because apparently lots of people DO like fish.  I thought this shiva set made of shells was the coolest thing there.

There were also lots of cats.  I guess they like fish.

Next we heard off to drive around the island and found this cool beach.

The rocky outcroppings were very cool.

 Somehow it was much prettier in real life.

We drove around to another beach and it was also very pretty.  I stole these photos from my friend Anna, who had a most excellent camera and she herself is a most excellent photographer.

She also has a cool drone to get pictures like this!  Can you see us down there?!!

 And from another angle.  Okinawa is a pretty lovely place sometimes.

 Then it was off to the famous tempura place for lunch.  It did look fun. You ordered by the piece and then you waited.

It was chilly out, so I availed myself of the vending machine and purchased some hot chocolate.  It wasn't bad! 

 Then I ate tempura. I liked the green beans, and the potato wasn't the kind of potato I was expecting, but it was okay.  And the shredded veggies was my favorite.  It was pretty good, but I wouldn't go out of my way for it.  But it was a really nice day with friends!

Smarty Pants

Yeah, yeah.  It is that time again.... quarterly award assembly time.  I got to so sit through one for Rylee and then another one for Delaney the next day. I am grateful to have kids that do well in school.

Tis Blossom Season

 I went up to Nago to Mt Yaesake with some friends to admire the blossoms.  They were blooming and quite lovely!

So pretty!  And worth the hour drive.  I got roped into driving because I was the only one with a vehicle large enough to hold 5, and enough gas to get us there. 

 See all the trees?!  Sigh.  I love it!

 We intended to approach the mountain from this road, but did not.  The GPS sent us up a tiny one lane road that got narrower and more overgrown as we went.  There were weeds and trees scraping both sides of the van when the road abruptly ended, and I had to back out a quarter mile before I could turn around.  So, it was quite an adventure to appreciate this!

But oh... my heart! I do love the blossoms. 

 Most of the ladies I was out with. I do love them too.

They are such a vibrant color.  This breed of cherry tree is much more like the ume.  But gorgeous, none the less. 

More pretty street. 

 Me and the pretty trees.  I may have taken a ton of photos, so be grateful I did not post them all!

My friend Amy, who is working on her photography skills, and Anna, who is an amazing photographer already.

She took this photo of me. 

After admiring the trees, we went to lunch at this shabu-shabu place in the mountains.  It was impressive, and impressively priced.

Maybe we were paying for the ambiance.  Look how pretty the place was. 

And this was just the outside!

I opted for this tasty soba set.  The fried rice was excellent, and the beef in the soba was fabulous. The rest.... meh. But it was still a great day with some great ladies.

Odds and Ends

Rylee's hair is getting longer.  The bottom layer is coarse and curly and prone to bad snarls.  I tried french braiding it before bed and this was the result.  It was fairly effective.  And you can see that koolaid does NOT come out!  We have tried everything, but apparent;y we will have to cut it to remove it. 

We had an event I needed to make a dessert for and the dessert needed to be flour free.  I found this Flourless Chocolate cake and we tried it out ourselves first.   

It was a wee bit runny.  The children declared it delicious and with ice cream they raved about it.  I did make it again, and used a 9" pan rather tan the 8" the recipe suggested.  I also cooked it an extra 5 minutes, and it was perfect. I know because I made 2- one for us and one for eat event and I sampled both!

I am horribly offended that this is the weather for January! 

After having so much fun scrapping kimono blankets, I tried it with a bunch of the Japanese fabric scraps we have.  I maybe should have started smaller. But it came out ate and Delaney immediately claimed it. 

 A glorious sunrise as I walked Delaney to the bus stop at 6:30 in the morning.

My friend introduced me to Family Mart's soft serve ice cream and it is the most delicious thing ever!  I have stopped to get it more times than I care to divulge.