Goodbye 2008

I have to say that 2008 has been the best and I don't know how 2009 can compete, but I'll try to make it happen! Joey and I have been truly blessed this year in so many ways, so let's recap.

January
Joey and I announce our engagement and we start planning our wedding. Joey gets his official orders to Kadena and prepares for his move. I begin peer counseling/mentoring students at school.

February
Joey redesigned and restored a Cherokee Rose 4ft. decal for a Tanker. Joey leaves Robins AFB. Joey and I get married! Joey leaves for Kadena.

March
I get my best GPA at UCSD despite the craziness during the quarter and begin my last quarter of school. Joey immediately falls in love with Okinawa. Joey gets his Nissan Skyline.

April
Joey and I web cam as much as we can during our busy schedules between California and Okinawa.

May
I started my blog. I begin my medical clearance and paperwork so Joey can get his orders amended for me to join him in Okinawa.

June
I get my orders and plane ticket for Kadena. I graduate college. I go to the San Diego County Fair (aka Del Mar Fair). I pack all my belongings to be shipped to Japan. I have a goodbye/graduation party. I go to Las Vegas with my cousins. I leave for Okinawa. I get stranded in San Francisco. Joey's sister, aunt, and mom rescue me and I got to spend a day with them before I try to leave again. Joey finds us an apartment.

July
I land in Okinawa. I immediately fall in love with Okinawa, too. It's the first time Joey and I were physically under the same roof for more than two weeks and learned how to live together smoothly. I learn what it's like to be a military spouse overseas. We encounter geckos and spiders, eek! We start to go on many food adventures

August
We go to a festival, and another festival. We go to the Churaumi Aquarium. Joey and I celebrate our 6 Month Wedding Anniversary. I learn how to drive on the right side of the car, on the left side of the road and Joey gets his promotion! I get my car. We finally go to the beach in Oki for the first time.

September
Joey and I go to the Nago Pineapple Park. I temporarily babysit for a month. We get our furniture. We start snorkeling.

October
We celebrate Joey's birthday. We get a Wii. We Pumpkin Patrol.

November
We celebrate my birthday. We finally get Vonage. We send out our Christmas gifts early. We have a fun Thanksgiving. Black Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

December
Joey teaches me how to solve the Rubik's Cube. We see the Harlem Globetrotters. We win a lot of prizes at Joey's Christmas Work Party. Joey and I made gingerbread houses and opened presents. I made a yummy Prime Rib for Christmas.

We wish everyone a safe and Happy New Year!

Post-Christmas

Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas! We had an awesome past few days! This was the first time we have spent the Holiday's together, and although it was my first Christmas without my family, I loved it!

On Christmas Eve, I spent the day baking, prepping the prime rib for Christmas, and wrapping gifts, and best of all, Joey got off work earlier than expected. Our Christmas tree was sprawling with gifts - thank you everyone, we love everything we got!

Joey got a whole new wardrobe from his favorite store, Express for Men. It looked like my sisters bought the whole store! I got make-up, of course, from Sephora and a Bare Mineral's set; as well as the Jon and Kate Plus 8 DVD and book! We also got a brand new 10-piece Cuisinart pots and pans set, a 12" digital picture frame, the Life - Twists and Turns board game, and best of all, I finally have my actual college diploma (I have been waiting for my parents to send it, and now I feel like an official college graduate)!

Joey got me gifts, but I knew what it was before hand. He just wrapped them up and I pretended to be surprised when I unwrapped them - wrapping and unwrapping gifts is one of the best parts of Christmas! I got Joey SOCOM for his PS3, so if anyone wants to play with him online, let us know! And of course, he can get his 52" Sony XBR TV ... once it's in stock at the BX.

Christmas morning was taken up by making gingerbread houses! We figured that this being our first Christmas together, we should start our own traditions - one being making gingerbread houses! The day before I made the gingerbread from scratch, which turned out okay.
We assembled our Victorian style houses and decorated. But I had a lot of difficulty assembling and decorating mine, so mine just turned into a plain house with tons of frosting to recover the parts I messed up on. I'm sure you can tell which house belonged to either me or Joey - based on color and creativity.
He even made a frosted roof with smoke coming out! And a snowman! And Christmas tree! And bushes! And his looks like a Victorian style house! As you can see, my art skills are limited.

Later, we went to a friends house where we ate yummy food, played Taboo (the girls won, again), opened presents, and played the Wii.

When we got home, we opened up Life -Twists and Turns and Monopoly - World Edition to end the night by playing boardgames.

Friday was relaxing day, spent with Joey on the web cam with his family back home (as if he spent Christmas with them, how nice!) and me playing with my new make-up! And of course, ending the night with boardgames!

Thank you to all our family and friends for the calls and web cam-ing. We miss all of you back in the States, and hope to visit soon!

Merry Christmas

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Prime Rib = Yummy!

For Thanksgiving, both Joey's family and my family raved about how they had prime rib (we prefer it over turkey), making Joey and I jealous. Don't get me wrong, the turkey we had was delicious and moist. But the holidays without prime rib isn't the same. So I was psyched that I found a 10 lb. prime rib to make for Christmas! I got the marinade recipe from my mom because I've never cooked it before, only prepped it. Hopefully it would come out great!

We're spending Christmas with some friends, the same ones from Thanksgiving. I'm also bringing lumpia, and Joey is making fruit salad. I had gone to the BX and Commissary today for last minute things, and boy was it crazy! I wonder what it'll be like tomorrow!

Oh, and I got my presents from my family! Gifts are sprawling out under our Christmas tree - but then again, they sent a 3 boxes full which included both our birthday presents from one/two months ago! Thanks!

Christmas Work Party

This past Saturday, we attended Joey's work party at the NCO Club on Kadena. Not knowing what to expect, I had a good time ... mostly due to the fact that Joey kept winning the raffle prizes, five to be exact! They weren't the big prizes, like the 42" TV or 50/50 drawing, but the best prize he won was 1 Free Day Off from work, any day of his choice! He needs a day off, he deserves it!

One of the games they played was Musical Chairs and Joey got picked. In the end of the game, it was between him and his co-worker, who was a girl ... and Joey clearly won, as the girl barely had half a butt cheek on the seat. But with Joey being the gentleman he is, he gave up his seat letting the girl win the IPod Shuffle prize. Okay, so we didn't need the IPod Shuffle anyway, but come on, Joey won! He got a handful of grunts and teases from his male colleagues when he came back to the table with his consolation prize. Sometimes, my husband is too nice!

The dinner was great, buffet style! The desserts, not so much. It would have been better if we beat the crowd who took all the brownies for the chocolate fondue fountain - there were only pretzels left once we got there. We had some drinks, unfortunately, the Japanese bartender didn't know many drink combinations, so I stuck with my Pineapple Malibu. And don't worry, we didn't drink and drive! There were designated drivers that volunteered their night to drive anyone home - which Joey did the night before for a different squadron's Christmas Party.

I love the holidays! I think I'm going to listen (and sing along with) my Mariah Carey Christmas album, make myself a peppermint mocha, watch Elf ... and hope my Christmas presents from my parents arrived at the Post Office!

Feeding the Goats

The other day, Joey and I did some quick exploring near Cape Zanpa. It's practically 2-3 minutes from our house (yes, we live that far from Kadena), but we've never been there, until now.

It was raining a bit, so we just scoped out places we would want to come back to when the weather is better. We spotted goats! Actually, there were rabbits, hens, and roosters too. We saw some people feeding the goats, some of whom brought veggies from home. Joey and I just picked up fallen leaves on the ground and fed them. And boy, can the goats eat. They eat, and eat, and eat, and eat, and etc. They're cute!

It was like a mini-free zoo. But, I still want to go to the Okinawan Zoo! Haven't been there, yet.

Jakkepoes

Every time Joey visited me in San Diego, we would go to IHOP at least once. We love breakfast food! So I was excited to find a few pancake houses here, one in particular called Jakkepoes. Yummy! Joey had the banana pancakes and I had the strawberry ones. We also made it a meat lover's breakfast, and let me tell you, anyplace that serves Spam gets a thumbs up from me!

The place only has a few tables, and looks like the owners turned their living room into a make shift restaurant. I love places like that, cause it feels ... and is home cooking!

Harlem Globetrotters

On Friday, Joey and I went to see the Harlem Globetrotters at the Risner Gym on Kadena. It was so much fun! For those of you who don't know, the Harlem Globetrotters is a basketball team who add comedic performances during the game.

Joey was recording parts of the game (I'll try to post some once I figure out how to), and at one point Big Easy took hold of our video camera! It was nonstop laughs, and nonstop fun! They played against the Washington Generals, and of course, the Harlem Globetrotters won, 87 to 82.

The Perfect Couple

I just received an e-mail from Joey's aunt about a Perfect Couple. Hilarious!

And I swear I did it for curiosity, not by said reason. (If you click on the link, you'll know what I mean.)

I'm a Super Geek

Joey leaves for work early and I usually go back to sleep. But when I tried to sleep, his mirror-tinted Rubik's Cube was just sitting there on the nightstand staring at me to try and solve it ... and I did! It's the same technique as if trying to solve the regular 3x3 Rubik's Cube, except that you solve by shape, not color.

So I texted Joey when I was done telling him I'm a super geek just like him!

Rubik's Cube Geeks

Joey and I had an uneventful weekend - Joey worked long hours during the week and just wanted time too relax. Saturday, we babysat for some friends while they went to their office Christmas party. I showed their 5 year old girl how to make some slime and it seemed like Joey had just as much fun as she did. I forgot to take pictures, but don't worry, I know Joey will want to make it again soon, so I'll take pictures then.

I call Joey and his co-workers Rubik's Cube Geeks because they bring in their Rubik's Cubes to work and solve them. I have no patience for them or learning how to solve them. But Joey has a fascination with them, so on Sunday he attempted to teach me how to solve it, and I'm embarrassed to say ... I'm a Rubik's Cube Geek, too!

Joey has 3 Rubik's Cubes. Two are the normal 3x3 square blocks, one regular size and one jumbo size. His third one is a bit tricky (I have yet to solve it), it has a silver mirror tint on all sides and composed of 3x3 varying rectangle sizes. So when you jumble up the cube, it creates an odd shape (see below) .

If anyone is stumped on what to get Joey for Christmas, you can get him any type of Rubik's Cube. I think he wants the 5x5 next!