The Good and The Bad

The good or the bad first? I'm going to go with the bad, just to get it out of the way. Jake left today (Monday) which was a day earlier than scheduled. Bummer. I survived the last time he was gone so I know I can do it. And thanks to the good later on in this post, I will be a very busy girl. Since this was the last weekend Jake was in town, you would think we would spend it doing fun things together. Not exactly. Even though we had a fun evening of fiestaing (I made my famous enchiladas) and playing games with friends, Jake had the work the rest of the weekend. Double bummer.

On Saturday night we had a date night. We haven't had a nice date in awhile, so we went to a semi-fancy restaurant right on the water called the Sea Garden. The restaurant was beautiful and it had such a fun atmosphere. We got there just in time for a beautiful sunset. We got a grilled chicken salad, the best cheese fondue of all time, and delicious California rolls. Other than it being a bit cold sitting outside, it was a fun evening.

On Sunday I was able to have lunch with a friend at a cute cafe before she left for the States(yep, jealous). It was a beautiful day and we were able to sit outside with a beautiful view of the bay while eating super yummy food! I had a bowl of cheese-topped chicken curry. It was different than regular curry and it was pretty darn good!

After lunch, we sat outside on my deck talking. It was a bit cold, still boot weather, but warm enough to sit outside with a blanket. It was fun to be outside and to catch up! I can't wait to use our backyard all of the time this summer!

Jake was able to make it home in time for a beach walk and grilling out.  We sure are going to miss our Sunday night beach walks together. 

Sick of beach pictures yet??

And now for the good. On Friday and on twitter I had been hinting about some exciting things going on. I needed some time to process, but now I am ready to share the exciting thing going on in my real life. If you thought I was going to announce a pregnancy, you were way off, sorry. Last week I was offered a full time subbing job at the school on base here. As of March 10th, I will have my very own 3rd grade classroom. I am so excited to finally have my own class! It will have it's challenges, especially coming in in the middle of the year, but I know that I will learn so much and it will be a great experience. It is the next step in my journey of teaching. I am going to be super busy, lesson planning, arranging my classroom, etc., but I really can't wait! 

The exciting things in my blogging life will hopefully be shared towards the end of the week! So stay tuned!

Linking up with Monday Morning Gossip and Funday Monday

High Five For Friday 2/21

This week flew by thanks to the lovely 3 day weekend! Monday was quite an adventure and if you follow on twitter you may been able to guess what happened.

{one}

We finally made it to the steak house near our base we have been hearing about. We had been wanting to go for lunch since it was half the price as dinner, so a day off was the perfect time. The steakhouses here are the typical Japanese steak house you find in the states. They cook the food in front of you on a large grill. The only difference is that the food is 10 times better. Jake and I both got the steak set. It came with soup, salad, rice, and vegetables. It has turned into our new favorite restaurant! 

{two}

So on twitter I had posted a picture of our little mishap the other day. Jake loves to off-road, like I have said before. He is always looking for trails to take his car on. The other day we were walking on the beach and he saw tire tracks. He decided it was a good idea to drive his car around on the beach. Everything was going great, until we were getting ready to leave and we heard a loud noise. Sure enough, Jake's tire had popped. We had a spare, but the car is a 98', so the lug nuts were rusted on. Thanks to help from the friends we were with, they were able to get the tire changed. Lesson learned? I don't think so. 

{three}

And here are some pictures of our fun Monday before the tire fiasco happened 

{four}

And this is what we ate this week

Sunday: Hotdogs and s'mores (give us a break, we were camping)

Monday: Pork Loin, mashed cauliflower, carrots

Tuesday: Salmon and grilled cabbage

Wednesday: Grilled chicken and mac and cheese quinoa

Thursday: pork chop quinoa pasta (aka random things thrown in a pot)

{five}

I tweeted that there are some exciting things happening over this way in my real life and my blogging life. I don't mean to be a tease, but I will share soon enough!!

Linking up with Lauren, Darci, Rebecca, Casey, and Jennie

Cafe Gold Hall and Tug of War

Friday night we headed out to dinner at a nice place down the street we hadn't tried yet. It was a restaurant with lots of different small plates and sushi plates. We didn't know how much to get, so Jake ended up still being hungry when we left. Mcdonalds happened to be next door and we had been wanting to see what it's like, so Jake went and got a hamburger. It was pretty much the same as any Mcdonalds hamburger in the states. They did have quite a few different menu options, though.

Yes, that is a chicken and a hamburger together in one sandwich

After Mcdonals, we saw Gravity in 3D at the movie theatre on base. It was a very different and cool movie. I would recommend it if you haven't seen it. It was nice to have a typical date night. We are starting to finally feel like this is our life rather than something temporary, like a vacation. 

Saturday we had planned on going snorkeling but the weather wasn't cooperating. The day started to get away from us until Jake suggested we go to a cafe up north I had heard about and wanted to go to. We hopped in the car and made the 20 minute drive up north near another Marine Corp camp. We drove into the parking lot of a large, strange looking building. As we walked into the cafe, I realized this wasn't just an ordinary cafe. Every thing was made of wood. The tables, the stools, the floors, the walls, and all of the decorative structures. We paid 800 yen (around $8) just to get into the place. We sat at an interesting wood table and ordered lunch. We had heard they were famous for their taco rice, a very popular dish on the island. This dish was created due to the American influence on the island. It's basically a plate of rice with taco meat, cheese, lettuce, and tomato. Jake got the giant plate of taco rice and I got a steak sandwich. The food was amazing. Jake and I ate every single bite of our very large and delicious meal. 

Wood everywhere

Famous taco rice

After we were done stuffing our faces, we headed downstairs to where our map indicated the tour began. We are not quite sure what to expect. We walked right down into a limestone cave. There were stalactites/mites every where and lots of pottery and sculptures placed all over the walls. We continued our tour out back where the entire back hill we a beautiful garden. In this garden were tons of different rooms with different types of wood tables. It was like this place was made to have a giant party with different rooms, yet we were the only ones there. We wound our way through the garden looking at waterfalls and sculptures and then up through a few more different rooms. The top level was filled with tons and tons of bonsai trees. It was seriously the neatest place, but we still aren't quite sure exactly what this place is. 

After our visit to this interesting cafe, I made Jake stop at what I thought was a farmer's market on our way home. I was so excited, but it turned out to be a market full of American food products like Peter Pan Peanut Butter and Folgers Coffee. There was also this interesting thrift type shop with old American stuff. We were kind of confused so we left after taking a lap around the place.

We stopped at our neighborhood beach for walk and for Jake to scope out some fishing spots. 

We later went on a shopping adventure at the commissary and saw a guy out walking his bull. Yep, that's a big ole' bull just walking down the road. 

We spent the night enjoying the beautiful evening in our back yard and then facetiming our friend's back in the states who will be joining us here in January. We keep forgetting about this time difference thing and ended up waking them up at 6 am. Sorry guys! 

Sunday morning, Jake was needing a little slice of home so I made him biscuits and gravy. We then headed down to the capital city, Naha, for the annual tug of way festival. We were not sure what to expect, but as we got closer, we stumbled upon the rope in the middle of the road. It is the world's largest rope, so it took up almost one whole lane of the road! There was a parade down the main street, Kokusai, with dancers and drummers. We got there at the very tail end of the parade, but still got to see some of it. 

The streets were lined with vendors selling food. We tried some yakatori, which is some sort of skewer thing. We kept telling ourselves that it was chicken, but we weren't quite sure. 

Before the tug of war starts, there is a ceremony that takes place, uniting the two ropes together. There were so many people there that we could not see a thing that was going on. We could not even see the giant rope lining the street. We were supposed to volunteer with crowd control during the tug, but I wasn't feeling well after the weird stick meat and because of the large crowd and the heat, so we made the long walk back to our car to go get something substantial to eat. 

so many people

The beginning of the ceremony

We stopped at a delicious sushi restaurant where we ate our body weight in sushi and ramen and then headed home. 

Sushi Gen

That pretty much sums up our weekend, even though it is continuing into today and tomorrow since Jake is off. Tonight (it's late Monday night here) we had friends over tonight for a Columbus day cookout. it was nice to entertain in our new place and catch up. 

Linking up with Sami and Kimberlee