Pineapple Express

Things got back to normal this week.  And by normal I mean jam packed and full of fun.  We did our Tuesday at some place that no American knows the name of.  It's just referred to as, "Sushi-go-round."

Why you ask?  Because your food comes to you by conveyor belt.  I guess I would call it a buffet.  When you are ready to pay a waitress counts up the number of plates and gives you a bill.  At first, I was a little scared to eat there.  How long has this sushi been cycling the restaurant?  But Michael convinced me to try it, and everything tasted fresh.

Grayson had his 1 year doctor visit.  He is in the 80 percentile for length at 31 inches long and the 40 percentile for weight at 22.2 pounds.  Tall and thin!  Getting him to his appointment was my first time driving off base alone.  My heart was about in my throat the whole trip.  Everyone drives these cars that are slightly larger and faster than go-carts, but with the aggression of bumper cars.  Luckily, we made it safe and sound. 

 Check out this new trick, eating with a spoon by himself.  He also can pick out several different animals in his Little People books when asked, even ones under the flaps.  I thought that was pretty smart, but I'm the Mommy so I think that's my job.

Random picture of the week is this elf/dwarf/fairy.  We don't really know what it is supposed to mean, but we saw 10 of them at random locations during our weekend explorations.  My guess is that they are the mascot to some tourist attraction and are leading the way there, but no one could confirm it for me.

This weekend's adventure was supposed to be to the Lily Festival on one of the outer islands.  We had several errands to do, and by the time we got to the ferry we would have only had an hour at the festival before the last boat came back to Okinawa.  We didn't want to risk getting stuck so we opted to go to....

Pineapple Park instead!  Did you know there are over 200 kinds of pineapples?

We took a tour around the pineapple farm which looked like it was in the middle of a jungle.   We even got to see a couple of waterfalls.

We learned that pineapples grow on the ground....

And start off pink.

We also enjoyed the numerous botanical flowers everywhere.

At the end of our tour we got to visit the Pineapple winery.  They make 3 different kinds of wine.  The first 2 tasted a little too much like hard alcohol for me and made my tummy hurt.  The last one had a sweet flavor.

Michael and Grayson enjoyed the markets at the exit of the park.  Free samples everywhere with everything made from pineapples - jelly, breads, candy, cookies, chocolate, dried fruit.  I can't even think of all the things they make.

And Grayson got to practice his ice cream eating skills with some pineapple ice cream.

Another room is also done in the house.  Grayson's room.  We kept his fish theme with one green wall and three blue like in Jax.

Gotta have the P3 watching over our little man.

His closet reminds me of a locker room.

Grayson's new favorite seat is right on top of his huge stuffed dog.  A great place to cuddle up and read a book.

I repeated this pattern that I made all over his walls.

So with Grayson's sturdy foundation that we talked about last week and his ability to walk on his own, I've been lacks about getting him some new shoes.  Mostly because they are hard to find here.  But this week, Grayson got his first pair of everyday shoes.

We're off and running.  Bye-Bye.