Ok, so it's 10:15 pm and I am exhausted, but I promised the new toe pics would be up by tonight. I will tell ya this though... the toes with the multi-colored flowers on the white background were the toes I got last time I went to Cocok's, and the brown oned were last night. Some of the pics may look a littloe confusing, so come back soon to get the full story on them. I promise by tomorrow night, our time, I will get everything posted!
Ok, so here are the pics of our house. Keep in mind they are when we were first moving in so our place looks much less cluttered now. I would go into what each picture is of, but unfortunately we're about to head out to see the new Harry Potter flick, so this will have to cure your craving for now, and I will go into detail about them when I get back. The only thing I do not have a picture of up here is of our back storage room, which you can kind of see in the back yard pictures, and our spare room, or the "puppy room" as it's called. It was full of our boxes at the time and is looking much better these days. Anywho, hope you enjoy the little tour and I will tell you all about the pics later, I promise!
Ok so I know these aren't the best pictures in the world, but for the record, this day was super choppy out and the water was a bit murky, plus, my camera is a cheapy so I am glad I can get this much with it!
The first pic on top is a Bat Fish. The thing was seriously HUGE! It's body must have been bigger top to bottom than a basketball... and for all of you who know how much I dislike sea beasties, for me to get this close to this fish was a huge step in my overcoming of the underwater sea beasty fear!! It was like right up in my face going, "What's up, you got some food or what?" Literally, it was looking at my fingers like they were snacks, I kid you not! Scary fishy...
Next up are my faves, the clow fishies... they are a riot. I think I mentioned before that they are super protective of their little anemonea homes and will swim right up to your face and make little disgruntal facial expressions at you. They are very easily readable little fish, if that even sounds possible! They are ticked, and you know it, so don't mess with them!
Next up is a little hard to tell... this fish looked like a corpse, literally! He was all white with big black circles all around his weird grey eyes and had a black tail. I only got his body when he tured around, but to see him, I thought I was looking at a fish ghost... very scary little dude. Needless to say I didn't wait around for him to make a re-appearance... I felt cold looking into his eyes.... bleck...
Next up, if you look real close, is a pretty monster-sized lion fish. If you know anything about them, they are apparently pretty feared in the ocean community, if you want to eat them anyway. They have huge fins everywhere with venom-filled barbs on the tips. They chill out near the ocean floor or in caves and generally mind their own business, but I wouldn't tick them off. They aren't poisonous to us, but the barb is really painful I hear... they are everywhere around Oki!
Ok... so here are more clown fish! Yay! I just can't help it, they are so fun and colorful under the water you could just waste a whole tank of air just watching them! So cute! This last guy is called a Tomato Clow Fish because he's a darker reddish-orange and he only has one white stripe. I like these guys the best because they are bigger and really will come after you if you get in their bubble, which I always do to get the pics, haha! Poor fish... I am such a menace...
So that's all for now, we didn't dive this weekend due to crappy sea conditions here. The solar eclipse we had on wed. really messed things up as far as the ocean was concerned... wacky tides, huge surf, etc... so more pics to come maybe next week!
They say a picture is worth a thousand words... so here are a few thousand words on why I love my family... it's because we rock. Extended family... I've got pics of all of you (from my last b-day at home when I took pics with all of you, remember... hehe) and they will be up in the next post. But yeah... my family is the best anyone could ever ask for and I love you guys and miss you! Why... because you're beer drinkin', frapuccino lovin', gun shootin', bbq eatin', cheewee's who would travel to the other side of the world just to see me and I wouldn't have you any other way!! Love you guys, and happy almost anniversary mom and dad AND gram and perp!!
So finally, after all the diving we've done here on the island of Okinawa, and after I've told all of you about all the amazing things I've seen, now we finally have proof!! I made Mike break down and get an underwater digital camera Thursday (today is Saturday) so we could have documented evidence of the nifty things/critters we see.
I was totally bummed last week when we saw an octopus at Maeda Point, then a school of hundreds of fishies swam right past us at the Sea Wall. I wanted to try to covey to all of you my excitement about the rare sights, and yet I had no photo evidence, so now I do!! Hooray!
So I had to work this morning at our clinic's Saturday vaccine clinic until noon, a total bummer, but that did not stop us from getting under the sea, under the sea (before I bust into a random little mermaid song, I shall digress...) We hopped in the car in search of good waters as soon as I was outta the clinic (12:01pm) and after a couple "sporty" locations were snubbed, we decided to head out to good ol' Maeda Point, pronounced My-duh.
Maeda is a fantastic spot full of awesome critters and a ledge that drops to about 110 feet on a high-tide day, so it provides lots of different levels of sights and whatnot. The only drawback is there are over 70 steps you have to walk down full geared up to get to the water. Yeah, that means there are over 70 to climb back up with over 50-60 pounds strapped to your back... needlesss to say, after a few dives a day, you are pretty wiped, but it's worth it.
So anywho, we went to Maeda today... we straped our gear on and headed out. There were lots of cool things to see. The first pic is of a clown fish. They look mor ered when you are under water, but I thought this was a decent pic considering he was swimming along at a good clip. They are awesome little fishies... they like to hang around their little anemonea and swim right up to you when you get too close. They will get like a foot from your face and just stare at you... they are very intense little fish, and with that crazed look in their eyes, you don't want to screw with them... tiny but fierce.
Next is Mike with a random tropical fish. I should know the name of it... but I don't, sue me.
The next pic is of a huge blob of random fish. The japanese were down there feeding them little chunks of something, and they were like flocking to them, so I had to get up close and get in on the action. There was this one bat fish that had to be bigger than a basketball... it was pretty cool. They would all come right up to your hands looking for food and right in your face... very coolio!
Next is a random puffer fish... I tried to chase him down and get him to puff up, but he was pretty quick. We went on a night dive before and one of the guys were able to get ahold of a puffer's tail, and he puffed right up to about double the size of a softball. I thought they would be really hard and picky like the ones you see at souvenier stores, but he was really squishy and his little spines were soft when you felt him. He stayed poofy for quite a while and we did a little "bounce the puffer around" action, then let him be... as mindful divers, we're spposed to enjoy nature, not harass it :-)
Last, the good ol' self-taken pic. I must inform you that taking your own pic at 50 feet below the surface is quite interesting. I tried to smile but ended up looking constipated... ugh. We were swiming up agains the ledge so we were trying not to sink, float too high, get bubbles in the picture, bump into crap, etc. So this was the result... I'm sure there will be many more self-taken installments in the future, but this is the first!
Hope you all enjoyed just a little taste of the new camera action. We'll be boat diving tomorrow so I hope to get some real good shots then too so we can get them up here and share them with all of you!! Hope you enjoyed!!
So for America fest, we had sexy Mc-CSI New York, Gary Senise, come and strut his mad bass-playing self along with the Lt. Dan Band! Let me tell you, he is one cute dude close up. I'm a bit disturbed though, as I realize when I got close to him that he looks quite a bit like my father, also named Gary. Strange... yes, I know. Do I have deep-rooted daddy issues... I didn't think so until I realized I had the hots for my dad's doppleganger.
Despite the who "hottlie looks like my daddy" thing, he really was quite talented. The band sang oldies, new songs, even a little evenesence. They really rocked out, and the cool thing was that I was able to push my little Senise-obsessed self up the the front of the stage and I was so close I knew he was wearing Levi's from the little tag on his fanny... yeah, I was that close.
As a bonus, we had Miss Melinda Dolittle from American Idol (the season Jordan Spraks won) come and open up for the Lt. Dan Band. Overall, it was a lot of fun and they all seemed really nice and like they were actually enjoying playing for us. Gary said it's what they loved to do and this was their 4th July 4th on a military base playing for the military folks, and let me tell you, we really appreciated it. It was cool to have someone other that the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders and I think the Baltimore Raven Cheerleaders on base... and yes boys I am serious, the Dallas girls were here doning all their lovely tassles, or should I say lack-there-of... skimpy hoochies.
I shall digress... more pics of Sexy Senise and video to come soon... but it's after 10 and I am a working lady now!!
