Saturday, October 31, 2009

Devil Dogs!



The only way I could get the kids to hold somewhat still together was offer cookies... and even that couldn't keep the horns on Charlie long enough to snap the pic, haha...


Chloe on the other hand, is an excellent sport. She was more upset about the bandana around her neck. She looks good in red though, don't you think?



I was able to catch Charlie with the horns on finally, but I was on my belly on the ground with him trying to stop those paws from ripping them off... he wasn't feelin' them, poor kid. He has an excellent pouting face though, haha!



I finally convinced Charlie with a cookie to sit up for a minute so I could just snap one pic. Unfortunately it was right in front of our recycling pile about to go out the door.... but not a bad pic.

So this is what the kids are going to be for halloween. I was going to make them either Dr. Seuss' Thing 1 and Thing 2, or put them into a shirt with one having peas drawn on it, and the other with a carrot so they could be "peas and carrots" but with work, training, meetings, etc., I just didn't have the time. I think this turned out well though, and they look adorable in red!
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Thursday, October 29, 2009

Fall Footies!



Ok, so I know this post isn't anything super spectacular, but just wanted to show off the latest fall feet! I wanted to do something fall and Halloween-ish for the holiday, but make them kind of November friendly as well, so this is what happened in the end...


I ended up getting a pumpkin on each of my big toes with some fall leaves, and then leaves and sparkles on all my other tootsies. I love getting toes with black as a background because they seem to last much longer than some of the others I have gotten. I have had my current design for about 2 weeks now and not even a chip... perhaps it's the 10 layers of clear coat they put on them, or the fact they use actual acrylic paint for the designs, but regardless, they are still lookin' good!

So, for all you people who are tossing the idea around of coming to visit me, if this doesn't tempt you enough to get you here, I don't know what will... and for all your guys, there are men in there all the time too!!
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Friday, October 9, 2009

Sea Beasties from the Not-So-Deep...



So here's Phil looking as dapper as you can while under water. He hurried and got her certification before the winter months got here and our water dropped to a whole 70 degres versus 90 like they have been most of the summer. I bailed out on the last dive to give the guys some "man time."


Of course, the day I don't go Mike and Phil see a Moray Eel while out at the North Steps... go figure.


He looks pretty angry... I'm kinda glad I wasn't there. They said the pic made him look a lot bigger than what he really was, but I'm pretty sure I would have swam away as fast as possible...



Yuck... gross little sea beastie. This is exactly why I wear a thick wet suit even though the water is still warm. The guys were only about 40-50 ft. deep at this point... and I am sure the deeper you go, the scrarier the critters...

My dad just told me this week he's gonna hurry and get scuba certified before he comes out to visit, so I hope he gets to see some cool stuff like this!! And to Shepp, I bet you don't see these in the Great Lakes... feel free to come out here any time if you want to do some real diving, my friend, haha! Love ya John!
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To Tokyo We Did A-Go-Go!

So the long-awaited pics of Tokyo are finally here!! Yay!! Sorry I was so lazy about getting them up here... I knew I had a ton of pics which would require like 5 seperate posts, and well, I didn't know if I had the strenght, haha... but here they are!!
So this is our hotel. It's nothing fancy at all. It's called Hardy Barracks, and literally it's a renovated old barracks building. For all you Army people out there who know what I am taking about, they took the two rooms that are connected by the bathroom, and made one of the dorms into a living room area, and the other attached room a bedroom. It was cheap, close to the metro, and pretty much in the center of Roppongi Hills, which is a big shopping/dining district.
We decided on our last day to do a little random sight-seeing and ended up in the Harajuku district. If you google this street, you can see what it's most famous for... and it's the crazy teenagers who dress in off the wall outfits. They are called the Harajuku Girls and were the inspiration for Gwen Stefani's perfume line and one of her songs... not quite sure which one, maybe Holla' Back Girl... er, whatever it's called. We were out pretty early in the morning so we didn't get a chance to see them, and the street's shops were pretty much all closed, but it looked like it had some potential to be a lot of fun when it was up and running!
This pic is for the Weightman's... it's a super-awesome Japanese verison of a 7-eleven, same colors and everything, just Jap-ified.

This is a night view of the Tokyo tower from Roppongi Hills. The Tokyo tower was kind of Eiffel tower-looking, but apparently it's even bigger than the French version. It was very pretty all lit up at night...

This is quite possibly the smallest Hard Rock ever... seriously. It only fit like 50 people inside, no lie...

This is a scary art exhibit window display... I have no idea what they were promoting, but it was creepy and we had to walk by it quite frequently... note the weird penis... yeah, I said penis.

I was told the Japanese were very intelligent, but this window display proved it...


Us having amazing Belgian Beer... the night ended ugly, but the beer was delicious. My hubby ended up tossing his cookies, Sarah remembers only pieces of the evening, and Derek and I were quite giggly... good times!


On the way home from the delicious beer, I was able to get Sarah to take a pic of me with the biggest lantern I had ever seen. It was so magnificent, I felt it needed a hug..

This is a very weird spider statue in the middle of Roppongi Hills... I'm not sure what purpose it served, but it was cool to look at. If you sat under it and looked up into its "belly," you could see like little eggs in it. At night it looked very "War of the Worlds" but it was pretty cool...
So these are just a few pics of random bits around Tokyo, but lots more to come, including Kamakura and the Giant Buddha, Tokyo Disney, Tokyo Sea, Meiji Shrine, and much more!!

Gettin "Cheeky" at Work!



So I was minding my own business at work the other day, about to start my sick calls like I was assigned... and as I am looking at my schedule for the day, amongst the skin and ear issues pops up something a little new. On my schedule, it stated, "Amphibian, name: Hamster. To be seen for large 1-inch lesion in mouth." Instantly my curiosity was summoned... more for the fact that I refused to touch any frog and prayed it wasn't something or possible snake/reptile that was to be brought it. I knew I was working with our snake guru for the day, so I was keeping my fingers crossed it wasn't something potentially cold-blooded.

So I call my potential worst fear into the room, and the lady walks in with a little tissue box. To my surprise and great delight, it was a little 2-year old female Hamster named "Riku!" She had an inverted cheek pounc and mom was afraid it was a tumor or something! (parents always assume it's a tumor, haha!) So we took her in back to perform a re-pouching later that day. I took her little tissue box, set it on the counter on top of her file, and continued about my sick calls. I put a loose piece of tape on top to prevent her from getting out, wrote live animal on the box, and continued about my day...

About an hour later I notice she has a yellow note on her and I walk over to find that her "live animal" sign had come off since it was dry-erase from all the people looking at her, and wondered why someone would put "do not shake" on her note. Come to find out, one of the girls came out, picked up the bo, and proceeded to shake her while asking, "what's in here??"

We, being the humorous bunch we are, couldn't leave well enough alone and had to decorate her. So, she got the aggresive, keep refrigerated, and keep out of reach of children stickers to decorate her sign, haha. She was actually super friendly and I had to stop a couple people from trying to put her in the fridge, and almost had one person convinced it was a Habu snake, which is VERY poisonous! hehe.



So this is Miss Riku... as you can very easily see her little cheek pouch has inverted and is coming out of her little mouth. It looked really uncomfortable and she kept trying to pull it off, poor little thing. It looked pretty gross. And as if you couldn't tell, she was not a fan of 1. being held like this, and 2. having her pic taken this close with the flash going off, haha... she was a good little sport. Plus, it's not every day you get to her a hamster scream!



Doc C, being the genious he is, wanted to keep from having to sedate her since these little ones do not do well under the gas, so she got her poor little head pinched tight, flipped over, and some lubricated q-tips shoved into her mouth to try and put the pouch back in. We tried this about 2 or 3 times unsuccessfully, it kept coming back out, so the doc went for something more drastic... the gas!!



With a little sedation, and two little stitches to tack the cheek back in place, our little furry friend was back to new... almost. Her little face was a bit swollen, but she would make a full recovery. Mom was ecstatic and that was all that mattered!!

This little gal is almost 2 and that's pretty much towards the end of their life, but it didn't matter... she was still a little life in our hands and I got to learn/see something very cool... and now you all do too!

I hope you all don't mind my random work stories, butbeing the animal lover that I am, I sorta assume others find this stuff interesting too. If you think it's gross, feel free to tell me and I'll keep it off the site. If you like it, I'll keep it coming! Interesting stuff happens daily, so lots to share!!
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Saturday, October 3, 2009

Combat Dining Out Night



Can you see us in the pic? We were pretty well hidden in our matching "His and Hers" camo combo! Mike gets to wear his uniform every day 'cause he's super-cool GI Joe, but I on the other hand only get to wear iton special occasions like this. I took a pair of someone's old pants and turned them into a very cool skirt, and took a jacket and chopped it off to make this little bolero jacket, or whatever they call it... fancy, eh? If you're wondering why we look wet, it's because we are. A big part of this evening out were the watergun/balloon fights!! After the party, we decided to get a coffee at Starbucks off-base and walked in dressed like this... the locals got quite a kick out of it!


Awe, Phil made a friend... I guess he was tired of being the only single guy in the group. I think they make a great couple, even if his friend has no legs and isn't real! Notice that he's soaked as well... Jane dumped an entire bottle of water on his head on her way out the door... the look on his face was priceless!! She later got Sarah too... menace!!



The "Grog Bowls!" These bad boys were filled with some of the nastiest stuff the CE Squadron could think of. The stuff on the seats was chocolate bars and some mustard, but it looks pretty unappetizing. On the inside was the alcoholic and non-alcoholic jungle juice type concoctions. The people would have to do a obstacle course while being shot with water guns from all angles, then take a hit off the ol' grog... quite entertaining.


Most entertaining part of the evening were the table decorations. We had lots of props to make out little Army men act out awesome scenes. In this particular scene, our men on the left come upon a fallen comrad. The man on the left says to the man on the right, "Oh no, Smith's lost both his feet in combat!" Man two says, "Go check out the scene and I'll cover you!" Man on the ground says nothing except screams, of course... I mean, he lost both his feet! Later in the evening we stole a tank from one of the other tables and had awesome re-enactment scenes... it was too fun!

So basically this night was about just having fun. All the girls dressed in camo, all the boys chopped up their old uniforms, wore camo face paint, and carried squirt guns! We all did the presenting of the colors, had a mess-style dinner with eachother, watched people do the gauntlet and drink Grog, and then had a massive watergun fight in which we all got soaked, it was too fun!! I have more good video of this too which I will put up soon! This is what happens when you live in foreign countries, you gotta do random stuff on the weekends to keep yourself entertained, haha! Too much fun!!
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Oktoberfest... AKA... You're gonna be hung over-fest!



So Friday night was the famous "Oktoberfest" at Butler's Officer's Club... and let me tell you, all the stories I heard about this bing one heck of a party were totally true!! The Marines know how to put on a fiesta! This is us, obviously, shortly into the night when I only had a couple of lovely draft Pilsners in me...



The fest came complete with German goodies for the mouth and for the eyes... check out those suspenders ladies! Ya know, it's not the size of the horn that matters, it's if he knows how ot use it... and boy did he! This polka band was amazing, the say Highway to Hell, the Chicken Dance, and even a Prince cover! They had the ladies so wound up, one actually got up on stage, grabbed one of the guys suspenders, and shimmied up and down him like he was some kind of stripper pole... boy did he ever blush... and in his super cute little German accent he yells out, "Oh Jesus!!!" Too funny...



Mike is looking very guilty here... what number biru are you on, sir? You're supposed to be our DD!!



Left to right... David Wilder, our fearless Lt. Col. of the 718 Squadron, Sarah is in the front, Phil is totally wasted in the back, and David's wife Jennifer is on the right... what a crew we have! Not sure why Sarah is scowling though, perhaps her beer stein have runeth empty? Either way, I still love her!!

So anyway, the party was a total blast! They had very yummy German food, the music was very catchy and fun to dance to, Phil almost got into a fist-fight with some old guy with a ponytail about his missing mug, and I got exceptionally tipsy! I'm not normally a big drinker, so a few beers in me and all of a sudden I was all like, "KOMPAI!!!" which is Japanese for "Cheers!"

So on the way home, I start to hiccup... I get into a deep philosophical conversation (that I don't remember) with Mike about why we need to hiccup, why beer makes us so drunk, and then I proceeded to come home, tried to sleep but I got the spins, and when Mike tried to snuggle with me, I had already passed out cold, and I'm not talking about snoring passed out, I mean literally was close to death kind of passing out where you wake up the net morning wondering how you got home and in bed kind of passing out... not pretty. I don't recover like I used to... needless to say, but 3pm today I was finally able to get up and out of the house. It was ugly... I have some video of this evening I will have to post to really put us all to shame!

Ah... I love Okinawa!
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