New Year's Eve and Welcome 2019

On New Year's Eve we ventured to White Beach, which is a military base that also has this beautiful beach and campground/cabins.  I am still in awe at how beautiful this place is!

 On the way home we stopped at an overlook and was again amazed at the view.  While I did hit the "enhance" button on my camera, this is pretty much how the sky and water looked here.  It was gorgeous!

 The New Year's Day tradition in Okinawa is to go with your family to the nearest beach and watch the first sunrise of the new year together.  We decided to make this our tradition too and early before the sun rose, we walked 1/2 mile to the beach to act like the locals.

 Caleb finished up his basketball season not long after the new year.   He had a great time playing and had a great coach and team.

 Here is a photo of the giant snails here, that we are pretty sure we have been warned against (something about they're slime is super poisonous and has some bacteria that will get into your bloodstream and mess with your brain)!

 I had to post this photo because it was so cute!  They were out walking their little nursery school kiddos and pushing them in these little carts.  

Merry Christmas & Happy Birthday Amelia 2018

Needless to say, I am WAY behind on updating this blog.  We are having technological issues and the computer will not read my phone anymore, so I had to get smart and find them in the cloud and them download the ones I want back to the computer.....I really don't like technology.

But, hopefully this will work!  Since I am so behind, I will try to tell you what the photos are of, but I may not go into great detail. 

You know this was our Christmas card photo and I really didn't take many on Christmas Day.  It was a really nice, relaxing day, but we missed spending it with family.

 December 29th...

Happy Birthday, Amelia!!  

She requested a tie-dye cake and this is what we came up with.

 We tried our hand at Bingata painting for her special day and loved it!  

 After painting, we found a cute little cafe to grab lunch.  As with most places here, they only take cash (Yen) and we were not prepared, so we could only 2 meals and had to share. 

All of the meals here are similar with a twist on flavors.  This one was a Nepalese restaurant.

Ryukyu Lantern Festival

There are so many places to go to lights that typically begin around Christmastime and run through March.  They aren't necessarily Christmasy, but it did give us that little extra Christmas-feel.

We headed to Murasaki Mura to see the Ryukyu Lantern Festival.

Murasaki Mura is a reproduction of Naha City during the 14th and 15th centuries, when Okinawa, then known as the Ryukyu Kingdom, was a flourishing trade center.  This cultural theme park offers so many crafts and workshops, we will probably go back to try our hand at a few of them.

There are said to be about 5,000 lanterns.

 Each year there is a contest with new lanterns.  We were given a sticker when we paid to get in.  After looking at the lanterns entered into the contest, we were to place our sticker on a board to help find a winner.  Here are just a few of the lanterns we liked.

 Here Amelia is placing her sticker on her favorite.  

I keep saying it, but we are so grateful for this amazing experience. We will hold this place and these experiences close when we leave.