Kyndal is 2!!

Well it's hard to believe it, but our sweet little Kyndal turned two on the 1st. We had a great day on her birthday playing with friends at a play place here called Xystus Kids. We're so fortunate to have lots of places here for little ones to be entertained. Probably more than what is available back in the states. We then went to lunch at a great place called Chula-U. They had a buffet type setting that even had a kiddie buffet. I have to say that the Japanese are very accommodating to children.

Kyndal is really enjoying her present from us too. She loves riding her "bike" as she calls it. It's a Tinker Bell Power Wheels, by the way. : )

We finished the day with dinner and a cupcake : )

Saturday we had Kyndal's birthday party at Jumpin' Joy. Another kid's play place. : ) It was great to celebrate with friends and everyone seemed to have a good time. The party theme was "Tangled", Kyndal's favorite movie.

So all in all it was a pretty great birthday for Kyndal. Not to mention her daddy got a four day weekend for Labor Day so we're getting some extra time with him. Always a good thing. : ) We hope everyone (or whoever reads this) enjoys the pictures of our growing girl. Let the "terrible 2's" begin I guess. : )

Riding out the Storm

So typhoon season is upon us here in Okinawa. We are currently stuck indoors for the next 24-48 hours while we brave Typhoon Muifa. Earlier in the week it was projected to be the worst typhoon Okinawa had experience in 12 years, but thankfully it weakened considerably before it hit our little island. We're still getting quiet a hard hit from it but as of now I'm happy to say we haven't lost power but we still have a ways to go. This one is taking it's sweet time going over and it seems it's doing some sightseeing along the way or something. It started around 1 yesterday afternoon (Thursday) and won't be over until around 6pm Saturday. It's a very slow moving typhoon. Kyndal doesn't seem to be bothered at all by it though and has enjoyed getting to play with a few of her birthday gifts from Grannie and Poppa Freeman a tad early. As scary and nasty as the typhoons can be though, I have to admit that I do enjoy the time that I have with my little family. We're so busy during the week that we barely have time to spend with each other. Most days Ken is gone to work before Kyndal even wakes up and doesn't get home until only a couple hours before her bed time. So needless to say we enjoy any extra time that we have with him. Its just a shame that it often takes a typhoon trapping us indoors to really appreciate the fact that we have each other. Typhoon season lasts from June to November so there may be many more days that we get to spend just hanging out as a family. And that wouldn't be a bad thing, as long as the typhoons don't get too bad. : )

Here's a little video I took when winds were 91mph. The video doesn't really do it justice though.

Gonna make a change

As I lay here with my heating pad on my head dealing with yet another migraine, I am even more motivated to start on mine and Ken's new "project" called Zija. It's basically an all natural line of products that stem from a plant called Moringa. And it's my hopes that this wonderful plant will aid in curing me of these monsterous headaches that I have had for YEARS. At my breaking point with one or two migraines a week, I recently visited a neurologist here who recommended preventative migraine medication in the form of an anti depressant. I am not depressed by any means but apparently those type medications can be used for other things. He told me that I don't have to take the medication but needed to find some other way of dealing with them if I didn't want to take medicine. Weighing my options, I decided not to go down that road and look for a non medicated approach to my headaches. In comes Zija. My good friend here, Jen is big into health and wellness and staying her super skinny self. And a few months ago started her new Zija project. Me being the not so super skinny, not into health and wellness person, she really didn't push the subject on me very much. But now I'm motivated not so much for the weight management although if I lost a few pounds a long the way it wouldn't be the worst thing. : ) but so that I can just live a normal life without having headaches. I have decided that it's time for a change. Time to get healthy and take care of myself so that I can take better care of my daughter. She doesn't understand when mommy doesn't feel well but just knows "mommy hurt" and gives my forehead a kiss. I wish that's all it took to get rid of the pain but unfortunately it's going to take some work on my part to get healthy and hopefully get rid of the headaches. Ken is hoping to get back to his "pre marriage" weight. : ) And the products aid in weight management as well. SO...consider this sort of a "before" blog and I'll update everyone on our progress during this journey. AND if anyone is interested in finding out more about ZIja, feel free to check out my site at fitarmywife.myzija.com

Adventures in Potty Training

Kyndal is taking an unexpected, longer than usual nap today so I thought I would use this time to blog a little.

The past couple of days, we've really been trying to buckle down on the whole potty training adventure. Since we've only been semi doing it with Kyndal for the past couple of months since she is still kind of young. She would go on her little froggy potty that we bought for her, but only a couple times a day. Well, recently I've been letting her go "diaper free" around the house when we're home and she's been doing great about going in there herself and using the potty whenever she has to go. Now she's using the little Dora seat that my mom bought for her and she has her own little stool that she can get on and off the potty by herself. We also got her a little chart that she can put a sticker on whenever she uses the potty. She gets excited about getting to put a new one on. We're still having a bit of an issue with going #2....(wow, I can't believe I'm actually even blogging about this now..lol) but last night she did "that" on the potty and mommy and daddy were so proud! : ) I laugh about it because who knew one day Ken and I would get so excited about such an...."accomplishment". We're far from living a diaper free life completely, but we're making progress I think. We still have to use diapers for naps and bedtime of course and I have yet to take her out of the house without at least a pull up on but hopefully we'll get there soon. I bought her big girl panties to wear but when I have put those on her the past couple of times she has peed in them. Guessing she thinks its a diaper. SO..any advice from mommies out there on how to get Kyndal trained without having to leave her bare butt all the time? I would like to be able to leave my house without a half naked toddler of course. : )
Again, thanks to anyone who still keeps up with us, and sorry if this was too icky a subject..lol.

Long time...No blog....ONE YEAR LATER!!

SO! Been awhile, huh? Sorry to anyone out there who actually follows our blog. With the craziness of life, it's sort of taken a backseat over the past months...well more like Year!Gosh, last time we updated this thing Kyndal was 6 months ol

d. She's now almost TWO!! Hard to believe. She's a walking, talking bundle of joy...and attitude! : ) She's definitely little miss personality to say the least. Here is a picture taken of her 4th of July weekend just for starters.

It would be impossible to fill in all the details since the last time we posted on here, so we'll just start from scratch. Or at least the "adventures" of 2011 so far.

The beginning of the year wasn't very eventful, not that I can

remember at least. We moved in to a new house in March due to renovations being don

e to the buildings we were living beside of.

We love the new house that we're in now. The day before we moved is when the big earthquake and tsunami hit mainland Japan but we were very blessed not to have any sort of danger our way. We know everyone was concerned for us during that time and appreciate the thoughts and prayers.

Spring was pretty uneventful, just hanging out around Japan. This picture was taken at American Village here. Despite the name, it's really not that "American".

Easter was fun as Kyndal participated in her first Easter egg hunt. She only got

a couple of eggs though. Too many kids, and not enough eggs. It was sometime in April we found out that Ken would be going to school in Georgia again for 2 weeks so a last minute decision resulted in a trip back to the states for us all. We all got to spend Mother's Day weekend together while Ken was in Tennessee then he left the next weekend to head back to Japan. Kyndal and I stayed for a few more weeks and came back beginning of June. A canceled flight in Washington, night in a hotel and a 17 hour flight with a toddler, alone wasn't exactly a cup of tea but we made it home safely and enjoyed our visit to the states.

Which pretty much brings us to now. Summer is going pretty good so far, even though it's HOT!! Kyndal doesn't mind though, she could spend all day splashing and playing in the water.

Other than that, not much else has been going on with us. Ken got promoted to Staff Sergeant this week so we're happy about that. But we will TRY to keep this thing better updated for anyone who might still stumble upon it from time to time. Hopefully Kyndal won't be turning four the next time we type a blog. : )