The Yomitan Glass Man

On our first weekend on our own in Okinawa (meaning we finally had a car), we took a drive to explore, and we discovered the glass man's hut on the side of the road. I'm so glad we pulled over. This place is still one of my favorite little finds of the island. The glass man doesn't speak a word of English, so it was thanks to translator apps that we found out he blows all the glass himself, with recycled glass. His work is just so beautiful. 

Everytime we stop to get a little something from the glass man, he always throws in a "present" which include glasses and bowls, which are some of my favorite dishes in my cupboard. 

 

We took my mom there when she was here. I love bringing people here. 

Remember that time when I was pregnant?? This was the last picture we took while I was pregnant, I think. I went into labor a day later. 

This is kind of a random post, but I just wanted to share more of my love for this island and all of its special places with the people of the internet.

Hope you're having a swell day.
xoxo Annie

The time my dad "met" Justin Bieber

I've been meaning to post about this for a while, just because it's pretty hilarious and deserves documenting. 

One morning a few months ago, my mom and dad both tried waking me up at 6am, telling me to look up Justin Bieber's instagram. My mom called and insisted. So I obliged, begrudgingly, wondering what would be so important about Justin Bieber's instagram. 

I was in for a treat, because this is what we saw...

Umm what???? Talk about random, and hilarious! My dad was waiting for his sister at his NYC hotel and dozed off. After waking up and getting in a cab, he started getting texts within minutes from people in Utah who had seen the photo. Oh, the world of social media.

The photo ended up getting over a million likes, and me and my sisters got a kick out of sharing screen shots of the hilarious comments that came streaming in from crazy people all over the world throughout the day. 

This one was amusing....and the bottom one from some internet troll: excuse me lady?? He's not your dad!

Some other amusing ones:

These last two are my personal favorites:

Then the Daily Mail in the UK published this, and some of my friends in Europe showed it to me. 

So, apparently the Brits do not like Justin Bieber! They kept saying my dad should sue the Biebs. I think he should have too, if he would give me some of the money.

It's just such a crack up. It was fun seeing my dad's few days of fame. He even went on the local news in SLC! Just such a funny, totally random occurrence. Good times.

Cliche Mom Things I Shall Not Say

...not this month anyway.

"How is my baby one month old?? I can't believe it's been one month already!!"

--I can. It's been possibly the longest month of my life. A great month, but a loooong month.

"Where has the time gone? He's one month old already!"

--I know where the time has gone. Lots of sleep lost and lots and lots of feeding the baby. Sweet moments that I do cherish, don't get me wrong, but it is quite the adjustment.


Well... that's about it.
Because all the other cliche things about how they change so fast and how I want him to stay this little and cuddly forever are absolutely and completely true.
I never expected to enjoy the newborn stage as much as I have.
I love snuggling with him, and I love how easy he is to just cart around to stores, restaurants, etc.
I love how he knows who I am, and even if I am just a milkmaid to him right now,
I love that he stops crying for me when I scoop him up into my arms.

So put all those cliches in your pipe and smoke it. I love my little cuddly guy, and it's been quite the month.

Saying Goodbye to the Parents

Two weeks ago, we said goodbye to my mom and dad. That was hard. Yesterday we said goodbye to Victor's mom and step-dad. That was hard.

Hard is an understatement. Victor and I were completely spoiled by being able to spend such quality time with our parents. We hadn't seen mine for eight months and we hadn't seen his for over a year and a half. And not to mention the fact that they were here for us in our first moments of being parents to support us, guide us, and encourage us as we experienced a huge life change, one that sometimes we just felt so clueless about, and still do.

What's been the sweetest blessing is seeing how much love they immediately had for our son. It's true that the people that love you will love your children.

And that's why saying goodbye to them this time around was much harder than it's ever been. Victor and I have both lived abroad before and gone for long periods of time without seeing family. When we moved to Okinawa, even then the goodbyes weren't hard, because our parents were excited for us in this new adventure, and we didn't think much about leaving them.

But now that a little baby is involved, everything has changed. It was SO hard seeing the tears in Victor's parents eyes at the airport as they said goodbye to J. Babies change so incredibly fast, that for us to live so far from family who loves him is a harsh reality of our grand adventure of living abroad. It was something we never had thought about until now.

We had a wonderful summer with family here. They shared with us one of the most special times of our lives. But the time sure did fly by. We love them. And we miss them.

So now it's just our little family of three. Wish us luck!