Forest Adventure

Well, Sarah went with some ninth floor friends and other members of the North Island Officer Spouses Club to a park called Forest Adventure. It is actually a series of about 40 ziplines and rope obstacles. The funniest part of the whole day was when the person giving us our little brief told us, "You'll never see a park like this in the United States. There would be safety nets everywhere and a lawyer on every corner. You are responsible for your own safety. I will show you once how to properly clip your safety gear onto each obstacle. After that...you're on your own. If you pay attention and clip in correctly, you're going to have blast. If you don't, then you're day is going to suck." YIKES!!! I guess since I'm writing this I clipped in correctly, and it was a blast. Boo is just tall enough to meet the height requirement, so I'm taking he and Jimmy next week. We're keeping it a secret from Paul because he KNOWS he's big enough to do anything, but the park officials don't see it that way. I'm going to try and load a video to the blog of the "Tarzan Swing." I hope you can get a sense of how how everything was from the pics and videos. I haven't got any videos of me on my camera, they're all on other cameras and they have too many bad words to post anyway. The picture of three beautiful women is Erica, me and Mary. All Ninth Floor. We were missing our other Ninth Floor compatriots Marta, Lori and Nicole. We hope all of you back in the States are great and enjoying the Fall. (Video upload didn't work. Sorry.)

World Record

We participated in the world's largest tug-of-war with the world's largest rope on Saturday, October 11. And OUR SIDE WON!!! It's an annual tradition in Okinawa, and not necessarily tied to any world record attempts. It was originally a method of solving disputes between tribes on the island. The event got larger and larger and more ceremonial and is now the biggest rope and tug-of-war every year. The rope is so big that the "coaches" stand on the rope and set the rythmn for the pullers. You can see Boo, Paul, and two of our neighbors Aiden and Piper, standing ready to pull on our section of rope. There is also a picture of the kids waiting to run out to the rope. You can get an idea of just how big the rope is. The picture of Sarah is to show how crowed it was. There is also a picture of the king being paraded down the rope. The tradition is that after the end of the contest you cut off a piece of rope. The more rope you get, the more prosperous your year will be. We got tons of rope! It was a lot of fun.

Sliding up a Storm

These pictures are from a park near our house. There are huge roller slides. We use pieces of cardboard to come down which make is faster and easier on the bum. There is also a "dropslide" which a bit odd, but there is a picture of Boo and Paul making the drop together. I'm too chicken to do the dropslide, but I put in a picture of Boo and me making a run down the roller slide. Our landing was a little bit rough.

Baseball

Boo and Paul have both been very busy with baseball. Paul is on the Red Rhinos and Boo is on the Red Bulls. I've attached a few pictures of Paul at his last game. I will take some pictures of Boo at his game on Friday under the lights and post them next. The first three pictures are of Paul whacking a ball into left-center, rounding first heading to second on the same hit and then going into third for a triple. The next picture just shows Paul in his post-triple gansta rapper mode. I've also loaded a shot of Paul playing second base which has become his position of choice.

Fullwoods in Okinawa

The SCUBA Divers

So much has been happening here in Okinawa that I thought I'd start a blog to make it easier for our family and friends to see what's we've been up to. We found out a few weeks ago that we'll be heading back to Camp Lejeune in May, so we are very excited. But knowing that our time in Okinawa is now shorter than we expected, we're trying to cram as much in as possible.

The boys have been busy with baseball. Boo and Jimmy are finishing up their SCUBA certifications, and considering that Okinawa is one of the top ten dive spots in the world, this was a great place to do the qualification. They saw a spotted moray eel on their first dive. Paul and I snorkel all the time and see amazing creatures ourselves. We see every tropical fish you can imagine, star fish of all varieties, and we even came face to face with a sea snake.

We visited the Shuri Castle ruins a few weeks ago. This was the center of the Ryukyu Kingdom until the late 1800s. It was nearly destroyed during WWII, but a major effort is underway to help restore some of its more prominent buildings.

We can't wait to get back to the States, but we are enjoying our "tropical vacation" here in Oki.