The Toothbrush Memoir: Last Okinawa pics (of the 1st tour anyway :)

The hope was always to catch up on the blog once here in the states and now that we do have a little more time (no diving distraction) we wanted to put our last pics from beautiful Okinawa. My sweet wife has an affinity for putting the kids in the ocean in Sunday dress, and it does make for some cute pictures.

Fashion models

the sun was very bright

it was really fun, even if it is difficult to get everyone to look at the same time when you are in the ocean dressed like that

the individual glamour shots

strike a pose

it's hard work to look this cute

I think he had a good time doing this

I know she did

this little guy was a lot harder to get a shot of, as you can imagine

Then it was off to the Air Park to get pics of them in flight suits in front of one of their grandpa's planes.

Again, bright sun makes for great pictures, but it gives our oldest boy an occasional Popeye look.

Oh yeah.

Off we go, into the wild blue yonder...

My wife likes this one because it captures their personalities so well.

another of one grandpa's planes

Alert scramble...

Then it was off to a festival outside gate 2. We parked and walked and this was what we saw.

Okinawans are known for their tug of war.

My kids favorite baby-sitter was playing in her band at the festival.

Due to people in front of us, I had to put a boy on each shoulder to see over the crowd.

Traditional dress...these boys are dressed as Eisa dancers.

Pre-Christmas presents at Uncle and Tia's

What could be bad about early presents?

Not a thing.

Then our last outing in Okinawa was to Peace Prayer Park. This is the park full of shrines to honor all those that lost their lives (on both sides) during the battle of Okinawa.

The pool is a map with the center for Okinawa.

Here you can see that better with Japan, the Korean peninsula, China and the north part of the Philippines.

The black stones in the background have the names of all those that perished much like the Vietnam memorial.

There are hundreds of shrines to honor the dead and this is one of them.

After the solemn part we took our kids to this playground in the park. It was awesome and totally wouldn't be allowed in the states due to safety reasons. The parks over there are amazing and sorely missed.