My Cup Overflows

Well, I've been a married woman for eight months now. Mark and I celebrated by putting on some warm clothes and taking a walk by the ocean. We talked and laughed and sang and kissed and laughed some more :). It was magnificent. Then, we came home to decorate our new Christmas tree and eat some ice cream. I never celebrated my holiday season alone with a husband before and it's turning out to be the best thing ever...


A couple weeks before Thanksgiving, I was feeling very sad about not spending it with lots of friends and family. I imagined us having a very un-festive day just sulking around the house with whatever mashed potatoes and turkey we could muster up. Can you see it? That's enough to make you cry isn't it? But I imagined wrong. We spent the whole day cooking together with my grandmothers fabulous recipes. We just enjoyed each other watching basketball and counting our blessings. Mark kept reminding me that we may never get to celebrate the holidays alone together again. So, I thank God for him.

This is our very festive Thanksgiving dinner...

And this is how happy we were...

So that's my story this Thanksgiving. What's yours?

I have so many thoughts and feelings built up right now. About all sorts of things. My heart is mostly broken today. It's broken for the millions of souls who go hungry. Perhaps some are just hungry for a smile. Others are desperately hungry for any food at all, knowing that their body can only hold on so long; they are starving. My heart is broken for those who are hungry for love, wondering if anyone truly cares about them. For those hungry for security, scared to death that their home may be burned down at any moment, they are worried for their safety. And those who are hungry for attention, not sure if they are worth anything or if anyone sees them. And those hungry for their husband or wife or child, anyone they have ever lost or cannot see.

I'm hungry today too. Not for food, my belly is full. Not for love, my heart is someone else's home. I am hungry for something familiar. It's almost Thanksgiving and I can picture my grandmother headed off to the store to purchase all the fixings for our big dinner. I can hear the phone ringing in my parent's home with everyone calling to see where dinner will be served. But I forgot what it smells like when the turkey comes out of the oven. And I forgot what it sounds like when the wine is being poured and laughter fills the living room. We've been here on this beautiful island for seven months and today, it seems like a lifetime. I guess it's about this time that our time here stops feeling like a vacation... calls and emails from home come less and less... and reality sets in. I'm still very excited to be here and experience all these new and wonderful things. It's just not easy. I suppose they say, "When one door opens, another one closes," for a reason.

Oki Surprise!

About a month ago, Mark told me that we had to go to the Naha airport to pick up a fellow Airman and spend the evening giving him a tour of his new home. So I picked out a fun "island-ish" outfit and we were off! It can be rough moving to a new place, so I wanted to give him a positive perception of Okinawa. The whole way to the airport, I was thinking about where we could take him for dinner and what questions I could ask to make him feel more at ease. You can imagine how I felt when it was actually David & Brianna Kruhmin who stepped off the plane instead of some stranger I'd never met! It turns out that they had conspired with Mark to make this great surprise for me. WOW! So, needless to say, we partied it UP and tried hard to milk Okinawa for all it was worth.

Me, Skippy & David drinking fresh fruit & sugar cane juice.

Skippy eating some seaweed soup... Yummy!

Mark dressed up like an Okinawan Sugar Cane Farmer :)

This is our first day of snorkeling.

This is one of the giant banana spider's we found outside the Aquarium!

This one is of us visiting the lizards at Okinawa World.

They stayed for the entire month of October (and it felt too short). I don't know if they'll ever realize what a great gift they gave us. I'll never forget it.

Okinawa feels a little more like home now.