Travelog for: Annie

Dear Mommy,
Its been quite rainy here recently, but we've been trying to get out whenever the sun is out. The children are quite restless from staying indoors and they need to get some energy out! So we headed to one of the giant slide parks on Okinawa. Jayme's children really love this slide. Here it is from the bottom, you have to walk up quite a few stairs

And here's the view from the top looking down. Its a rollerslide so there are many rollers you slide down. The Japanese children go down standing up, but Jayme's children are a bit young for that so they go down sitting on a piece of cardboard.

They also had a small beach nearby so the children tried to build a sand castle.

More soon,
Annie

Dear Mommy,
Like I said in the last update, its been very rainy! And Jayme's children are even driving us toys a bit up the wall with too much energy, so we also headed to an indoor playground. Its a place called Mona Kids. Here is the entrance, isn't it cute?

We had a snack inside

And here's the play area for the children. There's lots of tubes and ball pits for them to play in.

While the children were playing Jayme got to sit and rest and read a bit. I read some Lord of the Rings with her.

More soon,
Annie

Dear Mommy,
I was quite excited when I woke up and it was actually sunny! Jayme said we were going to go out, but first we would make some lunches to take to eat in the car since it was going to be a bit of a drive. She said we were going to use these things called egg molds. First you boil and peel the eggs, then you put them in molds like this.

Here we are with all the egg molds.

Then you put them in the fridge until the cool, and when you take them out they've been molded and will hold their new shape. Neat huh?

We packed them along with other snacks into a bento box, which is a boxed lunch. Bentos are very popular in Japan. Jayme says she makes "American" bentos because her family doesn't like eating rice when it gets cold, which is a traditional bento food, so instead she makes her own type of boxed lunch. But it does look yummy... you can see the eggs are wrapped in saran wrap and placed in with the other food.

Then we headed off. It was a long carride up the coast until we arrived. Finally we arrived at the Busena resort! If you can see that pier far out in the distance, that's where we're headed.

We took a nice walk along the way, I thought this anchor was kind of neat.

And finally we made it to the pier.

We walked to the end and they had what's called an Underwater Observatory. You go down 2M under the water and you can look out the portholes! The area is really rather small, with only about 25 portholes, but its very neat. We stayed there for a long time watching the fish go by.




Finally it was time to head home, but we did stop at the playground on the way to let the children run a bit more. Can you tell Jayme spends a lot of time at playgrounds? Here's a view of the playground from one of the many things to climb on.

We toys took a rest on the rock wall.

Whew! I'm glad we finally got to go out and have some fun, hopefully I'll have another neat update soon,
Annie

Dear mommy,
Sorry for the late update! We've visited a few places I'll tell you about, but Jayme hasn't had time to sit down it seems lately. First we celebrate Jayme's son Jacob's birthday! He's five years old.

For his birthday he wanted to go visit the aquarium so off we went! Here I am outside the building.

When you walk down to the entrance this is the view of the water there.

We got to see many fish. The Churaumi aquarium has the largest salt water natural light coral tank.


They also have the largest view screen to see whale sharks. Do you see him behind him? He's huge!

We made a new friend at the aquarium. He said he wants to be a toyvoyager too! He still has to pick a name for himself though.

Finally when we got home we decided to have some fun with the legos got for Christmas an his birthday. It took forever to put them all together!

More soon,
Annie

Dear Mommy,
We also got to visit a ferris wheel! Here I am outside the ferris wheel.

And here are all us toys who are visiting on the ferris wheel.

Here's the view out the window. The water there is sunset beach.

More soon,
Annie

Dear Mommy,
We also got to visit the grounds of Shuri-jo castle here in Okinawa. Shuri is the most famous castle on island. It was the main castle for the Ryukyan kings. It has been destroyed 5 times, most recently during WWII and they continue to rebuild it. Now you can visit and even pay a fee and enter the reconstructed castle. We only visited the outside today, but I thought you would like to see these photos of the outside of the castle and grounds.



More Soon,
Annie

Dear Mommy,
Jayme told me we were off to do something very special today. We got in the car for a long car ride and finally got out at a castle to quite a surprise. Us toys hadn't realized it was cherry blossom season here in Okinawa! You see, in mainland it comes much later but since Okinawa is warm year round the cherry blossoms tree bloom very early. They're also a much brighter pink than most in the mainland because they're a slightly different variety of tree. One of the most popular spots to visit is here at Nago Castle. You walk up the stairs and just look at the cherry blossoms along the way. Here is our view as we were walking.




On the way home we stopped by a spot called Manzamo Point to stretch, isn't it pretty?

Hope we get to have another adventure soon!
Annie

Dear Mommy,
Jayme says her parents are coming for a visit! Since they're going to be keeping everyone quite busy she thoguht it was only right for us to go take the kids out for some fun before they arrived. We went to two different playgrounds. The first was an outdoor playground, here you can see the playground behind me.

And then we bought tickets for something called a Super Slide.

Wow its big! Do you see the slide behind me? The children ride down it on sleds.

After that the kids still weren't tired enough so we headed to an indoor playground. Here are two pictures from inside.


Whew! I hope we don't have too much else to do before her parents arrived or I may be exhausted for the trip...
Annie

Dear Mommy,
Today Haggis arrived! We were very excited to meet him.

We also stopped by quickly at the store today and got some cherry blossoms for Jayme's table. She was surprised to see them in the store, and we couldn't resist bringing them home. Aren't they pretty?

Jayme says we'll be very, very busy in the upcoming weeks and she has many updates to write!
Annie

I've arrived at in Finland! I'm staying at the recently founded TV FosterCareHome  I'l be here untill my mentor/owner contacts the FosterCareHome. You can read more about  the FosterCareHome in the forum. The FosterMom seems nice and I have plenty of company here  Besides, she has red hair too!

My Foster Mom took us Foster Toys on a field trip to the Old Town of Porvoo! The Old Porvoo is a small part of the city, the part that was built first. Those red shorehouses are the most wellknown sight of Porvoo. Porvoo got its town rights in 1346. Now it has a bit under 50 000 inhabitants and an area of 654 km2. It's situated only 50km (less than 1h drive) east from the capital, Helsinki.

It was a fun trip! Foster Mom promised we'll go see the newer parts of Porvoo too

Horribly happy Halloween!

Happy Independence Day Finland!

Finland declared independence from Bolshevik Russia December 6, 1917.

Iloista joulua! Buorrit Juovllat! Merry Christmas! Nollaig chridheil huibh! God jul! Kung His Hsin Nien bing Chu Shen Tan! Fröhliche Weihnachten! Joyeux Noel! Q Ná merye i turuhalmeri! QISmaS DatIvjaj 'ej DIS chu' DatIvjaj!

Iloista joulua! Merry xmas! God jul! Buorrit juovllat! Fröhliche Weihnachten! Feliz Navidad! Joyeux Noël! And so on!


And have a great new year - 2012!