Okinawa Beach Cabin

We took off for Hawaii and made it as far as Okinawa and are hard pressed to wonder why we ever wanted to subject ourselves to the extra plane time to spend more money and probably have less fun! So yes, we think we lucked out, not getting on the Space Available flight!

Our backup plan was to "vacation in Okinawa" but we really hadn't discussed it beyond that. We landed in Okinawa on Friday afternoon, saw there was a flight on Saturday morning, ate at Macaroni Grill and hung out and showed up to the airport Saturday morning. Things were good, we were at the top of the list, roll call was 2 p.m. and at 2:25 Mick came up and told me that a family on Emergency leave showed up and we got kicked off. So we called a Temporary Lodging Facility (hotel, acronym TLF) on Kadena Air Base, got a two room suite for $41.50 and I Facebooked my good friend Jennifer Lyon (we were stationed in Beaufort with them) who had lived in Okinawa for four years. She is in Germany now, so closer to my time zone so was awake, and she sent a huge list of things to do! Within a few hours, we made our vacation plan! :)  Here's what we came up with!

Okuma (Stay here a few nights)
Glass bottom boat ride
Jet skis?
Parasailing here?
Coco K’s for pedicures

Peace Prayer Park
Shuri Castle
Kokasai Street (vendors, covered marketplace)
American Village – ferris wheel
Marine, Navy and Air Force Gift Shops
Botanical Gardens (butterfly garden, wear red so they'll land on you more)
Tortilla Factory (restaurant)
Snorkeling (where?)
Grass slides (where?)
Roller slides (where?)
Torii Beach (Stay here a few nights)
TB: Beach glass
TB: Parasailing here?
TB: Water park and Pirate Park

WHEW! That's quite a list! We didn't make a dent in it, but we loved our vacation anyway and can't wait to go to Okinawa again! It's an hour and 45 minute (free) flight that's relatively easy to get on. So anyway....I'm sure you're like...well....what did you do and do you have pictures of those beautiful girls?  Ask and ye shall receive!

We moved into the Torii Beach cabins on Monday with the intention of staying there just a few nights and then going to another military base for new lodging, but we were so enchanted with Torii Beach and our log cabin that we just stayed there the whole week! It was only $70 a night. :)

This is standing on the beach, looking back to the cabins. Ours was the white one on the left.

This was a little "Pirate Park" between the cabin and the beach. There was also a water slide, but it wasn't open.

This is the view from our porch!

Audrey running to the beach at sunset.

 We spent a ton of time on the beach collecting sea glass. The weather wasn't great after the first few days, but we still went down to the beach a few times each day!

It wasn't a crazy loud tide, so Gigi wasn't afraid of it.

WHEEEE!!!!

The first day Mick rented a kayak and he and Audrey went out a little ways. He also rented a metal detector, but we had more fun just hunting for sea glass on the top of the sand!

I was a lucky Mommy and wife to be treated to such a fun vacation!

It was a lot darker than this appears, but I was trying to see if I could take a picture on manual settings (without the flash). It's not the best, but it was good practice!

When you have subjects like this...it makes it easier to take good pictures!

This is just a minute or two later than the one above, but I wasn't able to get one of the two of them without a flash. Such a difference between the two pictures! It probably isn't a "good" photography shot, but you can't beat their smiles so it's good for me!!!!!

It was a two room log cabin plus a small bathroom. Gigi is sleeping on the futon in the living space and there were two sets of bunk beds in the room right behind her. There were two mattresses up in the loft. It had a microwave and a flat screen television and no internet. And I didn't break out in hives! ☺

The girls LOVED the cabin and LOVED the loft and it was positively a wonderful vacation! We watched a movie every night and read books and colored and cuddled. ☺

We didn't let Claire sleep up there, but she played and played and played with her sisters up there!

Gigi stayed on the first floor!

Singing songs and celebrating a week off of school and responsibilities!

Silly girls!!!!

Could this outfit be more CLAIRE?!?!?!?

This is our huge bounty of sea glass that we picked up. Apparently Torii Beach is famous for all of the sea glass you can find! We want to make a table top or something with it.

Life was good and the living easy! I'll post more pictures of our day trips as I have time. So great to experience another part of this beautiful country of Japan that we live in!