Girl Time!

It seems as if I have more girl-time than husband time since John is always gone. Fortunately I have made some great friends here to keep me busy! Many of us are in the same boat, so it has been so wonderful being surrounded by great women who are going through the same things I am!

John's unit had a "Spouse Appreciation Day", so I signed up to spend a day with some of the other wives in our unit. We drove up north to check out the Nakajin castle ruins.

The cherry blossoms were in full bloom so it was gorgeous up there!

Here I am with some of my favorite other wives with a gorgeous view behind us!

After that we went to a little (crazy) place to learn how to make little shisa dogs out of clay.

Many Okinawans have these really ugly looking ceramic dogs outside of their homes to keep out the "evil spirits". I don't really keep up with the hype, but I wanted to see if I could make anything besides a bowl out of a lump of clay!

One of the men that worked there showed exactly what to do and made it seem pretty easy.

Here are some of the ladies working hard and concentrating on the tiny details!

Here's my finished product! It is still ugly, but I am proud!

The next day, my close girlfriends and I drove back up north to the last day of the cherry blossom festival.

Since it is much warmer here in Okinawa than mainland Japan, they blossom a few months sooner.

My friend Christine thought it would be fun if we did a jumping picture. It didn't work out so well. Fail!

That's better!

The cherry blossoms bloom throughout the summer. They are absolutely beautiful. I think everyone needs a little pink in their lives!