The BEST Beach

Chris and I are always on the hunt in Okinawa for the best beach.  Now, I think this might be a personal opinion depending on what features you enjoy of a beach.  Chris and I look for the following attributes:

1. Few to no other beach goers
2. Good swimming
3. Good snorkeling
4. Good sand
5. Secluded
6. Shade? Easy to get there?

I'm even going to venture to say that those are in order from most important to least important (especially since we have an umbrella and as long as its an hour or less, we don't mind driving to meet our other requirements).

Today we hit the jackpot.  We found a beach (hamahiga) that met a LOT of our requirements.  It was gorgeous.  We did have to pay for parking, some American's showed up when we were leaving (boo), and the snorkeling wasn't great.  But it was really gorgeous.  You're probably thinking, "Geez, that's three strikes," but a good beach is hard to find, and I assure you, this was a good one!  You can judge for yourselves, via the pictures.  Reina LOVED it, as it was a good swimming and good sand beach - perfect (except for Reina - as she HATES the sand) for little ones.  

Tomorrow will be a day full of errands, cleaning, and packing in preparation for our trip on Thursday.  Chris and I had quite a lengthy discussion on what Reina will where on the plane.  I think a settlement was reached....but its always interesting finding out what Chris really thinks of Reina's clothes, as he usually doesn't tell me.  

I fear that after the trip, Chris will be on a quest to find a TV so that he can watch the last few games of the World Cup. He is already wearing his Japan jersey for tonights 11 o'clock game.  Boy, I am looking forward to the time difference once we hit stateside, as I think Chris and I have decided that Japan is the WORST difference between here and S. Africa.  

"Say Cheese"

Reina has learned how to "smile" on cue.  Unfortunately she thinks this means squint and bar her teeth (see picture).  Sometimes I get her to laugh and snap a good pic, and I get her to laugh because I"m cracking up at her ridiculous smile.  Reina is also starting to drop some of her signs in place of words.  She won't sign more or water, as she says those two words all the time, and she also usually says down too. Mind you they aren't complete words yet, but she's getting there.  She is still learning new signs, and Chris and I agree that our new favorites are "cold," "go," and our old favorite "baby."

Swim lessons have been going pretty good. We finished one week and it was kind of an up and down with Reina.  Some days she would tell me "all done" over and over because she wanted to get out, other days she loved it.  We sing lots of songs when swimming at lessons, and her absolute favorite is "baby shark, doo, doo." We do these cute hand gestures that Reina tries to mimic. Its really cute.

Reina also has started to "play" pretend.  Mr. Cow (a present from Grandma since Reina was born in the year of the cow) is her baby.  She likes to put Mr. Cow in her stroller and car seat and then tuck him in with her blanket and say "shh." Then she'll walk around with him in the stroller and likes to let me hug and give Mr. Cow kisses.

As you can see from the pictures, Reina has become quite the little climber - into and on top of things. The picture in the basket was about 2 seconds before the whole thing tipped to the front and she got a nasty bruise on her chin. I fear that there will be many more tumbles in our future.

18 Month Stats

Reina will be 1.5 years old on July 4th. Since we're flying out on the first, we went for her 18month well-baby visit today. She had a terrible time. I have never seen her so unhappy. As soon as I even thought about putting her on the scale for her initial vitals she started to cry. After the torture of having her weight, height, blood pressure and temperature taken we went to wait in a room for the doctor. Our "old" doctor recently moved, so we had to see a new pediatrician (she was great). Reina was pretty good until the doctor had to start touching her...looking in her ears, eyes, checking her legs, etc. Mind you this is all before the really bad part - when some poor guy has to come in and give her a shot. And yes, this was the first visit when she only got one. So, Reina pretty much cried from about 1 - 1:30.

Then we went up to radiology b/c the doc wanted to check out Reina's tummy (she has some bathroom problems, I'll leave it at that). This was another form of torture...so again, I literally had to have her pried off of me and then hold her down for the x-ray. The tech said my hand was in the picture, but I think both of us knew trying again was pointless. After all of this we went home and Reina was quite ready for a nap. We were surprised to find her happy in her crib after her nap, reading a book to herself. Hopefully she is at peace with the world.

Oh. And her stats. She is in the 20th percentile for weight and height (22.5lbs and 30.5 inches). She is in the 40th percentile for head circumference. Aside from the cruel and unusual punishment, Reina got a clean bill of health. Glad we don't have to go back there for another 6 months!