Santillan Adventures!!

New Blog!

2011-05-26T10:34:00.000+09:00

So, I know I haven't posted in about a year but I have some awesome news! No, moms, I'm not preggers. I started a beauty blog! It's very pretty and lovely and even though I only have one post up so far, I'm quite proud of it and I know it's gunna turn out to be pretty epic. I included the link in this post for anyone that's interested and I know all the family will be.

I started this blog because I finally realized what my life's passion is and where I want to go in life as far as my career. And it only took me 24 friggin years to discover it. I've always loved makeup but the obsession really started when Sephora opened up in the Boise mall in 2007. I had read about (although, I don't remember where) Urban Decay's Eye Shadow Primer Potion and knew that had to be my first purchase. I was convinced at the time that I just couldn't wear eye shadow anymore due to my oily skin causing my makeup to crease and gunk up within 2 hours. I would wipe it all off and reapply but that was getting to be too much. It was silly really. Who's gunna apply makeup every two hours when they're working an eight hour shift? But I did until I decided to just give up on eye makeup for awhile.

So, I stuck to eyeliner (bottom only), mascara, and some concealer and powder. That's IT. When I found out about the primer I was amped. I thought to myself, "If this truly does what it says it does and keeps my makeup looking fresh all day long until I wash it off, then this will change everything." I really had no idea how much it would change. It literally opened up a whole new world for me. A world where I actually had a passion for something and would do anything I could involving that passion. A world where I felt like I was nearly an expert on something, where I wanted to share my knowledge with others, where I finally could retain mountains of information without even trying, where I actually felt creative and artistic, and a world where I had something to aim for and would strive to make it happen.

It started with that primer and continued with my first giant Sephora eye shadow palette, my Sigma brushes, and Youtube tutorials from the lovely TiffanyD. When we moved here I was pretty bummed out about the lack of beauty stores and the cosmetics department in our tiny BX. But I had just gotten my new palette from my wonderful husband and that was keeping me entertained for awhile. My life with makeup was simpler back then. And cheaper.

Meanwhile, I began aimlessly browsing everything beauty online. I mostly checked Sephora to learn about new brands and products. I then discovered video tutorials and my all-time favorite makeup guru, TiffanyD. She made doing eye shadow looks so easy and fun that I started trying out a few things and realized I had a natural skill for it as well. I could do all the looks but I also wanted more of a challenge.

I ordered my Sigma brushes that she raved about and that's when the real fun began. I had never owned high-quality makeup brushes before. Just a random drugstore brand powder brush here and there but nothing as spectacular as this. They made my eye shadow looks all the more stunning and defined. I fell in love. They made me want to experiment more and see what else I could do with my own personal canvas. Turns out, I could do a lot. Now, when it comes to drawing or painting, I suck. Big time. I was the kid who colored in purple faces with green hair in her Barbie coloring book. But when it comes to my face, I feel like a real artist. I was amazed at myself but wasn't so confident that it looked as good as I thought, yet.

Sometime before the Sigma purchase, the brand new sparkling BX opened up. The second biggest in the world (damn you Rammstein!) and it was extremely exciting. You see, Okinawa doesn't really have malls and we are completely limited when it comes to retail. Things you probably take for granted, we ache for. Like Walmart, different options for grocery stores and drugstores, and finding every day products that you know are gunna be at every store you go to. I can't find a certain Loreal shampoo here that I've been wanting to try cause the BX just doesn't stock it. So, although it was much much bigger, the BX still left a lot to be desired when it came to beauty and skincare.

That being said, there was two things I jumped up and down for when I first entered the new store. Not only did they have a larger cosmetics department, but they now stocked the high-end makeup brands NARS and Smashbox. I couldn't believe it. It was like a breath of fresh air for me. There were so many products I had been aching to purchase but couldn't when I realized (angrily) that Sephora didn't ship to APO addresses. It hadn't yet come to my slow brain that I could've ordered off of the brands' official website. Eventually, Too Faced Cosmetics also joined their high-end sisters in our BX. I was in makeup heaven. Dustin was in makeup hell.

Soon, I began to get many compliments on my makeup. Nearly every time I went out people would say how much they loved my eye shadow colors or my blush. I also heard, "I wish I could do that. I can't do that at all." very often. My response would be, "Yes you can. You just have to practice." because I wasn't always this good. I got a few suggestions that I teach people how to do the looks I wear but I kinda just laughed it off. I didn't take them seriously at all and I knew I could never do something like that due to my Social Anxiety Disorder.

It wasn't until I was sitting around the house, unemployed, praying to God to show me what to do with all my spare time, that I realized that that was exactly what I needed to do. I was going crazy looking for a job and I knew there was a reason I wasn't getting any calls. God didn't want me to just sit around the house during the week as much as I didn't. So I started my makeup classes. I've only taught 3 so far but I believe they are going pretty well. My friends seem to like it and I have some random people interested in future lessons where I actually charge strangers. Pretty scared about that one but I know I can get through it.

So, now the blog. I want to do everything I can to get experience and my name out there as a self-taught makeup "guru". I researched for a few days about the best ways to generate traffic to my blog. I posted on OkinawaHai, Okinawa yard sales and my facebook. I also joined a few blog search engines. Yesterday, I spent literally all day working on my layout and first post. I didn't think it would be up till tomorrow but I didn't want to stop so it's up now. I am very proud of it so far and I want you guys to know how dedicated I am to it. This is what I want to do with my life so I am putting my heart and soul into this blog. I will also be updating Santillan Adventures as much as I can cause I do miss it.

Be sure to check out all aspects of the new blog and check back often. I'm excited for what I have planned and I think you guys will be very proud of me. :) Love you all!

LoL Dustin...we're so meant to be

The Broke and the Beautiful of Okinawa

Blue drinks Part 2

2010-07-26T18:23:00.002+09:00

These are my reactions to blue drinks:
...and my father-in-law.

You're welcome.

Blue drinks

2010-07-26T18:16:00.003+09:00

One important thing you should know about me is that I don't do blue drinks. I don't trust them. What the hell is making it that color??? Nothing normal is bright crayon blue so there is no way I will consume anything blue. It's not natural. I cannot stress enough how freaked out I am when I see someone drinking blue drink.

This last weekend I went out with some girlfriends and much to my horror and distress, my friend Sasha did this:

Not cool Sasha. Not cool at all.

For Brittany and Randy

2010-07-15T07:44:00.004+09:00

Some people have really missed my blogs and I admit, I've kinda missed writing them. How long has it been now?? I am sorry and will try to update this thing as much as I can now thanks to my sister's blog. I don't really have a choice since she claims she will kill me dead if I don't start writing again.

I kinda fell off the blog bandwagon for some reason. Once you start getting lazy it just turns into procrastination which only gets worse with time. I haven't written in my journal either which is a shocker to me since I love that even more and have had an abundant amount of wasted time to do so. *shrug* I don't know. I've been in an anti-writing funk the last few months, I guess.

A lot has happened since the last time I wrote. I feel like that was years ago. Dustin and I went on our honeymoon to Tokyo in February and it was everything and more than I could ever dream of. It was, by far, the best trip we've ever taken in our lives. We spent a lot of time in Disneyland (duh) and got the most out of our money by me graciously injuring my knee. If you follow me on facebook or talk to me at all, you know how we pulled that off. I did really injure myself...at first. haha

Dustin is away right now on his first (and hopefully last for at least awhile) deployment. It's been really hard on me since we've never been apart for this long. The first 3 weeks I cried pretty much every day. Now I'm kinda numb from it and even though I still get into my moods from time to time, I have no more tears left to cry. I'm all friggin' cried out.

We're halfway done with this loneliness and then my baby will come back to me in September. And oh, the joy that will be brought into the Santillan household once again! This has definitely turned out to be a hard journey. I've learned some things about myself though. I've learned that I don't enjoy being in the house by myself at all anymore. Any free time is spent watching movies on the computer and sleeping...a lot. I've learned that I cannot handle walking two dogs at the same time but somehow I'm managed it with limited pain to myself. I've also learned what amazing friends I've made here. They really have my back and without them I would be suffering a whole lot more.

So I've grown closer to the friends I have in the last 2 months, but I have also made some new life long pals. I met my new BFF, Michael, the weekend after Dustin left. He's friends with my good friend, Ivan, who I know from him coming to my job so often and because he's the tallest person on the island. He's kinda hard to forget. These two guys have been my weekend buddies every weekend since Dustin left. These are probably the first guys here I've felt really close to since leaving Idaho. It makes me miss all of those guys too. But when the 3 of us get together we just laugh forever and even if we end up at The Banyan Tree for the night we still have a blast.

Michael came into my life just at the right time. He really is my best friend here and it's been so much fun hanging out with him. He always makes sure I'm having fun when we go out and makes me laugh to the point of tears. He's also very protective of me which is pretty cute. If he sees a guy he doesn't know talking to me he'll come over and pull me away. He feels like its his job or something to make sure I'm looked after while Dustin is away. It's funny but it also makes me feel special in a way. The only issue I have is that he's moving back to the states in September and Dustin won't be able to meet him. It's very upsetting and I'm gunna bawl my eyes out when he leaves. I won't know what to do with myself after he's gone. I just thank God that he brought Michael into my life at such a tough time.

That's basically all that I've been doing. I'll post more when I get out and have some adventures. I have a few things coming up that I may write about. I'll also get back to posting pictures of everything. I feel accomplished having written this. Thanks Britt!

I love getting mail

2010-01-04T09:22:00.003+09:00

Because sometimes you get unexpected presents from friends named Michelle who see a Playdoh ice cream maker and automatically think of you.

I also love getting mail because you sometimes get your $100 worth of Hanson merchandise earlier than expected.

And then you get to show off your new Hanson, zip-up hoodie.

And your comfy new Hanson shirt which actually doesn't say Hanson anywhere on it so no one will ever know.

And because you're a freak and like to plan years in advance, you receive the ever popular Hanson one-sie for your first born who hasn't even been planned yet. This is the first thing your baby will wear as soon as you poop him or her outta your vagina. Let the brainwashing begin!

The few pictures I took on Christmas...

2009-12-30T11:45:00.007+09:00

Although we claimed this would be "THE BEST CHRISTMAS EVERRRRRRR!!" we kinda failed. Don't get me wrong, this Christmas was pretty much perfect for us this year as far as Christmases without friends or family goes. But it wasn't, by any means, the best or even one of the best that we've had.

Swaroski Crystal Mickey necklace! By far, my favourite gift from Dustin.

But it was nice. We opened presents, snuggled and watched Christmas movies. Then fell asleep numerous times during the movies that we originally were so excited to watch. Then I gathered up the strength to make a mini-feast for Dustin and I. Dustin actually helped me in the kitchen which was awesome because I almost said, "'eff it! I'm too tired and lazy to cook!". I'm glad we did though because everything was delicious. I made this awesome corn casserole, my sweet potatos, ham, and cream cheese mashed potatos (Mommy O'Brien's recipe :)). Then we ate waaaay too much and got sleepy again.

That's when my mom called. lol. I was able to hear everyone open their presents from us and their excited reactions. That was probably the highlight of the day for me. I'm glad I'm so good at buying people gifts. Just hearing the younger kids laughing with excitement over the things I got them, makes paying the thousands of dollars in shipping totally worth it. OK, I exagerated just a tad. But shipping was a buttload. Next year I'm just ordering everything from amazon.uk.com. Or sending money and gift cards.

Later on we called Dustin's family hoping to get our revenge on them for calling us a bunch of times starting at 7am that morning. I was furious because I had worked until 230am the night before and I just hate being woken up in general because I suck at sleeping anyways. I almost cried when my phone rang the second time an hour later and asked Dustin why his mom was being such a meany head and how come she didn't like us anymore. I tend to get dramatic when I'm cranky. I also tried to convince him to "disown her". You know, normal early morning tantrum talk. Merry Christmas!

So we planned to call Dustin's mom and wake her up super early like she did to us. We called when it was 530am her time, thinking she would be dead asleep and hopefully as cranky as I was when we's scream festive greetings into her ear. Surprisingly to us, she answered the phone and actually seemed wide awake. Let me tell you...that was a HUGE disappointment. But never fear, we will get our revenge some day! Just you wait and see. But, we did end up talking to her and the rest of the family for pretty much the rest of the night. We were able to listen to them open up their presents from us as well and I think we did a pretty damn good job. Unless, everyone's just really amazing actors.

So, it was a lazy day that started off with some rage but I was quite content by the time we got to bed. There are so many things that made this year better than last year. List time!

1) We were in an actual home with all our things

2) We were able to decorate and even had two trees this year!

3) Dustin was able to have his cinnamon bun Christmas breakfast tradition

4) I was able to bake cookies and share them with people at work

5) I was able to bake and make Christmas dinner!

6) Since we have cable, we were able to watch all the Christmas shows and movies that we love

7) We had phones to call family! That's the most important of course!

8) We have a dog to spoil with his own stocking

9) I wasn't suffering from a crazy allergy attack

10) We have so much to look forward to in the new year :)

Pretty Christmas Eve Makeup

2009-12-23T21:37:00.004+09:00

So, tonight we went to the Southeast Botanical Gardens (coming soon to a blog near you!) with some friends to see their light display that they do every year. I used it as an excuse to test out my eyeshadow plan for Christmas Eve night since I'll be working till 2:30 and I wanna look as festive as possible.

I was going for very sparkly, icy blue. I could see it clearly in my mind but a lot of times it comes out nothing like I envisioned it. Sometimes it's good and sometimes is devastating to me. This time it was exactly how I pictured it and wanted it. I was proud.

They match my earrings too! I'm planning on wearing my Bumble shirt (from Rudolph) that is white and blue and sparkly also. AND, it lights up whenever I move! It's the ultimate Christmas shirt. I bought it at Walmart last year before we came here. lol

I just wanted to show you my work of art. I'm super into makeup and I'm the happiest person when it comes out just the way I want it to. I was worried too because I realized I didn't have as many blue shades as I thought. I only had four so I used them all!

I used this crazy silvery glitter one too. I got it from England many moons ago and haven't been able to find anything like it since. Also, this picture makes me realized that I really need to do my eyebrows. Ooops.

Yea, I went a little overboard on the close-ups but I was so dang pleased with myself. And I hope you're all pleased with this pointless post. :)

Botanical Gardens at Christmastime

2009-12-23T20:44:00.017+09:00

Last year this time, we had just gotten to the island and were living at the Hamagawa Lodge off base. We had no friends and we were a couple of sad Santillans. But we had read that there was a wonderful light display at the botanical gardens and since we're super into lights and sparklies, we decided to go. We went on Christmas Eve and it was packed. We found out why as soon as we walked in.

They had gone ALL out with their decorating. There were lights on every palm tree and bush. It was quite the festive sight. Then there was an amazing laser, lights show that even had awesome fireworks at the end! Fireworks on Christmas eve! Needless to say, we loved it and it was great to do at least one Christmas thing that year. Christmas day we watched 30 Rock, ate cup of noodles and McDonald's, and I suffered from a severe allergy attack.

So when I figured out when the Southeast Botanical Gardens were doing their Christmas display this year, I was all in. And I invited my friend Stephanie Hodge and her husband, Erik(also Hodge...what are the odds?) along for the adventure. I had previously trained Steph at the Banyan Tree Club and we bonded right away. Then she quit the next day. Actually, it was more like 2 or 3 months later but it still felt like the next day. And then I was sad and I missed her.

I was sorry to see that apparently, the botanical gardens did a budget cut this year and they had about half the lights that they did last year. I was super bummed out but the Hodge's still thought it was pretty sweet. Then we found out that they weren't even doing their fireworks show. Then I was even sadder. We ended up staying only two hours cause it was cold out and there was no stinkin' show. Here's some of the shots I was able to get.

Before we left, I modeled to humor Dustin.

Super awesome pose extreme!

We look good together, I think.

Ugh. I always squint. And you can't see it here but we were sitting on frogs.

I wanted to steal that tree topper. But it was probably the size of my tree.

You could have someone take your picture in front of this tree with various props. Like stuffed animals and giant hearts made of tinsel(I think). Then you had to give up your first born if you would like to keep the framed picture in your home. So we passed on it this time. Because we were lacking in first born children.

Who doesn't love penguins?? No really. Find me someone that doesn't love penguins and I will fight them to the death.

Sooo pretty. It matched my makeup that night too. :)

A lot of the lights were out. It was kinda sad. Still pretty though.

Some dude.

He may not look like it, but I swear he was having fun.

Christmas hula. You know...that old traditional gig that we all grew up with.

These little girls were so cute and probably freezing their tiny hineys off! It was in the low 50s but with the humidity it feels a LOT colder. I was shivering after about an hour of being there and I was wearing 4 layers! I have a lovely video for you guys of the hula dancers 'cause it's hard to take non-blurry pictures of swaying hands and hips. Towards the end of the video when the little ones are dancing, the sound gets all crappy. I don't know if it's my camera or maybe I had my finger over the microphone or something. Enjoy the video anyways. I command you!

On the pond...

They still had some pretty sweet lights. Just not as many by far, as last year.

I loved this scene for some reason. I think I called it the "tree of life" at some point and made everyone stop so I could take a picture of it.

I'm still trying to get the hang of not making all my pictures blurry. One day I will be the master though.

Here at the Southeast Botanical Gardens, you can pretend that your entire head (and sometimes shoulder and arm) is Dori's single eyeball!!! I'm telling you...nothing gets me in the holiday spirit like creepy wooden fish.

Steph and Erik had to be Nemo, of course. Finding Nemo IS the best Christmas movie out there. I like how happy Erik looks here.

I was trying to be polite and listen to what Erik was telling me, while also looking glamorous for the camera. I don't think I succeeded on either because I don't remember what Erik said and I have a very pained expression on my face here.

So not ready for this.

I decided Dustin needed to be in more pictures. And we just need more pictures like this of us, in general.

Then the flash refused to work for a little while.

I guess I got scared. Of Dustin's face, of course.

Laughing at Steph (not pictured, duh) doing all this sexy modeling pictures while Erik captured every single one for blackmail later in life. Well, at least that's what I assume he'd be doing with them. If not, he's an idiot.

Checking out the stunning results of her photo shoot.

Haha, I look like the ultimate third wheel here! I should've squeezed in between them. Steph's boobs, I mean. I was cold and I can only imagine how toasty it would've been in there.

I wish I had gotten a better shot of this bridge. I have one on my phone from last year but we need to get the cord to hook in up to the computer. Anyhoots, this is when we started to head back once we found out there would be no laser, light, fireworks spectacular show. Quite the disappointment. But the Hodges had fun and it was a good excuse to just hang out with them so I'm still glad we went.

A look into our Christmas home...or something

2009-12-21T18:14:00.011+09:00

Countdown!

Our sad little village. We really need to expand on it.

This one's my favourite, of course.

The toy shop is my second favourite. And yes, I can spell favourite with a "u". Because I'm British!

Other part of the village. The part Dustin assembled. Not as good as mine but it'll have to do, I suppose.

We have two trees this year. Because we can. This lovely white one is from two years ago. It was from Rite Aide. We put it in out dining room.

Here's the new one in our living room. Have you noticed that there are no presents under the tree yet?? That's because you haven't sent us any.

Time to showcase some of our ornaments! This delightful Mickey and Pluto was a gift from me to Dustin. It lights up and it's super cute.

There's a glare but this one says "New Home" on it with the year. We have one from when we moved to Boise also.

I just got this one. It's awesome cause you push a button and you can dance in the delight of Mickey Rooney's voice! I have Mickey Rooney on my Christmas tree people!

Dustin just gave this to me as an early Christmas present this year and I love love love it! Isn't it adorable?

This is the ornament we got for Apollo. Even though he's not a beagle and he really doesn't give a crap about ornaments. But we got one for Ariel 2 years ago so it only seemed right.

MY ornament. Represent!

This one's just fun.

Awwwww!

Our relationship roots are in Idaho so this glittery potato ornament holds a special place in our hearts.

Blurry, but it's our 2007 Disneyland ornament. Yay!

By far, the best ornament I had found for Dustin. Peanuts gang literally playing hand bells. If you know Dustin, you know he loves Peanuts. He also grew up playing hand bells at his church. I found this in a Hallmark store one year and just snatched it up. Then I paid $40 for it. But it didn't matter cause it was perfect. I think I gave it to him that same day because I was way too excited to wait.

So that was pretty much all we got going on since the BX was completely outta Christmas stuff by black Friday. Pretty lame. But we'll be better prepared next year.

Christmas nails numero dos!!

2009-12-21T17:57:00.004+09:00

These are probably my favourites so far. I like that there's a few different designs.

Merry Christmas!

Long awaited Aria Asia video

2009-12-17T16:17:00.004+09:00

God really loves US!

2009-12-16T11:41:00.008+09:00

So, we've been getting a lot of good news lately. The kind of good news that makes me hysterically sob with happiness. The kind that gives me uncontrollable heart palpitations of excitement. The kind that causes us to praise God and realize once again, how much He really loves us. I can hardly sleep at night from being to excited.

Good news #1:

This darling girl (who just ate a lemon apparently) is coming to visit us for 10 days in January!!! Oh my goodness. This was completely all God's doing. It was all meant to be! Let me start from the beginning.

As you probably know, we have been working to get our lovely Jack Russell, Ariel here. We had everything all set up for Ariel to get here. We hadn't bought the plane tickets yet, when Dustin found out about one piece of paperwork that he had overlooked. Apparently, he needed to inform the Tokyo airport of Ariel's arrival at least 40 days prior to her getting there. So we were super bummed out obviously. Dustin probably more so than me because he promised me that Ariel would be here by Christmas. He felt really bad about it and like he failed. I, on the other hand, felt strangely (Celexa) optimistic about the situation and told Dustin that it would be OK. I knew that we would still get her here soon.

The next day Dustin came home for lunch with a fantastical idea. He was still feeling pretty crappy and had been thinking about Ariel all day. His marvelous idea was for my darling sister, Brittany to fly to Arizona to pick up Ariel and then fly with her here.

See, the original plan involved Ariel flying by herself from Phoenix to Tokyo, then I would fly to Tokyo and pick her up and bring her home. The more we looked into this idea though, the more complicated it became. I would be landing in a totally different terminal than Ariel. And her terminal would be so far away that I would have to take a 30 minute bus ride there and back and try to make it back on my plane in time because I wasn't going to spend the night there. We also had no idea how long going through customs would take. Talk about stressful. No amount of pills could keep me from freaking out had I done this.

But, if Brittany took Ariel, they'd be together the whole time and she wouldn't have to go looking for her. Plus, it would cost the same amount for them to fly together. AND, it would only cost about $100 more to get Brittany from New York to Arizona.

I called Brittany as soon as Dustin told me his plan. Since we're paying for everything and it would totally be helping us out, Brittany, of course, was all in. And her boss said she could even take 2 weeks off!

So, we didn't get Ariel here for Christmas but now we get Ariel AND my sister! Hooray! I'm sooooo excited. She will be our first visitor here! We can have many adventures, even better than the ones we used to have!

Like this adventure that I like to call, "Very Pretty Girls Get Drunk off Their Asses and Still Manage to Look Beautiful While "Step-brother", Miguel, Takes a Picture". I think we're 14 and 19 here. Oooh, rambunctious youth.

I still like her even though she's taller than me and has bigger boobs.

I'm just so excited to see this lovely shinning face again! Except she doesn't exactly look like this anymore. Her head is a LOT bigger now.

On to Good News #2:

Remember when I told you all how I was beyond excited that our good friend Matt was getting stationed here in 2011?? Well, double that excitement by about 2,000, because now the Zimmerlys are getting stationed here as well!

Do you remember them?? They're the ones with the pug named Pugsy who is Ariel's BFF.

Beth Zimmerly is also the one that made our first wedding cake! It was delicious and had boob cupcakes on it!

But here's how we found out they were coming. Beth sent me a facebook message about 3 weeks ago. In the subject she wrote, "We can't visit you guys in March". I was like, "oh shit. Why?????" because they had been planning to come see us since before we even moved. They'd been saving up their money hardcore and everything. That's why they weren't able to make it to our wedding. But then I opened the message and it said, "Because we will be moving there in August!!!". I screamed with excitement and then ran into our bedroom where Dustin was still sleeping. I jumped on him and started blabbing loudly. He was extremely confused and probably a little startled as well.

I was finally able to spit the great news out to him, and even though he was still half asleep, he was able to show how happy and excited he was. That's when I started bawling. Geez, I must have looked like a close family member had just died or something. But I was just so overwhelmed with joy that I just couldn't contain it. God really really loves us.

We got exactly what we had been wishing for since we got here. We wanted our friends here more than anything and it's so amazing to me that now it's happening. The Zimms' "report no later than" date is August 20th, which means they'll be here a few days before that at least. And that ALSO means that they'll be here for my birthday (the 19th)!! Best birthday present ever!

It's going to be so beautiful, us being all together again. It'll be almost like old times. Beth and I get to be cooking buddies again! Ariel and Pugz will be reunited! We'll have food competitions and wonderful parties once again! It's going to be so amazing.

Since the Zimms will be here from 2010-2014, and Matt will be here from 2011-2014, we may have to extend our time here. Actually, we're really thinking that we will now. Beth and Matt were the people I cried over the most when we left Idaho. That last day at the lab was torture. Ugh. We don't want to go through that awfulness again. If we extend for 2 more years, we could leave the same year as them. Even though they would leave 9 and 4 months before us which will still suck but not as much, I think. And who knows? Maybe we'll get stationed with them again!

I cannot wait for Sammee to visit us here!

I just love Beth. She's so much fun to be around.

And I'm clearly adoring her in this picture.

I love how they're our oldest friends but look younger than any of us. I'm pretty sure they're actually only 16 years old.

Once upon a time, I worked at a magical place called Mrs Field's Cookies, where I make a giant cookie cake for Beth on her birthday.

OK. I have no idea what what we're looking at here. But I know this wasn't planned. Except for Matt's face. He's always and forever ready for any camera anywhere. That's Kati on the far left there. She's in Korea right now where Matt will soon join her.

I do indeed miss this face.

Oh, Mountain Home PMEL. I really hope Pete (middle) comes to visit real soon.

Going away party. Before all the crying started.

You can tell they're best friends because they both have blue shirts on and they both have fucked up faces. Pardon my french but come on. Look at those faces! What the hell is going on??

I'm pretty sure they'll walk like this together every day when Matt gets here.

I'm also sure they can't wait to be reunited like two old lovers. I wonder what shenanigans they'll get themselves into this time around.

I'm hoping the nights won't end with Dustin's face looking like this. I would hate for it to get stuck like that.

New Year's Resolutions

2009-12-16T10:55:00.004+09:00

I always get excited for a brand new year. It feels as if the universe is saying, “Here you go! A completely clean slate to finally start changing things!” And I get very optimistic and start to think this will be the greatest year ever. I always see a bright future before me when I put up my new calendars. I tend to think, “This is it. This is the year I’m gunna blah blah blah.” It’s very silly actually but I can’t help it. It happens to me every single year.

I’m super excited this year because, while looking back on last year’s resolutions, I realized that I accomplished quite a few of them. So I have more motivation and hope for this shiny new year. I mean, it IS 2010. That’s such a big number. It’s only right that it be such a big year.

I was going to include all of my resolutions from last year but decided to tell you only the ones we accomplished. I don’t wanna dwell on my failures. So here are our accomplishments of the year:

1)Get another dog—That clearly didn’t take very long

2)Start working out—Sure, I went through spurts of going to the gym this year but that’s still a huge deal since I’d never set foot in any gym before.

3)Get at least 10 “culture credits”—Basically to experience anything having to do with Okinawa’s culture

4)Have an awesome wedding--I think we completely succeeded

5)Save more money

6) Make friends--Now, when I wrote this, I was sure (for some reason) that I wouldn't make any friends this year

7) Buy Dustin a Wii--FINALLY the price went down

This year we got some new ones and some old ones that we just didn’t get to last year.

1)Start working out (again!) and continue to work out

2)Clean the house more often—I tend to let things get outta control and then clean everything all at once

3)Blog more often—I’m getting on that now. I’ve become rather lazy about posting lately and I don’t like it

4)Read and write (journal) more—It needs to be done! Because I love it a lot.

5)Keep in touch with friends and family better

6)Be happier! No stress or worrying! Thank goodness I have drugs to help me with this one

7)Get at least 5 new culture credits

8)Learn to snorkel and dive

9)Get Ariel here and force her to be best friends with Apollo

10) Learn more Japanese

11)Have a fantastic honeymoon!

12)Get my pesky moles removed

13)Get my brothers’ names tattooed on me (finally)

14)Get a Santillan family portrait done…maybe for Christmas cards

So yea, I tend to make them pretty long. But I think everything on this list is definitely doable. Here’s to a beautiful shiny New Years!!

First Christmas nails of the season!

2009-12-15T10:25:00.003+09:00

Got them done almost two weeks ago actually. So before I get them changed to different festive designs, I wanted you all to see these. I don't know if anyone actually cares but I think they're super rad. And they totally get me excited for Christmas!

Thanksgiving Party 2009/The Ginormous Feast Where Tara Actually Stayed Calm The Entire Time

2009-12-10T13:59:00.013+09:00

It’s true. This was my first time cooking for that many people (about 25!) and our first party at our house as “grownups”. It should have been nerve-wracking. I shouldn’t have been able to sleep for days before hand. I should have gotten stressed to the point of tears and enormous knots in my back. I’m a worrier with extremely high stress and anxiety levels as I’m sure most of you know by now. Planning a Thanksgiving party at our place and then telling nearly everyone we know to come over should’ve sent my heart rate through the roof. But it didn’t. Thanks to drugs! Had I known about 10 years ago that I could go through life without having crazy heart palpitations and freaking out at the drop of a hat, I would’ve given up my Middle of Nowhere CD to feel the way I do now! Well, actually…I probably wouldn’t have given up something as precious to me as my first ever Hanson CD, but I maybe would have considered it. Wait. No, I wouldn’t. But I would’ve done something significant to get my hands on these drugs!

The whole day, when things weren’t going as planned at times, I kept asking myself, “Why am I not freaking out?? This isn’t me at all. Who the hell is this super chill chick??” It was awesome but really really weird. I guess I really put my medication to the test on Thanksgiving and it totally passed. And that’s when I realized how much they’re really helping me. At any time in my life, if I was put into this exact same situation, I would be a mess. I would be yelling at people, getting annoyed, slamming things maybe, definitely hyperventilating, probably crying, and just totally tearing my hair out. And I knew this. Yet, I was just going with the flow and was just happy to feed so many people feel popular again. I was extremely tired but it didn’t make me cranky. I was laughing and socializing a lot the whole night and it just felt right.

Now, since it was such a crazy day and all, I totally forgot to take pictures of everything. It happens. Here are some shots of the setup way before anyone had gotten there. We rented the chairs from Outdoor Rec and were gunna rent tables from them as well but they were totally out 2 weeks before thanksgiving. I was gunna call them the first of the month but I do this thing where I procrastinate. It runs in the family. Well, Dustin’s family but still. Luckily, the ever so lovely Banyan Tree Club let me borrow two of their six-foot tables. And thank God because otherwise, I wouldn’t have anywhere to put all the food.

I was only able to take pictures of the setup before hand. Because then I was super busy and it completely slipped my mind that I should be taking pictures.

Yea, that's Danny Devito on my TV. Apparently Twins was on.

Where all the food was gunna be later on. We still almost didn't have enough food. People brought more stuff than I thought they would.

This is Mitsuki. He works in the snack bar at the Club and is the most polite person you will ever meet! Him and Dustin really get along so Dustin invited him. He was very excited to be celebrating an American holiday for the first time. But him and his friend were super shy and nervous when they first got there. And I don't blame them. They were the only Okinawans in a room of 25 loud mouthed Americans.

But then the guitar got brought out and it bridged that cultural gap and the language barrier practically disappeared. Thanks to Blink 182 and Green Day, our Japanese boys felt a lot more at ease.

Dustin wants you to watch this video of the magical bonding happening. It's really quite silly.

Later, my friend Melissa and I wrapped up some food and took it to The Banyan Tree where some of our friends were still working. That was my one good deed of the year. When I got back nearly everyone had left. So naturally, we took some awkward pictures.

Oh, Mitsuki.

We figured out the timer on my camera. And I love how Shedd (far left) is looking at some other camera that I don't think was even taking a picture at the time.

All in all, the party was a HUGE success. A lot of people came and applauded my cooking skills. I also got to know a few people better. But damn, were we tired after everyone left! I haven't decided if I wanna do this again next year but we'll see since Beth would be here to help me and that would be nice.

Sorry this was so late guys. I swear, I'm trying to post as often as physically possible. But it is the crazy holidays, you know.

Another reason I love Disney so much

2009-12-10T13:56:00.003+09:00

Disney has outstanding customer service no matter where you go. They’re known for their skills in making the customer always feel like they’re right even though they’re probably wrong. And a total tool at that. At the parks they don’t refer to their customers as just that. They’re instead referred to as “VIPs” or “Very Individual People”. It’s true. I learned that little tidbit from my mandatory customer service training classes. It’s about the only thing I remember from sitting in that same room for 12 hours. Well, it was 4 hours a class but it still sucked big time.

Anyhoots, the reason I’m gushing about Disney’s customer service right now is because I have been blessed with it just recently. Remember when I vented about our Halloween costumes not getting here in time for Halloween?? Well, eventually we did get them. About two and a half months after I ordered them. That’s even too long by their standards. I know because I emailed them about a previous shipment that was taking longer than I had expected.

They emailed me back about 2 days later with a very nice, personal, message. I don’t know about you but I think it’s super duper that they have people there that personally respond to people’s complaints. It wasn’t just a generic email where all they have to do is fill in the blanks with your information and give you the same answer they give everyone else. They told me that it takes about 6-8 weeks for packages to arrive at APO addresses. That was the reason I only had one shipping option when I ordered. I have no idea why they take so long when Amazon can get some things to me within a week. They also told me that they tracked down the package and that it was definitely on its way and if it hadn’t gotten to me by November 11th (the end of 8 weeks) that I should get in touch with them again and they’ll work out a way to fix the problem. I totally appreciated that and I got my shipment on November 8th so I was pretty happy.

But when our costumes were taking even longer to get to us I started to get a bit disgruntled towards Disneystore.com. So I emailed them again. And this time I made my complaint really personal and threw some emotion in there as well. I told them that I was so heartbroken over our costumes not getting to us on time because we’re newlyweds and were gunna be Mickey and Minnie and it was gunna be sooooo cute. But then our costumes didn’t get here on time so we weren’t able to dress up and have the wonderful Halloween that we’d been planning. And I was just wondering if our costumes would be here in time for next year’s Halloween because we’d really like to be dressed up super cute and I just wanna know if you know where our costumes are???

So yea, I thought it was a pretty good email. I had fun writing it. It was kind of late though because the next day we got our costumes in the mail. On the same day too, which was weird because I ordered them about a week apart. Then I didn’t check my email for a few days because we were just really happy about how great our costumes were. See??

When I did check my email, Disneystore.com had indeed responded to my dramatic complaint. They didn’t know I had received the costumes yet, I guess, because they decided to fix the “problem” by crediting all the money (shipping excluded though) back onto my debit card!! It was totally unexpected and a FANTASTIC surprise. So sure, we’ll have to wait until Halloween 2010 to wear the costumes, but they were friggin’ free!!

And they were so worth it, dontcha think?? They fit us perfectly, are actually very nicely made, and they totally suit us! I can’t wait until next Halloween! Maybe by that time we’ll find a Pluto costume to force Apollo to wear.

Apollo even enjoys the holidays!

2009-12-10T13:50:00.002+09:00

I swear he does. Just ignore the depressed look on his face. He always looks like that. It doesn't mean anything.

OK. I saw these antlers at the BX and just HAD to get them to make Apollo wear. I didn't know if he would hate them or not but I didn't care. This wasn't for him. It was for me and my own squealing amusement.

Turns out, he really really hates these things on his head. I also don't think the bells help. He tries to take it off of him before I even get it on his fluffy little head. But seriously, how cute does he look?? He should be a dog model, I swear. Dustin held him up long enough for me to get his attention and snap a few shots. He was completely miserable. And yes, I have put the antlers on him since this. I'm trying to convince/force him to embrace them.

Hey, I'm just trying to spread holiday cheer or whatever.

And now for the Fall Update post

2009-11-17T14:14:00.002+09:00

I'd like to sum up the last few months in a few choice words to explain why I haven't been blogging as much.

Honeymoon planning. Working on getting Ariel here. Too many hours at work. Too few hours at work. Stress. Anxiety. Sleeping 3-4 hours a night. Panic attack in the shower. Emergency room visit. Xanax doesn't do shit. Mental Health appointment. Diagnosis: Depression, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, and Social Anxiety Disorder. My reaction: "Duh". Celexa, Trazadone, Klonopin. Getting worse before I get better. Drugs making me zombie tired.

So, that aside...I'm feeling a lot better. I've been on the Celexa for about 3 weeks now and I'm starting to feel some changes. I don't get anxious as much. I can sleep. I'm actually doing things now. That's the worst part about depression. I lost interest in EVERYTHING. I felt completely hopeless. I wanted the house to be clean because it was stressing me out but I was too depressed to bring myself to even load the dishwasher. Dustin has helped me a lot and bless him for it. I couldn't have done this alone. But the dear, sweet boy can't sweep the floor as well as I can.

I'm still working on things and am trying to get through this the best I can. I've been through it before as a teen so I know everything will be back to normal eventually.

Here's some non-serious things that have been happening as well:

-We're almost done Christmas shopping! We're only doing parents and siblings this year and that's still 13 people. And we're only doing stockings for each other so we can save money and buy a lot of Disney crap in February.

-Last week I was running around and dancing with Apollo when I slipped sideways on Dustin's old PT sweat pants that I was wearing, and smashed a lot of body parts on our hard linoleum floor. My hand quickly puffed up and eventually bruised. I also bruised my right knee, hip and arm. But, the thing that broke my fall the most was my face. I fell right on my cheek bone and temple and my head literally bounced off the floor! I was a crying mess and was most scared about ruining my face and no longer being pretty. But have no fear! My face didn't even bruise! I'm still pretty.

-We've been buying a crapton of Christmas decorations at the BX almost every time we go that I have no idea what we even have.

-Gingerbread pancakes. Enough said.

-Our fabulous friend Matthew Frye got orders to Kadena!! He's probably the number one person Dustin would want here because they're basically in love with each other. We're beyond excited and can't wait until March of 2011!

-We're planning a Thanksgiving feast at our house this year with people from our jobs. It's our first time ever planning a party together and it's my first time ever having Thanksgiving at my place. We have a lot on our plates and we hope everyone else will too. Hahahaha.

-Dustin's on bowling league here which makes me happy because he loves it and I won't go with him because I'm not naturally amazing at it and I don't like to be bad at things. Especially in front of people.

-My mom and younger sibs get to see Mickey Rooney in some play in England in January and I am so jealous, I want to cry. Hopefully they can get me an autograph or something.

-My Mickey Rooney mania is getting worse thanks to TCM and their showing a Mickey Rooney film nearly every day.

I'm sure I'll think of more later but I will also try to update more because I do love blogging and I really hate when there's such a large gap in between posts.

"Are you Tara??"

2009-11-17T13:59:00.002+09:00

That's what my co-worker, Ken Miyagi, asked me when I walked into work with my new hair. I finally sucked it up and got it done at a salon on base. Luckily the girl that did it spoke English. It's a lot darker then I was planning. I was actually gunna go lighter! But I found a picture that I liked, brought it in and then looked through their samples to find one that matched.

I really like it though. I wasn't sure at first since I haven't gone dark since I was about 17. I used to dye my hair this blue black color that came in a box. It was awesome cause it just looked black but when the sun hit it just right, I had a blue tinted halo around my head. This new color does the same thing but with a purple-ly reddish color. It's pretty cool.

And with new hair comes new eyeshadow colors that just stand out more. I see a lot more pinks and purples in my future.

As you can see here...my makeup looks amazing because I'm just that good these days. You can also see from the picture that Dustin never leaves me alone. My hair is still wet in this shot but when it dries my curls are all sorts of shiny and bouncy. I had about 4-5 inches cut off so my hair is really thanking me for that. It's a lot healthier and my curls are curlier since they're not being weighed down as much. I can honestly say now that I've learned to embrace and even love my curly hair.

This has nothing to do with my hair and everything to do with my makeup. I should've had Dustin take a closeup shot of me with my eyes closed. There's some blue, pink and about 3 different shades of purple in there. Someone please get me Urban Decay eyeshadow (and Primer Potion) for Christmas!! Sephora.com doesn't ship here!

That is all.

Breakfast of the Week!!

2009-11-17T13:56:00.003+09:00

Dun Dun Dun!! Apple Walnut Muffins!!! Martha Stewart. I suggest you make them like now.

Halloween 2009

2009-11-04T13:27:00.006+09:00

Oh Lord. I know it's late but here's how Halloween with the Santillans went down. I'll be writing an update post as well to let you guys know what's going on and why I haven't been posting as much lately.

First off, Halloween was gunna be awesome this year. Dustin had heard from work that we could volunteer to sign in some local kids onto base to trick-or-treat. So I took off from work and we decided what our costumes would be. We were gunna be Mickey and Minnie and it was going to be adorable. I even took the whole day off from work and everything.

The first thing that went wrong was my costume. I ordered Dustin's costume for Disneystore.com because that was the only place that sold it. I, on the other hand, wanted a...well, sluttier version of my costume. So I ordered a non-official Disney costume from Amazon and it got here right quick. Only problem was...it didn't fit. And not only a little bit. It was a small and I'm not big by any means, but it seemed more like a dress for a toddler than for a size small adult. I got stuck in it when I tried it on! And since it was seasonal, I could only exchange it for another costume. I didn't wanna do that because I didn't want the same thing to happen all over again.

So I sucked it up and ordered the cute but way less slutty, Disney Minnie costume. That was about a week later. I ordered Dustin's costume on September 26th. Ordered mine the beginning of October. I thought that would be more than enough time. I thought wrong. It's November 17th today and the costumes still aren't here. I emailed Disney and they were very nice and informed me that with APO addresses, it takes about 6-8 weeks for packages to arrive. Wish I had known that before.

So we had no costumes. But I was determined to make the best of it. We would give out candy to trick-or-treaters for awhile and then we planned to meet some friends at the Banyan Tree Club and just have a good time.

But first! Since it was Saturday and I was off, I had to make Dustin breakfast in bed. I do this because I'm a nice girl and because I don't want Dustin to punch me in the mouth when I wake him up. Kinda like a peace offering. I knew I wanted to make something pumpkin because it's fall and that means everything I make should either have pumpkin, apples, pecans, and cinnamon. I searched on TastyKitchen.com and found the perfect recipe. Pumpkin Pie Oatmeal!

Let me take a moment to give props to the amazing woman that created TastyKitchen. Her name is Ree Drummond and it you haven't heard of her blog, The Pioneer Woman, then you're missing out on something truly wonderful. Her blog has reached such huge proportions that she now even has a cookbook out that I want but the BX doesn't sell. But TastyKitchen is her other website where you can search for recipes, add recipes, talk to other people, whatever. And it's grown a lot since she started it only a few months ago. It's pretty awesome.

Especially since this baked oatmeal was BEYOND good!

Oh man. I think I'm gunna make this again this weekend. It was so delicious and the perfect way to start the holidays. Those are glazed pecans on top by the way.

Here's our cauldron of candy with the flash on. The kids loved the Fun Dip more than anything else. Good thing to know for next year.

Flash off.

I made Dustin hold it up by our lamp so I could take pictures. Then I backed up and took this picture of him and then realized that he wasn't even paying attention. Can you tell the t.v. was on?? That's essentially the face I deal with on a daily basis when I try to talk to him while the t.v. is on. You'd think I would've learned by now.

We kept the door open so the kids would know we were giving out candy and Apollo could hardly stand it. He wanted to be let out and see the kids sooo badly. He basically stayed by the door like this the whole time.

I got his attention for about a second.

There weren't that many trick-or-treaters at all because it was pouring outside. That's Okinawa for you. I even heard a lot of kids crying and begging their parents to take them home because they were wet and tired. It was cute and sad. But at least we didn't have to deal with any obnoxious kids. It's nice living in base housing.

So then we got ready to go out. I was just gunna dress up in whatever and ended up with an 80's type outfit. Just from clothes I happen to have in my closet. I didn't plan it either. It just sorta happened which was cool. That leather jacket is actually from the 80's too. My Nana gave it to me when I was in NY in May. If you take a closer look you can see my orange nails.

These were my last Halloween nails for the year. :( Now I have no nails so I can give my real nails a chance to see the world. But as soon as December is here, you'd better believe I'll have Christmas nails up the wazoo!

This is what Dustin wore to the club. He calls it his "cock shirt" and I don't let him normally wear it out of the house. But it was Halloween so I said, "what the hey" and let him look weird. Oh, and he did put shoes on eventually before we left the house.

So we drank with some friends, had some fun, and laughed at some crazy costumes at the club. Someone was even dressed as Quail Man!! You know, right?? Doug Funny?? Anyone?

Anyways, even though I was mad about our costumes (and still am!) we made the best of the night and had quite a bit of fun.

Rocktoberfest

2009-10-23T12:25:00.010+09:00

Today I'm writing about Rocktoberfest. Which was almost a month ago on October 10th and 11th. Oh well. I had the pictures uploaded for quite awhile now but when I tried to upload the videos it wasn't working out. So then I would get frustrated and walk away. I think the video files are maybe too big. I'm gunna try and upload them in a separate post so we'll see. I really want you guys to see them but I may have to shorten them a bit and well....I like to procrastinate those sorta things.

Anyways, Rocktoberfest was basically an excuse to see the beach one last time before it got "cold" (I mean in the 70s), and to see a bunch of Japanese and Okinawan rock bands. It was at Torii Beach (where the jazz festival was) and it was a two day event. Originally, we were only gunna go on the first day but we had so much fun we decided to go the second day as well.

It gets dark really early here. Even in the summer the sun's down between 6 and 7pm. By the way, that's Adams in the picture with me. We brought him along (my suggestion actually) because he's a nice boy and we like him.

Even though he did this.

Lots of people were there sitting on the grass. We were the smart ones that brought towels though. Then I was the stupid one who wore a dress. Every time I had to use the bathroom or wanted to get food, it took me awhile to get off the ground in a way that wouldn't expose anything naughty.

The first night was more heavy metal type rock. Not my stuff but still fun to watch because they were mostly locals. This is a Okinawan band even though the lead singer had a Mexican wrestler's mask on.

We've actually seen this band before at a club! They're called FOD (don't ask me what it stands for. I still don't know) and the lead singer is American and I believe the rest were all Okinawan. They do all covers but really amazingly good. They got the biggest crowd. I think a lot of people were there just for them.

Uh...I don't remember. I think Dustin was taking pictures at this point.

Day 2! Official Rocktoberfest mugs with beer! Not for me, of course but the guys seemed to enjoy them.

There were a lot of pretty good food stands. And even though it was Rocktoberfest, there was only one stand with German brats. And the beer was Miller light. They were also selling a few Halloween costumes here.

It rained earlier that day but by the time we got there the sky decided to chill out. It was still pretty cloudy and windy like always.

Day 2 had more oldies rock and just more fun happy stuff. We loved this band and I have a video of them that I hope to get on here. They did all covers and were super cute and happy.

Dustin wanted to take pictures. I was having none of it.

But Adams is always up for a picture. As long as you keep him happy with beer.

Eventually I gave in. But there was no way I was gunna smile pretty.

So we were enjoying the music, eating and joking around blah blah blah, when this amazing lady got on the stage. Lord Almighty. If she was the only act that night it still would've been well worth the trip. She's Aria Asia and she's a rock violinist. She's been playing since she was only 2 years old and is hot shit in Japan. Especially Okinawa. She's adorable and completely amazing. She played beautiful original pieces and then also some covers. She got all the drunk Marines amped with her rendition of Smells Like Teen Spirit and Green Day's Basket Case. Her videos were the main ones I wanted you guys to see. Keep your fingers crossed.

Look how fast she's going! She likes to dance and sway while she's playing as well. The rest of her band were really talented too. If you're really interested, look her up on youtube. She's there.

We decided to buy her CD and DVD because we seriously could not get enough of her. She was nice enough to sign autographs and take pictures with everyone that wanted to. Look at her tiny top hat! She was so sweet and there was a line at her merchandise booth through the next two bands.

Adams pretty much wanted to marry her. He had been saying, just that day, that he had always wanted to learn how to play the violin. He has a long way to go if he ever wanted to be as good as her.

After Aria Asia, we were pretty much content with the night. But then All Japan Goith came on stage and Dustin really got excited. I don't know if you know this, but Dustin loves ska.

He bought their CD as well. They sang all in Japanese but were really fun to watch. There was one girl in the band who was super full of energy. She was like a little Jack Russell puppy. They pretty much ended the night for us. We had new local music and we were exhausted so we went home.

Sorry this took forever to post and I will try to upload those videos!

Be friends with yeast. It won't bite

2009-10-20T16:53:00.002+09:00

Did you know that aside from desserts, I can also bake up some yeast bread?? Well, I can. I started when I was 11? 12? 13? Mom, do you remember?? I was young though. And I haven't made any in a loooong while. I know I haven't made any since moving in with Dustin. Ooops.

So I made some a week or so ago (I'm really getting behind on my posts) and it came out perfectly beautiful and perfectly delish. Why are people so afraid of working with yeast? It's easy peasy.
This one is Garlic Rosemary Bubble Loaf and we managed to finish pretty much all of it before it got stale.

Yea, baby.

All it takes is...

2009-10-20T16:43:00.003+09:00

A Hanson DVD that I have been waiting to come out for about 5 years, a cd of old unreleased songs (so what if I already had them downloaded off the interwebs 3 years ago??), a Hanson dress that tells the world that I joined Hanson in a mile long barefoot walk for charity on the day I met them, and a brand new acoustic album to come in the mail....

to completely turn my mood around and make me one of the happiest people in the world.

Thank you Hanson, once again, for reminding why I stuck by you guys for the past 12.5 years.

Word.

Sometimes I love being a girl

2009-10-06T21:28:00.002+09:00

Being a girl means I can decorate my nails for the holidays with Jack Skellingtons! I'm pretty much in love with these. I can't stop looking at them.

All that work for nuttin'

2009-10-06T21:13:00.006+09:00

Last week we made stuffed acorn squash. We (Dustin) carefully cut the tops off.

We (Dustin) scooped the seeds out.

We stuffed them full of rice and other tasty fall goodies. Sorry, no picture.

And then we realized that we pretty much hate acorn squash.

Go figure.

That being said...go see Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs!!

Mini muffins will be the death of me

2009-09-29T20:39:00.006+09:00

I was gunna put these pictures in the fall post but decided they needed their own post. These muffins were that good. I made them twice in one week. Dustin and I consumed 24 Sweet Onion Mini Muffins in one night. One night of pure bliss.

Pretend this is a picture of chopped walnuts and not a picture of chopped walnuts and chopped pecans because I ran out of walnuts. Pretend these pictures aren't from the second batch of mini muffins I made because we ate the first batch too quickly. No time for pictures. There are walnuts in these muffins which we weren't too sure about until we tasted one.

First batch had yellow onions which turned out to make a far superior muffin than the second batch with red onions.

Sweet amazing deliciousness. I actually turned down dessert one night just so I could shove more muffins into my face. I chose onions over sugar! Am I turning into Dustin??? Scary.

Eat it. You want to.

*Sigh* Now I'm considering making these for dinner. Nothing else. Just mini muffins.

I'd happily email anyone the recipe so you can have the amazing mini muffin experience for yourself.

It's the little things

2009-09-29T14:33:00.005+09:00

It's the little things that Dustin does that makes me the happiest bitch in the world. Like when I come home from work to find the floors swept or the dishwasher unloaded.

Or when I wake up in the morning on the first day of my period, doubled over in cramping pain to find this, on my bathroom sink. Just so you know, Snickers is the food of choice during that time of the month. Snickers and burritos actually.

Things like this make me overlook the farting and laziness. It makes me overlook the overwhelming, vomit inducing, morning breath that I get exposed to every single morning. If we had a song it would be this one that he had set up on the computer. Lost Without Each Other. Hanson. Of course. I named one of my stories for Dustin after this song also.

How many men deal with their ladies' period issues THIS well??

Tara gets excited!

2009-09-29T12:14:00.011+09:00

Fall is here! I don't know about officially or anything, but to me it's already fall. And it has been since September first. I get a little excited at the idea of fall. Fall means that Christmas is right around the corner. And Christmas is the most exciting time of the year for us. And lucky for us, it happens every single year! I love consistency.

Last Christmas was lame. We spent it in a hotel, watching season 2 of 30 Rock and eating Cup of Noodles. Oh, and I had a random allergy attack where I would completely exhaust myself by sneezing 57 times in a row. It totally sucked. We essentially didn't even have a Christmas. We were too busy planning to move here. No time for baking or decorating. Nothing fun.

So this year we plan on having a super duper Christmas extravaganza! Operation BEST CHRISTMAS EVER! That's probably why I'm extra amped this year for the holidays. We already started inviting people over for Thanksgiving at our place. We decided to have a big bad potluck which should be delightful. A friend of ours is gunna deep fry a turkey for us since I don't make turkey. We prefer ham so I normally just wouldn't bother.

For Halloween we'll be signing up to take some local Japanese kids trick-or-treating on base. I'm super excited for that, of course. People don't really celebrate Halloween too much here. You would think they would since they jump at the chance to dress up for everything else. Dustin and I are going as Mickey and Minnie. We already ordered our over priced costumes. Hopefully, they'll come in on time. We wanted a Pluto costume for Apollo but apparently none exist. What's the deal with that?? They have Goofy costumes for dogs but Goofy wasn't Mickey and Minnie's pet. I suppose we'll just have him be himself since he's super cute anyways.

Work has been busy for both of us. We don't like it but it makes our days off and time spent together that much more special. Or whatever.

Here's a few shots of what the fall season means to me.

Baking! Because I don't bake the rest of the year.

Pumpkin bread. I cannot tell you how good this recipe is. When I was a kid, my mom made this in cute little mini loaf pans and would wrap them up all pretty and give them to friends and family. Now that I'm an adult, I make them normal size and keep them all to myself.

It's actually more like pumpkin pound cake but it says bread on the paper I have so I get away with eating it for breakfast. With apple butter. That's pretty much the best fall treat ever. OR, cut a slice and drizzle caramel sauce on it and sprinkle some pecans over that. Hot damn, I love fall!

If you have seen the Martha Stewart Cookies book then you may recognize this cookie from the cover. Dustin got the book for me for my birthday and this is the first thing I made. I needed to relieve some stress and this recipe totally did the trick.

Ready for this? Chewy Chocolate Chunk Gingerbread. Are you dying inside yet? They taste like Christmas and happy.

I fed some to people at my job and (reluctantly) made Dustin take the rest to his job where they were quickly devoured in a matter of minutes. These cookies are trouble. They made me wanna not leave the house so I could just sit in bed and eat them all day. I debated calling in sick so I could do just that.

Acorn squash, apples, oranges, sweet potatoes and a giant pear without the flash on my camera.

Acorn squash, apples, oranges, sweet potatoes, and a giant pear with the flash. I think I like the first one better. It looked more Autumn-y.

This is the only kind of pear I can find at the commissary. It's Asian and huge.

Asian Twilight book cover? They should change the cover to this. With my face and everything.

It's so fat.

This has nothing to do with fall or the holidays. I just decided to post this so you could all feel sorry for me and send me presents. I would like some MAC makeup brushes please.

Fall also means typhoon season. From August to November I believe. Mostly lots of rain for us. Apollo loves this because it means that after his walks he gets to be rubbed down with a fluffy towel and I honestly don't think there's anything he loves more.

Fall also means Franken Berry cereal. But I don't have a picture of that.

100th Post And a Very Special Lady

2009-09-23T09:18:00.002+09:00

100 blog entries is a pretty big deal to me. Even though I could've written way more by this time if I had been a bit more diligent. But I still think people should congratulate me. And I should congratulate anyone who has read all previous 99 entries. So, congrats! I'm glad this blog idea was a good one on my part and I shall continue to keep everyone up to date on our antics and my random thoughts.

It really is fun for me. It also helps that I have so many things to take pictures of here. I just feel the need to share everything with everyone because you have no idea how much I wish you all were here with us. Then you could experience everything for yourselves and realize it is as amazing as I make it out to be.

Once I realized that my 100th post was coming up, I knew right away what I was going to write about to make this blog really special.

About two weeks ago, my friend Michelle's mom passed away. She hadn't been doing well for awhile and Michelle let me know two days before she passed, that she was back in the hospital. She had been in and out of the hospital for the past year or so but I knew that this time it was more serious. Of course, I didn't want to think the worst so I just kept her in my prayers.

The morning I found out, I was getting ready to go to work and decided to quickly check Facebook to see if Michelle had left me any news on her mom's condition. After my computer freezing a few times and me restarting it, I was able to get on literally a minute before I had to walk out the door. That was just enough time to see a comment my friend Kristin left for Michelle about how wonderful her mother was.

I was in complete shock for awhile. No one close to me had ever died before. Well, besides my dog, Sasha but that's something entirely different. It felt very weird that someone I knew and cared about and had done so much for me in the past, could just be gone. Just like that. It still feels very surreal.

That day at work I had to start training one of the new girls. I fought tears back numerous times throughout the day and hated that I hadn't had time to call Michelle or even be sad the way I wanted to be. I ended up having to tell the new girl (Stephanie-who's totally rad by the way) what had happened in case I just lost all control and broke down. I didn't want to freak her out on her first day. Luckily, I was able to (barely) hold it together all day at work.

By the time I was in the car though, after Dustin picked me up, and I started to tell him what happened, I couldn't hold it in anymore. Michelle's mom was such an amazing person. Throughout high school, I spent a lot of my time at Michelle's house. That's where all the sleepovers and VMA parties were. That's the only place I watched scary movies, in the dark, holding hands with Michelle in complete terror, just to almost crap my pants when her parents swung the door open to reveal themselves wearing crazy wigs for God knows what reason.

Her mom cared about all of Michelle's friends as if they were her own. She's sewed my clothes, dyed my hair, and drove us everywhere. Even if it was a concert out of state. Dinner at Michelle's was always a great event for me because Michelle laughs at everything I say and her parents were just so laid back and fun. And man, was Mommy O'Brien sarcastic. Maybe even more than me.

She was extremely creative too. She made clothes like it was nothing. One year, Michelle and I took a "clothing and textiles" class at school and I couldn't believe how hard it was. I still have a pair of Harry Potter pajama pants where the crotch goes down to my knees. I have no idea how I did it. Mommy O'Brien made corsages for 6 of us girls, including Michelle and I, for prom. She used fake flowers and each corsage matched each of our dresses perfectly. They were amazing. I still have mine.

I remember for graduation she made Michelle a scrapbook of high school. A friend of ours was looking through it and said, "This is seriously the cutest thing I have ever seen in my life!" To which I smartly replied, "I don't know...puppies are pretty damn cute." Then Mommy O'Brien smacked me upside the head. It's stories like this that make me laugh and then bring me to start uncontrollably sobbing when I tell them to Dustin.

Here's another one. Michelle was having a birthday party and had invited a bunch of people I had just stopped being friends with. And when I don't like someone, I don't hide it. I arrived after everyone else, I don't remember why. When I knocked on the door Michelle's mom answered and before letting me in said sternly, "I have no-bake cheesecake inside. BE GOOD." And I could tell from her face that she meant for reals. She just knew me that well. And just so you know, I was good. I sat quietly off to the side and waited for my cheesecake.

I have so many things that remind me of Mommy O'Brien. A bracelet she gave me for graduation, recipe printouts, my sewn Breakfast Club shirt, numerous cards from various occasions. What I thought about the most though, was how I didn't make time to go see her when I was in NY in May. She was too sick to go to the wedding but sent a card with money anyways. I never even got to tell her thank you for it. I feel completely guilty about that.

Another thing I kept thinking was, if I was feeling this awful, I couldn't imagine how terrible Michelle must be feeling. And then I would start bawling all over again for my friend's loss. And THEN I would start thinking about how terrible her dad must be feeling. I just could not control my thoughts that day. Or the next day. I wasn't able to call Michelle until two days later when my phone finally decided to work.

I called with the intention of consoling her. It ended up being the other way around. I was crying over the phone and SHE was telling me that it would all be OK. I'm such a horrible friend. But I know her mom would only want us to think about the fun and hilarious times we had with her. And I try to do that but that's what makes it so hard to embrace the fact that she's gone. There won't be anymore fun and hilarious memories to make.

I'm glad Michelle's coping with it and I hope I can deal with it eventually. It seems wrong somehow to try and be happy sometimes but it's getting easier. Mommy O'Brien was such a amazingly caring, funny, strong woman and I'm sure she's touched so many more lives than just myself. I'm glad that Dustin got to meet her at least once so he could see how awesome she was. She's going to be missed by so many people but we were so lucky to have known her.

Did you guys know....?

2009-09-15T20:16:00.002+09:00

That if you click on one of my pictures, you can view it much much bigger? I highly suggest you do so. Except with the ones of my face. I wouldn't appriciate that so much.

But the beautiful beach and palm tree pictures? Go for it. You'll be glad you did.

Unless everyone already knew they could do this and have been since the beginning. The pictures from my new camera show up a lot bigger when you click on them, then of the pics from my old poopy camera. Just so you know.

Labor Day Weekend Part 2

2009-09-11T12:40:00.017+09:00

Are you ready for the second part of our Santillan Labor Day weekend? My slow computer finally is. It took far too long to load up all these delightful pictures.

So. Day two! Even though we were super duper tired from the eventful day uno, we still dragged our tiny hineys outta bed pretty early. And we started the day off right with a trip to the NCO club for a breakfast buffet. The words "breakfast" and "buffet" in the the same sentence together is one of the most beautiful things I've ever heard. Just add the word "dessert" in there and I'll be the happiest Tara in the land. And the fattest.

But the buffet was pretty impressive for club food and we even went back the following weekend because it was just that good. Plus, they have one of those pianos that play on their own, playing Beatles tunes the entire time.

The drive to Ocean Expo Park was pretty dang long. We'd been wanting to check out the aquarium foreverrrrr so we were pretty psyched. It's the second biggest aquarium in the WORLD, folks! On our own tiny island of all places! And they couldn't have picked a more gorgeous location for it. I'm still shocked and overwhelmed sometimes by how beautiful it is here and how lucky we are to actually get to live here for 4 years.

Ocean Expo Park is a large area way way way up at the northern most part of Okinawa. It includes the aquarium, a lovely beach area, an oceanic museum, an old style Okinawan village, the Tropical Dream Center, and a giant garden. We didn't see as much as we would've liked because it was still super hot and we were already tired when we got there. Above is what you shouldn't use to cool you off when it's super humid. It would've been perfect in dry heat though.

The pathway to the aquarium!

Have you met Dustin? He really loves sea turtle and tortoises. I mean LOVES them. No lie.

Oh my goodness. Just look at that! I can hardly believe it and I was there! You can see one of the resort islands out there with it's big mountain...of love.

That's the dolphin tank and the beautiful East China Sea.

Hello other island. We will visit you one day. Maybe for an anniversary. The hubby and I have been talking about it and we know we can get a pretty rad discount on base for your resort.

Our tickets and map! Dustin let me be the girl whale shark. But I had to fight him on it.

The amazing touch pool.

There was some weird tropical creatures at this aquarium that I'd never seen before.

"Let's make out. Num num num."

Jelly fish look harmless to me. What's the big deal with them anyways?

That's a fish! Do you see his eye??

Weird starfish.

GIANT lobsters! Literally bigger than my Jack Russell, Ariel. They probably could've eaten her.

Sea cucumbers.

I love these guys.

I thought this one looked like Slimy from Sesame Street.

The only aquarium in the WORLD to have a whale shark. And this is the biggest aquarium tank in the world as well.

It was pretty crazy. And there was a restaurant in there where you could sit right next to the tank and eat your soba!

I like this guy.

Soon we had to venture outside to get to the turtles, manatees and dolphin show. I just about melted from the humidity.

Hey little turtles! Dustin and Tara would like to snuggle you guys.

"OK, whatever Sea Pig."

Here's part of Emerald Beach.

The dolphin tank. They had normal bottle nose dolphins but also some kind of much bigger dolphin that looked like whales. It was pretty weird.

See the whale-like dolphin? He was very smart.

They like topiaries here.

We did shortly visit the Oceanic Museum but it was small and I wasn't allowed to take pictures. I think when it gets cooler out we'll head back up to Ocean Expo Park and see everything.

After we ate lunch we went to Fruitsland that was actually right next to Pineapple Park. I had no idea. Basically you walk through a kind of forest of fruits. Had it been spring, we probably would've seen a lot more than we did. But it was still pretty nice.

There were some bananas still growing.

And some crazy dragon fruit.

At the end of the tour there's a little cafe with fresh juices, smoothies and crazy huge desserts like this one. A huge bowl of shaved ice with fresh mango and dragon fruit in some kind of syrup. It was soooo good and perfect for how hot it was that day. Also, it was the cheapest dessert on the menu at about $10! Totally worth it though.

The perfect way to end our day, I think.

Labor Day weekend Part 1

2009-09-08T12:53:00.031+09:00

Since everyone in the military had a 4-day weekend for Labor day, I decided to take at least 3 of those days off as well so that Dustin could have some adventures. And so I could blog about them.

We've done pretty much nothing all summer cause I've either been working, or it's been just too dang hot to do anything outdoors. Even the beach got too extreme unless you were in the water the entire time. So, needless to say, we were super excited to venture out and actually do funzy things.

Only one thing threatened to ruin the start of my wonderful weekend.

Presenting....a blister on my eye!

I'll be honest....it really friggin hurt. I have no idea how it happened but it really sucked cause I hate wearing my glasses. Let's take a closer look, shall we?

I love my camera.

On Saturday, we decided to take a trip to Nago to visit Pineapple park once again. Only difference this time was that we had lots of money to actually buy things there. And a good camera to actually take visible pictures.

We took the expressway because it takes about 45 minutes off of your driving time. Although it's a teeny tiny island, it takes forever to get anywhere because everything is so compact and there's a lot of people living here. You have to pay to take the expressway but sometimes it's worth it if you actually wanna get anywhere on time.

I, of course, had to take a picture of Dustin driving. And shaking a bottle of grape juice. Notice his red side burns.

I love the drive to Nago. And you will too! Just come and visit us.

I'd rather things be blurry than have sun in my eyes. Sunlight makes my eyes tear and that ruins my makeup. And THAT ruins my day. Just so you know.

That pineapple is a sign that we're about to enter a land of magic. And pineapples.

This is the outside of the pineapple winery.

Hooray! This place is so happy.

Pineapple popcorn is what I dream about at night. We got the BIG size.

Tickets and map that we didn't even use.

After getting our popcorn and taking a picture with a tiny Asian dressed as a happy pineapple, we got into our pineapple cars for an educational ride through the pineapple fields. That's not us by the way.

Mmmmmm. Pineapple goodness.

Please excuse my glasses and ponytail. And my face.

Tiny pineapples! I love them!

Pineapple fields forever.

I guess this is how some pineapples grow.

King Pineapple! And Dustin!

After our ride we headed towards the shell gallery. Because that's what you do at Pineapple Park.

Not painted. They're actually naturally in pretty colors.

In the seashell gift shop, I noticed that they still had their very racist coconut purses. I got Brittany one for her last birthday. I'm pretty sure she loved it. Or was extremely offended.

Go through the giant pineapple to enter a world of pineapple history and free samples.

I learned how to cut a pineapple.

I learned that Christopher Columbus was a pineapple.

This wasn't opened the first time we went. I love conveyor belts full of pineapples. Here the worker is moving them from the conveyor belt and into a machine that'll peel and core the pineapples.

It was moving super duper fast but thanks to my new camera I was able to get some nice shots.

There's all the peels and that blurry thing to the right is a core being shot out into a bucket.

See? Bucket with cores.

Then the pineapples move to these people who quickly examine and cut off any yucky parts.

Lots of fast moving with very sharp knives.

"Hey, take a picture of me with all these wine bottles!"

I love free booze! Especially if it's pineapple flavor. We bought a cute little bottle of wine and a bottle of the most delicious pineapple juice ever. These Okinawans know what they're doing.

Hello pineapple wine shot glass! I will take you home with me.

We also bought some yogurt covered pineapple which is amazingly tasty. And we had our fill of fantastic free samples. That's probably why we love this place to much. They give us free food and everything is just so dang happy.

On the drive home we chose not to take the expressway because we weren't in a hurry anymore and sometimes it's just nice to take a more scenic route. We made a stop at this local honey shop that I see all the time and have always wanted to go into. We were looking for some honey straws but I guess that's more of an American thing. But we did leave with some yummy local honey.

This sign clearly says, "Honey shop for Tara".

We then randomly decided to go to the Botanical Gardens since it's just around the corner from our house and it actually didn't feel too hot that day. But that's because we were in the air conditioned car and we forgot about the humidity. Silly us.

It really is beautiful here. Last time we were here was Christmas Eve. They cover literally, everything with lights and even have a light, laser, fireworks show every night in December. It was pretty intense. We'd been meaning to see the gardens during the day time for sometime now.

I love this. You can actually rent bikes here to ride around the gardens. We didn't do it because we were starting to realize how hot it actually was and because we didn't wanna spend the money.

This is my first time living somewhere with palm trees and I love it!

Uhhh. I don't even know what to say about this except that I was sweating like crazy and starting to get very cranky.

*sigh* Are you jealous yet? Aside from the heat we were having a lovely time until we discovered this:

Banana spiders. Probably the biggest spiders I have ever seen in my life. They're about the size of a grown man's had. No lie. And once we spotted one, we realized they were literally EVERYWHERE.

Oh my lord. I was at the point of tears when we had trees on both sides of us and I realized that there were spiders hanging from every branch. I was just not OK.

We quickly got outta there and saw that Aslan was keeping us safe. Even though I walked on his face.

How cute. Dustin climbed a coconut tree. Kinda.

See how high up he was?? That's why I didn't do it. I get scared when someone just picks me up.

You could also pay to ride the little tram thingy. We probably should've done that.

This is where they shoot fireworks from in the winter.

Here's where they grow baby lilypads.

I want lilypads! They grow such pretty flowers!

Lilypad jungle.

You can also rent poles and stuff and fish here. I don't know how much it would cost to keep the fish though. You can also buy food and feed them if you prefer that.

We didn't spend that long there because it was way too humid and I was about to punch someone. And then pass out. But then we followed some signs and ended up checking out Kurashiki Dam.

You can go and play in the water and it's very secluded and pretty. We would've never found it if there weren't any signs.

We ended our crazy busy day with a shower and then some southern BBQ at Nap's. We were gunna go out with a friend from my job but we were just too dang tired. Plus, we had early morning plans the next day.

Until then...

Raise your hand if you like the weekends!

2009-09-07T21:55:00.019+09:00

I've gotten a little behind on my posts and it makes me sad. My job has been working me like crazy, I tell you! I'm one of two cashiers right now because LaNishia is going to Hawaii for awhile. We do have two new girls but we just started training them yesterday so they can't be alone for probably another two weeks. So yea...lots of work. And I don't think I'm even ready to train anyone! And I'm training both of them!

Anywho, two weekends ago we finally had a Santillan adventure! It was a Saturday but I only had to work until 8:30. So we will begin at my lovely job.

Dustin showed up with the camera...much to my dismay.

I'm actually being productive here! Can you believe it??

Everyone will think this shot is sexy. Who doesn't love a wrinkly double chin??

Off to American Village for dinner! Hello Ferris wheel of love!

He's excited to be alive.

This is one of our favourite restaurants. We have no idea what it's called cause it's in Japanese. We call it Ninja Kitty though. Can you see why?

Hmmmmmmmmmmmm???

They gots good water here.

The best sushi ever! Don't mind the baggies under my eyes. It was a long day at work.

I cannot even tell you how good this is. The fish is beyond fresh and it's made by real Japanese hands. And it's only about 6 bucks.

Sweet Jesus.

And because I needed more raw fish in my dinner, I got a raw tuna and avocado salad. It was super yummy.

Dustin's amazing fried rice.

Next up, a walk around American Village.

Prettiful ferris wheel.

We stopped in at Yogurtland and boy, was it crowded. It was Saturday after all. Yogurtland is from California but just opened up here. It has many super amazing flavors and a crazy amount of toppings. And the best part is, it's all self serve!

Mostly Americans here like always.

Us idiots need directions.

Mine's on the right! I have cookies and cream, pomegranate & raspberry tart, and peanut butter. I have no idea what toppings are on there. I grabbed almost everything. It cost over $8 just for my cup! But totally worth it. I heart frozen yogurt.

Dustin's concentrating hard on stirring his concoction.

Oh yum! And yes, those are figs in there.

Oh, this is cool. In the bathroom stalls they have baby seats. For your baby. Or your purse.

Don't powder your nose, flick water off your finger, or be an old lady with a bad back.

This was the most exciting part of the night for me. We finally decided to ride the ferris wheel! You buy your ticket (500 yen) in this vending machine.

Damn, was I excited. I'd been wanting to ride the ferris wheel since we first moved here. And it wasn't too hot (finally!) to ride it.

It's huge! I mean, it's no London Eye but it's bigger than theme park and carnival ferris wheels.

"Getting on the wind, I would like to travel as I wish" Words to live by bitches!

On the ferris wheel Dustin made me hate his face.

Then I made everyone hate mine.

They had little fans in every little...car. Are they cars? Compartments? I don't know. All I know is that they were right to give us the Mickey and Minnie one.

Looking down at different parts of American Village.

Kinda blurry but that big black space in the East China Sea.

Movie theater that we saw Harry Potter in.

Ewwwwwwwww! This was my idea. And for that, I apologize.

I see you Ninja Kitty!

Hello Kitty! One of the first things we noticed when we got off the ferris wheel.

It was a ride thingy of course. And of course Dustin had to go and try fit into it. Actually...I told him to do it.

After all these shenanigans, we took a cab back to my job to actually party for once. It was fun but kinda weird. I know and am friendly with all the security guards and managers now so I didn't wanna drink too much and have them all see it. And then have to hear about it for days at work. But it was all good and it's pretty cool having a job that I can go and party at. I pretty much dig working there.

All in all, it was an extremely fun night. But that was only the beginning.

Apollo got his hair did!

2009-09-03T13:05:00.002+09:00

Kinda. Although, you can't tell from these pictures, Dustin hacked off a lot of his fur with the scissors and buzzer thingy. Poor Apollo wasn't happy about it and you can totally tell that he got an at home haircut from his idiot parents.

I got my nails did

2009-09-03T12:58:00.002+09:00

See?? In the states this would be impressive. And it still impresses me. But here on the island of dreams, EVERYONE has tiny works of art on their nails. No lie. Either on their fingernails or toenails, or both, every lady has got their nails done.

It's just the way things are here. And I'm not scared of embracing culture. No sir!

The love is just boiling in my heart as I write this

2009-09-03T12:29:00.002+09:00

Ladies and gentlemen, I have a new obsession! And if you know me you also know that when I like something I realllllly like it. It completely consumes all my thoughts and many of my actions. Sometimes it's a just a faze but a lot of the time the obsession never goes away. Like the love I've always had for miniature things or all things Harry Potter.

Well, this new obsession I've gotten is actually a bit different. It's a person. His name is Mickey Rooney and I would like to marry him. If I was the age I am now but lived in the 1940's.

I caught Babes on Broadway last month on TCM and have been hooked since. I knew I liked Mickey Rooney before because he's the voice of Santa in some of my favourite Christmas movies of all time. But lordy, I had no idea he was more talented and wonderful than I could've ever imagined. He made me start up Netflix again.

And now I've got Rooney on the brain 24/7. I've rented a few of his lovely movies with Judy Garland from Netflix but am now taking a break. Not for me of course. I can't get enough. But Dustin's enjoying the movies as well and I don't want him to start to get tired of me squealing every time Mickey Rooney's goofy face appears on TV. Or on youtube. Thank you youtube!

Do yourself a favor, and please rent everything Mickey Rooney has ever done and watch the magic with me. If you enjoy Rupert Grint's face (Kelly) than I guarantee you will love Mickey Rooney. They're practically the same person. But different times. And Mickey can sing, dance and play piano and drums. So he's more talented. But basically the same person.

Also, go buy Pete's Dragon. It just came out on DVD and Mickey Rooney plays a crazy drunk old man which is basically playing himself.

Maybe go out and buy Breakfast at Tiffany's. He plays a stereotypical Asian landlord and it's very racist but still delightful. Actually, it's pretty awful. Maybe don't see this one.

Oh dear. I hope this crazy bastard stays alive forever.

Bliss

2009-08-26T16:22:00.009+09:00

Just a few pictures from this weekend that make me happy to call this tiny island home.

This is Leal. He's the one that's leaving cause he's a sillyhead like that. Check out his tattoos. You win if you recognize those symbols. He got the little one first and then decided it was too small. But instead of covering it up with a new tatt, he got the same exact thing on the other arm. Only bigger. I told you he was silly.

This is Shed. He's such a nice boy....unless he says that he's "gunna learn" me anything. Then I'll hate him.

Adams! Dustin was his sponser when he first got here. I was in NY at the time so I didn't get to meet him until after we got back. He's a delight. He's also on a diet which just makes me wanna feed him cupcakes all day long. And he doesn't know I took this picture of him.

Why does 23 feel so old to me??

2009-08-26T15:12:00.008+09:00

I've always had high expectations for my birthday. I blame this on my parents. They threw me crazy awesome birthday parties when I was a kid that made me feel like I was the most special person on the planet on that day. I felt like the favorite child on my birthday and that I could do whatever I wanted without anyone complaining about it. If I felt like listening to MmmBop for an hour straight, so be it. It was my birthday so no one could say anything about it.

Nowadays I feel like everyone in the world should just automatically know when it's my birthday and treat me extra special for that whole day. There should parades in the street and people should be nothing but sweet and kind towards me. Because it's my birthday.

Every year I get nervous though. What if the day isn't as much of a celebration as I had been hoping? What if (God forbid) it's just like any other ordinary day??!? I blame all this craziness on my parents as well. I have had crappy birthdays and I try not to think about them but I can't help thinking to myself, "What if my birthday this year is just like the year I turned 19??"

Well, I'd like you all to know that this year was an especially good one. I was scared because I didn't have any friends or family to spend it with. So Dustin made sure it was one of the best birthdays ever. Regardless of the fact that I missed all my family and "Mountain Homies".

The day before my birthday started like this. Me taking pictures of myself while waiting for my cab to go to work. Look at the ignorance on that face. I didn't expect a thing. I had already gotten my new camera and I knew I was getting an ice cream cake the next day. I had no idea what awaited me when I got off from work later that night.

Let me explain the significance of this masterpiece. Dustin...made...them. Sure he bought the cookie dough, but that's besides the fact that he went out of his way to surprise me. He went to the commissary after work to pick up the cookie dough and the nasty purple (my favorite color!) gel stuff while I was at work. Then, he baked the cookies perfectly, decorated them and hid them somewhere when he came to pick me up. He then made me sit on the futon in the living room and presented them to me.

You have no idea how surprised and delighted I was.

Very excited as you can see here. Goodness gracious, I love this man! Oh, he also gave me a cute card that night.

The next day(my birthday), Dustin came home for lunch to find me in bed reading. Because I don't see any reason to get outta bed on my birthday unless it's to go to birthday dinner. He convinced me to get out of bed so I could spend a little bit of time with him while he ate. I didn't really wanna get up but I hadn't eaten breakfast yet and my kitchen was calling.

Dustin followed me into the kitchen and lordy lordy, there just so happened to be another surprise waiting for me on the counter! Underneath another birthday card was the Martha Stewart Cookies cookbook. I literally clutched my heart and gasped like a mad woman. You see...I've really been wanting this book. Because I like to make desserts. In case you weren't aware.

When Dustin got home from work later on that day we headed out to Chili's. We were gunna go to this (Japanese) Italian restaurant that I've heard nothing but good things about, but it ended up storming outside. The roads were pretty damn flooded and Dustin didn't wanna try and find the place in those conditions. I was OK with that because I had actually been thinking about Chili's that day and was wanting some lovely adult style drinks from there. By the way, I don't think I'll ever get tired of pictures of Dustin driving. He's too cute for words.

Then the tables got turned. I never know what to do with my face.

And then this happens. I really don't know how I achieved this look but I'm kinda impressed and disgusted at the same time. Mostly disgusted though. I look like the Grinch.

Driving hazard. But no one can get mad because it's my birthday.

But you can get mad at this. I know I did. Chili's food is actually pretty gross when you take a moment to really look at what your eating. And when you had just read about everything they add to their meat to make it easier to chew in the very popular book, "The End of Overeating." Read it. It'll make you not wanna eat ANYTHING from restaurants ever again. Oh, and then read, "Eat This, Not That!" You'll end up eating nothing for the rest of your life. It's great.

Then take closeup shots of your food with your snazzy new camera. It'll make you stop eating for the night which was probably for the best. Those tiny chicken burgers didn't agree with me later on.

Mandarin Blush. I highly recommend it. Have one...or five. Whatever rocks your socks.

After dinner and drinks (only Tara had drinks...because it was her birthday) we headed home for my cake! Hooray! I posted pictures earlier of me blowing out the candles. If you haven't seen them you probably should now. Actually, wait until your done reading this one. It's about my birthday and I don't want you to abandon it.

I liked this cake. It had strawberry frosting and oreos on top. And it had my name on it. I like when anything has my name on it.

Gorgeous.

Dustin expertly puts 23 candles on my cake for me. Twenty-friggin-three. I can hardly believe it. Sometimes I have a hard time remembering that I'm not 18 anymore.

Look at my gorgeous boy! And my cake!

I ended up getting too excited about blowing out the candles and forgot that Dustin had to sing to me. But that's OK, cause he sang later on when I remembered.

So, I wasn't the least bit sad this birthday and I had a wonderful day thanks to my pookie. The day after was pretty sweet because that's when I got all the birthday messages on facebook. So thank to everyone that said happy birthday! It makes me feel like maybe everyone won't forget me. I love you all!

Too many cupcakes and no one to eat it

2009-08-26T14:14:00.007+09:00

I get overwhelming urges to bake things a couple times a week. It's starting to get to be a real problem though. I bake too much and then have a million cupcakes or cookies without anyone to consume them. I end up throwing at least half of them away. It's such a shame and it makes me wanna cry every time. I need therapy. For compulsive baking.

Last week I made carrot cake cupcakes with caramel frosting. I should've halved the recipe since I ended up with about 3 dozen cupcakes. I put a few unfrosted ones in the freezer because they actually ended up tasting more like muffins than cupcakes and would make an awesome breakfast. I threw out a bunch of the frosted ones today and it was extremely hard to do because they were so damn good. :( They had pineapple and coconut in them and everything.

*sigh* So pretty when they were first made. I messed up the frosting a tad and made it too soupy so I had to keep these in the fridge at all times after they were done.

This weekend we went to a going away party for one of the guys that Dustin works with. He's also one of the few guys we've actually hung out with so I wasn't too pleased with the news that he was leaving. But anyways, I wanted to bring my millions of carrot cake cuppies to the party BUT the party was on the beach and I knew for a fact that the frosting didn't stand a chance against the heat and humidity of this island.

So I made different cupcakes. I made 2 dozen chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter frosting. I wanted to play it safe and pick a recipe that I knew would come out awesome and that I wouldn't fudge up. It was a good choice. And it was a great hit at the party. Sadly though, we didn't stay long and ended up still taking about 6 or 7 cupcakes home that night.

Can someone please come and visit us so I can bake things and not have to see them go to waste?? You have no idea how perfect that'll make my life.

I don't know how I lived before without this camera

2009-08-26T13:59:00.007+09:00

My birthday would not have been complete without a Baskin Robbins ice cream cake with 23 candles and 20 action shots of me blowing them out.

You can all thank me later.

New delights

2009-08-20T14:58:00.005+09:00

My new camera has a few features that my old camera didn't have. One of them that I find particularly amusing is the continuous motion sports function or whatever the hell it's called. Basically, I push the button once and it takes 20 pictures at lightening speed of any moving object. It's pretty cool.

This is how we tested it out:

I mostly love watching Apollo's tail and look of excitement on his face. He really has no idea what to do with us. What the camera didn't capture was Dustin running up to me and me fearing for my life.

Pecan Pie Squares...want some?

2009-08-20T14:41:00.002+09:00

Some days I wake up in the morning (afternoon) and I've overcome with the need to bake something. This happens multiple times a week. Pretty much every time I'm off from work or don't have to go until later. This happened last week.

I quickly pulled out my new giant Taste of Home Baking book and looked through every recipe. I've probably looked through it about 5 dozen times by then but had only made one thing from it so far. I knew I wanted to make something different. Something other than cookies, cupcakes or pies which is what I usually go for when I wanna relieve some stress.

Then I found it. Pecan Pie Squares.

And geezaloo, am I glad I made these! They were so easy and pretty and retardedly delish! And it made me want fall to be here so they would be more relevant.

Please take a moment and just stare at this picture. Isn't my camera wonderful??

That's me. I'm testing out Dustin's piece to make sure it's safe for him to eat.

Just so you know, I'm not very good with knives. I almost sliced my finger off a few times.

Good Lordy look at that!

Is this artistic? I don't know. I don't really care how it looked because it tasted amazing. If you don't make these and eat them right away you probably have no reason to live anymore.

A Tale of Two Cameras

2009-08-18T13:22:00.009+09:00

Getting married was a good idea. It got me to live in Japan. It gave me someone to cook for. It gave me someone who is constantly nice to me.

Most importantly, getting married to Dustin got me a new camera!

A few days ago he came home with a black Nikon CoolPix and tried to hide it in the bedroom. He ended up just giving it to me a few minutes later because I knew he had it and was extremely excited. And there was no way he could've hidden it for a whole week until my birthday.

But let me tell you, this camera is better than I could've imagined. I have been sick of my pink Polaroid camera since I got it 2 years ago. It's total crap. It took a few O.K. pics over the years but it frustrated me more than anything. I hate it.

Oh! But look at my prettiful new camera! So shiny and thin. And it can actually take pictures at night! Stupid Polaroid never stood a chance if it was even remotely dark out. I missed out on a lot of cool night scenes the last two years.

And don't get me started on close ups of food! The Polaroid was just alright when it came to that but once I got my new camera in my hands I realized we had a beautiful journey ahead of us. A food close ups journey.

I just so happened to make pecan pie bars that day right before Dustin got home. Here's a shot of them with my old camera. Pretty blurry right??

And here's the new camera. Beautiful, right? So beautiful that I'm planning on writing a whole other blog about these bars just so I can showcase all of the beautiful pictures I took of them. It doesn't hurt that they were insanely delicious as well.

I quickly scrambled to find more food to take pictures of. Here's some peanut butter cookies I made recently of only sugar, eggs, and peanut butter.

Look at this closeup! I was doing happy dances like you wouldn't believe! This is all I really wanted in life people. Good, clear shots of food. It's all anyone really wants actually.

Here's a picture from our balcony.

My old camera never could've managed a freakin' sunset!

Then Dustin took the camera when he went to walk Apollo and took this cute picture of our casa. We live in the top right part. Going up those stairs is brutal in this humidity.

Our silly Toyota Windom. Yea, it's white. And no, we'll probably never clean it.

Geckos are everywhere here! Look how happy this one is. He kinda looks like a Jim Henson Muppet. There are also some sort of baby iguana that we've seen a few times.

Oh. This is Dustin's face close up that I wanted to do. I regret it now.

Cute Apollo! I love this one.

Something I always wanted to do since Dustin proposed. I really love my ring and I just wanted a good picture of it. Sure, that was before everyone had actually seen it but whatever. I still did it.

Upon closer inspection of this picture, I realized that I had a pecan pie bar crumb stuck in it. Thanks new camera!

Isn't it a lovely love affair?

2009-08-05T11:01:00.003+09:00

Dustin has been having a secret love affair with my camera lately. I don't know what started it. Maybe I'm not paying enough attention to him. Maybe he just needs his own camera. Or MAYBE he can have my camera since he likes it so much and I can get a brand spanking new one! I like this idea.

But anywho, I realized just how many pictures he had taken over the days when I caught him trying to take a candid shot of me as I put together his lunch for him. I snatched the camera away and deleted the pictures ( yes plural! I really need to start being aware of my surroundings) of me. That's when I saw that there were 17 pictures that I had nothing to do with. I went through them and decided that I might as well post them.

So here they are.

Even Apollo was in on this affair and he didn't even have the nerve to let me know! We're not on speaking terms right now.

I guess I got Dustin into taking pictures of food. But unlike him, I don't wanna take pictures of every single thing I make. Just the things that I'm especially proud of or think are super cute or pretty. And I don't take pictures of recipes.

But maybe Dustin was just really proud of this chicken pot pie that I let him help me with. He DID do the crust and that's the first time he's ever worked with any kind of pastry. He did a good job and it was really yummy. I guess I'll let this one go.

See his reflection? I think it's cute. And the way he positioned the spoon makes me wanna pinch his cheeks.

This picture is adorable and completely shows what goes on every friggin' day. If we're in the kitchen, Apollo is right there waiting for us to feed him something. And he always looks so annoyingly cute doing it too.

Yogurt marmalade cake. Dustin had nothing to do with this creation but he wanted to take pictures of it anyway. The only reason I didn't was because I just wanted it in my face. It took longer than it was supposed to in the oven and I was a grumpy mess when it was finally done. I just wanted to grumble and complain while I ate it.

He made me pose with the knife and tried to get me in the shot but I wouldn't allow it. I was Sunday morning! And everyone knows that Sundays mean Tara doesn't get dressed, stick in contacts, do her hair, or wear makeup! Whats that? You didn't know that? Well...now you do. I'm quite sure I had no pants on at this time.

But WHY???

2009-08-05T10:50:00.002+09:00

Can someone please tell my why Okinawa feels it's necessary to be this humid here every day during the summer?? I really don't know how the locals deal with 98% humidity and still leave their homes! I can't stand it at all and I have 3 more summers like this to suffer through.

I don't like it when I walk to the gym at 7am so I can "beat the heat" just to show up at the gym literally dripping in sweat. I have to cool off before I start working out! It's ridiculous. And then I have to make the mile walk back home afterwards when I'm worn out and it's even more hot and humid outside. The walk takes much longer going home.

Apparently Okinawa is more humid than Hawaii and other such tropical islands. Where does Okinawa get off thinking this weather is a good idea??? Honestly. I've never been anywhere where my sunglasses fogged up every time I stepped outside. I've never lived anywhere where the walk from my front door to my car seems like a never ending journey that leaves me sweating my balls off and very very cranky about it.

Thank goodness there's beaches here.

Don't you just love it when....

2009-07-31T21:49:00.002+09:00

You sneeze and then double over in pain due to the fact that you spent 20 minutes working out your abs the day before??

And then you decide to go work them out some more today.

And THEN you spend $109 on new sneakers and work out clothes without an ounce of guilt because hey, you're worth it.

Missing my mini-me

2009-07-31T21:08:00.002+09:00

Good lord I'm clumsy!

2009-07-30T14:10:00.005+09:00

So, about a week ago I was getting ready to go to work and everything was right with the world. Except for the extreme humidity we have here but whatever. I was shaving my legs in the shower like I hadn't a care in the world when I suddenly felt a weird tugging beneath my Venus razor (they're the best brand I assure you).

I looked down at my fantastically tanned leg and noticed a strip that was whiter than the rest of my fantastically tanned leg. I was confused at first. I looked at my razor, which now had a big chunk of my skin stuck in between it's blades. Then I looked back down at my leg. At this point the blood had started to flow. And when I say flow, I actually mean pour. Right down the rest of my leg and pool around my feet.

I have to be honest. I freaked. I started hyperventilating and blacking out from loss of blood and not being able to breathe. But I tried to calm myself down (and failed) as I attempted to comb through my conditioned hair and rinse it out. Because if I was going to the hospital my hair was at least gunna look good! I have priorities people.

When I got out of the shower there was blood everywhere and I was still hyperventilating hardcore. I have never injured myself like this in my entire life. I have a grand total of zero scars on my body. The worse injury I had was my sprained ankle and that didn't involve blood or exposed raw flesh that shouldn't be exposed.

I grabbed a washcloth and just held it to my shin, shaking and sobbing as I quickly called Dustin who was at work at the time. When he picked up I could barely catch my breath to form words to tell him what had happened. But that's OK because he caught key words like "blood everywhere" and "cut myself!" Of course he starts thinking the worst which happens to be me chopping my finger off. That would've been pretty scary too.

But hot damn, did he get home in record time! And as soon as he saw me and my leg he started BAWLING. He didn't do a very good job comforting me. Then I felt bad for scaring him so much. But I was scared too! I couldn't help my reaction.

I calmed down mucho once he was there though. And once the blood loss stopped after 15 minutes or so. Yea, I got quite a few layers of skin sliced off. Fear was quickly replaced with total grossed-out-ness. I had to throw out my razor cause I couldn't bare to look at a piece of my leg in it and I had shivers and heebie jeebies the rest of the day. I didn't go to the hospital because what would they do that I couldn't do at home?

We put peroxide on it (baaaaaad idea), slathered the neosporin on and covered that shit up with a crapton of Boo Bah band aides.

It stung a lot and it still does almost a week later but it wasn't so bad as far as pain goes. I was mostly really grossed out. I still have no idea how I managed to do this to myself. And then I felt stupid for fucking up my lovely beach legs. AND I was very unhappy with the idea of having a scar. I've been covering it with vitamin E and cocoa butter like crazy to try to keep it from scarring.

I'm really grateful that this wasn't on one of my tattoos though. It would've been completely ruined. And that's just a waste of money.

Later that night after work, I re bandaged my battle scar. I was spazzing out because the blood had come back and it brought one of it's friends, pus. It was so gross. But as I'm screaming and gagging I'm also telling Dustin to hurry up and get my camera. I paused from trying to hold back vomit long enough to pose for this cute picture of myself. You're welcome.

Mmmmm. This picture really doesn't do it justice.

In the battle between Tara and Razor.....Razor: 10, Tara: 0. That'll teach me to duke it out with pink hygiene products.

The next day it started to scab as you can see from the above 3 pictures. It looks a lot better now but there's still pus and blood and pain every day. And I keep accidentally banging my leg against things. That's what sucks the most. I just shaved my legs yesterday for the first time since this happened and I was terrified the whole time. It's gunna take me awhile to feel comfortable holding a razor again.

I wanted to share this with everyone because it scared me to death and I don't wanna be the only one who gets grossed out by this. I'm just generous like that.

Life is good

2009-07-30T13:58:00.002+09:00

So they've been working me a lot at the Banyan Tree. I guess they wanna hurry up and get me trained so I can start working on my own. They usually only have one cashier working at a time because that's all they really need. Unless it's a Friday or Saturday night, I hardly have any customers. And the customers I do get are usually just people coming to get they're money exchanged for Yen or dollars. All in all, it's a fairly easy job.

I do a lot of sitting around and talking with the girl that's been training me, LaNishia. And thank goodness, she was the one that got picked to train me because we became friends almost instantly. She is quite a delight and we laugh soooo much when we're together. Probably more than we should be at a job this boring. But hey, it makes the day go by faster.

Starting Sunday, I'll be working alone. I'm nervous and sad that I won't have anyone to talk to. Although it's an easy job, there's a lot of tedious things to remember and I'm still dealing with a lot of money. I'm afraid of messing something up and having my draw be short. I'm also afraid of the anti-robbery exercise we'll be having spur of the moment sometime within the next week or so. Oh yea, and the inspectors will be here this week as well. Why do I have to put up with this? I'm the new girl!

But anyway, I like the job all in all. It's not fun but it could be much much worse. Plus, I get to watch crazy drunk people on Friday and Saturday nights when I work till 2:30 am. That's always fun. Until it gets annoying.

I do have a work email now: Tara.santillan@kadena.af.mil so please email me there cause I have nothing to do most of the day! I can go on the Internet but a lot of the websites are blocked including this one. I was really hoping blogger would work so I can get caught up on it but no such luck. Oh well.

Another reason I love Japan

2009-07-28T20:38:00.002+09:00

4th of July weekend

2009-07-13T13:27:00.004+09:00

How was your 4th of July weekend?? Ours was incredibly fun but also rainy. It was actually almost cold over the weekend. It was weird to put on a hoodie outside after it being sooo ridiculously hot for so long. But it didn't last long. It's hot and humid once again and I hate it.

Unless I'm at the beach.

Anywho, Dustin has been wanting to go mini golfing at the craptacular course they have at the community center here on base. So I reluctantly went along with him. But to my surprise I actually liked it! It was mostly due to the fact that I'm naturally good at it and was able to beat Dustin every time.

This course was pretty tricky even if it was kinda small. I didn't notice too much because I'd never been mini golfing before this. Now I wish we had gone to the big one in Boise.

That building back there is the commissary. I hate the commissary. I cannot express to you how angry and frustrated I get every time I shop there. And I have to shop there because my options on grocery stores are limited and I'm a girl who likes to cook. But I really hate the commissary.

Balls. Mine was the pink one of course.

Dustin and the beaver skunk.

Keebler elves?? Give me cookies!

We didn't get to finish our game cause it started to rain. But don't worry, we went back a few days later and played. And then melted from the heat.

The next day (the 3rd) we went to America Fest which was a fairly big festival on the flight line with mucho food and some live performances. We were mainly going to see Melinda Doolittle from American Idol season 6. We dug her and Dustin even voted for her a few times during that season so we was excited.

Oh my goodness. It was literally pouring that day. I had so much water in my shoes I felt like crying. I hate soggy socks. But I didn't mind too much because Dustin has a plate of deep fried oreos right there. Lordy, were they delish. I wanna make some at home! We also had a giant turkey leg and a pulled pork sandwich but we ate them before I even thought of taking a picture.

Miss Doolittle was amazing like she always is. Her band couldn't set up because of all the rain so it was just her, her two backup singers, and a laptop. I felt bad for her because they was hardly anyone there because of the weather. But she still kicked ass.

Little kids kept running up to the stage and then parents would take pictures of them. Melinda would run up to them while singing and pose for pictures. All throughout the song. It was super cute.

Me clearly enjoying the rain.

Oh, and then she had all the kids come up on the stage and dance with her. It was pretty entertaining. At the end of her performance she told everyone to come around to the side of the stage so we could all meet her and get autographs. We did just that and somehow ended up being the first people on line. And it wasn't like we rushed to do that. We calmly wandered over to the side of the stage and eventually everybody else followed.

I love this lady. She was super sweet and so nice. And way teeny tiny.

Dustin was a little excited as well. This is what happens when you get your boy into American Idol.

I guess they had the planes all out and displayed. Dustin likes to see them and tries to tell me all about them. My mind goes elsewhere when he starts that. Do you think this plane would be a Decepticon or an Autobot?? This is what I think about now every time I see any kind of vehicle.

Then we watched the Lt. Dan Band (Gary Sinise from Forest Gump and other such things) for awhile. They were pretty OK. They only do covers I guess and they have a lot of people in the band. And Gary Sinise doesn't even sing. But it was still fun.

Even Melinda Doolittle jammed in the audience which I thought was pretty cool. We ended up leaving a little early to go meet up with some PMEL guys. We then all headed out Gate 2 to see this metal band play at a bar. They were actually pretty good even though my ears still occasionally ring from it. We ended the night with Japanese Wendy's and a creepy little karaoke bar that had the most random song book I'd ever seen. They had Disney songs!

The next day we took the long ass drive up north to Okuma. It's basically a camping recreation area on the beach that's military owned. One day we plan on staying in one of their log cabins. There's a lot to do there as long as it doesn't rain. Then your screwed.

We mini golfed there which I rocked at of course. We also ate some pretty good military cuisine. It was good as far as military club food goes.

Live entertainment here also. Dustin looks so content and peaceful here.

It's because he's watching Japanese high schoolers break dance. I know when I think 4th of July celebration, this is what I see in my head.

I look...wrinkly here.

Oh how lovely it is to live here! The waves were a little crazier than usual but Dustin kept me from floating away. Thank goodness, cause I'm not a very good swimmer and I hate water in my face. But I still want to go diving.

That platform thingy was scary to walk/stand on. But there were these little girls running back and forth on it like it was nothing. They had balls of steel. Or maybe they were just idiot kids.

Our Independence day ended with fireworks on the beach and Sun Chips in our mouths. It was quite wonderful. It was actually the fifth 4th of July in a row that Dustin and I have spent together. Realizations like that make me feel old.

I don't know how I charmed myself into this one

2009-07-07T14:44:00.004+09:00

Remember that job I was telling you about a little while ago? The cash or cashier's cage or whatever it was? And remember when I said that I did horrifically at the interview and totally didn't get the job cause I didn't hear anything from them when I would've, had I gotten the job?

Well, I guess I was wrong. I got a call from the employment office yesterday to come in and fill out some more paperwork. I couldn't understand the woman very well on the phone because of her accent so I just assumed it was just something they forgot to have me fill out on my application before.

When I got there I filled in some more things on my application about things I've done at previous jobs. It wasn't until I'd been there for about 15 minutes that the woman informed me that I had actually gotten the job that I had interviewed for. And we had to ask her because she kept pulling more and more things for me to fill out and Dustin and I were getting really confused. Apparently the packets she was giving me where background check and security paperwork.

I'm still trying to figure out why that woman would hire me. Maybe she liked my smile. Or thought my dress was cute. It was pretty cute. But I am glad I finally have a job and maybe it won't be too terrible. At least I'll be out of the house and be able to talk to people other than Dustin. And THEN, maybe I can weasel my way into that bakery job in the fall since it's under the same manager.

I was gunna spend all day today cleaning the house because it got a little outta control over this fun-filled four day weekend. But I slept later than I wanted to and then spent almost 2 hours filling out those security packets. And I'm still not done! I have to bring them bright and early tomorrow morning and then type them all up at the employment office. Now it's 3pm and all I wanna do is make cookies. Which I still might, depending on how much cleaning I get done.

But anyways, HOORAY TARA HAS A JOB!!

Why is it that...

2009-07-04T13:42:00.003+09:00

I can't, for the life of me, flip pancakes properly but for some bizarre-o reason I rock at flipping crepes??

You'd think that I'd be worse at flipping crepes because they're basically the thinner and more delicate version of pancakes. But apparently I'm awesome at producing 10 perfectly round and unbroken crepes. Me and pancakes just don't get along I guess.

By the way, I made crepes for Dustin for breakfast yesterday. And yes, they were awesome.

Calimanos Unite!

2009-07-02T14:11:00.005+09:00

I have to be completely honest. The main highlight of the whole New York/Wedding trip, was being with all my siblings again. Especially the 3 youngest. I haven't seen them in 2.5 years and I always miss them the most. I miss Dustin and Brittany a lot too, don't get me wrong. It's just that I feel like I'm missing out on so much of the younger kids' lives. They're growing so fast and changing so much that it hurts my heart to think that I never get to see any of it.

Dusty and Brittany are all grown up now. Who they are today is who they've been for the past few years. They know who they are and they aren't going to change much in the years to come. It was awesome spending time with them and having all of us Calimano kids together again. It really doesn't get any easier being apart though. We haven't all lived together in about 7 years and I'm still not used to it. They're the people I miss most in my life. Along with Dustin, my siblings are the ones I love most in this world.

When I woke up on the day they were going to be flying in, I actually had butterflies in my stomach. I was excited and nervous. My biggest fear was that they would act shy around me and like they hardly knew me anymore. And that I would feel like I didn't know them either. It's never happened before but we had also never been apart for that long. I planned on seeing them everyday they were there and spending every possible moment with them to try to make up for lost time. Even though I knew, no matter how long I spend with them, it's never enough.

I was also afraid that when I saw how much they've grown I would start crying right there in the airport. And that wouldn't have been a good way to start our reunion week of joy. Plus, crying in public is embarrassing and I try not to do it at all.

All my fears left me though, as soon as the kids and I spotted each other. They completely bolted towards me with the biggest smiles on their jet lagged faces and I was bombarded with hugs and British accents. I cannot express in words, how happy I was at that moment. To see them and to see how happy they really were to see me. Brianna literally clung to me and I was really pleased to see that we were still playing favorites. Even though none of us have favorites of course. ;)

Dustin had my Nana's car and my Uncle Dennis, who came to the airport as well, had his. I, of course asked if I could steal the children away with us. My mom, of course, knew I would ask that and said yes. At this point I was so excited and happy that I was talking far too fast and too much to these poor tired kids. I don't think they minded too much since they were completely wired but Jadzia informed me that I talked too much.

But it was only the beginning.

That entire week I spent every day with my siblings except for the day after the wedding. I saw that they were very much the same but also very different. They've grown up so much and so wonderfully I could hardly believe it. I have never in my life met sweeter or better behaved kids. And I'm not just saying that because they're the loves of my life. They truly are amazing and I would be super lucky to have my own kids as wonderful as them. I give mucho credit to the fact that they're being raised by my mom who, even though she's waaaaay less strict these days, is very fair.

And also my step dad, who's pretty much the nicest guy on the planet and loves those kids to pieces.

Jadzia is the oldest of the "littles" and I think that's where I bonded with her. She's had to play oldest for the last few years and I really think she's grown from that. I don't know how, but she's actually gotten sweeter since the last time I saw her. She's the most talented person I know and can always make me laugh. And goodness gracious, has she gotten gorgeous! It's pretty crazy. She's also very protective of Brandon and Brianna. I got scolded a few times by her for mentioning things that may or may not have hurt their feelings. Then I felt very ashamed of myself!

Now, with Dusty and Brittany, I actually feel like I'm younger than them from time to time. They enjoy patting me on the head and treating me like I'm 5. Probably because they're 10 feet taller than me. But I have a feeling that soon Jadzia will be "older" than me as well.

When we were saying our goodbyes, Jadzia broke my heart the most. She seemed the most emotional and even told me that she wanted us to get a giant house for all of us siblings to live in together, which is actually a secret dream of mine. I feel a lot closer to her now because of that.

Brandon is still as sweet as ever. He's silly and then he's very serious and sensitive. And still very much Brittany's favorite. If we had faves that is. Which we don't.

He's a very cool little kid and has the best laugh I think I've ever heard. He laughs at Dustin's jokes so that's always fun for Dustin. lol He's very laid back and just a very understanding guy. I've always been able to talk to Brandon as if he were much much older. He just gets how people are feeling and why they feel that way. Now that he's 12, he feels a lot older and like he can't show his emotions as much. He's not as mushy as he used to be. I got weird looks from him every time I would roughly grab his face and plant a giant kiss on his cheek. But I'm excited to see what he's like as he gets even older.

And then there's my mini me. Brianna Rose. The girl was like a new accessory all week. She stuck to my side like glue and wouldn't unlink her arm from mine for a moment. I got pulled on and sat on every single day. And I wouldn't have had it any other way. I believe she's actually grown on me even more since that trip. I also think that she may have made her way into Dustin's heart as well. Never in my life have I seen a 9 year old break out into tears because she felt GUILTY that people were buying things for her and taking her to fun places. These kids didn't ask for a single thing they saw all day on our Manhattan trip. And we went to the Hershey's store, M&Ms store, and the ginormous Toys R Us. At one point, Brianna wanted to buy a Barbie paper dolls book (with her own allowance, no less) but then looked at the price (10 bucks) and quickly put it back on the shelf!! She claimed that it was far too much money! How many kids have you met that would do such a thing??

She continued to amaze me at the end of the night when she was miserably cold and tired and Dustin offered to buy her a I Love NY hoodie off the street. She started saying, "No. It's OK. I don't need it." I assured her that it was fine and we wanted to get it for her because we loved her. But that just made her cry because she felt bad that we were buying her things. Jim ended up buying her the hoodie which she felt better about, I guess. I then told her that she was my favorite and she informed me that it wasn't nice to have favorites.

Then there's Brittany and Dustyloo. They're grownups or whatever now. They're some of the best friends I could ever have. I'm proud of both of them and admire them soooo much. I wish I could have the motivation that Brittany has or even a smidgen of her talent. And I wish I could be as laid back as Dusty is and not worry about anything. Or even be as funny as him.

Oh, and I also hope he marries this girl. She's amazing and I love her and would like her to be my new sister-in-law. Yup.

I wish I knew the next time we'll all be together again. Money is a huge issue in all of this and I really wish it wasn't. I would love it if we were all at least within driving distance of each other. But at least now I know that no matter how far apart we are, we'll never feel disconnected from each other.

Update on us

2009-07-02T13:14:00.007+09:00

So, I've still been pretty bummed out lately and it makes blogging seem like homework at times. But, I know some people check here daily to see what we're up to so I will try to force myself to update as much as possible. It's just that being at home all day makes me super lazy and I end up losing all motivation to do anything. Except bake that is. It sucks pretty hard. I haven't felt like this since I first moved in with Dustin over 3 years ago. Tara doesn't do well without a job.

I started to feel a little better last week when I hung out with some cool girls at the beach. Then I got an awful sunburn on my entire body. I'm dealing with the peeling portion of this right now and I look like I have leprosy. This is only the second sunburn I've ever gotten in my life and I was pretty sure I was going to die of skin cancer the very next day. I didn't. But I was still scared. I guess the sun burns me here too.

Then, last Friday, I got a call for a job interview at the Banyan Tree Club. I was super excited but also didn't know exactly what part of the club the interview was for. I was hoping that it was the bakery that's there. I went to the interview on Monday and it turned out to be for the "Cashier's Cage" which just sounds soul sucking to begin with. I did terribly at the interview. I could not answer the questions for the life of me and realized pretty early on that I was totally not what they were looking for. I didn't have enough experience for that job. I would've been super surprised if they hired me.

I'm glad they didn't but I'm also really upset that I still have to continue looking for a job. It turns out that the bakery there actually only hires locals. And I've noticed a few places on base that are like that. How is that fair?? That's why there aren't enough jobs for the spouses. The Okinawans are able to work on base AND off base where we're just stuck with the few limited places on base. It's retarded. BUT, the manager of the Banyan Tree Club informed me that they're starting construction soon to make the bakery bigger and then they'll start hiring military dependants in the fall. She even said that she'll give me a call then if she remembers to. They apparently even fly in a pastry chef from New York to train them twice a year! How awesome would that be?? But would I be able to wait that long for something that isn't even guaranteed? I guess we'll see.

Dustin has been working too much. 6 days a week at the moment and it truly sucks. At least he has the next 4 days off for the 4th of July. You'd better believe we're taking full advantage of this and packing in as many fun activities as possible. It starts today when he gets home from work!

He's also just discovered about 2 weeks ago that one of his old band mates from Mtn. Home, Phil, is actually here. And has been here since September. It's very exciting. But, if either of them were actually good at keeping in touch with people, they could've been hanging out since we got here. Boys are lame though.

In other news...

I gots these long, scary Barbie nails that aren't as scary to me anymore since I've had them for 2 weeks now. But when I first got them I kept making these claws with my hands and hissing at Dustin.

See?? HISSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!

Also, for Dustin's 25th birthday (June 23rd), I made him some loverly Mountain Dew cuppycakes. The only problem I had with the cupcakes was the zesting I had to do with the crappy zester I have. It took about 45 minutes to zest a small lemon and lime.

All that work for such a teeny tiny bit!

But the cupcakes came out lovely and yummy! Then it was onto the frosting. Ooooh lordy, the frosting. This frosting single handedly made me hate life and tell Dustin that I would never cook for him ever again. It just would not cooperate. And I think the main problem was the fact that I had to boil some Mountain Dew until it became a syrup.

Well, it never got syrupy. It pretty much stayed the same and I added it to the frosting anyways. Stupid idea. It basically became frosting soup. It was retarded and pissed me off so much. I get very very worked up when things don't go my way in the kitchen. To the point of tears. It's pretty bad. You don't wanna be around me when this happens either. I might stab you.

Stupid boiling Mtn. Dew. *Shakes fist at computer screen*

They looked pretty enough when I first put the frosting on. But after a day, it had pretty much all dripped off.

And although I swore off making cupcakes that day...I decided to make some patriotic ones two days ago. My decorating skills are...lacking. Dustin thought they were super but what does he know about decorating cupcakes, right?

What a mess. A tasty delicious mess. Some had chocolate chips and some had butterscotch chips. And I kinda went a little crazy with my rum extract. I put some in the cakes and in the frosting. It was good but maybe a little overkill on rum flavouring.

Look at this lovely mini cupcake. Look at those decorating skills. I'll have you know, I didn't do that flag. Dustin came in from work and went, "Ooooh! I wanna decorate one!" and pulled this masterpiece outta his ass! Then I gave up on life.

I'm sure I have more to tell you guys but I can't think of anything right now. If I do later, maybe I can get my ass to actually post another blog. I would like to blog more than once a week like I used to. I know once I get a job, things will get much much better. Hopefully, that day comes sooner than later.

Happy 4th everyone!

Torii Beach video

2009-06-26T09:43:00.003+09:00