The few pictures I took on Christmas...

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 :)

It's the little things

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??

New delights

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.

Isn't it a lovely love affair?

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.

What I miss the most is you

Being away from Dustin for 3 weeks sucked major balls. It was just as bad as I thought it would be. During the day I was perfectly fine. Yea, I still missed him but I had many many distractions to keep me from getting too depressed.

But at night...that was the worst. I was used to having Dustin sleeping right next to me every night for the past two and a half years. Then, all of a sudden, I was in a different bed and he wasn't there. I cried myself to sleep the first week and I barely slept over 4 hours a night. It was pretty pathetic.

Things got better once we got the calling schedule down. Dustin would call me before he went to work on the weekdays which was about 4pm New York time. Then he would call me before he went to bed at night which was about 8 or 9pm NY time. On the weekends I didn't know when he'd call but I knew I'd be able to talk to him longer. It was a good system. But it didn't change the fact that he wasn't physically with me.

I had to handle a lot of the last minute wedding planning myself. I handled all the RSVPs and getting in touch with people that hadn't gotten in touch with me. I also did the guest list and seating chart. Jen, my maid of honor, helped me with the place cards, thank goodness. But I had to handle all my stress by myself. Without Dustin being there to hold me and comfort me and take care of things. I wish I could be like him and never get stressed over anything. My life would be so much simpler. And I wouldn't need Dustin as much.

It wasn't until Dustin got to NY and we were reunited, that I truly realized how much I really missed him. It sounds pretty lame and cheesy but, when he got there I felt as if there was a piece of my life restored to me. As if there was something totally missing in my heart and I didn't even realize until I had it back and thought to myself, "Oh wow, this is what it feels like to be happy."

I wasn't too surprised though. He is, after all, the love of my life and my ultimate best friend. All I have to do is think of his face and my world feels completely at peace and under control. I honestly don't think there's a single person out there that would be better for me. No one else in the world could make me this happy and content. No one understands me the way he does and I don't think anyone ever will. He's pretty much perfect.

Except he stinks nearly all the time.

Another thing I came home to

Because it's not enough that I have my own grownup kitchen to cook in. Sometimes I just wanna use a light bulb to cook tiny cakes and cookies.

I love how much Dustin really gets me. And when he gets me Easy Bake ovens.

You've all awaken the Groomzilla!

It's come to our attention that pretty much NO ONE noticed the little note in their invitation envelope that gave info on our gift registry. I'm sure if you guys look now, you'll see it in there. This is what it says if you can't find it:

"Due to the fact that we now live in Japan, we will not be accepting gifts at the wedding. We are registered at Target.com, so if you would like to have something sent to our address from there you can do that. Or, you may also donate to Tara & Dustin's Honeymoon/New Sofa fund."

Raise your hand if you didn't see this note. I knew it. I knew we should've made them bigger. And now grandmas are trying to get us comforter sets and crock pots. I'm sorry but if anyone brings a gift to the wedding we can't take it. We just won't have the room.If you go to Target.com and click on Club Wedd and then search for either Tara or Dustin Santillan, you will find our registry and it will send all the gifts to our house. That way Dustin will be less angry and frustrated. He's having a total groomzilla moment with this whole thing. Maybe because he's the one that had to print and cut about 100 of these little cards.

Pay closer attention to things people!

Thank you.

A tropical Saturday

I don't know about you guys but I can't wait for the summer. Especially now since I live on a tropical island and there's about 5,000 (or 80) beaches on the island. It's pretty short drive to get to one which is very exciting for me and Dustin. Neither of us have ever lived by a beach before. Let alone 5,000(or 80) beaches!! You don't even have to really plan a day at the beach in advance here. So we didn't, and we somehow ended up on a cute part of Sunset Beach that we haven't been to before.

It was right behind this massive resort hotel. I wanna stay at every resort on the island at least once because they put alot of money into them and they are so gorgeous! Plus, it's right on the beach.

Here are some lovely flowers I had to stop and take a picture of on the sidewalk. Are they lilies?? I have no idea. I just thought they were pretty and I was really excited to be outta the house for once. I think I'm getting cabin fever. If I don't get off base at least once I week I start to freak out.

This is how you know you're about to get to the lovely beach.

This is Sunset Beach! They have a windmill here for some reason. We liked it.

If it were about 5 or 10 degrees warmer, it would've been warm enough for us to go into the water. These people are crazy and acting like the water was fine. It was cold people! But we put our feet in anyways. Then we just laid out on our towels for awhile.

And took pictures. I was very excited to be at the beach and to be wearing one of the 4 new swim suits I bought towards the end of last summer. They still had the tags on them. To the left of me you can see Dustin's white hairy belly.

Dustin forgot to bring his sunglasses so I put his shirt on his head to shield his eyes from the sun. I'm helpful like that. I think Dustin appreciated it too.

The hotel again. This beach had a really small sandy area and then alot of these cement(I think) steps where mom's held all their kids' beach supplies while they played in the water. There's also a little ice cream cabana up there somewhere. It was very cute.

I love living here. And I get very excited thinking that we'll be here for 3 more summers after this.

After about 30 minutes of laying on the sand I started to get restless and Dustin started to get sleepy so we decided to explore. The sun had gone behind the clouds and it started to get a little cooler than comfortable as well. That's when I found this poor, dead puffer fish. At first I thought it was fake because it kinda looks like it might start talking. But then I saw it's battle scars on the side of it's belly. It wasn't a peaceful end for this guy.

This picture was taken to show how clear the water is here.

We walked along the sea wall for awhile.

People are allowed to decorate the sea walls here which is pretty awesome because every asian person can draw amazingly well. It's just a fact. I liked this one the best.

I've noticed that they really like dolphin statues here. I have no idea what this is for.

Here's the windmill again. We walked right past it.

I made Dustin pose like this because I was trying to get a candid picture before and he turned around and ruined everything. He's pointing at nothing. Actually, I think he was telling me that this chart thingy told you how fast the windmill was moving or some crap like that. He can't read kanji so I think he was just bullshitting me. But he was probably right. Sometimes I pretend I know how to read Japanese too but I'm usually just guessing. Most of the time I'm wrong.

This is a pineapple! At least that's what I said as I was taking this picture. But I really have no idea. It could be anything. It is Japan, after all.

These people were just sitting in this fountain/stream thingy by the resort. It was kinda weird and didn't seem like that was the sole purpose of the fountain. But I guess it's alright if they were doing it. I bet if I tried they'd totally kick me out. I'm not cool enough. :(

We were hungry after all the walking and decided to go to Ono Kau Kau and see what all the fuss was about. A lot of Americans come here to have some "Hawaiian" tasties. It was pretty ok. It was basically Japanese style Hawaiian so not totally what I was wanting. The Hawaiian place in Boise that catered Dave & Sammee's wedding was waaaaaaaaaaaay better. I really wanted some coconut rice but they only had plain rice.

Instead of napkins they had tissue boxes in the middle of every table. I'll tell you, tissues really don't work well in place of napkins.

We chose to eat outside since they didn't seem to have a/c inside. The place was kinda cute and they at least had Hawaiian music playing which made me feel like I was living on a tropical island.

Here I am deep in thought about food. I was looking at the picture menu when Dustin took this. He also took some other blurry pictures of my bottom half that I deleted when I found them later.

Here's another picture Dustin took. I'm not sure what he was aiming at, if anything. Maybe that ugly couple that was sitting back there. We're not very fond of the uglies. When we got our food we were so hungry that we forgot to take pictures. I was about halfway through my plate when Dustin suggested it. But it was just too late.

I only allow Dustin to take my picture so I can get away with making this face. How many pictures do I have of my face doing this? It's been going on for about 4 years. I will never get a different expression.

We ended the night attempting to get drunk. I had cran-raspberry mojitos to keep the whole tropical theme going. Dustin and I had about 2 drinks each over the course of about 5 hours. We're not very good at drinking. We don't particularly like shots and we hate getting full off of liquids. You know when you drink so much that when you move you can hear all the beverages sloshing around in your tummy? Yea, we hate that. I also like my drinks very very sweet so lately I've been getting a stomach ache from the sugar before I even get buzzed. We're total old people.

I will end this post with this kitty to show you all what an Okinawan kitty looks like. Notice the slanty eyes! This is the most Asian looking animal I've seen here.