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 :)

Pretty Christmas Eve Makeup

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. :)

New Year's Resolutions

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!!

Another reason I love Disney so much

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!

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.

Halloween 2009

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.

Sometimes I love being a girl

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.

Tara gets excited!

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.

4th of July weekend

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.