Botanical Gardens at Christmastime

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.

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

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.

"Are you Tara??"

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.

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.