Mt Fuji

can you see lucy's losing it in this picture?^

*heart eyes*

she hated that car seat more than her regular car seat...and that's saying a lot.

cutest little shiba!!!

Last week Duke had a short det (dettachment) up at Yokota Air Base, which is about an hour outside of Tokyo. He had a few free days while he was up there so we decided Lucy and I should try to take a military flight up and hang out on his days off. We ended up flying to Tokyo commercially (after waiting seven hours for a military flight that ended up being cancelled, ugh), but we caught a flight back on a c130. I've never tagged along with him on work stuff and it was really fun! I'd been to Tokyo a couple times but never outside the city really. It is so beautiful!

Friday we rented a car and headed down to Mt. Fuji area. It was overcast and definitely on the cooler side up in the mountains. I hadn't packed a single jacket for Lucy or myself, so we had Lucy in her pjs the whole day haha. It was SUCH a nice break from the oppressive humidity of Okinawa. We went to a place called Mt Kachi Kachi ropeway and rode a little ways up in cable cars. There was this beautiful view of Fuji! We hiked a bit further up the mountain just for fun and then hiked the whole way down. Did I say how BEAUTIFUL it was?! I haven't been out hiking in the mountains like this in such a long time. Duke and I are already talking about going back up there and doing some more hiking one of these days. 

I was a little disappointed because there was a beautiful flower festival for pink phlox moss that ended May 31 and they didn't allow entry after that day. We missed it by 4 days! But it looks like this: (SO PRETTY RIGHT?!)

image source

Boracay [Part 3]

one my most favorite pictures of her!

Mangos are mandatory everyday in the Philippines :)

First time parasailing..a little underwhelming. But a nice relaxing ride in the air I guess

i love seeing them together :)

This girl walked up and just took lucy out of my hands to pose for a pic..umm ok?? haha

our own cute little sign!

busy beach at dusk

sunset sail

her hat kills me!

flying back to manila!

Manila LDS temple

lucys face^ caught her mid-cough. hilarious

The last pictures from our Boracay trip! Such a great time. We just got back yesterday from a short trip to Tokyo and now Boracay seems like forever ago! Funny how that works. Leaving Boracay we had originally planned to fly back to Manila, spend the night and then fly home connecting in Hong Kong the next day. WELL. The first part worked out fine, but the morning we got to the Manila airport was ridiculous. There is a long line just to get into the airport. You have to go through security just to get inside. We were able to pay some guy and skip that long line, then we get to the check-in line for our airline and waited THREE HOURS!! And at one point we even skipped part of that line. It was absolutely bonkers. Our flight had been delayed a few hours, making us miss our connection in Hong Kong. So when we get to the front of the line, the lady asked us a couple questions and then told us she'd go look into getting us a new flight out of Hong Kong (not sure why she couldn't use her computer in front of her?). She comes back 30 minutes later and asked us the exact same questions she asked before she left. I felt like I was taking crazy pills! We just laughed about it because it was so ridiculous. It was like she came back and was like "Can I help you?" uhhh I thought that's what you were doing lady! Then she left again. After 45 minutes standing at the counter and all she did was check our bags and give us our tickets and tell us to go to the counter in Hong Kong. So if you fly through Manila prepare for some extra time with those special people :). 

Oh one more tip if you fly into Manila! There is a CRAZY long line for the metered taxis at the airport. You can get in a not metered one but you'll pay like 7x's the metered price. (we did that the first night). After standing in the line for about an hour we saw a sign for a express lane if you were with children, so we got to jump to the front of the line! I saw signs for stuff like that everywhere. So if you have a baby always check!