4.19.2017

Tokashiki Island

This past weekend Duke had Thursday and Friday off so we spent 4 days on Tokashiki Island, a small island west of Okinawa. It's part of the Kerama Islands and these islands are truly one of my favorite places in the entire world. They have crazy beautiful beaches, have only quaint, basic accommodations and provide a quiet peaceful atmosphere where you can really relax and just soak it alllll in. Especially true if you go in off season, which is generally when we go. We stayed at Tokashiku Marine Village which is right on Tokashiku beach and was perfect! (although the food they provide was a bit lacking in my opinion). 

We basically spent our days relaxing on the beach. On Friday we spent most the day at Aharen beach and kayaked to a small island. Saturday we drove to some of the southern beaches and Sunday we just spent on our beach before we left. It was a lovely little get away!!
 ^loved this sign
 We originally stayed in the traditional Japanese room. We've stayed in many of these throughout Japan and neither of us have ever had a problem, but these mats were SO uncomfortable, we both had a terrible nights sleep and were hurting so we switched to beds. Just FYI if you stay there.
 view from the room
exploring the island we kayaked to!
 We came across a bunch of artillery shells obviously from WWII that had washed up shore and had just been left. I thought it was pretty cool to see.
 The water was a little too chilly for me, I snorkeled with a wetsuit, but Duke gets in it year round!
 Beautiful Aharen beach^
exploring some of the southern beaches
 my fav^^
 Site of a mass suicide during WWII. Seriously one of the saddest parts of this war was how many civilians killed themselves due to misinformation.
 Where Tokashiki is in comparison to Okinawa^
Ok these girls were maybe my favorite part of the trip. At least that of that day. Lucy fell asleep in the car so we had parked at this overlook and were just hanging out when this group of girls ran over to the lookout. They were literally just STARING through our windows and so I pulled out my phone to take a picture and they all immediately posed. Girls after my own heart.
A few hours later they were on the same ferry as us back to Okinawa. They came to where we were and we hung out until the boat docked at Okinawa. They pretty much spoke zero english, but we chatted through google translate. They're all from Tokashiki and were doing some volleyball thing in Okinawa. That part was a bit lost in translation. It's fun to meet locals who are as obsessed with you as you are with them. haha! They loved Lucy and my favorite was at the end the kept holding out their hands for a high five and saying "touch touch!" to Lucy. Lucy was handing out high fives like she was Beyonce at a concert. It was cracking me up. Loved running into these sweet girls.

4.18.2017

McCrory, party of 4

The biggest news around here is that I'm pregnant! That has also been the reason for my absence in blogging. I was too sick most of March to sit at a computer. The good news is that even though I was sick I really don't think it was near as bad as my sickness with Lucy. I could barely eat ANYTHING with Lucy. I remember gagging on a plain piece of bread.

Anyways, I'm 13 weeks and my due date is October 21. Just 4 days before Lucy's birthday! I'm feeling much more normal now days, although I'm still sensitive to smells and have a few lingering food aversions. Like Diet Coke! I love diet coke, but I haven't had one is 7 weeks. Maybe someday...

This first trimester was also different from Lucy's because Duke was gone all of march which was when I was my sickest. It was a bit of a blessing and a curse. A blessing bc I had no one I had to cook for (lucy doesn't eat real food, but that's another topic), I didn't have to smell any food that duke made, and I didn't have to clean up after anyone. Lucy is surprisingly clean haha.

I'm such a sharer and it's always hard for me to keep a pregnancy to myself, so it's nice to have made it this far that I can share the news with friends and family.

Hopefully I can catch back up on blogging. We just had a wonderfullll 4 day weekend in Tokashiki, an island off of Okinawa. Trying to soak up as much of this place as we can in the next month and a half!