Lunch Out

Since today is our last official day of Bryan's vacation (he does have tomorrow and Sunday off) and being Friday we wanted to go out and have a good lunch. So we ditched the base restaurants and went to a local restaurant that I have heard good reviews on.

We went to Capital's Steakhouse which is a Teppanyaki style restaurant. Which is where they cook the food right in front you at a grill at your table. Like Kobe's Steakhouse in Omaha, and we were hoping Captial's would be better since it is a local cuisine. Lets just say, we were NOT disappointed! It was amazing food!!! We will definitely be going back again! Probably at lunch time as well since it was half price lunch specials! It was on the pricey side with our lunch totaling  3,760 Yen, which equates to about  $49! So at dinner time we would have spent about $100! But it was really yummy!!

This soup was so delicious! It was a potato mushroom soup! Mhmmm 

And of course each meal came with the traditional Okinawan salad, it's more like coleslaw lettuce and it always comes with Thousand Island dressing...I don't think they believe in ranch dressing here.

We opted for an appetizer, and got the Onion Flower, kinda of like Outback's Bloomin Onion...except better and of course served with Thousand Island dressing.

Our Personal Chef...we were the only 2 at our table...and the only 2 in the whole restaurant! We went right around 1:30 so normal lunch time was over.

My lunch! Bryan and I both got the Triple Combo, which had chicken, beef tenderloin and shrimp. It comes with potatoes, bean sprouts and spinach as well. I also got rice.

Bryan's meal, he got the same as I did except instead of rice he got bread.

It's starting to look like Christmas...

At least in our house...not outside! The weather is a blustery 65 degrees today (haha sorry to all you with snow and/or freezing weather). The sun has finally made it's appearance again after being gone for about a week or so. It's been nice, not to have the rain so much. Everything is finally drying out, even the baseball players were back yesterday playing and being LOUD.

On Friday I FINALLY got around to locating our Christmas decorations and put what little we brought with us out and about. When we were getting ready to move over here everything I read said that we wouldn't have a lot of storage place for items we used only once a year so we got rid of lots of our seasonal decor. We went from 3 HUGE tubs of Christmas decor down to one small tote. Now after arriving here and having our apartment, we definitely could have brought all our decorations. We have so much storage areas, but again that is due to living off base. If we would have been on base we would have had a tiny little place. Oh well, live and learn I guess. Plus that just means I get to attend all those 75% off Christmas sales after next Sunday...well if they have those here!

So here is our little Christmas tour for you all! There were some decor that didn't make it out of the box, but at least we now have Christmas spirit around our place!!

I love this shelf! This is the first thing I bought when we moved here to Okinawa! I just rearranged the shelf and added Christmas figurines to it!

Our tree. Yes it is only 1ft tall! We refer to this as our Bella Tree =)

Our tree stand. And a package of gifts from home!! Can't wait til we get to open gifts on Skype!

My dancing/singing penguins of course found a spot on our tv stand! If Bella was here she would be barking at these! 

Our new ornament for this year. We thought it was very fitting since Bryan joined the Air Force this year to have an Americana Santa!

2010's Ornament since we bought our house in 2010.

2009's Ornament.

Bella's 1st Ornament, and Bryan's Titans ornament.

2008's Ornament. Our 1st Christmas spent married!

...

I can't believe December is here already, well actually it's almost half over! Crazy! It's also crazy to think that Christmas is just in 9 days! Okinawa doesn't really scream Christmas, it doesn't really scream winter either (that part I am okay with!). However we do feel like it's no where close to Christmas this year, maybe because we have yet to decorate, or the fact there is no snow and it is still in the 60's (which is as cold as it gets here at all). Either way Bryan and I are just not 'feeling' Christmas this year.

We miss home. We miss our family. We miss snow (gasp!). We miss our Little Bella very very much. The list could go on, but to refrain from feeling like a bah-humbug I will stop.

Christmas this year is definitely going to be different. It was strange to actually mail out our Christmas presents back to family. And it will be even stranger to open gifts over Skype. However I am very thankful for that awesome invention! Maybe it will make it seem like we are not that far away, I can hope anyways!

We are thankful that Bryan's job is being overly nice this year and giving every one a week off! He doesn't even have to use his vacation days!! So awesome! All the guys either get the week before Christmas off or the week between Christmas and New Years. Bryan gets next week, we wish he had the week after Christmas off, but we are not going to complain since it's 'free' time off! This Air Force thing isn't that bad after all lol

We hope all of you are enjoying this Christmas season, and your snow! We will hopefully get more into the Christmas spirit as the week goes on! And I am still counting down days til I get on plane to head back to Nebraska! Only a few more weeks!!!