Park City with the Fam

When we arrived back to the states from Japan we spent the first 10 days searching for a place to live and for cars. It was an incredibly stressful time because we were also adjusting from jetlag with ourselves and Lucy and no one was getting enough sleep! Then we headed to Utah to spend some time with both sides of our family. My mom's side of the family had a reunion and then we headed to Park City with just my family for a little get away. The weather was unusually cold the 3 days we were there; it was in the 50's and 40's! So we didn't spend as much time outdoors bc we hadn't brought proper clothing. We did stop by the beautiful McPolin Barn which has a flat trail running along the way and we took a ton of pictures bc what else do you do with such a beautiful barn!?! Duke ran back to the car after a couple snaps bc he was in shorts and a tshirt and it was super windy and cold, but I'm glad we made the stop anyways!

My little brother, his wife and baby

 My mom and little sister

 my mom cracks me up

 My older sister and her little boy who's the same age as Lucy

 dad and mom

 my family who was there

 Lucy and Alistair loved "driving" the tractor

 My mom bought the grandkids little 4th of July outfits and so we attempted to get pictures. Always fun with baby and toddlers! These are the Bland grandkids..so far!

 Couldn't get lucy to have a normal smile the whole time, but this one below is my favorite. The two 2 year olds!

 We also spent some time walking main street and taking the free trolley rides. Lucy and Alistair loved it so we did it twice haha. 

 spotted some Banksy art

 Lucy's $3 cow cookie *insert eye roll here* 

 Peonies win for prettiest flower

These 2 both had to push the stroller, naturally.

It was so fun to spend time with my family! We rented an airbnb up there and had a blast. Lucy was spoiled having cousins to play with and the added attention from aunts, uncles and grandparents. 

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.