Chaussures de la Ellis Family

Ok, so my French isn't what it used to be. But here is an adorable picture Mike captured. It was his idea and all...how creative! You all know how he likes the remotes nice and neat. Well, the same is true for our shoes. So, here they are, The Shoes of the Ellis Family!

Bet you can't guess whose are whose!

P.S. -A quick update- Olivia is doing much much better. No fever, and back to eating and sleeping as normal. YAY!

Update on Sick Baby

Thank you to everyone for their concern and well wishes! Just thought I would give you an update. She is doing much better. Her nose isn't as bad and she isn't coughing as much anymore. Her fever is lower and staying away longer. This morning she still had a small fever, but she seems to be getting better, so the doctor's said not to come in and just try and do a follow-up visit Monday with our regular doctor. Now it is Friday night for us and she has been on Antibiotics for two full days and she is much better. She took two good naps today. I think her throat might be hurting her, because she doesn't want to eat food, but she is still drinking her bottles, so that is good. She has been a little cranky today, but I think she is just tired of being in the house. She is used to going out a lot, but she has been locked in the house all week. One good thing is she loves taking her medicine! We have some pictures of her getting her meds to show off.
Here are the goods:


Taking her medicine the other night:

Taking the Amox tonight (open wide):

Taking the nightly Zyrtec, eyeballing the Tylenol:

She loves her medicine:

Eating her puffs since she took all her medicine:

"I love taking my medicine!"

Sick Baby!

If you have heard from us lately, you know that Olivia has been sick...again. For the last two weeks she has had her regular runny nose and yucky cough. So, I really didn't think it was any big deal, because whenever we take her to the doctor with that they always send us home saying everything was fine. Well, this weekend she started getting a fever off and on. I just gave her some motrin and kept an eye on her. Monday night she cried a lot during the night and when she woke up Tuesday she had a fever again. She had also been pulling on her ear, so I took her to the doctor to make sure she didn't have an ear infection. She saw the doctor- and of course, she was fine. The doctor said the same old "her lungs sound great" speech. So we went about our business.

Well, today she scared me. She had a fever last night of 102.7, so we gave her motrin and tylenol through the night. This morning after having more motrin, she was looking and acting a little better. But this afternoon we were playing and I noticed she was shivering. I had dressed her in light clothes since she had the fever, so I thought maybe she was too cold. Her legs and hands were purple-ly, her finger nails were purple, and I noticed she was breathing heavy through her mouth. I wasn't sure if she was just cold or having trouble breathing. I took her temperature and it was 101.8. I gave her more motrin and called the doctors. They said to bring her right to the ER. I had a friend ride in the back with her to keep an eye on her while we drove. Mike was at the gym, so he met us at the ER. It turns out she was breathing fine, she had good oxygen levels. But her temperature had shot up to 103 by the time we got to the ER. They gave her tylenol (4.5mls!) and we waited. I told them how she has been sick with the cold and everything. So they sent was up for a chest x-ray. After six hours of waiting at the ER, we found out that she has pneumonia and step throat! Poor baby!
Now we are back home feeding her amoxicillin, motrin, and tylenol around the clock (along with her nightly dose of zyrtec)! Hopefully, the antibiotics will help her and knock this out. If the fever isn't down by Friday we have to go back and get a stronger antibiotic. So for now the doctor's orders are no school until fever goes away...I guess that means no alligator steps!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!!

The card says it all...

Cape Hedo Misaki

After the Azalea Park, the next stop was Cape Hedo. It is the nothern most tip of Okinawa. It is also where the East China Sea meets the Pacific Ocean. By the time we got there the sun was getting ready to go down, but you can still see how pretty it is.

We tucker her out!


Cape Hedo:


Where the waters meet:


The girls:

This is proof that the sun sets in the west. Mike and Olivia are on a compass, standing on the "W" and the sun is setting behind them:

Catching waves:

Just a little pretty:

The 27th Higashi Village Tsutsuji (Azalea) Festival

Like I said, we made a few stops on our trip to Nago. The next stop after the waterfall was to the Higashi Village Azalea Festival, not to be confused with the Azalea Festival in Valdosta. They were both this weekend! Valdosta is known as the Azalea City and every year that we lived there, they held the Azalea Festival on the second weekend in March. So I was pretty excited to hear that Okinawa had it's own Azalea Festival, held around the same time. We will have to make this one a tradition as we did with the one in Georgia. Of course, a "festival" here isn't quite what we know it to be in the states. But an azalea does pretty much look the same, whether you are in Georgia or Okinawa...although, I'd argue the background scenery in Okinawa is just a tad more pretty (sorry Valdosta)! What do you think?

Walking up to the festival...the streets were lined with azaleas!


All different colors:



Right in the beginning of the park:

The park had hillsides covered with azaleas of all colors:

You know he always gets too push the stroller, I get to take the pictures:

This is my favorite:

Farmland in the background:

Ocean in the background, too:

Pretty flowers, pretty baby:

Michaela and Maddie:

The park was huge and covered lots of land:

This is from a view point, there are all kinds of trails, steps, and bridges throughout the park:

One of the bridges-we have no idea how it holds up. There didn't seem to be any poles or anything. It sways a lot when you walk across it!

Ok, this is one of my favorites too:

This is how she rolls (drinks a ba-ba, with her feet propped up):

So, I have a few favorites, and this is one too:

Group shot before we left:

One more of the view:

Todoroki No Taki

We went exploring again! On Sunday, the weather was finally nice enough to go sight-seeing. The Adams' invited us along with them to a trip to Nago. So we said "Sure!" and loaded up! We stopped at a few places. The first one being Todoroki No Taki, where there is a woodsy trail and a waterfall. Well, there must not have been a lot of rain so far, because there wasn't much water. We will have to go back again after the "rain season." But it was still pretty! Here are a few shots of this stop. I'll post more of our other stops tomorrow!
The sign to where we went:


She is just thrilled, can't you tell? At least she is giving the thumbs up!


Clapping her hands, waterfall in the background:

See, not much water, but you get the idea:

Playing with the camera:

3 guesses on what this sign means:

Walking back to the car: