Typhoon Jelawat: Cleanup on another Sunday

To those of you not following on Facebook, yes we have had another Typhoon, making 4 since moving here in July!  We have been really busy the past few weeks, and I will have to catch up on the blog. We had their birthday party last Saturday, beautiful weekend without a storm :)

This storm was the worst of the ones we had so far. Lots of wind and damage to a lot of areas. This was a super typhoon again that hit around 7am Saturday morning. The front of the storm lasted until around 11:30 and then the eye came through. It was very quiet until 1:00pm when the backside of the storm came through. Intense!!  Lots of stuff flying around in the air including the branches off this tree. I remember walking by the front window and catching something out of the corner of my eye, went and saw this big branch fly by! 

We had a nice morning here today, it was cooler and surprisingly nice outside. We took around the neighborhood to see some of the damage and then went to the playground to have some fun.

Small palm tree snapped in half!

Cooper found some debris and was helping clean up. Not sure where it came from!

Our backyard is covered in leaves and branches, but no damage to anything. Glad I put the sandbags on the patio furniture or it might have flown away!

Random places the storm left things.

Neighbor lost part of the roof.

Play set mangled in someone's backyard.

Plastic shed ended up twisted

These poor people's roof was torn to shreds and found several blocks away along the grass and street.

Lots and lots of broken branches

Swings on the playground left twisted around the poles.

We also saw tons of trees that were completely uprooted. Intense storm, glad we are all safe and hope this is the last for awhile!

Typhoon Sanba with some Sunday Fun

Super Typhoon Sanba made its grand entrance the weekend of Cooper and Mackenzie's third birthday here in Okinawa, Japan. The lady that I hired to make cupcakes for their birthday party was the first to let me know a typhoon was in the making earlier in the week. We watched and sure enough a typhoon developed. However, it wasn't just any typhoon, it is a Super Typhoon, something to do with the eye of the storm and very destructive winds.

Here is a photo of the typhoon making its way to Okinawa, marked in blue. It also gives you an idea of how small Okinawa island is.

After Typhoon Bolavan, I really didn't really get too worked up about this typhoon. I was just disappointed that it made me move the twins birthday party, but it also allows me more time to get the house ready for their party.  I didn't even go to the grocery store this time!

The eye of the storm is bigger than Okinawa!

We were busy Saturday celebrating the twins' Third Birthday, last post but around 5am on Sunday I was awakened to the sound of wind and pounding rain on my window. Ah, the typhoon was finally here! Within about 10 minutes of being awakened, we moved into TCCOR E, which means the winds are greater than 50 knots. I fell back asleep for about an hour before finally getting up, the noise was loud from the storm! It was quite impressive to see the typhoon during the day light. We stayed busy today playing with new things they received for their birthday including these paints from the Miller family next door.

Cooper is proud of his art work, he likes mixing the colors.

Bubble hands from clean up time!

Our art work, hanging up to dry.

Cooper and Mackenzie Turn Three

Singing Happy Birthday after naps on the afternoon of their birthday, September 15th. We invited some neighbors over to sing and share the cupcakes.

It was like Christmas morning in our house today. Saturday, September 15th, Cooper and Mackenzie turn three. I can't believe just three years ago my water broke at 3am and at exactly 6:00am Cooper was born and 6:02 Mackenzie. What an AMAZING 3 years it has been!

I wasn't sure what to do for their birthday, since I had to postpone their party because of Typhoon Sanba, so I moved their chairs by the wall and piled their gifts on them.  It was perfect!  Look at those excited faces.

They loved the balloons and went right for them!

This is a really cool remote control car from their birthday buddy Ethan.  Everyone that came to our house had fun playing with this toy!

He went for the yellow monkey wrapping paper!

Sweet card with fish stickers from Poppa.

Dora and boots dolls that can go in the water, from Poppa.  What is really funny is a friend at school has one similar that they have been talking about for the past week :)

Little Mermaid movie from Uncle Nick! 

Opening her gift from mommy and daddy. A toddler digital camera! I can't wait to download her photos :)

Their first cameras.

Awesome remote control car from Ethan

Painting on her Rapunzel art easel. Really cool toy, add water and a painting appears, then it dries and you can do it again!

Mommy asked Cooper and Mackenzie what kind of birthday cakes they wanted and Cooper said a sprinkle cake with yellow. So the cake part is the funfetti cake mix with lots of yellow sprinkles.

Mackenzie said she wanted a strawberry cake. So it is the funfetti cake and strawberry icing with her favorite colors of purple and pink.

Cooper also said he wanted chocolate, so I made some cupcakes for all to enjoy.

Singing happy birthday with the neighbors.

Blowing out the candles.

Getting some help from Maddi our neighbor from next door.

Cool transformer from our new friends Emily and Matthew.

Watching Little Mermaid and eating snacks with Matthew and Emily

After dinner at our friends house, we came home and Poppa's other gifts had arrived! Big Wheels!!!! 

Off they go through the house! 

He is SO excited about his big wheel bike, but his legs aren't quite long enough to reach the peddles yet. Which is ok because he still likes to ride his bike by not peddling yet.

These things were terribly hard to put together. I spent about 1.5 hours working on cooper's and couldn't get it together. My neighbor Garrett Miller put them together and did an AMAZING job! I owe him big time!