Tsutsuji Matsuri aka Azalea Festival

Saturday morning Rowan decided to wake up at 5:45, and the good husband I'm married to decided to let me sleep in, so he took Rowan, and they decided to drive up to a lookout we had hiked to a couple months ago, and watch the sunrise. There were a few more clouds than he hoped, but it still looked pretty awesome. Our house is in this little bay that you can see here. It is tucked back in, so you can't quite see it in this picture.

 Rowan had fun playing around in his PJs in the outlook tower

 So grateful for these 2, and especially for Grant who let me sleep THREE more hours! I can't even believe I slept in that late :)

 After I got up, we went for a run in the morning, grabbed some Subway on base for lunch, and then headed up north to Higashi for the Azalea festival. Since we enjoyed the cherry blossom and sunflower festivals and the orchid gardens in the last couple months, we decided we would hit the Azalea festival for opening weekend :) It was a nice first day of March. We've been doing a lot more running recently and Rowan has decided he's ok with the stroller, even when it's not nap time, which has made many aspects of life much better :)

Right inside the park were a few food vendors. We know better than to go to something like this hungry :) It's always interesting to see what kind of things they have though. Grant wanted to try a chicken fish and cheese hot pocket looking thing..luckily he resisted ;)  I love the lanterns always hanging at these festivals though.

And as always, Rowan received a lot of attention from the locals :) This lady behind the counter couldn't stop flirting with him! "Kawaii" is the Japanese word I hear most here, which means CUTE!

 The azaleas were at a large park, part of which overlooked a beautiful bay. The sun went away when we got there, which was nice for walking around as it was still warm, but the water didn't have the gorgeous turquoise color that I love. Our drive up the coast was SO pretty.

 We of course took a bunch of pics, so I tried to pick just a few of my favorites.

We ran into some friends there (which was pretty random since there really were not very many Americas at this festival because it was so far north...I kind of enjoyed that though). It was nice to see them though and allowed us to get a shot of the 3 of us!

Cute kid :)

 LOVE this view from across the bridge. Even though the sun decided to hide, I think the overcast skies added an extra element of beauty.

 On the walk back down, we took the outside route that overlooked a bunch of pineapple fields and the ocean. Grant sat Rowan down on the fence and he immediately wrapped his legs around the pole and held on like a little monkey, it was SO cute!

 (this is his concentration face...I love this picture because it captured this face perfectly)

We finished the evening with a delicious BBQ outside with good friends. Love Saturdays that are full of beauty and fun. And Happy Birthday to both Karleigh and Jenifer (my sis and Grant's sis)...wish we were closer to celebrate with you!