Tom's in Cambodia!

Tom had the amazing opportunity to go to Cambodia with a Navy medical humanitarian team and is currently there doing dental work for anyone that is willing to make the trek to see them. They are set up in some sort of temple, about three hours from the capitol city by bus. He’s been there since last Friday and so far it’s going well for him except for the food, he said he thinks he’ll just be hungry until he gets home! His first night there they had frog legs for dinner but they were given massages while sitting at the table so it’s not all bad! He missed sharing Mother’s Day with us but I was well taken care of. Hayden made me lots of things at school and spent the afternoon making me cards. The Wilson’s were so thoughtful and generous and had us over for dinner, Scott did all the cooking so Joy and I just relaxed and enjoyed our special day. He’s a master on the grill and dinner was delicious. We’ve definitely been missing Tom a lot but being here makes it easier because I feel very safe in my house, I have amazing friends who are watching the kids while I run and do other stuff and I am surrounded by women who are without their husbands for months and months so I know I can certainly handle 2 weeks! Danica misses him a lot and wakes up crying for him in the night and early morning but overall she seems okay. Hayden is extra huggy and cuddly but I don’t mind! I’ve discovered I rely on him way too much for my IT support. For instance, the internet was down today and after spending all day waiting for it to come back up I called the company, they said the line was fine, I unplugged the router for 15 seconds, plugged it back in and it was fixed... way too easy, I felt silly for calling and spending all day with out the internet! Two days ago the channel button on the remote control quit working. It’s been very annoying and finally tonight I sat down to look up some solutions online. While sitting here I decided to look at all the little buttons and I discovered that the button had been moved from TV to SAT... I switched it back and it works fine... embarrassing, I shouldn’t even be telling you this but I have been laughing at myself all night! I guess I need to quit saying “Tom fix it” and actually try to do it myself once in a while!
I had a fun experience this week with a cultural exchange through church. We had an activity a few weeks ago with the local Japanese women who are also members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints. They meet together in Japanese speaking meetings so we don’t see them very often. However, on this night it was really cool because we opened with a hymn about sisterhood and they sang it in Japanese while we sang it in English, it was so neat to hear. Then we all offered things we could do to involve each other in our respective cultures. My friend Joy and I offered to teach a music class (the one we do weekly for our neighbors.) There was only one woman there who had small children and was interested but we had a fabulous time with her. She came this week and it was fun to get to know her and her son. They taught us some Japanese and we played with our instruments and had a blast. Then we had an American lunch of PB&J, fruit salad, chips and juice, followed by chocolate chip cookies. I think we’ve started a fabulous new friendship and Aiko has invited us to come to her house sometime soon.
The first week in May is known as Golden Week in Japan and is a week of huge celebrations in honor of all sorts of things! May 5th was Children’s Day and I decided to keep Hayden out of school and attend the Dragon Boat races down at the wharf. My friend was racing on the Navy team. She’s been practicing paddling the Dragon boat for a long time and they won their heat! The races were cool and they had a big festival with lots of fun for the kids. Their favorite part was a booth with colored chicks. They loved it!





Well that’s about all I can think of right now...the kids bought me a foot massage spa for Mother’s day and it’s calling my name so I better go before it gets too late! I was up way too late last night doing laundry... I underestimated how efficiently Tom folds laundry! I usually spend all day washing one day a week and then we fold it when the kids are in bed- it took me soooooo long to do it by myself! On the flip side, I’ve gotten really good at multi-tasking the bedtime routine: we get back late from soccer practice but they need a bath so while they are in the tub they eat their bedtime snack (Otter pops worked well...tonight they tried fudgecicles and it was a disaster because Alyssa kept dipping hers in the warm water causing them to take a fudge bath until I drained the water and started over...) anyway, they have their snack, listen to the scriptures, get washed, and brush their teeth all at once. Hooray for multi-tasking!