Summer 2011

(I started this blog weeks ago and have been waiting to get the computer set up to get pictures and such... I just need to post it and move on!!! So here's a few pictures, more details and fun to come!)

It's been a whirl wind and impossible to really summarize but I'll give it a try. Of course it started with moving from Okinawa Japan the day after school ended in June. We stayed with friends and then moved in with Tom's parents. Life was instantly busy and fun and crazy and exhausting all at the same time. Amidst it all we continued to wait to close on our house in hopes of getting in before school started. While we waited we kept busy, here are a few highlights:

TRIP TO UTAH:
We enjoyed our time in Utah with tons to do and lots of family to visit. The mountains were beautiful, the sunshine warm, and wonderful memories made. What I learned:
Mom's cooking will always be the best
There is nothing as wonderful as the sound of cousins laughing together
Utah summers are the best, warm and dry
My parents are amazing and so full of fun and excitement, they kept us really entertained!





NORTHWEST PASSAGE RAGNAR:

Tom's family is full of runners and this year for the first time they put together a Ragnar team consisting of his mom, some of her children and their spouses. Tom and I ended up joining the team taking the spots of a few people who couldn't do it and ended up having a blast. It was a 190 mile run starting on the border of Canada and winding down to Langley Washington. We each ran three different legs of the race with some eating and attempts at sleeping in between. It was great! Thank you to all the awesome family members who ran, drove and watched the kids so we could have so much fun! What I learned:
You can take a "shower" in the back seat of a suburban with a washcloth and towel
It's more comfortable to sleep in the car than outside on the cold sloped ground
Croissants with meat and cheese are delicious
"Killing" is good
You don't actually need a good nights sleep and good food in order to run



LAKE SHASTA HOUSEBOAT:
After only spending one month of summer here in Washington I was already done with it and can't believe they have the nerve to call it summer. I have a feeling this is payback because I spent so much time complaining about the heat in Okinawa. I continue to be cold almost daily. So our trip down to Northern California for a week at the end of July was much needed! It was hot and sunny everyday!! We stayed on a houseboat and had a fantastic time. We swam, skied, wake boarded, tubed, ate, sat, swam again and played games. It was blissful and will definitely be an annual tradition.






ALYSSA TURNED 4!!!
I can't believe my baby is 4. I am imagine I'll be saying that a lot in the years to come. She's is just the most fun and exciting little girl ever. She is all smiles and happiness and is just the best friend to her big sister. She loves to laugh and tries to tell jokes and do silly things. One of her favorite expressions is "that is freaky!" Scooby Doo is her favorite show and she is in love with ballet and dancing. Her and Danica play "mom and dad" all the time and Alyssa likes to be the mom and calls her daughter "honey" and "sweetie" all the time. She has a great imagination and loves to play with action figure type dolls, characters or animals. When she can't find any she will use whatever she can find and one day used a dew screws and little mom and dad dolls. At the park her favorite thing to do is the swing and she just learned to swim and things it's the best! Truly she just lights up our family and is so much fun to have around!!!

THE HOUSE:
In the interim we've enjoyed time just letting the kids ride their bikes, playing on a co-ed softball team, getting ready for the house with things like buying a washer and dryer, kitchen table, etc. Finally, after much drama and several ridiculous delays we closed on the house August 18th. We love it and can't wait to get settled!

What's New....

Life in the U.S. continues to be wonderful and we are having a great time. We really miss our friends in Oki and were freezing most of the time we were in Washington but just keep pretending we are on vacation! Here are some pictures of the fun we had up in Sammamish. We never got a good group shot so these will have to do. It was great the way things picked up where we left off. We had a fun at the park, it was nice and cool, I even brought jackets!

We went to the Science Center in Seattle, it was awesome. Here is Tom and Randy (also a dentist) at the phobia exhibit

We road on this bike that was balanced way up high and wasn't attached but couldn't fall off do to the balancing weight... it was a lot of trust to put in science and very scary!

Lunch by a fountain

We went swimming in the lake by their house. Alyssa was brave and enjoying it.

Danica agreed with the rest of it: It was COLD!!! Where is our warm Okinawa water?


After enjoying a full week with the Ball's it was finally time to leave and we headed down to Vancouver to "move in" with Tom's parents. We had lots of fun hanging out with all of Tom’s family while in Washington. The kids loved seeing their cousins and getting reacquainted.

We did Karaoke one night, did a beautiful trail run around some waterfalls, played games and lots of fireworks on the 4th of July and tons of other things. We finally got to see the house we are buying and walked through it for the first time. We LOVE it and thankfully just got the letter accepting the short sale so we have a closing date of August 17th. Hooray!!! We can’t wait for the day to come but luckily have a ton of things planned between now and then!

Our vacation continues and we are in Utah right now hanging out with my family and having a good time.  We've been to Lagoon, a waterfall and the fair. My mom keeps making fantastic food and taking such good care of us!!! It's so nice to be here! I've been spending time with my niece and nephew who are both adorable!
Apparently Hayden didn't get enough military stuff in Oki and was enthralled by this army tank and it's guns!

The girls worked hard and made all sorts of awesome crafts at the fair.

Next week we are going 4-wheeling and to Snowbird and visiting more family and friends among other stuff.  The kids have really enjoyed their cousins and all the time with grandma and grandpa.  Poor Alyssa gets so confused, every time we go to a new place she asks if it's our new house and if we've finally moved.  It started with the Westpac and hasn't stopped.  Even the hotel we stayed at in Boise on the drive to Utah she asked if it was her new house. Her birthday is August 17th so that will be a wonderful day to get the new house then!!

I haven’t done much shopping but did hit Target once and thoroughly enjoyed Costco and bought so much stuff just because I couldn’t believe it. Hayden finally said “Mom, really, when are you going to stop be so amazed by everything.” But really Hayden, did you see the price of those apples??!!! Getting used to driving has been okay, only once did I go to the car and get in on the wrong side. Tom's done it a few times but just gets to pretend he's a gentleman opening my door. I still have moments when I try to make sure I have my I.D. ready for something but that is fading. I'm okay with some things fading away but look forward to hanging on to some of the memories forever! Here are a few pictures from some of the memories of the last days:

Here are Danica and Alyssa with their great friends on our last big outing to a Japanese garden, the spot on our bucket list!

My most amazing next door neighbor and our crew. This is moments before they left on the shuttle to the airport the day before we did!
On our last night on the island we went to Coco's Curry House and got great food and took it over to eat Araha Beach with all our friends. Although many members of our wonderful Oki Family had already moved we still got some fun pictures with the rest of the gang. I can only hope to have friends even half as good in the future!

Spoiled in the U.S.A

We made it. After three amazing years in Okinawa Japan we left on Saturday June 18th and flew back to the U.S. for the last time. Life was really busy and we packed in tons of last minute fun while dealing with all the packing and checking out. I tried not to think things like "oh, this is my last bike ride" or my last run, last time going here or there... but it happened anyway. It was really hard to say "see you later" to our friends there because they were so much more than friends. Moving away from family is tough, moving to a foreign country is even tougher and our friends truly became our family and support network. It was hard to leave when we don't know when we'll see them again. Hopefully sooner rather than later. Everything went fairly smoothly with the packing out and prepping. I'd have loved to go on one more dive and a few other things but we left with no regrets and tons of great memories. We were spoiled by our friends there who helped us out so much as we got ready to go. Our next door neighbors, who were some of our best friends, went so far as to even move at the same time as us so we could stay in the on base hotel together! It was awesome because Hayden could still walk to school with his best friend, they would just leave from the hotel together in the morning!! Other friends spoiled us with meals, child care, cars to use, game nights and a great last night at the beach with everyone together. One of our first nights in Okinawa 3 years ago was spent at Araha Beach, so that is where we went for our last night.

Our flights went well, the kids were good and aside from the crying baby and loud flight attendant who kept waking us up it was great. Once we arrived in the U.S. we have continued to be spoiled by our great friends the Ball's who picked us up at the airport. They are some great friends we were with in Okinawa until they moved a year ago. Happily, they picked us up in our very own new (to us) car!!! We knew we wanted an Odyssey like the one we sold before moving to Okinawa and found the one we wanted on Craigslist. So they went and test drove it for us and took the check and picked it up. For three years I was dreaming that when we moved back someone would pick me up at the airport in my new Odyssey, hand me my iphone and drive me to my new house. That almost came true as Saturday afternoon we went and picked out our new iphones. We are staying here, near Seattle, with the Ball's for a few days while Tom's does his final check out from the Navy. The Ball's are the best hosts ever, truly spoiling us with great food, good company and fun. But most of all they gave us the gift of sleep, the most precious thing you can give a jet-lagged traveler. The kids slept upstairs and we were downstairs with a loud fan on so we wouldn't hear the kids in the morning. Melanie said she'd grab the girls if they had to go potty and we figured they'd sleep all night because we kept them up all day. But jetlag doesn't always work that way and they woke up at midnight and couldn't go back to sleep until 4! I had no idea until the next morning because Melanie stayed up with them getting snacks and movies and such. WAY TOO NICE TO US!!

The kids stayed jet lagged the next night but finally last night they slept through the night. Hopefully tonight they'll do the same and we'll be back on schedule. We're having a blast here on vacation with them, it's a good transition into our new "real" life in Washington. A little taste of Okinawa right here. We were freezing for the first few days but have finally warmed up and enjoyed the sunshine today!

I'll post more as our adventure in the US continues and once I get the pictures!!

Typhoon Songda and Our Bucket List

Well, if we had put “experience a tropical typhoon” on our bucket list we would now be able to check it off. This past weekend we had yet another typhoon warning, we got the yard ready like usual and didn’t expect much since nothing usually happens. But this time, the storm actually hit and made for a crazy night! It started around 9pm and the wind kept picking up and was so loud! Things just kept blowing by and tree branches were going everywhere. We were having fun watching the shed shift around until it started actually lifting the roof off and we realized the shed was going to blow apart!! We had some friends over so they dashed out with us and just as we got to the shed the back wall pieces fell to the ground! We grabbed them and put them in the house and started unloading everything from the shed into the house. We were dragging the bikes, hoses, shovels and everything else as fast as we could because the wind was picking up and it was just crazy outside. We pulled all the pieces of the shed inside as well. Crazy.Sunday morning church was cancelled because the base was still locked down with the typhoon mess and we went out to assess the damage. Trees and debris were everywhere. So many big trees just completely uprooted and large tree branches just hanging down everywhere from where they had been simply snapped off. We put our shed back together and only a few minor things were broken so it still works. Thankfully no one was hurt, we all live in cement bunkers that could survive anything and on that night, I was really thankful!

The Bucket List:

**Ride the huge ferris wheel in American Village- complete with tiny cans of beloved Fanta Grape that came with the ride! Alyssa was nervous for everyone and kept telling Hayden to sit down so he wouldn’t die but we all survived and had a great time!

**Alyssa’s last day of ballet with Ms. Debra.
**Danica got a “real” haircut. I paid to take her to my hair lady, she loves it!
**Karaoke with the Kisers...we love Big Echo. The hit song of the night was “The Sweater Song.” Who knew we all loved it?
**We hosted our last “see you later” party for friends who are moving. We said a sad good-bye to the Kisers, friends we’ve known since dental school! Now we are the next move....
**Took the girls to ride the monorail after telling them for over a year that we would do it. We did it for letter T day of home preschool: We learned all about transportation and then rode the train to the airport to watch the planes! They loved it and there were some tourists on the train who just couldn’t get enough of the little American girls and took a dozen pictures and gave them chocolate and candy. How said that it won’t be long before they aren’t celebrities anymore.
**Pedicure at Cocok’s. A wonderful island treat I will really miss. I got my toes painted with a scene of Okinawa in the color of the water here. A great souvenir complete with IE Island, a palm tree, flower, clouds, sand, etc.


I went with my great friend and neighbor Tatyana. We spend all our time dealing with kids and helping each other run our households and NEVER take time to just be together. It was great, we got lunch and then relaxed. I truly don’t know how I’ll survive without her as my left hand picking up the slack on everything I do. I rely on her for everything and the rare time she isn’t home I don’t know what to do! My kids practically live at her house. Any service or help I am able to give to others is the direct result of her serving and helping me. She is moving the day before us. At least we get to go together!
**Biking: I've enjoyed two great bike rides this week with my great friend Megan. I'm convinced I "prayed" her to the island. I was wishing I had a friend who liked to bike and run and had kids my kids could play with and "tada" here comes Megan. It's been so awesome and I wish she could move to Washington with me. I will continue to insist that today was not our last bike ride, it will simply be a while before we have another one. We rode out to Kurishihi Dam on Monday morning and had a peaceful, relaxing time. Today we rode out to the lighthouse at Cape Zampa. Nice. We even got my favorite Okinawa Salt Cookie Ice Cream!


**Beach Trip: Spent Memorial Day out an yet another new beach on the coast of one of the small islands connected by bridge. It was a great day!
The Move Prep
Speaking of the move... things are moving along well as we get ready. I've got a "to do" list clipped to my calendar and packing/sorting list stuck on the desk to keep track of what goes with the express shipment, what goes in the suitcases and then everything else. We've been selling all the outdoor equipment like sheds, playhouse, and swingset. We were going to sell the trampoline and the day before someone came to look at it the boys were out jumping and the pole broke. It simply rusted all the way through and snapped. Only Okinawa could have weather extreme enough to destroy a brand new trampoline in only 2 1/2 years!! So we dismantled the trampoline and threw it in the trash.
My thrift store pile keeps growing and I enjoy the purge of useless stuff. We have the movers coming next Friday the 10th to pack up our goods and we move into the hotel on the night of the 12th. We fly out on the 18th, landing in Seattle and staying with some of our Oki friends, the Balls for a few days while Tom does his check out from the Navy.... I hope I'm emotionally ready to leave by then because I'm not ready yet!!!

Home Ownership?

Some really big news... I don’t know if it’s bad luck to announce something like this before you have the key in hand...I guess we’ll find out...we put an offer on a house and it was accepted!!! We’ve been looking for months and can tell you about every single house that is for sale in the Washougal/Camas area. We’ve looked seriously into a few but they weren’t the one. Then we decided we’d keep looking but back off and wait to look more seriously once we arrived. But then it happened- we found The House. We’d seen the house and liked it but decided to just put it on the list to go see when we arrived. Then just as we decided to change our search to much cheaper houses than originally looking at we got an email saying they had dropped the price from lower, to really low. How could we not look again? The more we looked the more we loved. This house just felt different, better.

Then we realized the house was a short sale and that it could take months to buy. So our amazing team of Adina and our realtor went and took video of the house so we could decide whether to start the short sale process. They took awesome video and we just fell in love with the house even more. It’s on a cul-de-sac only a mile from D&A so it’s close to the cousins, school and the practice. It’s got everything we need, nearly 3,300 square feet, 4 bedrooms, a den, a bonus room, nice great room, beautiful kitchen, two walk in closets in the master, an awesome pantry, and more. After viewing the video we looked back through all other houses on our list and we just liked this one the most. When we had thought of buying other houses it just felt crazy and stressful. This house felt great.

On Monday night we went to bed and then I felt like I should get up and email our realtor right then to tell her our decision to make an offer on the house. Afterall, it was almost Monday morning in the states. So I got out of bed and sent the email. Then just before 5:00am I got up to go running and found an email labeled “Urgent.” Turns out there was already another offer in on the house but it was waiting for loan pre-approval and if we hurried they would consider our offer as well. So we hurried, our awesome realtor scrambled to get it all put together right away, we signed, scanned and submitted within a few hours. Then we waited... but the wait was short. We found out the next day they took our offer! We knew we really wanted the house so we were a little aggressive in our offer and are glad we were!!! Our realtor keeps reminding us that being a short sale things could still go wrong but the bank already said they’d do it, they said within two weeks we should have the official acceptance from the bank and can close 45 days after that. That puts us moving in around mid-July! Our furniture will still be on the boat coming from Japan but we’ll have a house!!! We can’t wait!! The pictures on the listing don’t do it justice but feel free to check them out anyway. http://www.estately.com/map#/listings/info/p5177-m-ct

Ballet, Soccer and Okuma!

Time is going way too fast. We’re having a blast, here are some of the pictures from the recent fun:

We had planned a great trip to the Kerammas (nearby small tropical island with great beaches, snorkeling and diving) but then a typhoon decided to hit so we couldn’t go. Instead we went out to Round One and played all day. Alyssa was really good at the tennis, Dani tried her talent and skating and Hayden...I didn’t see much of Hayden he was so busy running around having fun! Check out this “claw game”, the prize is cans of Pringles. Japanese games are so awesome.


The next day we went to Okuma with all the friends who had planned to go to the Keramas. It was still rainy but to get to the Keramas you have to take a ferry which is awful in bad whether and it’s a really expensive trip so not worth the money in bad weather. Okuma is the Air Force resort and it’s cheap and fun. We rented a condo that had 7 bedrooms and we filled it with 7 families. 21 kids total... shortly after arriving on Thursday we loaded in our cars to go hike to a waterfall when the rain started to pour down. And when it pours here I really mean pour, like buckets of water. So we had lots of fun game and movie time inside all day. The weather was better the next day and we got out to ride the bikes, play on the playground and hit the beach.
Tom and I went on our first boat dive. The boat took us out about 15 minutes to a big coral reef. However, the weather still wasn’t great and the boat was rocking like crazy. As we got ready to dive I turned on my air tank that came with the boat and found the tank was only half full. Ugh. So the boat driver had to radio in for them to bring out a new one and I had to sit around on the rocking boat trying not to throw up. Even Tom got sick. Luckily we got the new tank, fell over backward off the side of the boat and headed down. It was different than other dives because we were really all alone and far away from shore. My mask was foggy and I had to flood it and clear it while down at 40 feet but it all worked out and I feel like a better diver now that I have the confidence that I can handle stuff like that when I need to. Not our favorite dive because we were both so worried about losing the boat and not being able to find out way back but Tom was awesome and kept us going the right way and things worked out well.

Saturday we had the kids last soccer games. Hayden did well but is glad it’s over and probably won’t play for a while. He’s going to focus on running and other things. Danica agreed to play in her game after having refused for the last several. She did okay and even kicked the ball twice! In the end, she got bumped in the nose and came out crying but went back when it was her turn again. This time she got tired and started to cry but at least she tried. I don’t see soccer in our future for a while...


Saturday afternoon was Alyssa’s first dance recital. She is in love with ballet and has been so excited for her recital. After getting over her nerves at the beginning she skipped out there with her class and had a blast. Through out her dancing she just kept flashing us her big cheesy smile and was clearly loving it! She did a ballet number and then later a tap dance. She has so much enthusiasm, concentration and skill. She’s one of the youngest in the class but does really well. At the end each girl in the show got to go out on stage alone to curtsy. Most of the girls walked out slowly and did a small curtsy. Alyssa was unsure of what to do but when it was her turn she used her newly acquired and much loved skipping skills to skip out, curtsy and blow a kiss. It was way too cute! She has so much personality! I tried to upload video but it took two days and still didn’t load so I gave up. You’ll have to take my word for it that she was fantastic!