Yes, my children play in a tomb!

My son came home the other day and was telling me about "the tomb". He said it was filled with garbage but it was pretty cool. Steph agreed that it was filthy (and fun). Lyle went up to check it out, but until my neighbors last night refered to it as "the tomb" I didn't believe it could be a real tomb.

Sure enough... it was. It is empty now and Lyle has made it his pet project to clean up the broken glass and to keep the kids from using it as a dumping ground. And it is just across the parking lot from our house!

Happy Birthday Dad

Today is Saturday, December 29th in Okinawa. In the states it is still the 28th so I haven't called my dad to wish him a Happy Birthday Yet, but I wanted to make sure you all could see what a Great Dad I have. Love you Dad! Have a great day.

Finally.... Some Pictures

On the right is a picture of my home on Okinawa. We are an end unit which comes with it's pros (only 1 neighbor to share a wall with being #1) and its cons (more yard to mow and the trash bins are on our end). The kids have the windows there on the top front. The lower window is where my kitchen is. The back side is the HUGE living dining room area (larger than my crop room in ND) and above that is the Master Bedroom. Our furniture was delivered last week and for free goverment stuff it isn't bad. The couch and chairs look brand new then only downside is the dark wine color, but who am I to complain?

This is the view from my kitchen window (and front yard). We overlook the golf course and can see the ocean. Today, due to some weather moving in, we can see whitecaps on the water. There is an island off the the left a bit. Not sure yet what it's name is, but we are going to try to find out. Lyle said he has already heard about the golf course (one of the two on base). There is such a demand for tee times that you have to enter your name in a lottery to be drawn to get a tee time, much less the time you want. But he isn't worried yet, since his golf stuff is still in transit.

This is our car/van. It is a Toyota Ipsum from 1996. It is not quite as big as a mini van but definitely bigger than a car. It has a third row of seats that tuck into the floor. So if any of you come to visit we can fit into one vehicle. Like 99% of the vehicles here the passenger side is the driver side, both Lyle and I have walked to the wrong side many times. Also the blinker, windshield wipers, and shifter are all reverse as well, so we have tried to signal a turn which turns on the wipers and completely frazzles me. The other thing that makes me nervous driving (other than being on the left side of the road) is the stop and yield signs:

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Notice the similarity! Not so bad on base where they have Stop and Yield written in English, but the Japanese weren't so kind for the off base signs. I will be stopping at ALL triangular shaped signs.

And one final picture I had to share. We had the traditional Christmas Lasagne and salad dinner this year in TLF. Because I couldn't cook the family my Never Fail Butterhorn rolls, I asked Lyle to stop at the Commissary and pick out some good rolls. Imagine the look on my face when he brought home rolls that were better than good, they were Excellent!

no pics yet

To everyone I keep promising photos to:

The base here has free WiFi at a few different locations, and to date I have been unable to upload any pictures to blogger (or to CM photocenter) due to a block on the host computer.

I hope to have my own internet access soon, but until then you will have to wait :(

I got to see my house in clear weather today.... I have an ocean view. Granted it is quite a ways away, but it is still an ocean view!

Latest News

I know it has been a few days since my last post. Just a quick update on the last 2 days.

Lyle and I bought a car. We didn't test drive it..... you can't. All of the cars on the lot are parked in a way it would take hours to get each one available. So we bought it the same way I have always picked my cars. It was cute, I wanted it, I got it :)

We also got our house. We will be leaving in an area called Washington Heights. It is on Kadena AFB, which is better than most people on our flight were offered. The size isn't nearly as bad as I was imagining in my head either. It is a bit bigger than our Indiana Street Ranch house, without the basement. We have 3 bedrooms and 2 1/2 baths. We are the "a" unit of a four-plex. It was pouring down rain when we got to look at it, so I have no pictures, but I will be getting some soon.

Due to the Christmas holiday, our AF furniture can't be delivered until the 26th, so we official move in on the 27th. Of course our personal belongings aren't here yet, so no big rush on moving I guess.

The kids love their schools. Chris is excited that the schedule is only 4 classes a day (rotating schedule for 8 classes total). And Stephanie is happy with her first male teacher, Mr Kinghorn.

That is it for now.

Your not in ND anymore.....

I tried to register the kids for school today. Chris, Steph and I walked to the high school first thing this morning. Believe it or not, Chris REALLY wanted to get to school! Unfortunately, I had left his passport in the room, so I took the paperwork with me. I also stopped my the school Steph would be going to so I could get her paperwork as well. The registrar there told me that Steph was missing an immunization in her records that she needed before she could attend.

So off we went to the base clinic. Honestly, my expectation was that we wouldn't be in the system yet and we would have to go back after Lyle finished inprocessing. Imagine my suprise when I walked in, with just shot records and ID card in hand, and they (brace yourself) HELPED ME! I didn't have to wait in line, take a number, or fill out a yellow card form! The wonderful people at the desk took my forms, checked the computer and said both kids needed Hep A and Steph needed Meningococcul (I screwed that up. but you get the idea). Then we went right into the back, they got their shots and we left, updated forms in hand. That is when it truly hit me.... We weren't in Grand Forks anymore :)

I have filled out the forms and depending on what Lyle learned from housing this morning, the kids will be in school on Wednesday.

First Post from Kadena

We left Yakota almost 2 hours behind schedule. First a plane maintanence issue (fuel line problem), then we sat in the plane on the tarmac waiting for the log book to be returned. Stephanie, after hearing they needed a log book, offered up her extra notebook. She is such a good girl, but they needed the real deal.

After it showed up and we took off it was another 2 hours to Kadena. By this time we were all pretty tired and just happy to be off the plane. We met our sponser and he took us to our TLF. Because they are renovating lodging we ended up with 2 seperate 1 bedroom rooms. The kids of course are in love with this idea. Personally I am hoping for good news from housing on Monday.

Mike, our sponser, took us on a quick tour of the base today. He kept apologizing for it being small, and all I could think is how much bigger that GF it is. We checked out the Teen Center, which Chris loves. The BX and commissary are huge and suprisingly, the prices are very similar to what we were paying in ND. We are going to try to go to a Cirque Luci show at the theatre tonight, if we can stay up til 8 that is :)

The main thing I think I am going to have a problem with is the driving. Remembering to be on the opposite side of the road is going to take a while for me.

I feel way out of my element, which is a good thing once in a while. But the worry about friends (both for me and the kids) keeps working its way into my head.

For Susan.... Yes I thought about you as I enjoyed my coffee at the top of Seattle, and both of our flights were empty enough that the kids each got to sit alone by a window and Lyle and I shared a whole center row :)

Almost There

We are currently on our lay over at Yakota AFB. The current local time is 2:05 pm. Grand Forks Time is just after midnight. You do the math..... I can't even think right now. I will update again when I have something to say :)

What were we thinking?

When we decided to drive to Seattle to check our car into storage, I don't think we knew what that actually involved. In 3 days we drove for a total of 27 hours equalling 1,538 miles. The kids, due to bad judgement, had no video games for the whole trip. Believe it or not we did survive, but there were some high points along the trip.

The first day (664 miles, 10 1/2 hours), we made it to Montana. We stayed in Billings Montana. Little did we know that the hotel we chose to stay at was the site of a Troubled Indian Teen Convention (not its actual name, but you get the jist of it). There were teens EVERYWHERE. The pool, the hallways, the parking lot. We grabbed dinner, then went to bed. In the morning I repacked so we didn't have to lug all of our luggage into the next hotel.

Day 2 (526 miles, 9 1/2 hours) The day started off so nicely. An incredible Denny's breakfast, with bottomless cups of coffee. It was warm (okay 24 degrees, but after GF that was warm) and sunny. We were all in a great mood. Until Chris opened his window and it wouldn't go back up, that 24 degree weather felt cold REALLY quick. We stopped to try and fix it ourselves, but in doing that it came off it's track. Duct tape to the rescue. We continued on, watching our sunny weather turn darker as we need the first of our three mountain passes. Sure enough as we started our climb into the mountains it began to snow, and didn't let up the rest of our evening. Lyle did great driving through the snow on the twisty, icy mountain road with me next to him, white knuckled and trying to breathe deeply. We stopped at one point to help a minivan full of teenagers returning from snowboarding. They took a bad turn and ended up against the embankment on their side. We stopped in Idaho.

Day 3 (348 miles, 7 hours) We made it out of Idaho fairly quickly with our destination in mind. Spokane had the Dodge dealer that could fix our window. Two hours and $400 later we were back on our way. The weather held this time and we made it through the mountains with no trouble at all. We made it to our hotel and started planning our next day in Seattle

In the morning we drove into dowtown Seattle. First stop had to be Starbucks before we went on the underground tour. We then made our way over to Pike Place Market (yep, the place they throw the fish). We tasted a new hybrid apple, Jazz apples, which were incredible.

We then walked over to the Space Needle. Despite the fact that it didn't look that far away, it was a heck of a walk from the waterfront to the needle. The kids didn't complain too much tho. The needle was very cool and we took a break at the top (Another starbucks for the adults and italian sodas for Chris & Steph).

After all that walking we just wanted Dinner and some time in the hot tub. All in all it was a pretty decent trip. Tomorrow morning bright and early we will be on our way to Japan. I will update again as soon as we get access to the internet. Miss you all!

Final Bingo with the Girls

Congrats to Rebecca the big (and only) winner of the evening. As you can see Jen was thrilled she won :) I love you all, thanks for a great night out!

I Hate Snow

When we hired our cleaner for our house, it was still in the 50's and no snow in sight. So we said No to paying an extra $50 to have him clear the snow from the sidewalk and driveway. Today I woke to snow and it hasn't quit yet. I will have to post pictures after we shovel, which will be right after it stops snowing (or an hour before we final out, whichever comes first).

BTW, until we get to a hotel that has joined the 21st century and offers internet to it's paying guests, posts and emails will be slow in coming.