Lewis Family (we)Blog

GROUNDSPEAK LOGO CHART

2011-02-28T18:36:00.004-05:00

Here's the chart for the Groundspeak Logo! Unsure how to add this to your own project?

For the hat, I made a swatch with the needle and yarn I wanted to use, and did a little math to work out that 6 repeats of the chart fit around a man’s size hat. I fudged and worked with the number of stitches between the charts to make it work out just right.
For the brown and white hat, I used the regular guy beanie pattern which worked out well for six repeats of this chart, with little rivets (2 stitch by 2 stitch blocks) added in to anchor the floats on the backside. I used worsted weight yarn and either a US7 or US8 needle, or maybe both.

For instance, if the chart swatch equals 3" across, NOT including any margin stitches, and I want a hat with a circumference of 20", I'll make six repeats (makes only 18") of the chart around and add in a few stitches between repeats to make up the other 2", plus a few more for 'ease'. I found with intarsia and stranding on hats it's very difficult to get the tension right, and the stretch involved with putting a hat on can distort the stitches and make the strands of the backside show through.

2009-08-24T09:30:00.002-04:00

Mia's First Birthday

2 Years plus one week

We skipped over posting her third birthday pics... here is probably the reason why.

Mia Chan wa yon sai deshita!

and

This year.

2009-06-30T04:23:00.004-04:00

I have been posting pics over on facebook, if you haven't 'friended' me yet, you can easily find me as user name 'jaxlewis'.

You don't need to be a facebook user to check out these picture albums recently posted.

Simon's Birthday Party

and

A Day at Torii Beach

Yummy Lunch

2009-06-12T00:36:00.004-04:00

This morning, I cooked (on 'auto') in my japanese rice steamer:
1 cup pearl barley
1 cup chicken broth from the carton

For lunch I threw that into a skillet with:
2 tbsp garlic (to taste)
2 tbsp butter
1/2 (or so) chicken broth
broccoli, cut rather smallish, enough to cover the bottom of the skillet
two 1/2" slices of a large onion, coarsely chopped
black pepper to taste

cook until the broth is almost gone, and the broccoli is still a little crisp. Serve and top with shredded cheddar cheese.

The boys and I loved it. Mia says she prefers her broccoli separate. Chas pointed out that it was grain, veggie and protein all in one bowl.

Math for Breakfast

2009-06-11T20:40:00.003-04:00

Ten sausage links divided four ways is 2 and a half each. Chas got it right away and thoughtfully explained to the others how he figured it out. As they were dividing up the links and breaking them in half, somehow Simon was left with a few pieces and was near meltdown. Mia stepped up to explain 'Simon, you don't have two and a half, you have 1, and 3 halves!' He was so delighted by her show of advanced math that he happily took his serving and ate it up!

The kids do math like this everyday. I'll whisper to them, wide-eyed, that they are doing math.

'Awwww mom! You tricked us!'

Now they catch themselves doing it and it's become a family joke. In this manner, we have even found that Mia has an understanding of multiplication and division. Once, I took a week to watch the kids from a distance and wrote a journal of all the things they were doing that involved learning something (I know, a busy week for me!) and translated it into 'curriculum speak' just for fun. It may be time to do that again. I have to pick just the right week to do it, because sometimes their play is simple and sometimes more obviously academic.

Other Lewis news, in no particular order...

We have a new kitty named Snips. He is very young, apparently abandoned at around 3 weeks old. He is probably about 6 weeks old now and is very active and playful. We are having to socialize and discipline him in the absence of his mother and littermates. The kids are having a little trouble waiting out this kitty toddlerhood. He is playful sometimes, snuggly sometimes, and very tenacious - he has actually turned and attacked the spray bottle we were using to train him off the foot-attacks.

And our neighborhood candy store had to close a few months ago, but this week it reopened as an organic vegetable market. It's small, but close by, a block and half, in fact close enough for the kids to go by themselves on their bikes - no busy roads to cross! They were closed yesterday when I went by for our first visit, I'll try again today - if we get a break in the rain and thunderstorms.

Next week we start swimming lessons, every day for two weeks, at 5pm for the boys, and at 6:15 pm for Mia. The following two-week session, I was able to get them all at 5pm. It is going to be intense, and I'll have to call on my best organizational skills to get through it.

We are still bowling every Monday night, and doing the Family Night thing at the club on base. Tim's shop moved to a closer base which provides for at least 5 hours more family per week that he isn't commuting! It's a huge blessing for our family.

2009-04-21T05:21:00.002-04:00

Chas had an unfortunate accident on his bike this afternoon. He has a huge 'strawberry' on his elbow and has been nursing his wounds all afternoon. Right now he is chilling out in the guest room side of the tatami, reading to me the poems he likes from A Light in the Attic.
Like this one.

How Many, How Much
`
How many slams in an old screen door?
Depends how loud you shut it.
How many slices in a bread?
Depends how thin you cut it.
How much good inside a day?
Depends how good you live 'em.
How much love inside a friend?
Depends how much you give 'em.

shel silverstein
`

fast chicken and rice.

2009-04-19T07:08:00.002-04:00

$1.48 for 4 chicken thighs, sliced thin and cooked fast and hot on a skillet, without oil or butter

$.50 for 1/2 cup teriyaki sauce

$.65 for 1 cup of frozen peas

$2.48 for 2 pkgs of Uncle Ben's brown rice in a pouch

total $5.11

Next time I will probably use a whole crown or maybe two of fresh broccoli, steamed a few minutes in the microwave, and brown rice from my steamer instead of from a pouch (will cut down the cost a lot) and less teriyaki sauce (this was a strong taste and almost too sweet.) I think they liked it though.

Gardener's Pie

2009-04-17T04:25:00.002-04:00

Tonight's 5 ingredient recipe was Gardener's Pie. I made some adjustments - instead of refrigerated mashed potato product I used a 90 cent box of garlic mashed instant potatoes, and I added in three boneless chicken thighs, which I sauteed and then cut into cubes.
So it's frozen mixed veggies, and soup and thyme, and chicken, with mashed potatoes on top, bake at 350 covered for 30, uncovered for 15, and with cheese for 5 minutes.

$1.29 cheddar cheese condensed soup
$.75 1 cup of cheddar cheese for the top
$.69 pound of frozen mixed veggies
$.90 garlic mashed potatoes
($.70 2 cups of milk and
$.32 4 tbs butter to prepare potatoes)
$1.12 boneless chicken thighs
1/2 tsp thyme
$5.77 total

I won't make this on a regular basis because of the sodium in the soup and the potatoes. It is nice that it is all shelf stable or frozen items (and milk and butter, which I always have anyway) that I can keep on hand if I find myself in a pinch and need to make something easy, or to bring along, pot luck or whatever, especially since it made soooo much, we only ate half of what it made.

Praline Crunch Bars

2009-04-14T05:00:00.004-04:00

The ham and asparagus pasta was a hit. We'll be keeping that one on the menu.

Next up was a dessert to bring to knitting group tonight.

In an one gallon zipper bag, knead together a roll of sugar cookie dough ($1.89) with 1/2 cup of finely chopped pecans ($3.00 for the whole bag, I used less than half) and 1/2 cup toffee bits (like Heath Bar baking pieces, $2.01, used less than half). Press into a 9x13 pan.
Bake at 350 for 10 minutes, then immediately pour an entire bag of semisweet mini chips (2.21) on top, cover with foil, come back in five minutes and spread the melted chips, then some more toffee pieces. Chill until set, cut, and eat.

About $7, less than the cost of two cups of Starbuck's (which ironically is about about how much I save by our group not meeting at Starbuck's twice a month, gathering instead at the USO, where the coffee shop is not as good, and, also, closed.)

5 ingredients, $10.63, happy family

2009-04-12T06:04:00.003-04:00

So I got this new magazine at the checkout stand, a Good Housekeeping Special Interest Publication, with 200 + recipes that use about 5 ingredients. I picked a few to start with this week, knowing that the fewer ingredients called for the more likely it would mean buying prepared and/or packaged foods. No matter. I went ahead and planned them anyway, choosing only the ones which didn't compromise my standards, and of course, which used ingredients I know my family will eat. As a math lesson this week, we'll look at the cost per meal and cost per serving each night.

Tonight's meal was ham and asparagus pasta.

$1.19 - - 1 lb. box of bowtie pasta
$1.19 - - frozen broccoli florets (added these for my non-asparagus-eating family members, only used half a bag)
$2.29 - - frozen asparagus
$4.97 - - 1lb ham steak (maybe a little high in sodium, but I did trim the fat out and gave it to the dog)
$1.58 - - 8 oz. chive and onion cream cheese (the only ingredient I wouldn't normally buy or have on hand, and a glance at the ingredient list reveals no items of questionable nutritional value)
pennies - 1/3 c. milk
TOTAL MEAL cost - $10.63 ($1.32 per serving)

(Fresh broccoli and asparagus can be expensive here, so I substitute frozen at times when the quality is low.)

Spelling Lessons for the next week or so...

2009-04-11T23:29:00.002-04:00

We are going to go through this website and correct the spelling errors for spelling practice.

lolcats

And we will be graphing jelly beans and other Easter candy for math.

And rearranging the plants in the garden for their benefit, as a science project.

Mia is starting back on piano lessons (with a new teacher) this week.

The boys are going to get lots of exercise riding their bikes around the neighborhood.

2009-04-06T17:57:00.001-04:00

2009-04-05T04:37:00.003-04:00

Mia has a new baby care set from the nearby electronics and toy store, Yamada Denki. It includes a front or back baby carrier. She hurried to open the box and put the carrier on, then headed up to get a baby doll from her room. When she came down she told me she had shown her brothers. They pointed out to her, and she had to agree, that carrying the baby on the front is better than on the back because no one can sneak up and put bombs and grenades and blow the baby up.

Let's see... what else is Mia up to? She is reading quite fluently, and choosing more challenging books every day. She is also showing understanding of advanced math concepts like multiplication. Now, if I show her a multiplication worksheet or even one written problem, she wouldn't know what to do with it. But, if we are playing a game that needs twelve cards laid out, she knows she needs 3 rows of 4. Or when make fuse bead creations, she'll count the four hooves of a horse and see that she needs four black beads for each hoof, so she'll get 16 black beads on her tray.
When we watch movies she pays close attention and asks questions and discusses things with me, like about the characters and their motivation, etc. We bowl once a week as a family, Monday nights, and she graduated from bowling with a ramp, and only uses the bumpers now. An unfortunate accident with her scooter left the basket cracked, so Simon generously gave her his razor scooter, a two wheeled scooter. She has been practicing with this and doing very well turning and using the brake. She delights in gardening with me, insists that I let her do it, and I am not allowed to help her. She has grown about two inches since last June. I am not sure how much weight she has gained, but I can tell she is filling out and is not the tiny little thing she used to be. We just got her some new clothes, and had to get size 6!

Last September she and Simon started taking violin lessons. Well that morphed into violin and/or piano and then Simon said he was done, and I think we decided that Mia's violin is too big for her (it digs into her neck). So now it is just Mia learning piano, and I even thought she was losing interest and said we would stop and give her a break, but that she could go back to it after a while. Of course she could still practice at home. Then she found out about the recital at the end of the semester, which I'll be performing with my cello, and now she wants to continue so she can perform on stage. She practices every day, sometimes first thing in the morning, I'll wake up to her playing downstairs. She is reading music, using the right and left hands independently, moving her fingers independently, and counting out notes (whole, half, quarter, etc) and rests too.

So that's what Mia has been up to, in short. I will post about the boys individually in the next day or two. Gotta go make supper, cut the boys' hair, and get them all bathed and in bed early. This gorgeous weather has had them outside all day for two or three days now.

click the pic to see the facebook album of all our family portraits from this year.

2009-03-07T06:08:00.003-05:00

ugh, I hate the tv!!

2009-03-05T07:20:00.004-05:00

It's been raining all day. So I took the kids bowling this afternoon to kill some time between piano lessons (and my first cello lesson) and family night at the club on base. We were the only people there besides some Japanese men who were relaxing a few lanes over with their pitcher of draft, at 3 in the afternoon... hmmm. Anyway, the employees there thought it would be nice to put pokemon on the tv for the kids while they bowl. Well, until they turned it on, the kids were having a blast, getting excited for each other, and bowling well. It was like someone flipped a switch. They turned into zombies, focused only on the tv. They stopped talking to each other. And when it was Simon's turn to bowl, he didn't want to.

I went up to the counter and thanked them for thinking that the kids would like it. But I asked them to turn the news back on. They asked 'are you sure?'. 'Um, yeah. Look at the kids. I brought them here to bowl and get some exercise.' I paid for bowling, not tv time. SO they changed it back.

To their credit, all the kids went straight back to bowling. One or two of them noticed the change in channel, and I freely admitted that I had asked them to change it back. We went on to finish the game and not another word was said.

Thursday family night at the club offers a buffet and some poor souls dressed up in costume (tonight was elmo, pooh and pikachu) drawing numbers for door prizes. Last week, Mia won this giant Barbie Sleeping Beauty Castle, and the boys didn't win anything. They were cool about it, even came home and helped her put it together. This week, some friends joined us for dinner there and when their daughter won a Barbie and didn't want it, she gave it to Mia. Well, I guess that was the end of the line for Simon. He fell apart, and another mom that was with us offered a toy that her son had won and was too young for. We graciously declined, citing the valuable lesson of dealing with the disappointment. Well, we were right, in a matter of minutes he was running around having fun, and watching... tv.
We were all staring at the kids standing up in front of the big screen they had set up. We chose to eat at the tables behind the tv, so they wouldn't be staring at it during dinner. But they found it anyway, after they had eaten, and were staring at it like zombies, some of them with their (green popsicle stained) mouths half open. It was creepy, actually.

I have a book coming from amazon.com called Four Arguments Against Television, or something along those lines. Tim asked what was the point of that book, everyone knows tv is bad for you. But nonetheless, I would like to read the book.

Gotta get to bed, so glad tomorrow is Friday!

reviving an old post, never published

2009-03-02T22:38:00.004-05:00

Here's a little bit I wrote a while back, came across it today and thought I would post it. I am contemplating a second post on a related topic.
from September...
School is back in session for those who use DoDDS or other schools on island. This time of year homeschoolers can stick out like sore thumbs and usually elicit a question or two from acquaintances and strangers alike. Most people have probably heard of homeschooling, and most people probably even know a homeschooling family. However, these questions (and I have heard my share of them) can range from 'is that legal?' to 'what about socialization?' and can conjure strong reactions from the depths of a homeschool mom's heart.
For starters, here's the low-down on homeschooling on the island, specifically the legalities. I looked around on the net for a clear and simple answer, alas I came up empty handed. I am no lawyer, so I need to leave it at a simple 'yes, homeschooling is legal here.' The basic idea is that states regulate these matters and we are not technically residents of any state. There are some sources that claim a servicemember's command has some oversight, but this has been disputed in numerous places.

Although it may sound like it, it is not as if there are a bunch of families out here doing whatever they want with regards to their children's education without accountability or oversight. I have heard this question many times - 'do you have to be accredited/test/get approval to do that?' The implication that a family might hold their children to lower standards than the government schools appalls most homeschoolers. For most homeschooling families the decision to teach our children at home is to ensure a higher standard. Who has their children's best interest at heart, if not the parents? Of course, there is no shortage news stories of horrendous child abuse cases in families that claimed to be homeschooling. And in CONUS, state and local governments make no secret of the fact that their oversight of homeschool families enables them to identify child abuse and neglect cases, and provide services to at-risk families. The reality is these families slipped through the cracks of the social services system (the system already in place to handle abuse and neglect cases.) Lawmakers use these tragedies to push for more government oversight into homeschooling families. Consider this quote:

"One message does not appear to penetrate official thinking in these cases. Child abusers are criminals. CRIMINALS DO NOT COMPLY WITH LAWS that expose their crimes. Revising homeschooling laws to catch child abuse will result in child abusing criminals hiding elsewhere. Refocusing homeschooling laws on child abuse prevention will result in one thing only: a bureaucratic nightmare and the invasion of the privacy of the 99.9+% of homeschooling citizens who are not criminals." Ann Lahrson-Fisher, Home Education Magazine; quoted on The Military Homeschooler
Here on Okinawa, homeschoolers are a subset of the military community. Servicemembers, and their spouses and children, comprise a group of people already subscribing to a high standard of conduct. Of course, military families have been found to be involved in abuse and neglect. This is not the norm, however, and there are programs in place to intervene in these cases.

On this date in History...

2009-03-02T07:03:00.004-05:00

A look at all the March archives since the beginning of this blog...

March 2005 - Tim was on his second tour in Iraq, Mia was about 7 months old, Simon approaching 3 years old, and Chas 4 1/2. We were living in Clayton, having moved back to wait out Tim's deployment near our families.

March 2006 - Our Clayton house was on the market for the fifth and final year, as we grew weary of Tim commuting home from Lejeune on the weekends. Simon moved into the realm of big boys.

March 2007 - Living in DC provided us so many opportunities - like meeting Neal Boortz, talk radio celebrity. We used the ample space in our rented townhome to do some unit studies, and the boys started their own blog.

March 2008 - Our final month of preparations before our first overseas PCS (Permanent Change of Station) was filled with saying goodbye to friends, doctors appointments, and movers and packers coming and going.

2009-03-01T19:47:00.010-05:00

A trip to a local park last week. Tim has placed a puzzle geocache there. On this beautiful day, the kids and I solved the puzzle, but were unable to get to the cache as other geocachers were also looking and we didn't want to ruin the first-to-find for them. These spider web climbers are in just about every park all over the island. This day Simon and Mia both overcame their feaer and climbed all the way to the top! We actually came home with a little bit of sunburn.

This weekend, we attended an event cache on Saturday morning at a Japanese campground with an amazing view (tent sites, as well as huts with small kitchen and bath facilities which seem to be run entirely on solar power), met some of the other cachers on the island. There were games, contests, and fellowship. Lots of kids running around, climbing rocks, running races, throwing sticks - good clean fun. Then Sunday, we headed up to find a geocache at The British Wine and Tea Shop in the northern part of our island. Lovely shop, good company, delicious menu, including proper English tea and fresh homemade scones and jam. We also headed up to Yaedake Bread of Life Bakery and adjacent farm (where a friend of ours recently spent a month WWOOFing) to place a cache of our own, using our minimal Japanese to explain geocaching to the owners. This was all totally new to them, they were excited to learn about the game. We left there with a bag of oranges and a papaya from their farm, and, of course, some bread from the bakery. We got home late and the kids were naturally and happily exhausted. Since our weekends are pretty much full of geocaching and exploring, that means Mondays are catching up on housework and chores, so I must go...

hey I don't want to hear it...

2009-02-28T20:20:00.002-05:00

I know it's been a while.

But you have just got to hear this one...

Mia doesn't like being upstairs alone, so today I suggested she go upstairs when Daddy goes up. So she's following him up and starts saying that they have to get dressed in separate rooms, because they have different parts and we aren't supposed to see each other parts.

'and Daddy, last night when I was being Simon's bath buddy, we were having technical difficulties because Simon kept standing up in the tub and I kept seeing his priiiivaaates!'

2009-01-04T21:55:00.001-05:00

facebook photo album

They're at it again...

2008-11-09T06:20:00.003-05:00

Remember this little homeschooling gem?

They're at it again. This afternoon, I was watching a movie and the kids were... around, but not necessarily watching it. After a bit, they went upstairs to play. They were being a little wild up there, I could hear. But it's been rainy and wet, so they haven't been outside to spend any energy. It's somewhat tolerated some days - at least they were getting along.

Tonight, during clean up leading into 'lamp time' I asked them to gather up the little pieces of what seemed like fifteen different games, building sets, etc. into a big pile in the middle of the rug so we could sort them out. They busted out laughing, yelling 'feed the fire'. They admitted that they had been pretending to 'feed the fire' by throwing toys and bed sheets in the middle of the room. So where on earth did they get this idea?

Well, the movie I was watching is Luther. It's a bit graphic and more than a little hard to understand. I didn't think they were absorbing any of it. But there's a line in the movie spoken by the character Professor Andreas Karlstadt: Feed the fire with every lie ever written in Rome!

I highly recommend this movie. Ralph Fiennes is amazing, as is Sir Peter Ustinov, and many others, whom you'll recognize, by face, if not by name.

Heads Up!

2008-11-03T07:52:00.002-05:00

Just a heads up to all of you readers states-side... Japan does not practice daylight savings time, so we are now on a 14 hour time difference! We are ahead of you.

This just occurred to me tonight while waiting for boortz.com to update with today's program notes, usually 9:30pm our time. Ugh, now I have to wait till 10:30pm?? But, on the up-side we get election result coverage Wednesday beginning at 9am! No staying up all hours of the night nursing our back spasms waiting for election results.

2008-11-02T22:37:00.003-05:00

Mia (rolling on the floor in a pile of puzzle pieces, for the second time in a week): Can someone please help me with this puzzle?

[silence]

Mia (increasing her pitch): Can someone please help me with the puzzle or my head will explode from an invisible nuclear missile?

[muffled giggling]

the one and only political post you will see on this blog

2008-10-27T03:52:00.004-04:00

I can't stand it any longer... this has to be said.

Spreading wealth around is NOT giving people an 'opportunity', it's giving them cash.

This is a trap. This leads more and more people to rely on the government to solve their problems. This money will be spent, and then they will be right back where they started, waiting for the next handout. And if you are giving people cash, why would they ever work for it?? I wish I could find some statistics about the numbers of people who go on welfare or take government housing and stay there, unable to wean themselves.

Certainly welfare, food stamps and government health care programs have their place. My issue lies with universal healthcare, universal preschool, social security, and 'wealth redistribution.'

Please do not read this and think what a callous and uncaring person I must be. Allowing people to fall into this trap and to lose all sense of independence by taking handfuls of cash they didn't work for seems uncaring to me.

What have we been up to?

2008-10-16T20:29:00.006-04:00

Well, if you read Tim's blog you have probably figured out that things were a bit crazy around here.
Two weeks ago, Tim got orders to go to Afghanistan with only ten days to prepare. So we cried. A lot. Then shifted into high gear to get ready. Many of you readers are not military. So please take a minute to stop and think, if you knew your husband would be gone in ten days what would be your priority? Family time? Of course! But wait, there's no time to take off and spend at home.

Too much to be done, and only two weekends to do it, because late nights are spent at the office completing 'work' tasks to be ready to go. So there's the second half of the garden that needs to be tilled, the satellite dish that needs to mounted and tuned, the mound of stuff broken in the move waiting in the closet to go to the recycling center, additional loaner furniture (bunk beds, an extra dresser or two) we had planned to request and pick up, the budget that needed to be adjusted (for the additional expenses involved with operating a single parent family and the additional pay and benefits associated with deployment to a war zone), the appointment at the auto dealer's to have the window motor on Tim's car replaced, the family care plan needs to be tweaked since we are overseas, visits to base legal to get Powers of Attorney and Last Wills written up, phone calls to make asking new friends (whom we have known less than six months) to care for and (home)school our children in the event that I, their primary caregiver, end up in a coma, or in Japanese jail, or, more likely, a mental institution. This is a just a snap shot of the little, tangible details that we spent an entire week focused on.

Tim's unit even scheduled a pre-deployment brief which we attended with the children. We introduced ourselves and children, and explained why they were with us, and not in school. The battalion commander asked what we were learning today. Well, sir, actually... Afghanistan. [small ripple of nervous laughter shudders through the group] Later this guy actually went through the small crowd, from wife to wife asking us how we were doing. Yeah right! Do you really wanna know? Do you really want me start an uprising right here in the conference room? I think I said something like, there's never enough time to prepare emotionally for a separation, we have managed to get all the technical details sorted out, we just wished there was time for Tim to take leave. I get the impression from this guy that he doesn't really listen when you answer his question, he's the kind who is already forming a response or his next question before you even start talking.

So they briefed us on quite a few programs, old ones we are familiar with, and newer, shinier ones, designed to attend to the needs of the family while the men are deployed. Now there is even a club card, which provides generous discounts at Marine Corps Community Services facilities. Gives new credibility to the phrase 'join the club'. They really have come along way from 'if we wanted you to have a wife we would have issued you one' to really focussing on caring for families as a way to ensure readiness on the part of the Marines. It's really self-serving, if you think about it. But at least they realized it had to be done. They try, they do what they can, and they do a lot for families. But there is no substitute for having the leader of your family present and attentive.

And the emotional work that accompanies the transition from present to absent is a process which can take - depending on many factors like who you are (adult or child or infant) and how many times you have had to do it, and how long since you have had to do it (3 years for us), how far you are away from extended family - anywhere from, well, 24 hours to several months. Ten days was as short of notice as we have ever had. And of course, on top of all this there is pressure to hold it all together, and not give the impression that you won't be able to handle it. Where does this pressure come from? Hard to say... a large part of it is not wanting to worry relatives, or anyone at the unit. Nobody wants to be 'that wife'.

So there's your sneak peak into half of our last two weeks here at the Lewis' household in Japan.

The second week? That would begin with the evening after the full day I spent at Tim's base for the predeployment briefing and budget counseling session. We had spent some time visiting at Yoko's house. As I was leaving I thought I would call Tim to meet us for dinner, as he was working late anyway. When he met us at the front gate, he pulled me out of the driver's seat so he could hold me. Ugh. Last time he did this, it was exactly a week earlier and it was BAD NEWS.

They canceled the trip. It seems, he was able to appeal to the right people that the hastiness with which this trip was being thrown together felt dangerous. I'd like to leave it at that. But I will say this is one reason why I felt such pressure to 'keep it together.' I knew all week that Tim was making his voice heard, appropriately, about his reservations. I didn't want to appear as though family issues were prompting him to try to shirk his responsibilities as a Marine. Family and Unit relations can be very delicate. As I have probably already said more than I should... get your screen shot now, I may be editing this later today. moving on...

So after being unceremoniously jerked in one direction for 7 miserable days, believe it or not, the second week was just as difficult. This is very hard for me to explain. We were thrown in one direction, and never feeling 'comfortable' there, but... adjusting. Quickly and dramatically. Then, thrown in the other direction. It takes some time. Disclaimer: The following list of fun and cool stuff that comprised our second week doesn't not include all the gory details of my emotional state during stated week. I have two words for you: roller. coaster.

We had Tim's small team/shop/whatever, over with their families, for barbeque on Monday (oh and it was a 4 day holiday weekend) which was very nice as this was the day Tim would have been 'wheels up', as he likes to put it, and not with this team of guys, but another team whom he didn't know (well enough to trust, I suspect). A delivery of lovely flowers from my mom also arrived Monday. And then an extra day off work Tuesday. Tuesday night, Tim and the kids came along to my knitting group at the Starbuck's at the mall up the hill, and they went geocaching while I knitted and guzzled legal addictive stimulants with a friend. Tim's birthday was the next day, and we ate at McDonald's, sorry Tim. He was home too late that night to cook the steaks and latkes we had planned. And we tried to thaw the frozen cheesecake I bought, but it was getting later, so we abandoned that too. Maybe we'll do all that this weekend. We are planning to go to a few geocache sites, maybe a bull fight, maybe the beach, maybe bowling, maybe church... It's our 11th wedding anniversary this weekend, and 13th anniversary of the day we met. Many new friends have offered to babysit. And we have promised to return at the end of the evening, and not run away. It's an island... where would we go? Most of you readers know I love my kids, and we choose to homeschool them for lots of different reasons. But boy oh boy do I need a break sometimes.

Oh and we are counting the days until our dog arrives from the states.
So it's nearly back to normal. For now.

Simple Thoughts

2008-10-07T02:35:00.002-04:00

This is all I can muster.

1. Microwave popcorn is a suitable breakfast.

2. Empty laundry baskets can lift a woman's spirits.

3. When I remember the third thought, I will fill it in here.

sinlaku, you tease!

2008-09-11T18:42:00.006-04:00

So the email I got from base this morning says we should only expect 30-40 knot winds and 3-4" of rain.

So I sent the kids out in the yard to play. Haha! Actually, they got out the bubble wands (thanks, Nana!) and bubble solution. Something about the weather, maybe it's the barometric pressure or the humidity, makes for amazing bubbles that last a long time before popping or disappearing on the breeze. And, while we were out there, the rain started. So we are in for now, please enjoy the pictures.

Sinlaku

2008-09-10T03:58:00.005-04:00

It's pretty bizarre to have no typhoons the entire season, then, after the season ends, this storm takes precision aim at us, a 70 mile long by (maybe) 15 mile wide target. I am using this site for the tracking, for the time being.

word play.

2008-09-09T00:07:00.003-04:00

So I googled (sorry Jo, I know I just verbed a noun, oops... verb is a noun too... I'll just go get a shovel) the phrase 'for crying out loud,' and it turns out it is a variation of 'for Christ's sake,' a phrase I will not use. As in: for Chri........ ing out loud. Apparently, this is called a minced oath. This link has a list of other minced oaths. How about this one: Sacré bleu --> Sang de Dieu (God's blood)?

I guess this is similar to saying shoot instead of something else. This reminds me of the French exchange student we had visit us for a few weeks one summer while I was in high school, he would use the French word for Wednesday which sounds similar to the French word for the other thing. I wonder if there is anything like this in the Japanese language.

There. Now you can say you learned something today.

Pile O Babies

2008-09-08T22:22:00.003-04:00

Mia's 'school work' for the day. Even though she asks for math worksheets (blech), she quickly bores of them and asks for something else, or to go play. I don't blame her, and I don't force her - she's only four, for crying out loud. She does enjoy organizing things, like my cabinets, and arranging things like her baby dolls.
Then today, this idea came to me. I remember doing a lot of graphing in the first grade classroom I worked in for a very short time. I had Simon and Mia fetch 8 baby dolls from their room, while I gathered a ruler and sticky notes. I made a chart on the white board - just a little more interesting than working on paper, and a larger scale is easier for young hands to work with. Simon wrote out the tags for the babies' names, and I gave a quick tutorial on how to measure with a rule, making sure baby's feet are at the beginning of the number line. She did the rest. She really enjoyed this.

how many moves?

2008-09-08T20:23:00.003-04:00

Chas and I were discussing the fact that at ten years old, military kids get their ID cards. And if they live on base, they can ride their bikes around to get from one place to another, like the library. Of course, we live off base and it's too far for him to ride his bike. He suggested that sometime in the three years we live here, we might move closer to base. I explained that we would probably stay in this one house for three whole years. Well, the poor kid looked confused and almost disappointed.
And it's no mystery why: since Tim and I were married in October of 1997, we have moved 9 times in 11 years, 5 of those just in the last 3 years.

10/97 - into our first apartment in Jacksonville, NC
4/99 - into our apartment in Raleigh, near NC State University
8/99 - into our first house, which we bought in Clayton NC
8/03 - into a rental in Jacksonville NC (tenants in the Clayton house)
1/05 - back to the house in Clayton
5/06 - back to Jacksonville NC (sold Clayton house)
1/07 - into rental townhouse in Alexandria Va (later foreclosed upon)
10/07 - into another rental townhouse in Alexandria
4/08 - into a rental in Okinawa City

2008-09-07T04:29:00.001-04:00

Sweet little kimono, from the Mason-Dixon Knitting book. I'll add some cute little buttons and the hat is in progress. So pleased with this result.

on this day in history...

2008-09-02T03:56:00.004-04:00

I went back as far as my blog goes and this is what I came up with.

Three years ago
Tim had just returned from his second tour in Iraq. Mia was 13 months old, Simon was 3 years old and Chas was nearly 5 years old. We were living in our house in Clayton, NC and Tim was commuting home on the weekends from Camp Lejeune when he wasn't deployed. This was a necessity as the housing market was poor in that area at the time. We bought Tim's Mini Cooper on Ebay from a dealer in Long Island, NY a month or two after he returned, and the following May we would finally find a buyer and move to Jacksonville, NC.

Two years ago
The highlights of September 2006 include a new dog, new piano, and a new camera. Oh and lots of normalcy, as Tim was not deployed, and we were actually living in the same house. We were homeschooling a little more formally, and Simon learned to read, while Mia learned her colors, and Chas spent lots of time writing stories in his journal. We took lots of field trips and had many playdates with friends like the Wilson's and the Townsend's. The following December, we would get our first PCS orders, to the Capital Region. We settled in to a large townhouse in Alexandria Va and joined the homeschool group at Fort Belvoir.

One year ago
Living in Alexandria Va, we were enjoying the last few days of summer taking our restored 1950s era Beetle Falcon sailboat out on the Potomac River. The month before we were served some bad news; the owner of our townhouse had defaulted on his mortgage and the bank was preparing to repossess the house. Lots of househunting ensued and we settled in another large townhouse near Fort Belvoir. I had volunteered to direct our homeschool group's co-op which started the same week we had to move. We entertained a houseful of guests at Thanksgiving and took the train to NYC for Christmas. February brought orders to Okinawa and by April we had arrived.

recent Finished Objects - FO's!!!

2008-09-01T20:49:00.003-04:00

baby hat - gift for Tim's co-worker's new son

bamboo tank top - for Mia

Tawashi Mop Cover - for dry dusting wood floors, originally for my sister, but Simon and Mia have commandeered this and are enjoying cleaning sooo much, I can't bear to take it away.
sorry Jo.

Garterlac bathroom rug - slightly dissapointed with the mis-shapen-ness, but it is oh so soft on the feet.very tiny one piece baby kimono - work-in-progress, for no one in particular, yet; we have several friends and family members expecting, maybe someone will have a girl.
(Tim says I must add this disclaimer: no, we aren't pregnant)

get a cup of coffee and settle in for lots of news...

2008-08-24T06:47:00.016-04:00

updated 26 Aug, new photos added

My apologies for not posting any news for so long. So many readers have told me how much the news from our family helps them feel closer, even though we are on the other side of the world.
Where do I begin? Swim lessons have ended, thank goodness! Base schools start back Monday the 25th, so we are making plans to get out and see what we can since the crowds will have dissipated. Story time at the library isn't scheduled for the whole month of August. We have begun the sign up process for Simon and Mia to take violin lessons on the base. Hopefully we'll have an early lesson time so we can do story time and violin on the same day. I am looking forward to being home nearly everyday of the week and working on a few skills with the kids (don't say the 'c' word - curriculum, ewww!) A few times a year I do like to check a list of what's age appropriate for each kid and try to work those skills into our daily life.

But the last few weeks have been busy with new Japanese friends. There was the Manta Matsuri (festival) at Manta Park near our house. We all took our own cameras to capture what we could of the little Japanese boys dancing with drums, and the little girls in their summer kimonos with their dance. There was a stage at one end of the park, and booths and tents with games and local festival food at the other end, with open area in the middle for watching, milling about, sitting (although it was wet from recent rains.)

We had a great time, staying till after dark. We gave each kid a 100 yen coin and they each bought a cup of shaved ice with strawberry syrup.
And while we were standing there waiting for the last one, a Japanese woman approached who seemed to recognize us. Indeed, we had met once before in the street at the end of our block. She is an Air Force wife (heretofore referred to as My New Friend - MNF) who lives in an apartment on the opposite side of the park from us. She speaks English and her boys, 4 and 8 years old, can understand English, but are timid to speak it. We chatted for quite a while, wandering over to the basketball court to watch the teenage boys (and maybe one or two girls) break-dancing! Oh how I regret not getting pictures, although videos would have been better, the light from the streetlamps was poor. These dancers were amazing! I also discovered that this new friend is a fellow crochet-er and she makes these amazing basket-style handbags. We eventually had to get home, but she offered to take us to the Awase Fish Market, which we had heard about but had not been able to find.

So the following Wednesday after swim lessons, she came to pick us up and we went over. She brought another woman who also lives nearby, and Mia and she were fast friends (Mia's blond hair serves her well). Mia and this woman wandered down the end of the market while MNF and I looked over the organic veggies, the fresh whole fish, grains, bottled sauces, etc. When we made it down to the end where there was a small restaurant, we found Mia and Rosa-san munching from a big grease stained bag of deep fried octopus tentacles! On the way to her van, we popped into a tent filled with tables of books. They appeared to be all about local (Okinawan) subjects - Chas bought a reference card about tropical fish, which was written in Katakana, and Simon bought a hardcover children's storybook, about a town in the northern part of the island. It is written in mostly hiragana, with a few katakana and kanji translated into hiragana. We may be able to read it one day! This same day we also went for a quick stop in at Comprehensive Children's Park, just to see where it is. We fed the ducks, fish and pigeons, before heading home to cool off and rest.
We made a date with MNF to go to Mona Kids Jungle the following week on Wednesday. I invited Yoko (whose husband works with Tim) and MNF had invited two other Japanese women, one of who is my neighbor to the rear and has a 10 y/o girl and 7 y/o boy, and the other is a Marine wife who lives just up the hill (and crochets too) and has two boys ages 10 and 8 and one girl age 5! We had a grand time at Mona Kids, a giant indoor play area like at a McDonalds, but way bigger. Three hours playtime for only 600 yen per kid. Plenty of seating for moms; these ladies I was with looked like professionals as they marched right in and gathered up enough tables and chairs for our rather large group, brought out their yarn projects and just chilled out. We talked about where to buy yarn, the difference between Japanese and American crochet patterns, the merits of project polygamy vs. monogamy, and about the knitting group that meets at Starbucks on the west coast of the island every 2nd and 4th Tuesday nights. Lunch was available, although the food, according to the women I was with, was 'nothing special.' They had choices of soba, curry, onigiri, and, of course, corn dogs and french fries (did I mention there were lots of American women and children there?)
After we left Mona Kids, MNF and the other neighbor came by to see the house (good news - the housekeeper had been by for the biweekly cleaning). Interesting bit here: MNF thinks that the house was added on to sometime recently. It is a big house for the neighborhood, definitely bigger than most Japanese homes (we knew that.) She thinks that the master bedroom upstairs was originally the porch, and had been closed in, and that the bathroom was added on too. And downstairs, the built in desk area and large closet behind our kitchen were added on later too. It is amazing to think how small the house would have been without these extra areas. So there were seven kids in the house. My kids room served them all well enough, and they even managed a game of hide and seek. And our three kids were more than happy to clean it up (all by themselves) later that night. They were exhausted, though.
Mias birthday party was this past Saturday, and we had guests - our first dinner guests - Shawn and Yoko and their kids. Check out the movie...

They are coming back over to visit today - should be here very soon. We gave Momo a birthday gift of crochet books and hooks and some yarn. So she and I (and her mother, who helped translate) found a quiet corner to work on it late in the afternoon. She had a good long bit of crochet chain finished but it was uneven. Generally, I say keep your mistakes so you can go back and look at them. Shawn pulled them out for her, she was angry with him, but she soon had another chain just as long and more even than the first. This worked better for the next step which is single crochet and is performed by sticking the hook through the stitches in the chain. Before they had to go she had five or six beautiful single crochet done and was very excited to come back today and work some more. I am glad for the company.
one more thought then I'll let you go... because you probably need a bathroom break by now.
Tomorrow, MNF and the other Marine wife who was at Mona Kids with us will come with me to the knitting group at Starbucks. MNF has also told me about a Starbucks on this side of the island. Inside a giant extended version of a grocery store. There are two floors of store and three floors of parking. The store has everything from books (where I found Momo's crochet books) to clothes to groceries to household items. Plus an arcade and a stage area where I presume they have performances of some type. Aaaaaaannndd.... a Starbucks, where I have invited some ladies from Okinawa Hai to meet me on the 1st and 3rd Tuesdays to chat and knit or crochet and consume legal stimulants.

Okay. That's all. Well not really, but, anyway...
Hopefully I can keep up with blogging a little better instead of this marathon style, which is quite exhausting, for both of us I am sure.

2008-08-13T23:31:00.002-04:00

2008-08-13T23:29:00.000-04:00

bed head

2008-08-13T23:27:00.000-04:00

Master Bedroom Picture, as promised...

2008-08-13T23:12:00.000-04:00

2008-07-26T10:07:00.003-04:00

it is late, but I just noticed something and wanted to point it out -

today was our 100th day in Okinawa. Like I said it is late here, so all I can say is wow, and good night.

2008-07-25T08:53:00.003-04:00

I am not sure if this format is any better, maybe? Click on the pictures, it will send you over to Picasa and you can choose 'slideshow' for full screen pics and smaller captions.

pictures of our home in Okinawa

she's not this cute all the time.

2008-07-19T07:52:00.003-04:00

I just figure no one wants to hear about her temper, or her whiny-ness... so you all get to hear only the cute bits.

It starts with this interesting book I am reading called Punished by Rewards. I am only on page 15 or so, but it has set my brain to whirring (squealing?) and I have become much more conscious of just how many things I try to get my kids to do, essentially, by bribing them. I have tried to convince myself for years (almost 7 years now) that rewarding is different than bribing and just overall a more acceptable tactic. It comes down to asking myself what is their motivation for acting as I require? As in, was the impending reward known to them from the beginning, or was it an afterthought on my part? If they lose a privilege, they can often earn it back if I see that they have indeed changed their ways for the right reasons, and not just to earn it back.
So, Mia had developed a poor habit which relates to bathroom visits. To rid this poor habit, I offered a twizzler in exchange for each successful... visit. I had recently purchased a 5 lb tub of the chewy red candy. Of course, it worked, but all the while I am thinking how do I wean her off the twizzlers? She ain't gonna forget. Mia and I actually had a very funny discussion about who was going to explain to her husband why she had to have a twizzler after every bathroom visit. The day I ran out of them you can bet she returned to the poor habit as quick as you can blink. So it goes to say that you can elicit repeated 'good' actions, but as a long term, lasting method of changing behavior, offering rewards fails horribly. And it seems this must be common sense. As I have it written here, it makes perfect sense. Why, then, do teachers use stickers to reward children? It has no long term effect, and indeed, I think it is quite damaging in the long run. Children who are rewarded at the slightest turn of the head, begin to perform for the reward (the wrong reason), not for the intrinsic value of the behavior. And, on closer examination, you'd notice they only do as much as is needed to get the reward. I think it is used in classrooms because it is easy. Plain and Simple.

Anyway... Later that same afternoon, she said, 'well can I have another kind of treat then?' 'Well what did you have in mind, Mia?' 'Ummm, whatever you can think of that's not dirt.'

As promised... pictures of our kids' room

2008-07-13T07:15:00.000-04:00

girl after my own heart

2008-07-11T07:07:00.004-04:00

'It's the goodest thing I have ever thinked of doing.'

Mia organized the cabinet under the sink in the kitchen! I was so surprised and proud I started tearing up a bit. She's so much like me, she has been paying attention, blah blah blah...
Now, I never asked why she was in that cabinet, but she told me - it was a little messy so she organized it, then crawled in and snuggled up to hide from Simon.

'And this is the best night ever.'

Engrish...

2008-07-09T08:07:00.003-04:00

A gradually expanding vocabulary and cache of Japanese phrases, coupled with increasing comfort with my surroundings, have prompted me to try speaking to my neighbors, storekeepers, restaurant employees. I have noticed, though, that English speaking Japanese don't always understand my Japanese. I think this is because they are expecting to hear English from my mouth.
This occurs to me today, as I experienced the reverse effect while talking with my neighbor. We had arrived back from swim lessons, and we exchanged greetings with her. She even asked the children genki desu ka (how are you? or are you well?). She always seems delighted when they peek over the brick wall to say konnichiwa. I told her, puru e ikimasu - "we go to the pool". She then said "pemani". I was, as usual, confused. I understand my half of conversations much better than the other half. Well, then she said okane - money.

duh.
pemani = PAY MONEY.

She was asking me if we had to pay to go to the pool. So I rattled off the few words I knew that would explain it, ever so brokenly - go ju dollars - $50, ni yobi - two weeks, gakusei - which I think is something like student or study. She gestured a few things and I understood that she thinks it must be crazy for me to watch three children at the pool. So I said iie - no, and motioned that each kid went with a sensei - teacher. She was relieved I think. I had my Japanese dictionary (thanks Sarah S!) with me so I looked up the word for earthquake - jishin, and also remembered the word hajimete - for the first time. So she understood that it was our first earthquake experience. Many times in the past, before my conversational Japanese class, if we were trying to communicate and I said wakarimasen - I don't understand, more than twice, she would motion for me to go get my hon - book. As far as her English goes, I know she has a very few words that she will say out loud (maybe she knows more). I have heard her say: yesterday, May, June, July, 'you stay' (as in you stay in country and you will learn Japanese) , and now... "pay money."

2008-07-08T04:13:00.003-04:00

Our first earthquake, ever. According to what I have read, earthquakes in Okinawa are not unheard of, but they are few and far between. I was in the kitchen fixing a drink of ice water for myself and the kids were watching a movie. I was leaning on the cabinet in front of the stove, contemplating eating out as Tim left for a business trip this morning. He is still in the air, not to land for another three hours.
This house is reinforced concrete for typhoons, and we have noticed how doesn't shake the least bit, even with stomping and running children, even on the stairs, or on the second level. So I guess I have become accustomed to solid ground under foot. So as soon the [concrete] house started shaking I immediately realized what was happening. The kids noticed too, and they joined me in the hall doorway in the middle of the house for just a few more seconds of shaking. Then we went to the exterior door in the front of the house after the shaking stopped, about 20 seconds in all (? maybe) to watch what the neighbors might do. No one was out except a few children running around a few minutes later. We have no damage to the house, and all the framed pictures and canvases Tim so carefully hung up this weekend are all still in place. The kids are feeling a combination of scared and excited.
So we googled earthquakes, to see what the news was. Immediately after, there was no updated information. So I filled out a 'did you feel something' survey, and clicked submit, then back to 'homepage' and there it was - 5.9 magnitude (subject to revision), 100 miles NE of Naha, which is 15 or 20 miles south of where we live. A few minutes later they revised it to 6.2 magnitude. You can get more information from the usgs site if you're interested. The kids will blog about it in a few minutes. Oh and I think we will go out to eat after all...

miss you buddy...

2008-07-06T06:17:00.002-04:00

Is there an echo in here?

2008-07-05T20:28:00.005-04:00

Mia wanted to eat at the coffee table - why? I don't know. Personally, I would rather not ever eat at that coffee table again. I said it was fine, they just needed to clear it off first. She and Simon set to the task, but she must have felt like he wasn't doing enough...

"It seems I find myself clearing the table by myself."

It seems I might sometime say something like this also. This is one of my favorite, and most effective parenting strategies for enlisting co-operation. Describing a situation allows the children to make the decision to be helpful, whereas a command is likely to be ignored and ultimately resented. I would like to think it helps them develop an internal monologue, that when they see something out of place, they will hear a voice in their head describing what they see, and then fix the problem. This way, and when they become adults, they are acting because of their own voice in their heads and not an overbearing or commanding parent's voice. I didn't make this up, I read it in a book. I know it may seem idealistic, but it works around here.

also, when she picked up her new (from a box of hand-me-downs - thanks Heidi!) shirt with the trim around the hem and neck and sleeves... "what's all this laceness on the edges? well, I guess I like the part at the bottom, so I like the other parts too."

Yesterday was loads of fun for all. We started by unpacking, organizing and cleaning the kids' room, hanging up artwork, etc. Woohoo! No kidding - it took three hours, with all five of us helping - and the kids actually helped. It looks awesome and I can tell they are relieved to have that done - it was becoming a fire hazard.

After that, we hung out at home till the sun wasn't so high, then headed to the pool for a few hours. Mia has been going down the BIG water slide at the pool. It starts off at maybe 10 or 12 feet high, and completes a full loop before a short straightaway and dumps into the 4 foot section. Mia waits in line patiently and goes up the stairs without a bit of fear. She can see me from the line, and is as happy as can be as long as she knows I am waiting to catch her. But somewhere on the way down, fear takes over - at least takes over her face. She has this look of sheer terror, until she locates my face in the crowd of other parents waiting just outside the drop zone. She'll still go up time after time, but every time she appears at the last turn with this absolutely terrified look on her face. Simon is working on swimming under water. He prefers to work alone, he trusts himself more than me or Tim or his swim teacher. So he spends his time at the pool under water by the wall in the shallowest section. Chas threw himself off the 5 meter diving board twice before deciding it wasn't for him, but the low dive is lots of fun, he goes again and again.

Our friends who live near the pool had us over for a 5th of July bbq. Sean and Yoko and their kids were there, so we were able to visit with them at length. Their children are learning English and every time we see them are a little less shy about talking to us. I was able to talk with them a little bit in Japanese, too. Yoko and I will be getting together while the men are gone on their upcoming trip, and she has agreed to watch the kids when they get back so Tim and I can have a hot date! Double woohoo! So we missed the fireworks, again, but I think they had fun anyway, they ran around in the yard, and we had bubble toys set out for the kids (thanks nana judith!), and our boys set up their tent. When we got home at 9:00, we sent the kids up to get jammies on straightaway. We were shocked to find that the boys had done it and were already in bed reading when we went up to kiss them goodnight. Mia wandered in from having changed in the bathroom, and she was just wondering where the hamper was. My jaw dropped. I think they like their room being clean and organized finally. I know I do. Chas even made his bed this morning - I have their comforter folded down at the foot so the colorful pattern shows, and it is available if they want it at night. Plus I have no where else to store their bedding right now. Tim and I are talking about a photo slideshow tour as each room gets 'done' - one by one. I had thought I was a creative person when it comes to organizing, but this house has really put my skills to the test.

Tim has a new rule for the kids, as they are enjoying their computer time so much, we decided to capitalize on it, just a bit. They are now required to post on their blog, before they move on to their regular favorite sites. So here are their links: vabrothers.blogspot.com and miabeth.blogspot.com. I can see posting becoming a daily thing for them now, so check in often!

p.s. update on Mia

2008-06-30T02:06:00.003-04:00

Mia's stitches came out today - I think it was as difficult for her as having them put in. The scab had formed over one of the three, so it was not quick. The techs, doctors and nurses - I lost track of them all - maybe six or seven different ones in all, four of them holding her down at any give time - were so afraid she was going to jerk her head to the side and catch the scissors in her eye. So they ended up wrapping her papoose style in a green sheet. She managed to kick so hard her shoes went flying. They released her after a bit for a break and to try some anesthetic cream (it didn't work) while I called Daddy to come over from his base in the north - it was nearly lunch time anyway. Then, before he could get there, they wrapped her again (this time cleverly tucking her arm in the fold of the sheet then wrapping the excess around) and all she could do was yell for Daddy. He came in as they finished, just in time to scoop her up and calm her down. You just can't reason with a terrified three year old. Although given that they all tried talking to her into being still, they may have thought it was possible. She wouldn't have any of it. I think the memory of the anesthetic needle from Wednesday night was still so fresh in her mind.
She is not out of the woods yet, as they put a plastic bandaid over the remaining scab and managed to catch her hair in the adhesive. She won't let any of us near it, you can bet I am not going to even try. She put up a terrible fight this morning, and is exhausted, lying on the the couch watching movies.

Simon's Birthday

2008-06-29T10:39:00.003-04:00

We celebrated Simon's 6th birthday on Friday night with cake and his favorite foods, then on Saturday we drove 40 km or so to Ocean Expo Park. Tim has made a video, please take a look! And if you have another minute, check out his 5th birthday video on his blog.

another shopping request...

2008-06-29T04:59:00.003-04:00

Family and friends at home - I am searching for this box in light or dark pink or light or dark brown, or any combination of these. I need four or five. Please email me if you find them, probably at Target, I will send money for purchase and shipping. (Target online doesn't have the colors I want for Mia's room.) Thanks for your help!

the ultimate non-happiness for our princess...

2008-06-26T10:24:00.003-04:00

Last night, Mia took the corner of our coffee table and applied it to her face. She is okay now, with three stitches to her right temple, two surgical glove balloons, 82 princess stickers, and one strawberry milkshake to prove it.
After dinner, as I was finishing up dishes, she was skipping through the house. Until she wasn't skipping anymore, but falling. (This is how she tells it, by the way.) She came up screaming and yelling 'aaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh I've never had blood on my cheek before!!!! I am not having any fun.'
We have decided that her brothers are the coolest in the world. They were so calm and obedient helping us get out the door to the hospital - go get a damp towel, find mommy's cell phone, and the phone book, and that notepad where I jotted down the access codes, now a map so we can find the hospital, my ipod with boss' wife's home number in it, etc. They had to get out of pajamas and into their day-time clothes, and they even grabbed books to read to her on the way. And anytime she started freaking out they would distract her by talking to her about her day, or about her friends back in the states, and reassure her that we were almost there. She actually stayed so calm that she fell asleep in the car before we got there. I think this may have freaked out the triage nurses. They might have thought she was unconscious, as they relaxed visibly when I told them she had just fallen asleep in the car.
Tim was working late, but finishing up just as we reached him, so he was able to meet us at the hospital. This was amazing, by the way, as he works at the northern most base, had to change out of uniform, jot down directions, and get gasoline, still he managed to arrive nearly exactly the same time as we did. (He probably took the expressway/toll road.)
We wanted to stay together while she got stitched up, but Simon couldn't handle the screaming, and soon he and I, both, were in tears too. Tim stayed with her (my hero), and the doctor also called a corpsman in to help, and I took the boys out to the waiting area. They finished her up pretty quickly, it seemed, and we were home by midnight. She slept well, and has been [kind of] normal today, not complaining of any pain, really. I am sure she'll be complaining, though, when we tell her that she can't do swim lessons. The stitches come out on Monday, which is our first day of swim lessons, and then there is expected to be another 3-5 days before she can expose it to prolonged moisture. Maybe she'll be okay for the second week of lessons.

random-ness...

2008-06-24T23:10:00.005-04:00

Mia's favorite suffix: -ness, as in pinkness, and stinkness, and hotness

This morning on the intercomm phone, in tears, because her dresser drawer was stuck:
I am having non-happiness.

When I offered her some paper from the scrap box:
This is totally not what I expected, I feel like I need some out of the printer.

Check out the new links on the sidebar... in the Japanese Tool Box, some our favorite sites for learning a bit of the language. Today's find... www.web-japan.org/kidsweb.

2008-06-21T22:46:00.004-04:00

So it's here! Saturday, 10 am our time, about 9 pm Friday EST time, the truck rolled up with five men and four wooden crates. One of them was mostly filler, empty boxes and such, and then our mattress. It was just as I thought - absolute bliss for the first time in 12 weeks - to wake up in that bed with my own pillow, on crisp white sheets, under a light down comforter, having slept all night long. The night before the stuff came we had several phone calls in the middle of the night. Our credit card company called seven times in one 'day', the last call Tim finally answered in time to find out what they wanted . He was so mad he laid into the agent who still insisted on delivering her message, despite his anger at the hour - 3:20 am. Then called back to register a formal complaint and fix things so they don't do it again. I imagine that the company's phone system has autodial set up, so she probably had no idea that we were in the Pacific until he told her. She would have had to know what FPO and AP stand for in our address, then use what little brain matter she had to deduce the rest.

Anyway... the cello is tuned but I can't find my book of lessons and music yet. There was very little damage to any of the stuff, a few crushed boxes, scraped corners on bookshelves. A lot of our stuff is IKEA which we got for free off of Alexandria Freecycle and Washington DC craigslist. (any Okinawahai readers who may be headed to that area, bookmark these sites! We have actually made money by scooping up free stuff then reselling at yard sales or even back up on craigslist, or by experiencing damage in a military move and getting replacement value for it.) The one piece that is destroyed beyond use or repair is a particle board wood-tone short filing cabinet, which I used for teacher-like supplies. Again, we got it for free because it was locked with no key. But I think I can live without it.
The kitchen is mostly unpacked and the school room is getting there. The kids' room is about halfway done. Chas made a 'knife' out of plastic Bionicle pieces and used it to open boxes, one by one, as we requested. He got out what he wanted to play with, then unpacked and put away the remaining contents. After opening a few boxes of Mia stuff, I think he started just closing them back if they weren't his stuff. Mia and Simon celebrated the opening of each box by dumping the contents and promptly throwing things around the room. They are a little too young, I think, to be expected to show a little restraint with the excitement at the level it was. Not to mention, Tim and I were downstairs working and not really paying attention.
Later int he evening, Tim went for pizza - shrimp this time, and without the mayonnaise please - while I went up stairs and walked them through the ankle deep mess and we got a good bit of it cleaned up and stowed in good homes which they helped choose. They were very good about telling me, yeah I threw that over there, or I dumped it out because I wanted to play in the box. While Simon and Mia and I cleaned up, Chas broke down the empty boxes and got them into the hall.

We are comfortable with the amount of stuff we brought, and we think it will fit nicely in here. We may have to get creative to find places for some things, but overall, I think we'll be okay. I would like to figure out (I fully realize I may never know the answer here) why I brought turtleneck sweaters, fuzzy slippers, and footed fleece jammies. I know I was a bit distracted with preparations to get here, but I don't think I meant for them to pack that stuff. I may ship some of it back, or try to sell it here. They have rotating flea markets on the bases, so some of our kitchen duplicate utensils, etc can go there, I am sure.

I hope we can get things unpacked pretty quickly, Chas has been an immense help and we are trying to get Simon and Mia in on it too. So we'll have pictures to post soon!

2008-06-20T03:11:00.002-04:00

shhhh...

don't get too excited, I don't wanna jinx it.

but...

I could be playing Bach by dinnertime tomorrow.

That's all I am saying.

fun with numbers

2008-06-19T02:46:00.004-04:00

5 number of people who don't fit comfortably around a coffee table for a meal

4 thickness, in inches, of our temporary bed, a futon

3 projected delivery dates that have come and gone

2 the number plastic forks broken while trying to hold a ribeye still to be be cut with a plastic knife

1 the number of times per day, at least, that the personal property office can expect my phone call

let's talk about the weather...

2008-06-16T19:31:00.006-04:00

Let's talk about the weather ...instead of why our shipment isn't here yet. It has been a very emotional week. I can't let myself get excited about the stuff coming, because the last two times the build up was so great and the disappointment equally so. But not letting myself get excited means there is nothing to get excited about.

Oh yeah, we're on a tropical vacation island.

Nope, I can't seem to grasp that yet.

This fascinates me on some levels, how is it we (our family) can proclaim that stuff is just stuff. Stuff comes and goes, people... family... love... those things are everlasting. So why am I so uncomfortable and unhappy without my stuff? What do psychologists and sociologists and anthropologists say about people and ownership, belongings, and comfort? For my part.. my understanding of the situation, is that I can't get routines solidified with only half of a household present and operating. Example? Cleaning bathrooms. Normally, I have cleaning supplies tucked under the sink of each bathroom, if I am in there and I see that it needs to be done, I can do it very easily. Now have to go downstairs, gather all the supplies, and remember to take a trash bag because I only have one trash can - and it's not up there - go back up to clean it, then go put everything away. Laundry baskets are being used to corral everything from swimming gear to toys that wandered downstairs and are on their way back up. I usually have baskets and bins and buckets for all these sorts of jobs. This means the laundry baskets are not being used for laundry, so there are piles of laundry all over our laundry room, and no where to dump clean laundry. So then, maybe my problem is that I can't wrap my brain around how to get organized without all the stuff that needs to be organized and the receptacles with which to do it. HOLDING PATTERN. It's paralyzing and exhausting being bored with nothing to organize.
Maybe some of you readers didn't know my secret obsession with organizing. I like to think I hide it pretty well. Someone once told me the secret to controlling - or staving off - her OCD was to only let in control one part of her life, not the whole thing.

anyway, here's news...

NEW...US Postal Service offers first-time military discount! A new flat-rate box will be available from the Postal Service after March 3 that is 50 percent larger and delivered for $10.95 to an APO/FPO address -- $2 less than for domestic destinations. The boxes can be ordered at usps.com/supplies or by calling 800-610-8734 (Send this to your family and friends back home!!!). Some of the new boxes are co-branded with the logo of "America Supports You," which is a Department of Defense program that connects citizens offering support to the military and their families. For more information, read the Air Force Print News story at http://www.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123085338.

source: www.time2pcs.com

I think someone from home told me about this new postal service recently, but these are the details. Maybe someone should tell Old Navy, it has been three or four weeks since I ordered summer clothes for myself and I still haven't got them! I desperately need summer clothes! I don't like the selection of American clothes at our base exchanges here. They carry high end stuff, at lower prices than American department stores, but you could still pay $80 for a handbag or $100 for a Tommy Hawaiian shirt. It is getting pretty hot here - 88 for the high today, and evenings are only down to 75 or so. We are supposed to go to the pool after lunch today, good behavior depending. The late afternoon and evenings are pretty nice in the front yard after the sun goes back behind the house. We finally set up that plastic Geodesic dome toy that used to be in our basement back in the States, and the kids are loving it. Tim bought himself a charcoal grill Sunday, and we have been grilling and playing and spending some time outside in the evenings. [Thanks, Grandma - for the 'buggybands' (that's what the kids are calling them now.)]

And more news... our shipment of household goods is apparently on the island now, and going through customs. I was told to call Wednesday afternoon to schedule a delivery time. The lance corporal I talked to mentioned something about them being booked up on deliveries. I. dare. them.

A milestone for this little blog...

2008-06-15T07:18:00.005-04:00

I reached my 10, 000th visitor the other day!! I might have missed it, except it was my own sweet husband checking out my newest post the other night. Technically, this is 10,000 visitors since I set up my sitemeter. But the blog has been up since February 12, 2005, with 234 posts, one deployment and four relocations in that time.

I know that some of my readers have their own blogs, and some even have a sitemeter, or counter. I am always checking my sitemeter records. Maybe I should have been a statistician, because I love charts and graphs and trends and all that. Just by clicking on the counter on my sidebar, I can see the last 100 visitors to the blog by location (either a list, or a world map with little pin points), by referral (where did they click in from, sometimes it is from a google search for something like 'okinawa housing' or 'crochet travel tic tac toe'), by outclicks (if they followed a link from my page to somewhere else), but not by name. Yes, there all sorts of ooey-gooey details like latitude and longitude, browser, IP address, even how long they spend on the site, but no name. So I have records of visitors in towns, in NC, for instance, where I didn't even know I knew people. Confession - sometimes I use Google maps to find the town name that appears and see if it's close to anything familiar. Someone I know checks the blog from work and her connection gets routed through Colorado. I know this now.
Since we have moved overseas, and I am now listed as a 'local blog' on okinawahai.com, I am getting more traffic on the blog and from all sorts of places. Since my free account with sitemeter only lets me see the last 100 visitors' details, and I am averaging about 34 visits a day, I've only got three days worth of records. But in the last three days I have managed a wider spread of visitors than usual - Canada, Israel, Russia and the Philippines in addition to regulars from the southeast to New England, some new regulars from California and throughout the midwest.
So this is what I see when I go to sitemeter from the link on my sidebar. At the site, on the actual map, you can hover over each pinpoint and it tells the location, city and state, or city and country, and click the pinpoint for even more details. Anytime you're interested, you, too, can click on the counter and see all of this. And if you happen to figure out which record is yours, please let me know if it shows up as another town I wouldn't recognize, so I can stop guessing and wondering!

more mia-isms

2008-06-14T03:53:00.002-04:00

When Mia talks, it gives a clue as to how she hears certain things. As a here-to-fore nonreader, it's not surprising the zingers she comes up with... she keeps us laughing.

print - as in Sleeping Beauty is going to 'print' her finger on the spinning wheel when she grows up
college - as in the house where Sleeping Beauty lives with the three fairies

and from today...

Salmon San Diego - as in Carmen San Diego, criminal mastermind from the late 80s computer game and early 90s cartoon series Where in the World is Carmen San Diego? For some unknown reason, somewhere along the line it became Where on Earth is Carmen San Diego?

I remember certain moments after Chas learned to read, when he self-corrected several of his cutest mispronunciations much to his own delight. 'Foon' became 'spoon' as he was emptying the dishwasher silverware tray one day. Mia realizes that her brothers laugh when she gets something a little off and thoroughly enjoys the attention.

Enjoy the pictures!

2008-06-13T04:06:00.009-04:00

I think it has been a while since I posted any pictures. All three kids had their summer hair cuts done the other day, then Mia and I painted toenails this morning, and we did her fingernails for the first time. It's clear with a touch of glitter - which is why you can barely see it in the pictures.

Besides getting hair cuts, we also went to a very cool farmers market nearby that I read about on okinawahai.com. The kids got a 500 yen coin to blow on whatever they wanted. I see it as a small investment with a big payoff. They chose such cool things - well, there was so much to choose from: fresh fruits and veggies, local crafts including pottery, dishcloths, and market bags, rice being ground into flour right in front of very eyes, fresh fish, prepared foods, baked goods, locally made candies, fresh cut flowers, OMG too much to list! We took a walk around and looked at everything first, then got a cart and started filling it. They each chose a baby pineapple for 100 yen; it was about the size of grapefruit. Simon and Mia picked up some cherry tomatoes for 100 yen, I think I have posted here about how pricey they are at the commissary. Chas and Simon chose some candy and Simon found ube covered peanuts too! Mia chose some fresh cut purple flowers, and she and I got matching mesh market bags made out of blue plastic cord, they packed her purchases in her bag for at the checkout and she carried the bag of goods to the car like a little lady. Oh, and over by the prepared foods area someone offered Mia a deep fried minnow-like fishie on a toothpick - whole, I am talking tail. head. eyes. all of it. And she ATE it. Her brothers wouldn't even try it, and don't even ask, of course I didn't either. She said it was crunchy and hurt her throat a little. I regret not getting pictures to share with you all. But, truly, we went as an experience for the kids, not for the photo opportunity. But maybe we'll get Tim over there this weekend and he can shoot some pics.

10 more days...

2008-06-09T01:25:00.003-04:00

As I know you all are following our fascinating saga of the furniture shipment that just won't come...here's the latest news:

it seems to have stalled in Korea, for reasons no one has explained to us.
Nor do we know why it went to Korea in the first place. We were simply told that it would take another week or so to get here from there, and then a day or so to get through Japanese customs. And we are at their mercy, with no recourse - we can't demand a refund, or even a discount, we can't demand that they go get the shipment and deliver it immediately. We are simply stuck.
I know we'll be fine, if we can live [semi] comfortably for these last 8 weeks without all that stuff, we can probably wait another ten days. I just don't wanna.

But I promise you this... the first person who dares utter the phrase 'semper gumby' within my earshot, will promptly regret it. The first time I heard that phrase was the morning we found out the newcomer's brief was an all day class and not just half day, forcing us to leave our precious three with strangers at the last minute. Five days after we arrived, still jetlagged, with the beginnings of culture shock setting in, we left our hotel at 6 am with all three in tow expecting to keep them with us through the morning and just hoping for the best. Poor communication on ... somebody's .... part required flexibility on my part. Um... no, I don't wanna. That phrase represents to me 'their' expectation of me to adjust to 'their' poor planning and quietly accept 'their' disregard for the consequences of 'their' actions on other people.

Grrrrrr.

she's just full of it this morning

2008-06-08T20:55:00.003-04:00

after repeated warnings about jumping on the beds, and jumping from one bed to the other, despite numerous discussions about personal accountability and doing the right thing even when there are no adults around to see, the problem persists... we have given permission for the children to tattle on each other on this one... usually if the person is not hurting themselves or the potential tattler, or hurting some important possession of either person or the collective family then tattling is not allowed.
So Chas calls me on the intercomm phone to tell me that Mia, after his big-brotherly warning, plainly stated she wanted to be a 'naughty girl' and proceeded to jump on the bed anyway. So I asked her to come downstairs to talk to me. As soon as she entered the room, with her blank-y covering her bum... 'I changed my mind, I don't want to be a naughty girl anymore.'
oh really?

last night, lamenting that she doesn't want to sleep alone, when the boys have each other, side by side at the oher end of the room. 'Well, baby girl, even if we have another baby now, it takes time to grow inside Mommy's tummy, and then it has to get older before it can sleep in your bed with you.' Her response? 'Well as soon as it's born,, we can start having birthdays for it, on the first day can be its first birthday, and then the next day it can have another birthday, and keep having birthdays until it's big enough to be with me at night.'

I could write a book of Mia-isms.

2008-06-08T19:32:00.002-04:00

Mia: my stomach hurts [this means she doesn't want to finish her breakfast]
Mommy: [reading, ignores her]
Mia: my back itches
Mommy: [still reading]
Mia: is there any cinnamon grits?
Mommy: no, there is no such thing.
Mia: [continues with any of 70 thousand other questions, complaints and insights]
Mommy: eat your breakfast, Mia.
Mia: Mom?
Mommy: AAAAAaaaaack, Mia, yes what is it?
Mia: I was just wondering if God is a boy or a girl.

Conversational Japanese Class

2008-06-02T04:08:00.002-04:00

I have been fortunate to find a conversational Japanese class at the community center on the Air Force base. It meets two nights a week, for an hour and a half, for three weeks. I was surprised that the cost was only $30. I feel bad, because I know Tim wanted to take the class too. But without a sitter - and really we wouldn't leave the kids with a sitter twice in a week anyway - we are taking turns. He'll be able to take it next month.
Also, I have met someone on OkinawaHai.com and we are working out details to possibly have a class on how to use our new DSLR, right here in our own house - again with the sitter thing.
Not much else going on, still anxiously awaiting our shipment. It's discouraging that we can't remember what is in the shipment, what could possibly be lost, or could have been put in the wrong shipment. It's like we have been robbed of our memory of a chunk of time, and we are just in a holding pattern, unable to grasp any solid fact with any amount of assurance... until next Monday morning. It's kind of hard to explain, a strange feeling, very foreign to me.

I got some more books out of the library here, I can't tell if any of them are going to 'favorites' per se, but I am enjoying them so far. Thy Kingdom Come, by Randall Balmer and Born on a Blue Day by Daniel Tammet. So far, I would recommend them. Born on a Blue Day is a simple read so far. Thy Kingdom Come is full of political references that don't much interest me, but seem necessary to understand the authors arguments. I am not sure if I'll be able to finish it for this reason.

So I just got a call about the Japanese class - they didn't have enough people sign up, so they canceled it. I am so very disappointed.

math lessons

2008-05-30T00:52:00.005-04:00

This is how math lessons look when your household goods are holed up on the slow boat to Japan.

At the community center, after visiting Mia's favorite bathroom, we stopped at the vending machine for a snack. Some days having the kids not hungry in the grocery store trumps overpriced-filler-snacks. So Chas figured out how much we would need for three bags of pretzels at 60 cents each. Also, if we use a dollar to pay for the first bag, what is our change and how much more change will we need for the other two bags.
Later at the commissary, we looked at reasonably-priced-filler-snacks to keep in the van, so we wouldn't have to buy from vending machines again. 10 packs of nabs for $1.90, 9 packs of goldfish for $3.70. He is not figuring out exact amounts here - estimates... that's what most adults do when they need to find out price per item. I am sure when the time comes, if he should ever need an exact amount, he'll figure out a way to get it. We also looked at orange juice, 6 little boxes at 8 oz each, how many ounces for $2.99. He began by counting by 8s, then after the third one, he doubled that amount and figured 48 oz in all. The 64 oz carton was the same price, so which one is the better deal? And why is the package of individual boxes more expensive? Convenience and additional packaging cost.

After lunch we are going to watch the third disk of a very long movie that we borrowed from the library called The 10th Kingdom. At 417 minutes, Chas figured out that it's almost 7 hours
long (420, drop the zero, 42 is divisible by 6, 7 times, there's your 7 hours). So how long is each disk, roughly? Estimation is appropriate here too. So Chas, 7 hours divided by three? 3 goes into six twice, that's at least two hours on each disk, with an hour left over to be divided across the three disks, 20 minutes each. 2 hours and 20 minutes!

Please do not be amazed. Most seven year olds could do this, except they are taught that they have to do the math the long way usually on paper to prove that they have learned it, that they aren't cheating, or so the teacher can maintain accountability and prove she is doing her job.

A woman interested in homeschooling struck a conversation with me at the library the other day. I have heard this conversation before, soooooo many times. 'My daughter seems interested in reading, what reading program do you use/recommend?'
You don't need anything. We all learned to walk, and talk, and feed ourselves, and a myriad of other daily tasks - all without the use of expensive one-size-fits-all curriculum. Our family used materials on hand - like Dr Seuss (and whatever the child was interested in at the time, Chas really wanted to read the Thomas the Tank Engine package insert, so Tim showed him a few things, and he asked for more; Mia has a Dora book with Spanish and English labels across a scene), and alphabet magnets (or what ever we have on hand that the child can hold onto and move around and turn and manipulate.) Think of it this way... a child's world is filled with three dimensional objects. A bowl, a bicycle, a teddy bear - turn an object around, upside down, look at it in a mirror, the object is still a bowl, a bicycle, or a teddy bear. Alphabet magnets are able to be held, turned, moved around. They worked well for us because although you can pick them up and turn them face down or upside down, it is pretty obvious which side is the front. We also teach the sounds of the letters along with the names, and I'm not afraid to show a few combinations when they present themselves. OO says u, SH says sh... etc.
And instead of trying to transmit all the complicated rules of phonics, we encourage them to first scan the word and look for letters they know go to together to make other sounds, like ch or sh or th or ar, also look for words within words 'or' and 'in', come across a vowel? try it one way and if it doesn't make sense in the sentence, or just plain sounds like nonsense, trust your instinct and try it a different way.
My point here is that when a child wants to learn something, she'll learn it, there's just no stopping her. I truly did not expect Mia to try to learn how to read in the middle of this move. Sometime in February, she was literally begging me teach her how to read. I showed her a few things, but when I could tell she needed a break, I backed off. Now here, without any of our school room in tact, she has asked for more, and is now reading on her own. I often wonder if my children were not so motivated and interested until later in their childhood, would I be so relaxed? I have a friend whose boy had no interest in reading until well past ten years old. I have no idea her personal struggles with this, as he was thirteen when I met her (and doing just fine, I might add.) Imagine what kind of champion for your child you would have to be to stay focused on him, not on his peers, until 7 years past what the government and the education industry says is normal, average, and acceptable.
It boggles my mind that the government wants all children to learn the same information at the same age and at the same pace. It boggles my mind even more that reasonably intelligent, loving, attentive, parents also think that this is okay. Are parents not the ones supposed to be the most 'in tune' with how unique and special their own child is?

I really miss our school books and other supplies that are on the way. But, I can admit that the time spent without them is opening my eyes to what learning is happening everyday despite the empty schoolroom.

2008-05-28T00:47:00.008-04:00

So I probably don't need to explain my absence. There has been a lot going on here, and nothing at all, YES! Amazingly, both at the same time. There is a lot of adjusting to be done, absorbing, thinking things through, then rethinking them, routines to settle into, and then change, and resettle.

Bad news about our final shipment - our household goods. They originally told us to expect delivery today, but when we called today to get a time slot they casually said they don't expect the shipment until June 9. I think I'll call back and ask for some clarity, is it here, but they can't deliver it? or is it arriving on the 9th, and then we wait for delivery? We are so bummed out about this news. Things we miss most - our books, the kids' toys, our instruments, remote controls for the TV and DVD, silverware (we bought dishes here, but we are still using plastic utensils).

But we are finding things to keep us busy, believe it or not. Eating out is big on our list of favorite activities. Since I think I may be entertaining some readers from OkinawaHai.com let me list a few places that we recommend

- Toride on Hwy 8 between 75 and 224 - a little on the fancy side, but no dress code, urban construction site decor with re-bar, concrete, and plywood, Japanese and western style seating, menu is little side dishes, they have sushi - 8 pieces for around 400Yen, salads - sashimi, nori and caviar, with fresh tomatoes and mescaline type lettuce for less than 500Yen, and yakitori, sirloin strip served very rare, as well as more exotic items, English menu, with pictures, all reasonably priced and beautifully presented as it was cooked, they skipped the usual onslaught and brought out each dish as it was prepared, piping hot and fresh, except the sushi and salad, obviously. All five of us left full for under 6500Yen.

- Awase Soba on Hwy 20 (can be found on the map in the Peace Phone Book) - more casual, I like to take the kids for lunch on the way home from errands on the other side of the island (Kadena, Foster), very easy to order from the small fixed English picture menu, they have large steamy hot bowls of yasai (vegetable) soba in broth (although it has just a little meat in it) for 650 (large) or 550 Yen (medium) or yakisoba (griddle fried noodles, a little too greasy for me) for 750 yen, they have sanmainiku (three layer meat, if I understand correctly includes the skin of the animal, a delicacy I'll gladly leave to the locals), kids lunch is a small bowl of soba with strips of cooked eggs, also a small serving of rice in the shape of a star or heart, a drink and cookie are included, child friendly serveware on their very own tray for 400Yen, Japanese and western style seating, complimentary self serve and very yummy pickled daikon radish. I like this place because it is fast, hot and filling.

SO besides eating, we go to the library several times a week, the beach, shopping for household items, trawling the 100Yen store, tending to our garden (tomatoes are three inches high, basil is flourishing although not as well as the tomatoes, lantana is thriving, and the dahlias are the bugs favorite snack food.) The kids are writing letters to their friends, learning to draw from drawing books they get out of the library and watching DVDs borrow from the library. I feel like I am constantly making ice (no ice maker) and hanging laundry on the clothesline.
We bought new couches, not sure why we didn't do that sooner. It finally occurred to us that we didn't send any couches in our shipment and buying some would certainly solve that whole 'sick-of-sitting-on-the-floor' problem.
There is a store here called Yellow Box, huge, warehouse style, no frills, no salespeople, just perfect. They also had smaller import items like yardage (meter-age?) of Burmese silk, handmade beaded bracelets, handmade notebooks and incense. Some very unusual furniture such as made out of tree trunks, but also some American style stuff (which we chose). I have a rug coming in the shipment which will co-ordinate with the couches. I have big plans for decorating the new place, but now I have to wait for the rest of the furniture to get here. Yes, dearies, you do correctly detect a hint of bitterness in my tone.

I have to break here to tell you about a commercial we just saw on AFN TV. The premise is this: reduce greenhouse gases by buying local... from your commissary. How about, buy from your local Japanese market? A good bit of items in the commissary have been shipped across the Pacific. And the produce that I have found that is local, is grossly marked up - the same strawberries that I got for 197 Yen from the Union one week, were at the commissary the next week for $5.47!! That's not a typo - over $5!! ... and this is for about 20 small strawberries. My new favorte yao-ya is on the way back from the beach. Fieldside, 3 or 4 heads of fresh bright green lettuce for 100 Yen and a pints worth of cherry tomatoes for just as much.

I have a new book - The complete Idiots Guide to Conversational Japanese. We have quite a few Japanese language books lying around here, and they have been immensely helpful in our exploits so far. But I wish I could talk to other moms at the park and to my neighbor. So, even though I detest the idiots and dummies for their names alone - I have read several and found them to be very usable - this book is proving to be also such. The first five chapters have provided me enough information to understand basic sentence structure and even translate some English sentences into Japanese, slowly, but nonetheless. I now possess a reasonable amount of confidence that, with practice, I can learn this language. It is not that difficult really, however, reading it and remembering the vocabulary will prove to be the most difficult. But I can now see that the conjugations are actually much simpler than even Latin languages that I have had some exposure to.

Can I just leave you with the forecast for the week (and last week too)? Rain everyday, high of 82 degrees, low of 75. The thing is... it hasn't rained but, maybe, once in the last week and half. I have been telling the kids for a week now to reuse clothes (mostly jammies) that aren't too dirty. When it is rainy and I can't hang clothes out, I want to reduce the amount of laundry we produce. So, at about ten in the morning, I check the weather, and it has changed it to sunny for today, and rain for the rest of the week. Tim reports three rain drops on his windshield while driving to work today.

So leave us some comments, questions, let us know how every one is doing. We did think of some items that would be nice to have from the states... family in Alabama, do you think you could find those mosquito arm bands in bulk or at least in multiples of three? Mia is getting eaten alive, and her skin is so sensitive, I can't really keep bug spray on her constantly. family in NYC, do you think you can procure those very cool slippers from the dollar store, like the green ones I had? family in Durham NC, could you try to get your hands on some sugar snap pea seeds? I was thinking of setting up the geodesic dome toy climber (that used to be in our basement in Va) in the yard and letting the vines grow up it for a cool shaded fort with healthy snacks built right in. I can't think of anything else right now. I assume everyone got our postcard with our new address on it.
I just realized the time, need to go cook something and get the munchkins ready for bed. Thanks again for checking in!

weekend in Okinawa

2008-05-11T23:08:00.002-04:00

We were out exploring all weekend - White Beach Naval Station on the East side of the island, quite close to our house on Saturday, and then Sunabe Sea Wall on the East China Sea side of the island for lunch on Sunday. The beach had more shells thatn I have seen in on place in a long time. The kids are begging to go back again and since Tim is at the rifle range all week (this means leaving the house at 2 am and not returning until dinner time) we have a lot of spare time this week, we'll be going back!
Here's more pictures.

just pictures

2008-05-08T23:10:00.006-04:00

We are finding comfortable routines, so there isn't much to report. Internet isn't being installed until the 19th, so I am at the library again. Our post office box is near here, so I have to come up every few days anyway. The kids are writing postcards to their friends while I write. I see several comments asking about treats from home, so I have set the kids to thinking about anything they might want. We planted some flowers and herbs yesterday and started some vegetable and herb seeds for the plants we couldn't find. I bought peat pots, but no tray, so a pizza box fills the job, with a plastic grocery bag over for the greenhouse bit. Of course the kids helped, and then we cleaned up and watched The Secret Garden movie. Meanwhile, enjoy the pictures...

relax, we're fine...

2008-05-06T22:55:00.003-04:00

That wireless network did, in fact, disappear over the weekend. Monday I was supposed to call the fiber-optic provider on island and arrange for an installation appointment. But as it turns out, Monday and Tuesday were Japanese holidays. Today when I called, they told me that it will be three weeks, which is apparently better than the six week wait that others on the island are experiencing. I have not told Tim this news yet, he is at work and without his phone in the secured area. So the kids and I wandered up here to the closest base library, near the hotel we stayed in, and picked up a wi-fi signal here.
Let me try to remember what we did this weekend. I know we ate at Awase Soba, on traditional low tables, sans shoes. I think it was the traditional Okinawan food. broth, soba noodles, chinese cabbage, bean sprouts, and leeks. Slurping noodles is considered good manners here, and believe me the kids had no trouble participating. We also found a Japanese hardware store called Makeman and bought bamboo stick curtains for our room, as well as a few clothesline supplies. I have a new Japanese dryer which works very well, but I am using the clothesline as much as possible, to avoid a high electricity bill. We had grand time translating the convection oven the other night. We ended up calling the owner in the end, he and I decided to combine efforts to find the English versions of all the manuals and get them in one place. Yesterday the kids and I found a Japanese 'leap-frog' style toy. It uses a magnetic pen and interchangeable cards (large ones, maybe 14" square) and has both kana alphabets, with beginning sounds pictures, it talks in Japanese. I am not explaining it very well, I'll try to get a picture. Basically its audience is preschool age Japanese children, not American children. It was pricey, but worth it, as we are all enjoying it very much.
So the kids are finishing up here at the library and we have to go check our mail box and fill up the gas tank. Tim may be getting home earlier than usual today, I believe we'll go finish our fiber-optic application (there's a Starbucks on that side of the island!) and shop for dishes somewhere. Sorry for the drop in communication - I am not sure how often I will be able to get up here to the library for wi-fi, but I am sure it will be at least once a week, probably more.

the closest thing to a normal day we have had in way too long.

2008-05-03T09:48:00.007-04:00

After an absolutely crazy shopping trip that had to be done (payday weekend and a tent sale on the major base here including an obnoxious DJ blaring unfamiliar pop music, and car salesman and clowns in the aisles - UGH) we returned with just about everything we have been looking for in the previous three days of dragging the kids through Japanese department stores. Two fans, a bath mat, dish drainer,
hangers, laundry baskets, clothesline, etc.
The best part though
- we stopped in at this little yoa-ya (veggie stand) on the side of highway 20 between here and there. I didn't get everything on the list on my one-pass-only-no-turning-back-for-missed-items shopping trip to the commissary on Friday, but I managed to find what was left of the produce part of the list at this tiny little open air market. I brought my own mesh bags which I crocheted from yarn from the 100 yen store - thank you very much - and one grocery bag-bag which I finally made for myself.
Fresh and mostly local - lettuce for 80 yen, a pineapple for 298 yen, 4 okinawa cucumbers (very thin and long), 2 local goya (bitter melon), bag of local tomatoes for 129 yen, kiwi, bag of presliced dehydrated mushrooms (I can't remember what kind - the package was in Japanese except for the phrase 'reasonable and original'), all for less than 1500 yen.
The calm afternoon here at our new house was a definite contrast to the insane shopping trips. The kids played with their new toys, I made a fruit salad which they ate on the tatami with chopsticks. Dinner was light - quasi-chef salad with the local lettuce and tomatoes and cukes, leftover shelled edamame and some deli cheese, egg salad made with local Japanese eggs - 8 to a package, not 12 - and served on Japanese deli rolls, something like honey wheat. It was a successful mix of American menu with local groceries.
SO after dinner, the kids worked in their origami book they got today, while
Tim and I sewed curtains for the shower room. There is a HUGE window in there- foggy, but HUGE. The owner of the house stopped by the first day we were here to check on us and he 'recommended' we get a curtain for that - right away. Every window in the house has the runners and rings for pleated drapes. We found the clips to adapt regular curtains - or in our case fabric lengths, left the factory edge as is and hemmed the ends.
See picture.
The fabric was pricey, 780 yen per meter, and we needed 4 meters, and 398
yen each for 2 packs of 12 clips.
Still it was better than anything we had seen ready made.
Still need curtains for our room, and the kids room, but the downstairs is pretty much covered.
Our tatami room has built in shoji, paper screens that slide out of the way.
Tim brought sashimi from our local Union, Japanese market, just two blocks away, and he's cooking
us some ribeyes to go with it. i know, i know...

we are IN...

2008-04-30T22:51:00.003-04:00

checked out of the hotel this morning and made our way over to the new place. Everyone is in a good mood. I am so happy to have four walls around me, that I don't want to leave to go shopping for a few necessities - so Tim has gone for a few groceries and maybe later he'll pick up a few things like fans, plug adapters (2 to 3 prong), shower curtains. And when me and the kids feel ready to venture out again we'll get things like a futon for the living room, chairs and table (we have some coming, but not till the end of the month), and curtains. The curtains pose a significant expense that we hadn't planned for. But I think the longer I stare at the windows, and make a few measurements, I may decide to get lengths of fabric and some clips. What's there are little metal loops in runners so conceivably I could, like I said hem some lengths of fabric and punch in some grommets, some S-hooks and call it a day. I packed my sewing machine in the first shipment in leiu of the cello. Looks like that decision will pay off.
I should note that we are 'borrowed' wi-fi, so we could get booted off at any time. More later, as possible...

2008-04-29T02:25:00.002-04:00

Just a quick post, then I am going to catch a nap.

We picked up the cars last night and got them back to the lodge safely. It was dark and rainy and the Japanese don't use reflective additives in their road paint so it's a good thing the speed limit was low the whole way.

We went over to the other Marine Corps base today to get a base sticker for the van, and turn in some paperwork to start our housing allowance. Tim drove us back to the lodge because Mia had thrown up in the van. Then he took his car back over to get a sticker for it and then find the housing agency's office to finish the lease paper work and get the key -

our express shipment arrives tomorrow, so we have to go there at 8 oclock in the morning and wait till they show up, sometime before 6pm. The next day, they deliver the government furniture loan (including new mattresses for the kids), and after that we should be able to sleep in the new house.
Needless to say we are really looking forward to that night. Mostly so we can control the thermostat and have a washer to ourselves, but also so I can shop and cook for us.
The regular shipment doesn't arrive until the end of May. I really miss my cello.

updates

2008-04-26T03:02:00.002-04:00

We have had a chance to get out and about yesterday (Friday)and today (Saturday). One of Tim's coworkers by chance had three vehicles. Tim thought to call him and ask if we could borrow one for the weekend, since we have our licenses now. He agreed! So we actually followed another friend up to his place for dinner last night, up in the central part of the island, which is actually north of the populated area. Dinner was simple Japanese home cooking. In the style of many small dishes, but actually served on large American style dinner plates: sashimi - raw squid, tuna and salmon, rice, goya stir fried with tofu, tempura of purple sweet potatoes and squash, also tempura battered onion, carrot and bell pepper mounds, also tuna and avocado mixed up like a salad, and seafood curry. There was cabbage and vinegar, maybe like coleslaw, on the side, and wasabi, which Sean explained is offered to help the stomach digest the raw fish and any bacteria that may be present. Also on the side, plain soy sauce, like kikkoman, and fish flavored soy sauce I have seen on Japanese television ads called Mizkan. Iced jasmine tea, and fresh strawberries and oranges for dessert. The kids ate at a low table on the tatami mats and watched Pokemon in Japanese as an icebreaker of sorts. By the end of the evening they were more comfortable and actually played with Sho and MoMo. MoMo is 8 years old and has been learning English for about 7 months. She brought me many picture albums of her and her friends and her brother, and explained to me as best she could with vocabulary help from her mother where the pictures were taken, church, aquarium, park, beach etc. Near the end of the evening I brought out my crochet hooks and yarn and asked her if she would like to learn how. She seemed interested as did her mother. Yoko-san's parents live downstairs, I believe the house used to be theirs. While Sean was showing us the views from their balconies, we saw her father arrived with his flat bed truck full of bright green papayas he had harvested from somewhere on the island. Apparently he is retired but farms and sells produce as a hobby.
At the end of the evening MoMo followed us out to the car, using her English phrases - Yeah see ya! and Bye! over and over again, then hopped in the van with Sean to lead us back to the town so we could get safely back to our lodge. MoMo and Sho take English lessons from a place called Kumon - much like Sylvan or Knowledge Points in the the States. Yoko-san says they pay 6000 yen per month - about $60US - for twice a week lessons, includes initial testing for placement, books with CDs, and homework. Chas over heard Tim and I talking about this as a possibility for our family and he piped up with 'um, mom? we already know English'.

This morning we ventured over to the park near our new house. Okinawan addresses go by some unknown logic so we knew if we could find the large park we could find the house. And we did! The kids and Tim played for a while on the giant slide, and I tried to converse with another mom, but she knew less English than I know of Japanese, so that didn't really work. I managed to tell her that Tim was military and I am a teacher. The concept of homeschool is not easily translated, very much unheard of here.

After they played for a while, we wandered over to the house and saw a little girl playing next door, and her very skinny cat who followed us over to our house. We asked a Japanese woman who had a housing agency sign plastered on her car where she got her lunch. She pointed us to a Japanese grocery called Union which had a bento stand in the front. We wandered through the tiny little grocery, marveled at all the produce and the fish selections, then went back outside to order lunch. The kok, or chef, who spoke a little bit of English, had a great time trying to help us choose something. He managed to tell me that what he was making was in the style of Osaka. We order 4 boxes to feed the 5 of us. Egg, some type of pancake batter, then sprinkled with veggies, seafood (shrimp or squid), and brushed with soy sauce and drizzled with some other white substance, consistency of mayonnaise but wasn't, then grilled until cooked through. It was quite rubbery, even the squid, octopus maybe. He even gave us 'sweets' for free, something like American pancakes wrapped around purple sweet potatoes.
I think, since we have a vehicle, we are going over to the best restaurant on the island, that I have heard of anyway, called Sam's by the Sea, near our new house. Tim's bonus arrive in our bank account, just a little celebration is in order.

I think that last post was the low point...

2008-04-24T23:58:00.002-04:00

We now have driving licenses, a deposit down on a house (move in May1 or sooner), and two cars expected to be ready on Monday afternoon. Tim has posted pictures of the house. And with this link, you can see pictures of a car similar to the one we bought for me, a Step Wagon (8 configurable seats!), but mine is teal, I think. The car buying process was actually very easy, which felt a little odd. I asked to see a Step Wagon, he told me that he had four of them on the lot, and immediately took me to the least expensive one. There was nothing wrong with it, whatsoever. One of the first cars he showed me before I had asked about the step wagon, I don't remember what kind it was, but it was being disassembled for cleaning - he told me the previous owners had been smokers, he knew I probably wouldn't want it because of that. They even gave us discounts for buying in bulk. Tim chose a silver Bolero March, about the size of his old Mini, enough room for all of us, sans dog. I like the large round headlights and oversized grill on it, very classy. The dealer takes care of the insurance and Japanese safety inspection, plates, everything in a matter of a few business days. So we pick them up Monday afternoon. I am terrified of driving back to the lodge at that hour - 4-6pm.

This weekend should be pretty quiet, I'll be trying to catch up on laundry and repacking our bags, maybe we can get out of the lodge and into the house sooner than Thursday. Tim's at the housing office to handle the next few steps in the process.
Also, we have been invited to a new friend's house for dinner tonight. A co-worker of Tim's, used to be a mechanic before he was a Marine, and helped us when we went car shopping yesterday. His wife, Yoko-san, is an Okinawan native, and they live in a traditional Japanese style home with her parents in the north, near Tim's base. Yoko-san and Sean have a 13 month old daughter, and two children from her previous marriage, they are 7 and 8 years old.

I'll be sure to post about our dinner experience when we get back tonight.

off the radar

2008-04-23T06:14:00.006-04:00

Wow have we been busy - househunting, mainly. But also a newcomer's brief (it was hardly that) and car shopping.
Monday we saw a lovely house on the ridge with a view of Kin Bay on the Pacific side, but alas, the driving range going in next door was a big drawback, with 40 foot high metal poles with net strung up and stadium lighting. Honestly I can't remember if we saw another house that day or not.
Tuesday, we tried to check into medical/dental without the proper forms, we'll have to make a return trip for that. Then Tim went car shopping, but he and the guy driving him got lost, so I don't know how much they actually saw. An appointment at 4pm with Hitomi, my favorite Okinawan housing agent. We saw one house with between-the-buildings type water view, but I think it was a modular home, three bedrooms downstairs and an open plan living/kitchen area upstairs, all American style, no Japanese charm. Then there were two apartments in Yomitan, which is west coast, one was too small (but how cool it was to stand on the balcony and hear the neighbor playing sanshin and the music wafting across the street) and the other too old. The owner of the house that we like very much, which we sent out the pictures of, has refused to allow the dog. The tenant before us had a barking dog which caused the neighbor to complain. Our agent seems upset, she very much wants to help us, and she knows how much we like that house. It was perfect in every way. Hitomi-san is a gem, she has been very complimentary of our children and of Tim and I as their parents. The last email I got from her was more apology for that owner not accepting our application. She called me Jackie-san Luwis-San. We have spent many hours with her and the kids adore her, as she adores them. While in the States I might be suspicious and pass it off as just doing her job, the Okinawan people are very earnest and sincere in everything they do, and it's so real that it is hard not to notice.

I don't know if any of this is coming across as well as it could. We are exhausted from the newcomer's brief. We were told to be out in front of our hotel this morning at 605 am to catch a shuttle, not the regular shuttle, this one would be different. When the regular shuttle came by, we asked, to be sure, but the driver didn't speak enough English to help us. So we called our sponsor about 30 minutes later, who came to take us to the brief on another base on a different part of the island. We had the kids with us, because the brief was supposed to be only half day, we figured they could hang out that long - I packed busy bags and snack etc. Come to find out, not only was that the bus we were supposed to take after all, the class was an ALL DAY thing. So we had to send our kids off with our sponsor, a co-worker of Tim's, to spend all day at their house. We had spent some of Sunday afternoon with his wife, so she wasn't a complete stranger. But nonetheless. Add to all this the fact that half of the briefing was completely non-specific to the area - like Equal Employment Opportunity and Sexual Assault Prevention, Counseling and Advocacy, Family Team Building. Why do I care? A waste of time!! At the end we sat around for 15 minutes waiting for the Base General to show up and give his little pep talk and closing remarks. Apparently they used to do half day briefing, then driving tests in the afternoon. Now we have to go back on Friday to take our tests to get our licenses, and find a car and the money to buy it before Golden Week (four Okinawan holidays within a week - nobody works). Tomorrow - Thursday - should be more house hunting. We are so discouraged that we have lost an entire day that we could have been looking for a place to live. We have declined the base housing they offered, on the basis that they do not allow pets in the apartment towers they have available. So they say we have a week to find a place before they cut off the funds for the hotel. Don't worry, they won't put us on the street. We can request an extension with proof that we have been trying to find something, or request to stay longer on our own dime.
So the hotel is freezing cold, they run the air conditioner constantly to control the humidity, the bath tub faucet is leaking and the hot water handle broke, so you ave to muscle it to get it on and then again to get it off. The offered another room, but it's so much work to move, and they would just put another family in here anyway. There is a work order in to have it fixed, but this is a government agency we are talking about here.
So it is tough here, but we are surviving. The kids have been awesome - I can tell, though, that Mia really missed us today. Tim went a few minutes ago to get a cab over to the cell phone store, and she was just in tears. Last night we had dinner alone in our room while he went in search of groceries, then they were away from us all day today, and we came back to an empty room, while Tim went to the grocery store again (it was open this time). But he cooked us some dinner tonight, so nice of him.
So tomorrow after lunch we'll all go together to look at cars. I don't want to drag them around town, but it beats staying in this freezing hell hole and they want to be with their Daddy.
So you see - we are busting our tails trying to get things lined up, so forgive me for not posting for a few days (plus the hotel's wireless signal disappeared last night). If I have missed anything, lacking in explanation or important details, please leave me a comment, I'll try to clarify...

2008-04-20T16:45:00.003-04:00

another trip to the commissary

2008-04-20T03:37:00.005-04:00

I had a better look at the commissary today, as our sponsor's wife came to get us and run us around a little. My hope is to get to know what is available that is grown locally and adjust my menus accordingly. Particularly with produce. Now, I learned today that this commissary we were in is the smallest of all. That was a relief, however, I don't see driving to a farther store, just as a matter of practicality. A few of the prices that I took mental note of: $4.50 for about 2 cups of black seedless grapes, $3.79 for 9 small Japanese button mushrooms (see picture below), $2.40 half gallon of 2%milk, $1.95 for a long loaf of honey wheat bread, $3.11 for two large purple sweet potatoes (local), $1.04 for a pound of bananas, and $.99 per pound for local carrots (see picture also), $1.14 for a bag of Italian precut salad (Danielle says that the salad comes in on Saturdays, so don't buy it Thursday or Friday), the baby carrots in the picture cost $.89 for 20 of them (they appeared to have been repackaged, as they came in little takeout tubs).

Check out the pictures...

We also went to a Japanese McDonald's (I don't want to hear it, I hadn't eaten in 5 hours and was shaky and desperate for something quick and easy), and to two different 100 Yen stores. One was inside another store. The kids got character chopsticks, hello kitty and cars, with little carrying cases for them. I got some yarn and needles, also scissors since my were confiscated in Osaka, a Japanese multiplication table poster with a picture of a family bathing together with the poster on the wall of the bathroom. There were many strange sights on the packaging, too much to note here. It was kind of overwhelming, the kids were melting and hanging on me and I was getting shaky and tired again. I, at least, had the presence of mind to say I had had enough, as they had too. And we got out of there. Only to go to the next 100 Yen store, got the kids some juice boxes, peach, apple, and pineapple. We are back at our hotel now and every one is zoning out to a movie (the lodge front desk has free movie and play station games to checkout for one or two nights). Tim and I were up pretty early again today - sometime between 2 and 4 am, probably because I fell asleep at 7:45, as did the kids - they were up around 6 or 7 am. I guess we aren't doing as well as I thought we were with the jet lag. I am so exhausted that I get dizzy and can barely function by 4 pm. It's normal though, it can take a week or two to adjust to a complete night and day swap like this.
We did go to the tep-panyaki place last night, it was delicious, and the kids even ate with chopsticks!! But they were so tired and such a mess (by our normal standards, considering what they have been through they are doing well) it was hard to enjoy it. We took a cab, out there and back.
Also we may have found a place to live. Tim has seen it, I haven't yet. Close to here, Japanese style house with large patios all around. I'll let him post some pictures and details soon.
More news, there are two functions this week on this base, with in walking distance of our lodge, held by the Christian homeschool support group. One is a book club meeting at the chapel Tuesday afternoon. And the other is mom's night out - dinner at the O-Club. Apparently, there is also a beach within walking distance. We've got time, I think, to check everything out.

eggs and logic...

2008-04-19T19:51:00.002-04:00

conversation at our breakfast table today

Mia: Simon, do you still like pretty girls?

Simon: No, remember I told you... people that are five almost six years old start to not like pretty girls.

Mia (with classic Mia style logic): Well you used to be five almost six and you did like them then.

two apartments

2008-04-19T01:12:00.003-04:00

The agent that picked us up was an American, former Marine, married to Japanese woman and has lived here nearly twenty years. He said he originally cringed when Tim told him over the phone that we were looking in the north, because there isn't much up here. He said something about the Marines pulling out and moving to Guam in the next few years - we hadn't heard anything about that. Anyway, all he could find up here in our price range were two apartments. I got the feeling like there may have been more, but he wasn't going to waste his time, or ours, showing us junk. So two apartments. The first one was on the third floor with no elevator. These are all concrete buildings with bars on the windows for safety in typhoons. This apartment had high ceilings, that arched inward, I couldn't see the roof from the parking lot, but I imagine it was a dome on top. White plaster walls with dark wood trims, hard wood floors throughout, shutter style doors on all the rooms. There were three or four regular bedrooms in addition to a beautiful large tatami room with 5 sliding pocket shoji, traditional style with the closet for futons, and storage for whatever else under a bench, and the sacred nook area, I forget the name for it. There was roof access by ladder, not my thing, you won't find me up there. And a loft accessible by stairway, Tim went up. He said it is not full ceiling height, so not very usable, maybe for storage. Built-in cabinets in every room, including a genkan, shoe cupboard in the entrance. High ceilings in the master as well as the walk-in closet, and an extra exit staircase for safety (spiral, all the way down the ground level). The kitchen appeared to have all new appliances, including a counter top convection oven. It was also very close to the base where we are staying, and maybe one or two blocks off of a main road with shops and markets. The downside is there is NO elevator and no yard for Nigel, I actually didn't see ANY grass in sight even for his 'business' trips. It had the charm and traditional Japanese feel that we were looking for, though. Both accept pets for a fee/deposit.
The second place was really not unlike a small American ranch, but it was a fourth floor apartment. Three bedrooms, two baths, hardwood floors, only two years old. The bonus to this one was the balcony, maybe thirty feet long and 8-10 feet deep, with a view of a green valley and village, plus Pacific beyond that (distant, but sweeping, view). Location was bit farther south than we wanted, too.
Tim's bored and pacing. Hes going to meet another agent, without us this time, sounds like not too many people can fit five people plus themselves in their cars. He'll meet her at the base gate and they'll go see some places without us and take pictures (because, once again, I didn't - it makes me uncomfortable and draws too much attention). Then we'll go to dinner together. Tim picked a tepanyaki place, I think someone recommended it to him Friday. Check back later, okay?

Sagasu ie

2008-04-18T17:08:00.005-04:00

I forgot the camera yesterday, I am very sorry. We are house hunting today (sagasu ie!)... I'll try to get some shots today. I don't know if we'll get to see this house today or not - but it is my current favorite. Another we are interested in is called Minato (Japanese for harbor). Our appointment today, however, is with an agency that comes highly recommended but somehow does not have their listings online. So we have no idea what they will show us. They are picking us up at the lodge, all of the agencies do this apparently.
In other news, our sponsor took us to the commissary yesterday afternoon. We have a simple kitchenette here and he picked up groceries for us the day we arrived, so the fridge was stocked already. But I picked up a few more things and tried to look around to get a feel for what's available and not, and how the prices compare. They have some Japanese products mixed in with popular American items, and prices were higher than normal commissary prices, but still less, as far as I can tell, than regular civilian retail. The strangest thing we saw was a pack of two carrots, 2 inches in diameter each, and about 8 inches long. We'll have to get them when we get settled and have a knife big enough to cut them up. Or we can just pretend we are rabbits and risk breaking our teeth. Tim points out that rabbits routinely eat carrots bigger than their heads.
Okay, so...
We also stopped in at the post office and got our new address. I think I'll be mailing postcards by snail mail with the new address soon, but if you need it before then, please ask, I'll email it to you.
Today or tomorrow, I am hoping to get to a store called Drug 11 to get Mia some Japanese pull-ups. I have the brand name in mind that I want to find, and the Japanese phrase that I want to say in order to find it in the store. I may try to ask around, also, for a yarn store. Mia and I learned the words for 'pink' and 'purple' and 'daughter/girl', and the word 'or' and I am trying to find some way to ask for the correct size for her weight. I'll be sure to report on the experience.
The kids are not getting antsy per se, in the hotel, but they are wondering when we'll see our stuff again. I explained to Simon that we don't have place to put all of the stuff. And he suggested the empty dresser that the TV sits on.

More later, I am sure, when we return from househunting.

Sounds of morning in Okinawa

2008-04-17T20:02:00.003-04:00

reveille - which I haven't heard in a long time ,
followed by the star spangled, and the flag clanging it's way up to the top (can't see it from here, though)
a papa-san working on the landscaping, happily snipping and clipping away,
the breeze fluttering on the vertical blinds, beach houses always seem to have those, the sound is a little comforting

jets and helicopters - been a long time since we have lived so close to an air station

songs I don't recognize from birds I have yet to learn the names of.

Notice I did not list the children among my 'sounds of morning'? They are sleeping, thank GOD. We got into our room around 11pm, they were lights out by 11:30, but Mia and Simon were delighted to be awake at 3am. They were having a party in there - Mia is on a roll-away cot, right up next to Simon's bed. I stumbled in there to get the benadryl, and Simon tried, several times, to tell me a knock-knock joke. I was so tired I could barely form the words to tell him that it was not the time for jokes. 20 minutes later they were still partying and they woke up Tim (a normally heavy sleeper) so he went in and set up a movie for them. So, yes, I drugged my children and set them in front of a tv, but in my defense, it was for their benefit, and the good news is that they probably won't need it again. We were soooo tired when we got in, I was in a cloud, and the poor kids were stumbling their way through the last two airports. But I think it will help in getting all of us adjusted to the time quicker.

Today's plan is to get the swelling in my feet to go down, then find the laundry room and the playground (on-site, yeah!). The sky is blue and it is cool but pleasant outside. Tim had to go into work all fancied up and meet the BIG guys, and then he'll be back to pick us up at 1:30 pm for an appointment at the housing office. Even if we decide to look out in town, they'll give us a list of approved rental agencies to go through, and shows all the proper steps for reimbursing the extra set-up costs that are involved.
I'll post the travel story soon. Meanwhile, check out the new link to okinawahai.com on my sidebar. There is a lot going on here on the island and this site keeps a close eye on just about everything.

More like AAAhhhhhhh-kinawa

2008-04-17T10:58:00.002-04:00

We're here. Okinawa at last. Kids are in bed. Jax is in bed. I still have to get cleaned up and ready for work in the morning. (Again, this is Tim. Jax will post on her blog soon enough.)

Tomorrow will be busy. I've got checking in all over the island in the morning and Jax and I've got a housing appointment for the afternoon. After that, we've got the weekend to catch up on rest, blog, and explore the island.

We're all going to blog on our own experiences, I'm sure, so the other blogs are going to be updated as well so check them out as you may.

I'm going to bed. Thanks for al the well-wishing. It worked.

OSAKA!!

2008-04-17T05:14:00.004-04:00

We made it.. almost.... We've got one more flight and we'll be done with this trip. BOY are we ready!

The kids are doing well for kids who have spent the last two days flying around the world with mixed sleeping/wake schedules, boarding, eating meals out of order, everything else. Sure, they're getting a little out of whack as we go on. Crying here and there over seemingly innocent things, but we;ve got to remember everyone is out of their element and that we're all ready to crash for a good week or so of sleep. I get to go to work tomorrow! (This is Tim, BTW)

Here are a couple of pictures to get you guys started. We'll post some more as the days go on.

2008-04-16T12:58:00.001-04:00

Landed in San Fran early, waiting for a gate 2 pull into.

2008-04-16T11:23:00.001-04:00

We have boarded in L A. caught a ride on an electric cart to make it to our gate, just enough time to spare. Landing at ? time.

2008-04-16T09:43:00.002-04:00

USO was so comfortable we slept instead of posting. The boys are finishing up breakfast then we are heading over to our terminal, within walking distance. Today's flight takes us through San Francisco with a plane change there. Not sure how that will work exactly, I believe there is a shuttle to take us from domestic arrivals to international departures. This is kind of where we leave off with the blogging, I may not have time to post from San Fran, unless I can manage to get it done on the shuttle bus over. Thanks everyone for keeping up with us. Soon we'll post with all the great details and what the kids thought of the whole experience. They have been asking to blog, and we are getting a few pictures with our new camera, so we'll post them too.

Please consider donating to the USO in your area, or here at the LAX airport. There are several (5-6) servicemembers traveling alone that have crashed all over the place in here. But it's quiet and clean and there is everything you could ever need, including showers (!) and hot breakfast, books and movies for the kids to take with them if they would like.

Keep us in your prayers, we'll be in Japan in a matter of 15 hours or so.

2008-04-16T03:50:00.001-04:00

We have landed in la. the kids did great. dear simon fell asleep b4 the plane even leveled off. more soon from the uso.

2008-04-15T21:21:00.000-04:00

Boarded 4 dulles 2 lax, 5 h 32 m.

2008-04-15T20:59:00.001-04:00

Dear husband has procured dunkin donuts coffee for us both. my hero!

2008-04-15T20:41:00.001-04:00

Landed in DC. KIDS DID GREAT! Mia sat in the pilots seat.

2008-04-15T19:22:00.001-04:00

they let mia sit in pilot's seat.Buckling up, stowing bags, 45 minute

2008-04-15T18:18:00.001-04:00

Cleared security. made it to our gate. thanks for the sandwiches nana!

2008-04-15T16:16:00.000-04:00

I guess it works!

2008-04-15T16:15:00.001-04:00

Testing

zipping up the last bags

2008-04-15T15:59:00.003-04:00

We are finalizing the packing and loading now. My sister and her husband will meet us at the airport in about an hour to take the van off our hands and we fly at 7:30. We fly United to Japan, then All Nippon Airways to our little island, and we'll be arriving around Thursday morning EST. I believe I have set up this blog to take a post from my mobile phone, but there's a chance it won't work, as I've not tested it. And I'll only have the phone until just after we leave LA tomorrow morning.

I am going to join the kids outside for one last game of fetch with the dog. It is a beautiful day here, absolutely perfect.

See you on the flip side!

the 'whirlwind' southern farewell tour...

2008-04-13T21:50:00.002-04:00

Tim's blog has some pictures up - he's titled this trip the whirlwind (a la tornado) tour. Honestly it feels more like a lumbering hurricane tour. Five days here, six days there, trying to balance the last few items on the check list with just chilling out and enjoying time with all the different relatives... but today we picked up some speed. We actually saw Tim's dad and step mom for breakfast at the hotel in Atlanta (thanks for getting up early with us), his mom and niece for lunch on the way (awesome lunch waiting when we arrived, one last swing in their back yard), then dinner with my family at my parents' house in Raleigh for steaks on the grill and all our family's favorite dishes.
I am feeling calmer the closer we get to the actual flight - Tuesday night. Just about everything that needs to be done, is. And if it doesn't get done there isn't much we can do about it now.

The most important thing now is to let everyone feel what they are going to feel. It's not healthy to mask, hide nor ignore any sadness or excitement or anxiety, this goes for our kids too. They have to be allowed the freedom to feel it all - good, bad, and ugly. Every feeling is of value. If that makes any sense, it's pure luck. It's been a very long day.
Check out Tim's pictures (new camera, yeah!). We'll post again soon , maybe before we go.

2008-04-04T18:31:00.003-04:00

Posting from MILs house tonight. The kids and I made it here fine this afternoon, it was a very quiet trip, peppered with phone calls from Tim updating me on his progress at the office. Someone there was not doing her job and Tim had to babysit her, practically doing it for her, until finally he is officially re-enlisted. He has reapplied for country clearance (apparently they won't let us into Japan without this clearance), which should take less than one business day. He left sometime around 5:30 tonight to make the 6 plus hour trip here to meet us. He'll be tired, but he needs to be here with us rather than in a hotel alone again.

We'll be chillin' here for a few days, besides going to church - Papaw will play guitar (I think) in the service - we'll maybe catch a movie, walk to the park, I plan to crochet with my MIL, probably every night. We are counting down 11 days till our flight out of RDU.

homeless

2008-04-03T21:58:00.004-04:00

We turned in the keys to our townhouse today then drove away from the town which has been our home for 14 months. My dear friend had us over for dinner Wednesday night, it was perfect - the kids had time to laugh and run and play and climb trees outdoors with their very close friends before enjoying the stuffed baked potato dinner she had prepared for us. I was surprised and pleased that there were no tears from the children when it was time to go. But I cried the whole way back to the hotel. Never in our ten plus years attached to the military have we had so many friends in one place. We are obviously going to miss family too, but we'll always come back to family. Friends, especially those in the military, will likely be scattered to the wind when we come back from Japan in three years.

Tim handled the inspection with the landlord this morning. All his hard work from yesterday paid off, as she was pleased with the condition of the house. It was immaculate when we moved in, having only had one tenant since it was built - a dual military couple with no kids who kindly put up fresh white paint before they left. I was worried about the amount of wear and tear we had put on it in the six months we lived there (the boys room and the stairwells especially looked like war zones), because of the contrast to the condition after the other tenants' three years. But Tim really did an awesome job overseeing the hired housekeepers and carpet steamers, plus patching the walls (the movers were not as careful as tey should have been) and touching up the paint and spot cleaning the carpet. We left the programmable thermostat (acquired new from our local freecycle), plus Tim offered her some leftover acrylic and oil artist's paints that the movers couldn't pack. She was obviously impressed, maybe even surprised, because she ended up giving us back more than the half of the deposit we were entitled to according to our lease (if we leave early, for whatever reason, she keeps half.)

We had to leave Tim behind in Virginia this afternoon, to finish up a few details at his office. If all goes well tomorrow morning, he should be on the way here to my sister's house in NC by noon, then we're off to my MIL's for a few days. The kids were great, as usual, in the car on the way here. But they had some trouble settling down for bed. We haven't stayed here in a while plus Daddy not being here and all our 'stuff' having been scattered in several places and no where to call 'home' for the time being. I think I'll have trouble settling down tonight, too. Mia told my BIL tonight very excitedly that we are living in a hotel. I doubt she'll be so excited when we are still living in a hotel in three weeks.
Thanks for checking in!

almost out...

2008-04-01T23:46:00.002-04:00

Movers came today, the last shipment, not counting the (amazingly large amount of) stuff weĺl be carrying with us for the next 13 days and beyond. Very disappointed that they arrived late, reeking of alcohol, and moving slower than sloths. They also over estimated existing damage to our furniture and left trash all over the house. This being only our second military sponsored moving experience, it was surprising that a moving company who had won a government contract would take so little care to keep said contract. Fortunately, the military has quality control personnel available to help us negotiate for the best service from these moving companies. They have been on the phone with us and/or out to visit the house on every moving day so far.
The kids stayed at a friendś house this morning and some of the afternoon. Tonight and tomorrow night we are staying at a temporary living facility (hotel) on our nearby base, not Timś base, but the one where we met all of our homeschool friends. Tonight as they were reading before lights-out, Simon had his nose in a Japan travel guide, peeking out to tell me about things that interested him. This is not a childrenś book, per se, but he is actually reading this stuff. He turned to me and said 'Japan has some really nice places. I really happy we´re going there.' They do seem excited that we are finally taking a sizeable, noticeable, real step towards actually leaving. I feel like this is dragging on and on; we´ve been saying good bye to friends for two months now. Just put me on a plane already.

So tomorrow we meet the house keepers and carpet cleaners in the morning, then meet some friends at the park for one last play date. Thursday, we should be meeting our landlord for final inspection and then hitting the road for NC.

I just wanted to let you now where we stand and whatś next for us. Our home number is being forwarded to Timś cell phone, so if you need us... Also we have internet connection at the hotel, so we are checking email periodically. Thanks for checking in!

the hard part is over... now onto the difficult part!

2008-03-28T22:00:00.005-04:00

The big shipment of our main household goods went out today. Not a lot to report here. The men arrived on time, worked quickly, and stayed for lunch but were still out of here in about 5 hours. The weather was perfect so we had the windows and doors open. The kids were at a friends' house and the dog went to daycare for the day.
Thursday night I kept saying the worst that could happen is that they would pack something they were not supposed to (we still have another load of stuff to go to storage yet) or that they would not pack something they were supposed to. And, well, both of those things happened, of course, so we are stuck buying sheets for the kids bed and a blanket for our bed, and I´ll need to replace my entire makeup bag including travel sizes of various toiletries. (update: I found my cosmetics case where I had apparently stashed it in a suitcase, but not after I had already bought a few replacements, of course.) But at least the stuff they did not pack that they were supposed to, we caught in time to load at the last minute, to include one each of three different pairs of shoes from the front hall closet.

??

And sadly, despite their extreme courtesy, advanced English skills, and love of music (the crew foreman plays bass and guitar by ear), all redeeming qualities for sure, they are human - someone accidentally marked on the couch with a permanent marker. Someone from the company is coming out Monday to see if they can get the mark out. This I gotta see.

In other news...
The storage shipment contractor decided that they only need one day, so they aren´t coming till Tuesday. That´s the difficult part I refer to in the title line - four days and four nights in this semi empty house (as far as the kids are concerned it´s empty, all their toys and books are gone) hanging out with the kids.
This weekend is the cherry blossom festival in DC, bound to be too crowded for my taste, plus we are expecting rain. If we can survive this, maybe we have a shot at making it in a temporary lodge in Okinawa suffering from jet lag.