Salt Lake City

So my computer is officially off the floor, and my house is in order. It took us one week. One week of working all...day...every...day. Now that we can function as a somewhat normal family, I can now put my attention on other things, such as my blog! I need to get our summer up to date so I can put some more pictures from Japan. Anyways, here's a start.

After the movers packed our house, the boys and I headed to the Great Salt Lake. Justin stayed behind to finish up his residency. Poor guy was stuck in our empty house with nothing but an air mattress for two weeks. We sold our Highlander the day we left so he was without a car as well. Let's just say he was totally bored!!

Jack and Anderson did awesome on the flights there. I am always nervous to travel by myself with them. You never know what's going to happen or how things will go. Fortunately for me, they did great. Isn't it sad that Anderson can just be in the seat without a car seat? He is so big lately and I really don't like it. I was watching a little home video of him from a year ago and it is crazy how much he has grown. His voice was so little and cute, and now it's almost his third birthday. Time goes by way too fast.

 We got our luggage and went to pick up our rental car. Of course my luggage cart was overflowing with car seats and suitcases and the lady behind the counter starts telling me that she is just going to "go ahead and upgrade the car for only ten dollars." She didn't ask, she just started doing it. At first I think, sweet. That will be nice. Then I asked her, "Umm...is that ten dollars a day? I'm going to be gone for ten days which would be another hundred dollars. Can I just have the car that I payed for online?" She then starts looking at my luggage cart up and down and asks, "Is that all YOUR luggage? If you get to the parking lot and realize that it's not all going to fit, just bring the keys back and I'll finish the upgrade." By this point, there was no way I was going to walk back in that office. I would have tied my suitcase on top of the Ford Focus before I came back in and told her it didn't fit!! So I made it fit, and off we went to Justin's sister's house. (They have their own separate post!)

 I arranged for my niece to watch the boys while I met up with these two lovely ladies. My two besties from preschool. We literally have been friends since we were three. We ate at the Blue Lemon, which had the best food, and sat and talked about Enumclaw and lots of memories. Mostly which were quite embarrassing to recall. We were quite silly when we were little! We got to meet Ashley's husband and little girl and then Andria and I spent the night wandering around City Creek and Temple Square. I loved every minute of it.

 We made a stop at the Mortensen's house. I love seeing how much these cuties have grown!

I have friends that make moving far away a little unfair. Kara is one of those friends.

 One of the main reasons for leaving Justin so early was so I could go to my cousin's wedding. 

 Preston walked Holly down the aisle, barefoot and all. That little Preston could not be any cuter! My Uncle Mark performed the wedding ceremony. It was a beautiful evening and quite enjoyable without my children, might I add. I think my niece McKenna needs to move in with me!

 I was able to see friends, grandparents, aunts and uncles, and lots of cousins, who I don't get to see often enough. I wished I could have stayed all night talking and laughing with everyone. It was really great to see them before we moved.

Boxes, Denise, and goodbyes

 Justin's mom came out to help us with our move, and we are so glad that she did!! She helped us get all  organized and even cleaned out our stove. She was so much help. Besides all the cleaning she did, she took the kids to the movies and entertained them as much as she could in a house full of boxes. It took the movers two days. The first day they came and packed it all in boxes, and the second day they loaded the truck. They packed our entire house in four hours on the first day! That would have taken me days. Even though I was sad to see it all packed away, I was definitely grateful that it wasn't me doing the packing. We had already done enough work preparing and going through every drawer and closet to try and get rid of stuff. Our house in Okinawa is smaller and has a lot less storage space. Hopefully we got rid of enough.

 Ipad and Iphone for hours on end!! 

These were priceless during all the craziness. Although it was slightly difficult getting rid of their addiction, I'm happy to report that we are doing much better in that department now that we have a real life.

 We tried to have a little fun with Denise and took her to our favorite Mississippi restaurant, Shaggy's.

(Some of these pictures are from my Instagram)

 We even had some impromptu swim time, in our shorts. 

When moving overseas, they pack your belongings in big crates. They stuff it completely full and nail the crate shut. Anderson asked the movers multiple times if they packed his train table. He was very concerned.

 We had some things that we didn't want going in our household goods so we put sticky notes on the things we wanted to stay. Jack came downstairs with this on his face telling the movers not to pack him. Good thing he was wearing this because Im pretty sure he was about to go in the crate!

I miss this house already.

 I snuck out while Denise was here and went to dinner with my friends. These ladies made all the difference in my year there. We all had an instant friendship and knew that a year would not be long enough for us. I almost feel like I was cheated. As soon as we started to feel like family, it was time to move. I was really, really sad to leave them. I cried a few too many tears. I'm crossing my fingers that our paths will cross again in the future. I have so many mixed feelings about moving so much. Yes, we get to meet people and make friends from all over, but then you also have to leave them. It's sort of not fair.

 Krista (the one to my right) was my running partner the last few months we were there. This was our view in the mornings at 5:45 when the sun came up over the Back Bay. It was the best running path/view ever! Even though we were so tired and it was really hard to crawl out of bed, the minute we saw the sun coming up made it all worth it.

 The morning that we left for the airport, the Willison boys woke up extra early to come and say goodbye. I think Lincoln and Jack were flexing their muscles here. Can you tell? :)

This was our last night in Biloxi. We didn't see Justin for three weeks after this, so he was trying to soak in as much as he could. 

Living in MS almost feels like a dream now. It went by so fast! We weren't sure what to expect when we moved there, but looking back, we are so glad that's where we were. We have a lot of really great memories from it.

konnichiwa!

Hello there!! We made it to Japan and I just got our computer in our quick shipment. Man, it has been a long two months without my computer! You don't realize how much you use it until it's packed in a box moving across the world. So I realize that I have about a million pictures to put on here from our summer adventures, but I thought I should give you a little taste of our first experience in Japan. Then I'll do some back tracking and update the rest of the summer.

My mom took us to the airport nice and early. I think we left at 4am. They gave her a pass to come back to the gate with us, so despite being super tired, she came and had a yummy airport breakfast (enter sarcasm here) and hung out with us. We bought some neck pillows, shed a few tears, and said our goodbyes. I must say the goodbyes have been the worst part about this whole thing. Too many tears!!

Our first flight was 10 hours. The kids did really good on this flight. They slept, watched movies, ate snacks and were pretty much happy the whole time. It didn't seem like ten hours. 

We landed on Yokota Air Base in Tokyo. We were on a military flight so everyone on our flight was military. Lots of families moving to Japan. We had a couple hours in Tokyo before getting back on the same plane and flying to Iwakuni Navy Base, which is on the southern part of mainland Japan. It was really beautiful!! By this time we were all so exhausted. I don't remember how long we were in Iwakuni. But we got back on the same plane and then flew to Kadena Air Force Base (where we live) in Okinawa.

This was our first glimpse of Okinawa. We got there just as the sun was going down. We landed at 7:30pm, which is 3:30am Seattle time. So we had officially been going for 24 hrs at this point. We waited for our luggage for almost an hour. This was one of the most painful parts. We were so close to getting in a bed and yet we had to sit there and wait for what felt like hours. Finally it came out and our sponsor/friend, Shane, was there to pick us up and take us to TLF (temporary living facility).

This was our TLF building. When we finally got there, we were so exhausted that we slept the whole night! 

Shane was so nice to us and drove us around until we got our drivers licenses. This was one of our first times off base. The general in our new comer's briefing referred to Okinawa as the concrete jungle. You can see why! It's funny because the landscape is so beautiful but the buildings are not so much. 

Our friends the Bjarnason's live on the Navy base close by and this is the view from their house. Behind those buildings is the East China Sea. Isn't that awesome!?

This is a right by our TLF building. I thought it was pretty.

We went to Araha beach with the Jenks and the Bjarnason's for family night. The sunset was amazing! The park there looks like a pirate ship. The kids were in heaven. We played at the park for a while and then headed down to the beach.

There is a zip line that the kids were going crazy over. Justin had to run and follow Anderson to make sure he didn't fall off when it hit the end.

Pretty, right??

Some people from church went to Sunset beach with their kids and I tagged along with Ashlee while Justin got some work done. The water is so pretty and crystal clear. This beach and Araha beach are only ten minutes from our house.

This was our first restaurant experience. They had the yummiest fried rice we have ever had! The only tricky part, is there are no forks. We had to dive right in with the chopsticks!! We also ate gyozas which are one of my favorite foods.

This is our new house. It's not much to look at on the outside but it's nice inside. It's been newly remodeled which I am grateful for. It's actually a four-plex, and we live on the end. We are supposed to get the rest of our belongings next week. We can't wait to put our house together and actually feel like we have a home!! It will be so nice.

This is the place that we bought our cars. The way they do it is really strange. You don't test drive any of them, and some times the ones you look at don't even start. But when you buy them they go through a big inspection and they fix all the stuff that is wrong with them. So you put a down payment on it, they fix it, and you pick it up a few days later. It has been really weird driving on the left side of the road!! I feel like I have to constantly think, ok....what side am I supposed to be on?? One time I just automatically went on the right side of the road. It wasn't until a car was approaching me and started flashing me that I realized I was on the wrong side!! Hopefully that's the last time I do that.

I'll end the post with one more beautiful beach. This is at the Kadena Marina. I can't get over the water! It makes you want to buy a plane ticket and come visit us....right?? :)

We miss everyone lots!!