Skipping Rocks

After a large rain shower, the afternoon skies opened up and brought us beautiful weather. We headed to the beach to enjoy some family time.

Charlie taught the girls how to skip rocks in the ocean. You have to get a flat rock like this one:

And you have to swing your arm way back to get enough force behind it:

Jasmine tries it out.

Jasmine helps Maya get proper form.

Jasmine tries another one.

Maya and Jasmine having some sisterly bonding time:

Yummy Crafts

Maya and Kiera invited their best friends over for a sleepover. These two girls are really great and they all get along so well. I never have any problems or drama to have to deal with so they are welcome any time. I wanted the girls to have something fun to do rather than play video games or watch movies all night. I went to the craft store on base and found a tub of 101 cookie cutters. This was an amazing find over here. I probably went a little nutso inside myself when I saw them. Believe me when I say, "It's the little things that I miss most about being away from the states." Anyway, we made cookies!

This was the very first time I made sugar cutout cookies. Can you believe it?

The girls had a good time decorating them.

Mmmm, delicious! And the end product:

Finished

I got a ton of stuff done today. I know you're just dying to know.

1. cut the grass
2. raked the leaves
3. pruned the trees
4. washed the back walk
5. cleaned the scuba/snorkel gear
6. washed the outdoor storage
7. deep cleaned the grill
8. 4 loads of laundry
9. grocery shopping
10. picked up 3 cute kids

Now if only it will all stay clean until we move.

Memorizing

A trend is setting here. I think we are so over AFN commercials. These are the commercials the military makes to fill in the space where real state-side commercials should go. We don't get to see the latest products, see what's on sale, or see those crazy used cars salesmen. Instead we get to learn our state history, look out for our friends drinking and driving, know what to do during a fire, how to recycle, learn our military history, learn it's best not to be a bully, and I could go on and on. We've been watching the same commercials for 12 years now. Some are new but most are the same. Needless to say, we've got them down pat.

Lately, we've been having mini competitions on who can recite the commercial word for word and with emphasis where it's needed. Boredom? I think so. So it's funny to hear the girls play this little game too. I'll be cleaning up and I hear them answering the question, "Which state has a real oil rig on the capital lawn?" And they both shout out, "Oklahoma!" Well I guess it's good that they are learning something.

Only now that we have cable through our Japanese service, they are copying some of the commercials off there. There's one in particular where they are selling blueberry vitamins. I guess blueberry is the same in Japanese and English but they say it with too many syllables. They say, "blue de e ber ry" And of course the kids put more syllables into it and it turns out to be "blue ee eee ee ber rrr rrr ry" It's funny. You have to be here to get the fun out of it. That's not the only commercial they imitate though. The Japanese put a ton of emphasis on their ooo's and ahhh's when they sell things on tv (it's like they have never seen whatever they are trying to sell in their life). So whenever the kids (or Charlie) sees something they put a ton of emphasis on their oooo's and ahhhh's too. It's a bit embarrassing especially when we are out in town and they do it. I think they do it on purpose.

Weekend Update

We are all doing well here. Not a whole lot going on. Kiera is better from her 24 hour day of feeling sick. I got to spend 14 hours to myself on Friday (nice!) while Charlie picked up the girls from school and treated them to a dinner and a movie date. They went to see Avatar. I'm not into Si-fi, not even when it's all the rave. Jasmine loved it, every bit of it. I think Maya and Kiera just wanted the popcorn and candy (and of corse just hanging out with daddy is the best).

Saturday night we played Blitz with our friends.

It's an oldie but goodie for us. We played a lot of Blitz on some frozen nights back in Wyoming when Jasmine was a baby. Charlie ALWAYS wins so a little smack talk about Phase 10 always brings him back down. BTW, we haven't played Phase 10 since it was thrown in the trash by a sore looser 9 years ago.

With a little help from Rosetta Stone, we are refreshing ourselves in speaking German (not that we are going back to Germany to live but we'll be back to visit one day). It's good to know a second language. It's easy for the kids to pick it up too. I think they remember more than they thought they knew.
Charlie and I heard the girls giggling in the storage room and wanted to see what all the laughs were about. They were doing laundry. I don't mind how they do it as long as it gets done.

Monday comes again tomorrow and so does the start of another work week. The girls are looking forward to having a half day on Thurs. and a full day off from school Friday.

Just Another Week

After a nice long weekend, we are all back to our normal schedule. Charlie started his college math class on Monday. Classes are only 6 weeks here but they cram everything into two nights a week at 3 hours a night. Wish him well. He hates math.

I've been cleaning house (what's new). Well, I've been deep, deep, deep cleaning the house. I do not want to wait until the last minute to get things done to move out. This week's task was to clean out all the shelves, pantry, bathroom, closets and bedrooms. We've already decided on what we want to keep and what we want to toss. I've been taking some things to the thrift store here and there when I realized the clothes the girls wore over the summer no longer fit or see something that we just never use. There's no use in carrying it with us across the ocean if it's just going to take up more space. I'm thankful that I have time to do this during the day because no telling what our house would look like otherwise.

Kiera is home sick today. She just doesn't feel or look her normal self. Actually, her face looks swollen. No fever. No sore throat. Nothing else. I'll just keep my eye on her and see if anything changes.

No word yet on our orders. There is still time to wait before I get too anxious.

Google Earth

One thing I love about my new computer is that I can play around with Google Earth. It's like I can go on a vacation and tour the world. Here is an arial view of Okinawa.

And here is the city I live in. You can clearly see how congested it is:

I found my house. Don't you see it?

Here's a better view with a tiny white arrow:

And here's the street view (the white house at the end of the driveway):

It's so cool. I could play on here all day. It's also great for researching future places to live and homes to buy.

Winter is Over

I love it when spring starts in Janurary.

It's a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

Today was gorgeous! We took advantage of the beautiful warm weather and went to a nearby park. Charlie had never visited this park and he wanted to know what all the fuss was about.

The girls brought their radio control cars and had a great time playing around the walking trail.

Round and round you go,

where you stop,

nobody knows.

This is a great roller slide.

A view from the top,



and away we go,

All smiles here

Charlie contemplated this one for a while

but then chickened out.

I don't blame him. We all chickened out even on a double dog dare.

A Little Shaky Tonight

We had some excitement tonight experiencing a 5.3 magnitude earthquake. It happened at 8:08pm and lasted about 20 seconds. The actual earthquake was about 100 miles away and at a depth of about 70 miles under the ocean floor. It was nowhere near the extent of the earthquake in Haiti. We only felt some light shaking. We are very thankful that we are all well here but our hearts go out to those in Haiti.

Just Thinking

So everyone is excited about our #1 pick of GA. It's still so early. I mean, we don't even have orders just a "dream sheet". We have a really good chance of getting GA though. There's 4 positions available for just his rank in his job and we have been on a long overseas tour (to say the least). The only way someone could beat us out is if 4 people of the same rank and in his job are leaving from Korea, Turkey or Lages during the exact same month and they all want to go to the same place or if someone has been overseas longer than us. How likely is that? Our hopes are up.

We have been doing some research about the area. Warner Robins, GA is small town USA. The population is only about 50,000. Atlanta is about 1 1/2 hours away. The beach is 3 hours one way and the mountains are 3 hours another way (sound familiar?) Houses are very inexpensive. We can get a nice 3/4 bedroom house between $170-150,000. It's the time to buy so that's good for us.

We've known when we would be moving since we got orders to Okinawa. So we've been saving for this move for a while. It's stressful that everything is going to happen at once though. In a matter of a month or two, we'll be selling our Oki junkers, moving out, buying a house, two cars, furniture for all rooms ('cause we have none except for the living room), oh, and we're hopefully going to Australia as a side trip on our way back to the states. Are we insane? Who does that? Overseas moves can be rough on the ol' pocketbook. And I forgot to mention we'll receive a huge cut in pay. Welcome Home, your now broke!

The "List"

Last night the list was suppose to come out at 10 pm our time. We sent the kids to bed, logged on the site and refreshed it every 5 minutes until something appeared. Three hours later still nothing. Instead, there was a little note saying it was postponed until the following day.

Story of our military lives.

This morning I was checking in on Facebook and someone had asked what bases were available. Well, I wasn't going to check the website again because it had said it wasn't going to be ready but I did anyway. The list is out and had been at some point after we went to bed (not that the info. was going to change or someone was going to beat us to the prime choices if we had stayed up). So for those that care:

In ABC order
Barksdale - Louisiana -1 position
Cannon - New Mexico - 1 position
Lackland - Texas - 4 positions
Peterson - Colorado - 1 position
Robins - Georgia - 4 positions
Scott - Illinois - 2 positions
Tinker - Oklahoma - 5 positions

So, Charlie is not up yet (he still doesn't know) but we will probably pick in this order:

#1 Georgia
#2 Illinois
#3 Colorado
#4 Oklahoma
#5 Texas

Most likely we will get Georgia. We have friends that are there now. It would be great to be near them. Also, it's fairly close to home. A weekend trip wouldn't be too hard to make. We should find out in Feb. If we don't get picked then the next list that comes out is an overseas list on Feb. 3.

How Come...

How come when I call the clinic to make an appointment I get put on hold for 20 minutes, told the system is down, told to talk to a nurse to see if my need is relative to make an appointment for, told the next available appointment is in the next month but they can't make an appointment that far out and to call back in a week, I call back for said appointment and get one two weeks later, see the doc. for 10 mins. told to take some Motrin and feel better at home because I obviously didn't do that yet and I'm waisting his time?

And Charlie calls for an appointment for Jasmine's toe late in the afternoon, gets an appointment for 9:00 the very next morning, gets seen, decides to go ahead and cut the nail off right then and there in the office and gets her antibiotic right then along with a doctor's note to skip gym for the next 10 days.

What is up with that? I can't stand the double standards at the clinic here. They must have my name written under mental patients not to make an appointment for. I almost died last year with walking pneumonia and was finally seen 6 weeks later just to be told to go home and make some chicken soup. I mean really? I never call for an appointment unless I'm almost dead.

Was ist Los?

What's going on, you ask?

Last night we went to Four Seasons for dinner. It's a tepinyaki steakhouse where they cook your meal in front of you. Anyway, when the waiter asked me for my two sides I could only think of one, potatoes. I have my soup, salad, rice and bread already what more do I need? He shows me the list and I can either have bean spouts or spaghetti also. Well, I'm not having the bean sprouts so spaghetti it is. Weird. I'd never have thought I'd get spaghetti at a Japanese steakhouse. It was just strange watching him fry up the noodles on the stove with oil and garlic. And it was even more strange eating spaghetti noodles without sauce along with my chicken, steak and potatoes.

Today Charlie is taking Jasmine to the clinic to have her nasty ingrown toenail looked at. This will be her 3rd one taken off. This one is worse than all the others but I will spare you the details. Since she's 13 now, I don't ask to look at her toes. She avoids talking about it at all cost. She's afraid of needles and knows the process of having part of her toenail removed. Actually, this time she asked us if they could put a chemical on it so it would never grow back. We'll talk about it more this week (at this point in life she doesn't care about cute heels, painted nails and hideous big toes).

Our "list" comes out tonight. There's no definite time on when it will be out. So every 5 mins. I'll be refreshing the computer page until it shows (even if I have to stay up all night). We're hoping for something good!

Charlie took the week off work to study for his college math exam. I've been tutoring him for a few weeks now. He'll be taking his test next week. Wish him luck. He'll have his CCAF (Community College of the Air Force) completed and be one step closer to making the rank of Senior Master Sergeant which is a very big deal. I'm proud of you honey!

Moving On Up

Loving my new HP TouchSmart. Our old computer is on it's last leg. It's 7 years old and things are breaking little by little with it. First, the keyboard stopped working, then the mouse, then the printer. We got new hubs for the mouse and keyboard but we were unable to have the printer. I could still print using a sd card but it's more difficult. This week it took a few times to start it up so we weren't sure how many times it would last. Originally, we decided to wait until we moved since we'd have a better selection of computers in the states but once we saw this one, we were hooked. So far we love it. It only has 1 wire to plug in instead of our 8 or so wires from our old computer. Everything is inside the screen; the hard drive, speakers, camera. Plus, it's a touch screen. We don't have to use a mouse we can just touch the screen to do all the work and even write and draw with our fingers. It's awesome!

A Taste of Asia

Charlie's sister called the other day and said her daughter is doing a project on Asia (how convenient). She was asking if we could send anything about where we live (why, of course!). So we went to our local travel center and picked up one of every brochure and magazine of places to travel here. They are neat because they are in Japanese on one side and in English on the other side. We bought a few things around town: an origami crane, umbrella, shisha dogs, chopsticks and a package of candy and snacks. I also printed off a lot of pictures we took of castles, shrines, people and landscapes of Japan, Thailand and China. She's sure to get an A on this project. How many kids from small town NC can say they have family in Japan?

Happy 78th Birthday Paw!

(My, don't the girls look so small there? They've grown tons in the last four years)

We were home getting ready for bed and watching the Today Show (bed...Today Show...live?). Yes. The Today Show live at 10pm. Anyway, back to my story... A segment about Elvis's birthday comes up. Charlie turns to me and says,

"It's Paw's birthday! I have to call him!"

He can't remember anyone outside of our immediate family's birthday but he can remember Paw's because he shares it with Elvis (only if he is reminded that it's Elvis's birthday).

Happy 78th Birthday Paw! We love you and miss you. Can't wait to be home later this year!

So It Begins...

Lately it seems that all I do is tell the girls to pick up their stuff. They've been leaving it around everywhere for me to trip over, get tangled up in, and leave it all over the counters so when I need to drop the groceries I'm left to search for another spot. It has gotten out of hand. So today when we got home from school, clubs, commissary shopping, I immediately head for the kitchen to unload my bags. I see once again that Jasmine had beat me to the space. She's stands there and looks at me with my hands full.

I ask, "Can you please move your stuff?"

She whips her hair around, snags her purse under her arm and walks away. I see the attitude and lash back,

"Stop the attitude."

She looks at me and with her most dramatic voice says, "That's no attitude. That's acting!"

It's great living with a teen.

Baby It's Cold Outside

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know what you're thinking...first what is that thing in the picture? It's Charlie's scuba thingy but the numbers at the bottom tell the temperature. It reads 50 degrees. Gasp! Ok so you aren't gasping but we are. Come on, we live on a tropical island here. It's not suppose to get that low. I don't own any long sleeved shirts. I have one blue sweatshirt that Charlie just loves (not really, he hates it now because I have nothing else to wear). We don't have central heat either. We all sit under one heater that never warms up the place. Wah, wah, wah. Anyway, can't wait for spring to get here. It's just around the corner and those beautiful cherry blossoms will be Springing up by the end of this month!!!

This is how I felt too. She snuggled herself under the blanket.

Totally Random

These are things that went on this weekend. They are totally random and is usually what happens in our house day to day.

I made cake balls. They were easy to make but time consuming. 1. bake a cake 2. mix it in a mixer 3. add frosting while mixing it 4. make into balls 5. refrigerate 6. melt chocolate 7. dip into chocolate and set aside to harden. They are yummy but very rich.

Charlie grew a goatee over Christmas break. The kids hate the scruff. He loves to rub it on their faces and they hate it. They kept asking him when he'll shave it. Tonight.

We've been working with Sandy on cuddling. After 2 1/2 years she has finally decided that she loves us and wants to stay. She wants to cuddle but just doesn't know how. Usually, we have to grab her and put her into position. She only stays for about half an hour max.

Maya is working on puzzles again. She completed a 1000 piece before break and she finished this 750 piece in 1 day. I can never go wrong in getting her a puzzle.

Charlie went scuba as I said in an earlier post. Jasmine got sick early Sat. morning and slept until noon Sun. She's better now. The girls (well, this girl) are ready for school to start tomorrow. I dread the 5 am wake-ups but I'll be happy to have the day to myself and have the house clean again. We are still counting down the days for the all knowing "list", 10 days now. So those were the highlights of our weekend.

First Dive of the Year

Charlie started off the year with a scuba diving trip. He has warned me that he'll be scuba diving every other weekend until we leave (I think it will be much more than that actually). He took some AMAZING pictures on this trip.

Black Lion fish

Long-beaked butterfly fish

Crown of thorns star fish

Yellow tang

Clown fish

Clown butterfly fish

Morish idol

Necklace sea star