Gordies

I have found the best burger joint here in Okinawa.

7 Years

Bryson today is your 7th birthday and I wonder how it's even possible.  Where has the time gone, how did we get here.  7 years has gone by so quickly and you have changed so much.  You amaze your father and I everyday. 

• You are reading at a second grade level.
• You say that your school work is too easy.
• You have told me to tell the teacher to give you harder work.
• You love Star Wars and Bakugan guys.
• You still love your DS and have way to many games for it.
• You take such good care of your little brothers, and they love you so much.
• You love to carry Chase around.  When you get home from school you always say how much you have missed him.
• You love chocolate and could eat it all day long.  Everything has to be chocolate: ice cream, cake, candy, doughnuts, muffins, pancakes, I mean everything.
• You were the man of the house for 9 months, while your daddy was fighting the war in Afghanistan.
• You lost four teeth this past year.
• Your teacher wrote a note to me that said your handwriting is IMPRESSIVE but that you were a PERFECTIONIST.  I am not sure if that's a bad thing or not.
• Your best friend is Carter.
• In the last 6 years of your life you have lived in New Mexico, Texas, Arizona, North Carolina and now Japan.  You are officially a world traveler.
• At your school checkup last month you were 49 inches and 52 lbs.  
• Your vision is 20/15 on both eyes.

As usual I am sure I am missing many more items.  You have been a blessing to both your father and I and we are so happy that you joined our family that Tuesday night at 10:48pm in Las Cruces, New Mexico weighing in at 6.15 lbs and 20 inches.  You have grown so much and we love you.

5 Months

Chase, you have definitely had some ups and downs this month.  I realized you just seemed so skinny and was really starting to worry about your weight.  You had your four month check up at four and a half months and you had lost 1 pound and 6 ounces.  You had mommy and the doctor very worried.  We started feeding you bottles as well as nursing and you are doing so much better.

• Everything goes into your mouth.
• You want everything that is within your reach and beyond.
• You will try your hardest to reach, grab and then insert in your mouth everything.
• You can already hold it by yourself.
• You can stand and hold onto the coffee table (though my hands are always right there)
• You are now back on your awesome sleeping schedule of sleeping through the night.
• You love your exersaucer.
• You have developed quite the personality.
• You love your blankies.
• You still love your mimi(pacifiers).
• Bath time is one of your favorite things to do, you love to swim after your toys.
• You love your brothers and your brothers love you.  You tolerate them so well and allow them to hold you, squeeze you, rock you upside down in your carseat, lay on you, smoother you, kiss you, fight over you, and ignore you.
• You love to play with kitty.
• You love to stand up.

We love you so much.

Boxes, Boxes, and more Boxes

Bryson and Carter's room

The hallway upstairs.

Chase's Room

Our Room

The Living Room

The Kitchen

The Kitchen

Kitchen

And one more of the Kitchen.  I have a lot of work in the kitchen huh?

Living Room

Saturday was delivery day.  Joe had called last week and our stuff had just cleared customs so Joe was able to set up a delivery time and finally after 78 days we were reunited with our things.

The delivery was set up to arrive between 8am and 5pm.  They showed up 7:47 and were done unloading all the crates, unpacking the kitchen items, and setting up the bunk beds in less than 3 hours.  Holy Cow!  It would have taken the Americans all day to unload our things.  We had nine Japanese men and they reminded me of little worker ants.  Unlike in the states there was no smoke breaks every 15 minutes, there was no getting on their cells phones, there was no just standing around because they were tired or hot, and the biggest observations was, they weren't expecting us to give them food or beer for their work. 

Now if I could just keep working instead of stopping because I am tired and overwhelmed I think I might just get somewhere.

"Mom, what is that?"

This was the question Bryson asked me while I was setting up my new Magic Jack.  I will explain the Magic Jack in just a second.

I pulled a telephone out of a box and Bryson proceeded to ask me what it was.  How sad is it that my own 6 year old has never seen a regular phone in our household.  We have always had cell phones.  When he asked me that I just started laughing and told him that this was great blogging material.

On to the Magic Jack.  This is genius and so cheap.  You pay 39.95 for the first year.  And this includes the actual Magic Jack device and the first year of service and the year after is 19.95.  That's it for as many phone calls, for all the minutes you want, for any country.  How amazing!  I know of some people that don't even have a home line any more.  They buy the Magic Jack and use it as their home phone number.  What phone number?  You choose the area code you want and the prefix you want and then Magic Jack chooses the last four numbers.  As long as your computer is on you can make calls.  I believe, but don't quote me, that you can receive calls if your computer is off also but that it goes straight to voice mail.  I am so excited about this service.

And no I am not getting paid to tell you all about Magic Jack, I just like it that much.  Though I have only made one phone call so far.  It's to early to call any of my friends and family right now, but I was able to call my Gigi and Poppy because they get up so early.

If you are thinking about getting a home phone check this product out.  The great thing about it that you can even travel all over the world and just bring the little magic jack and a phone with you and you can hook it up to any computer.  GENIUS!

Oh and Joe just got off the phone and he says its pretty good for calling half a world away.

First Day of Pre-School

Today was Carter's first day of school. He had a great day today. He came home and said he made 6 friends. Tonight we went to Chili's for his special dinner. We have been talking a lot about school lately and he says he doesn't want to go to college. I asked him why and he said because he doesn't want to live there. Then he asks me if they have food at college. All in all I think he had a great day at school, and I am thankful there are many years before college.

Torii Beach

We went to Torii Beach today. Actually this morning. We wanted to start our day off early before it got to hot for Chase. We were in the car and headed to the beach by 9 this morning. I think we were actually on the beach by 9:20. We went to another beach and its up the highway a bit. Torii Beach actually sits on an Army Post. What was nice about it was the beach itself, there was a food shack (though we didn't try), kayak rentals, and then a huge slide. The slide has 5 turns and lands in pool water. I believe it's 200 feet or so. The boys had a blast going down it, Joe included. He like to see how much water he can shoot over the sides with his speed. I have to say I got going pretty fast as well and flipped all the way over onto my belly on one of the turns.

Chase had a great time in the Ocean and hanging out on the beach. You should see all the photos I took. I took the rebel in a Ziploc bag and my telephoto lens. I took tons of photos, close up ones of Chaser's first time in the ocean, and nice wide angle ones to show the whole ocean behind him. I was so proud of this moment.

I came home to go through the pictures and realized I hadn't even inserted the memory card into the camera before we left. I took tons of photos with no memory card in the camera. I am so mad at myself. This was Chase's first time in the ocean and I missed it.

I guess there's always next time.

Old Friends

We went out to eat and then to American Village Friday night with some old friends.  In high school I ran cross country with Leann and Ramon.  They were the cutest little couple then and they still are.  They have two children.  Allissa is nine and absolutely adorable, and Anthony is six and all boy like Bryson and Carter.

The funny thing is, about a week after we arrived here I received an email from Leann.  The subject said Okinawa.  She asked me if I happened to be on the island because she could have swore she saw me walking while she was driving away.  I replied yes of course and then my next thought was, I can't believe she didn't pick me and the kids up.  She let us walk in the hot, humid heat.  

Actually that wasn't my next thought, I didn't think of it until weeks later.  Though honestly when you are in the military how often is it that you think you are going to see someone you know, on and island, in Japan.  I would have driven right past me also and not even had sent me an email.  That's borderline crazy status isn't it?

I am so thankful she did as our kids get along great, actually poor Allissa just puts up with all the boys.  Leann is just as much fun to hang out with as she was years ago and Ramon is just the same, quite and willing to do anything Leann asks.  They are a great couple, and we are blessed to have them here.

Lets Play a Game

Here are a few local fruits that I have on hand and I thought it would be fun for you all to play a game.  So...are you up for the challenge?

Match the fruit with it's appropriate meat.

1.


2.
3.
4.
A.
B.
C.
D.