I had all sorts of ideas for my first post from Japan...but since I cannot upload any pictures and ALL of blogger is in symbols (not Japanese mind you, but little boxes that are supposd to represent Japanese)...I figure I can only hope to tell everyone about our first few days on island. Our flights over were rather uneventful and the animals did as well as could be expected. The sponsor assigned to us picked us up from the airport and took us to our hotel and then out to eat at some of the best sushi I have ever had. Driving over here is a trip!! They drive on the left side of the road...with NO RULES!! I swear Doy's (our sponsor) little car was inches from the other cars on more than one occasion. Speaking of driving...we bought a car yesterday! Thank goodness for the lemon lots on base. We hooked ourselves up with a little Toyota Rav. I always made fun of these little compact SUV's in the states, but they are almost gargantuan over here. I actually was pulling for the really cute green Mini-Cooper but it didn't hold anything but us and was over twice the cost of what we paid. Oh well... The housing issue is atrocious right now. With the Air Force in charge of everything, there are quite a few questionable practices (in my eyes at least...which means nothing to everyone else). Right now we are supposed to be offered housing within the week. This would be awesome, if there wasn't a chance that we could be offered Tower housing (where pets are not allowed). We get two chances to accept housing before getting kicked off the list and having to go out in town to find a place to live. I actually wouldn't mind living out in town, except the pets then have to stay in the boarding kennels until October to finish up their quarantine. Living off-base is actually really safe here. Michael had heard that if there is a crime committed on the island, then there is a 90% rate of finding that individual. Who knows if it quite this high though. Michael is actually checking in at this moment to his unit...hopefully he found the place where he was supposed to go b/c they didn't know where he was supposed to be assigned as of last week :) I'm stuck in the hotel room (thank God for the computer and internet in our room!!) until we can get our licenses on Wednesday. Then I get to try my hand at actually driving over here...watch out Okinawans!!
I have lots of pictures from our adventures across the states...the drives were pretty uneventful. I do say that Oklahoma needs to spend more of their federal money on fixing their roads though. We got to go to a nice Italian dinner and see Mystere in Vegas for our third anniversary which was great. Michael's step-sister even got up from Dallas for a few days so we could spend some time with her. We went and saw two impersonation-ish shows there in Vegas too. One was at the Hilton and had one band that covered 6-7 different bands (Van Halen, Pink Floyd, Aerosmith, Elton John, etc) and the other was at the Stratosphere and more diverse with performers covering Prince, Britney Spears, Michael Jackson, etc--both were very cool!! Unfortunately, Michael's dad took a turn for the worse while we were there so he ended up back in the hospital the day we left for WA. He's doing better now (the last report we received) and is now in rehab. Please pray for a quick recovery for him as this has been a very long and painful disease. Once we got to Kennewick we got some great time with my brothers, sis-in-law, parents, nieces and nephew!! It's hard to imagine how much more grown up they'll be when I see them again. It's also sad to think that I didn't even get to see Bryan and Kristen's little boy before I left...or how big Garrett and Sarah's little ones had gotten. I am very happy that we got to see my friend Monica, her fiance Chris and meet their little boy Dominic--so cute!! If I had one thing to do over again, I would definitely have stressed less about the move and taken more time to just enjoy everyone more. Maybe then I wouldn't have cold sores all over my lips! Maybe someone can tell me how to turn Blogger back into English so I won't be so afraid to post, but until we get our own computer there won't be any pictures...sorry!! We miss everyone!
**Update**
I have gotten Blogger into English, but I am still having trouble getting it to publish...if you see this then I have been successful :) hee hee...
I'm not saying I think I'm going to start a career in dog grooming...Lord knows I don't have the patience for that...but I don't think I did THAT bad of a job. Especially since this was my first try ever with the clippers! The pictures, however, are pretty forgiving. The clippers got really hot and I thought I might burn her so I stopped...otherwise she would have been a little more evened out. Oh well!! Its a net $10 in my pocket--with more savings to come (since I clip her nails myself too!)
and this is Michael's Toyota Rav!
Then she couldn't figure out how to get down. That was funny :)
Pigdog is a good military family dog. She adapts quickly to any situation! Give her a couch to lay on and she is a happy girl! (These were the issued couches that we sent back b/c we brought our own--we highly recommend doing that!!)
And for my Starbucks addicted brother and sis-in-law, you'll be happy to know that if you come and visit there is one right outside the gate!
As always...we have to watch the fountains at the Bellagio at least once at night:
Jan was nice enough to take our picture before we left the house:
Livi-Lou getting extra ice-cream from her Papi:
Outside in the swimming pool, Boo loves to jump right off the edge into her Ya-Ya's arms and Tay loves to play with the hose and the watering can...
Nothin' like some Otter Pops to cool everyone down!
Livi in her "dress":
The boys playing some PS3.
Too cute...
