27 weeks and counting...

Project Central...

Alright, so we didn't really do anything "relaxing" this weekend...since Josh seems to be in "project mode"...but we did enjoy a nice weekend of beautiful weather and had the chance to make some great progress with things around the house!

On Friday night we went out to dinner with my former students at Yokosuka City Office. They were very excited to see my "ever-expanding" stomach and it was fun to enjoy a meal out with people who could speak Japanese and take care of ordering everything at the restaurant!! (incidentally, Josh and I are becoming increasingly embarrassed about our weak Japanese skills...so I'm looking into some language classes on base to give us the boost we need) We enjoyed some delicious food and lots of laughs during our conversations (though, admittedly, Josh and I didn't always know what we were laughing about!) It was, however, the start to their Golden Week holiday and a Friday night too...so everyone was in good spirits!

After dinner we returned home and started building! We put together the dresser and crib that we had purchased earlier in the week...ta-da.....





On Saturday, I had visions of a picnic lunch at the Imperial Gardens (in Tokyo)...but Josh had visions of completing tasks for the baby's room (this is usually the case with us....he likes to work until the job is COMPLETE and then have fun and I like to have fun and work sometimes and complete the job when I get annoyed with myself for not having it completed yet...oh well!) So, we decided to postpone the picnic lunch for another day and we headed to Homes (the Japanese version of Home Depot) to get all the gear we needed to build picture frames. (not an easy feat when everything is in Japanese!)



Well, our pictures won't be up for auction at Sotheby's anytime soon...but we did put a lot of time and t.l.c. into making the frames and they don't look too bad (unless you get up really close!)



We did finish our framing project in time to spend a bit of time outside on Sunday afternoon. Josh is getting ready for his upcoming fitness test, so he ran and I biked beside him! We didn't really have a destination in mind, but we ended up stumbling upon the Hiyama Arts Festival...which was certainly an interesting cultural experience. It was taking place at a nearby beach and seemed to have the mood of a Japanese-style hippie festival - complete with Japanese Bluegrass Music??? (interesting!)...sorry we didn't have a camera to capture the intrigue!

Spring is here!

I think we've been battling it out with the east coast for who can have the most unusual weather this spring...something about snow in the middle of April may have us beat (Pennsylvania 1 - Japan 0) ...but people around here are scratching their heads and trying to figure out what is going on with our (usually) lovely spring weather?!?

Well, for the last two days we've gotten a taste of the spring weather we know and love - which is great! It's been sunny and 70 and just beautiful outside. The cherry blossoms have completely faded now, but they've been quickly followed by azaleas and dogwood trees which have filled the streets and parks with color!

Tomorrow begins a National Holiday week in Japan known as Golden Week...so I'll have to do some research and fill you in on that later. It's a pretty big deal since all the schools and many businesses are closed. Apparently hotels and vacation spots are booked months in advance and the cost of most vacation packages triples during this season...kind of like Thanksgiving and Christmas travel in the States.

We're hoping to relax and play a bit this weekend since poor Josh has had very little down time since his ship arrived back last week. The Commodore (commanding officer - a.k.a Josh's big boss!) for the Destroyer Squadron is moving on to a new job and being replaced by a new person ("Change of Command" is the Navy term for this event!), so that has brought a lot of extra meetings and tasks for Josh and the people of his office. Hopefully it will be a smooth transition for everyone!

In other news...it looks as though I will actually receive my diploma from Old Dominion Univ. as a I have now officially completed all of the requirements for my Masters in Reading and Reading Specialist Certification!! Hooray!

It's been a fun week of events and accomplishments for the rest of my family too! Grant celebrated his 14th birthday today. Sam will attend his Junior Prom tomorrow. And Ben finished up his last day of classes and will graduate from Temple Univ. next week!!! Hooray again!! (Hannah finished up classes too, but she still has one year to go!)

Guess I'd better get my act together and enjoy this beautiful day outside!

Hello At Last!

After returning to Japan just over a week ago and then entertaining my friend Toni from England, I'm just now settling into home life back in Yokosuka! It was hard to come back after such a wonderful time in the States, but I'm slowly remembering that life here isn't so bad and that we have a myriad of things to be thankful for!

We're starting to gear up for the arrival of our little one this summer - now that my stomach is truly looking like there's a baby inside, it seems like a good time to start getting the nursery ready and such! Of course, we'll have to start by bringing in a dump truck to get rid of lots of other stuff since we're lacking in storage space (and incidentally baby's seem to require quite a bit of gear - even for us low maintenance types!) Josh and I are hoping to begin "the clean out" tonight.

As for recent Japanese adventures...Josh and I did have a lovely time in Okinawa. It's a great place to go for a bit of sun, sand, and relaxation. Hopefully next time we'll venture out to one of the surrounding islands that you can only get to by ferry!


It was really nice to have my friend Toni here (our first guest from overseas!) for a week. We ventured to some of the popular places where Josh and I had already been - Imperial Palace, Ginza (in Tokyo), and the Big Buddha. We also discovered a few new things such as: a Ninja restaurant (where you travel into a dark cave-like place and are greeted by costume-clad ninjas who serve your meal and provide magic tricks and entertainment while you eat), a Samurai festival (called Kamakura Marsuri) in the local town of Kamakura (here we watched reenactments of an archery contest where samurai shoot arrows while riding at a full gallop on horseback - the contest was originally developed hundreds of years ago to strengthen the mental power of samurai warriors), and we even hit the road for a day and drove to the local beach towns across the penisula (caught some great views of Mt. Fuji, stuck our feet in the Pacific, and ate grilled corn and pineapple ice cream on the island of Enoshima!)

The weather is very cold and rainy here, so it's a good day for cleaning! Guess I'd better get to work now!!

To the USA and beyond!!!

Hi, it’s Josh. I wanted to send you an update in case you were wondering why it’s been a month since the last blog. Don’t worry, we didn’t go anywhere! Rebecca and I have been all over the world in the last few weeks, and haven’t really had time to catch a breath. Well, that’s not really true. I’m on a ship now and have plenty of time to catch my breath, but not a lot to write about (and not much internet access either).
Here’s what’s been going on for us. Last time I wrote, I had just returned from Cambodia and was on my way back out to sea. I went out to sea for a couple of uneventful weeks and returned to Japan. I really can’t remember what I was doing then. Rebecca, meanwhile, was preparing for her big trip home. After I had been home for a few days (at the beginning of March) she caught a plane to the US to spend a month with her family. I met her a week later as I flew home (courtesy of the Navy) for a week-long pediatric conference in Bethesda. Fortunately, I was able to take a week of vacation before the conference, so Rebecca and I crammed in tons of activities during that time. Of course, this is not a blog about the US, so I will spare you the details, suffice to say that we had a blast visiting friends and family in DE, PA, DC, MD, NY, NJ, VA and NC (we flew down there for a couple of days). The conference was very good too. After the conference, I flew to Korea to meet the ships for another exercise, since they had left Japan several days earlier.
Korea is an interesting country; it has a rapidly growing economy, which has only recently become prosperous since the war, resulting in many beautiful new buildings and malls built in the middle of seemingly decaying areas. I had to take 4 different flights (Dulles – Detroit – Tokyo – Busan, Korea – Yangyang, Korea) before I finally got to my destination (it was a blessing that I caught any of them, because I missed my first leg in Dulles – long story). Between flights 3 and 4, I stayed in Hotel Nongshim in a big city called Busan. I got to explore the city for a morning, and then it was off to the airport. I didn’t get to spend much money, so now I have tons of Korean Won in my wallet to join my Cambodian Real (don’t know how to spell it), Japanese Yen and American Dollars. I didn’t get to take any pictures either because Rebecca was using the camera at her baby shower, which was taking place simultaneously. After an hour-long trip on a pristine and empty expressway though coastal Korea in a van, I met the ships in medium sized city called Donghae, where they had been for 3 days. My colleagues told me that it was just as well that I missed most of the port visit – Donghae wasn't too much fun. But there was a Pizza Hut there, which appeared to be the source of the diarrhea that I had to treat for the next week.
So I never really explored Donghae, except to look out from the ship at the beautiful snow-capped mountains that towered over the small industrial city (but sorry, no pictures!). Apparently some of the sailors got to hike in one of the valleys during a tour one of the days in the port, but I missed that one. Then, off we went into the ocean where we participated with the South Korean Navy in a week or so of exercises with planes and submarines and lots of media exposure. Of course, when I say “we,” I mean everyone else. I pretty much just treated people’s diarrhea.
Next stop was Okinawa, Japan – the place where Rebecca met me in the fall. This time, she was able to meet me again – after a marathon flight from the US. Unfortunately, unlike my first time in Okinawa where I was only with one ship, now there were 4 ships in the port – which is 1,200 sailors to get sick. So I spent a lot of time in the hospital during this visit.



However, in between hospital visits, we had lots of fun. We stayed in cabins overlooking the piers where the ships were moored (which meant I was 10 minutes from work and always on call). The cabins were nice – two queen sized bunk beds and a little kitchenette. On day one, we drove all the way to the tip of the peninsula the boats were moored on. On our way back we explored the beach and found tons of shells. Unfortunately, most of the good shells had hermit crabs inside (there were millions of them!). We tried to only take empty shells, and almost succeeded – except for the poor dehydrated hermit crab we found in our room the next morning. Don’t worry, he lived (I think). The next day, we drove about an hour to Nago, home of the largest aquarium in the world (doesn’t Baltimore say that too?). Even though Rebecca didn’t think she would like it, she ended up having fun. The aquarium was situated on a huge “Ocean Park” complex. While watching the huge whale sharks swim in a tank with moray eels and enormous stingrays was immensely interesting (and even more interesting at feeding time), Rebecca was particularly enthralled by the “Tropical Dream” gardens. For only 330 yen (around $3) we were able to enjoy several four-story greenhouses crammed full of orchids and other tropical plants. She was like my parents at a museum - I couldn’t get her to move to the next exhibit. Admittedly, the orchids were pretty cool; many of them were so strange that they could have been out of a Dr. Seuss book.
Our dinners during those two days were not nearly so exotic – Chili’s and Macaroni Grill; Rebecca was trying to adjust to Japan gradually. On the last day, we hung around the base, because I didn’t want the ships to leave without me, but neither did I want to get on before I had to. That evening, Rebecca moved out of the cabin to stay with some new friends – officers’ wives that had been staying in other cabins. They stayed in a hotel nearer to the airport; Rebecca shared a taxi to the airport the next morning on her way back to Yokosuka.
I, meanwhile, roomed with an officer from the Australian Navy, and then an officer from the Indian Navy during the most recent multi-national exercise. It was very interesting. I learned a lot about other navies: for example, in the Indian Navy, if you go to their Naval Academy, you are obligated to 20 years of Navy service (ouch – and I thought four years was bad!). Apparently that’s not so good for the morale. Also, their aircraft carrier doesn’t have powered catapults like ours. It has a ramp – like you would go over on your BMX bike – except it’s for planes. Crazy! However, the foreign officers all seemed pretty sharp and I enjoyed the cultural experience.
I am planning to be home in the next week or so and am counting down the days. Hopefully Rebecca will insert some pictures and newsy banter into this blog to make it a little more entertaining for you, dear reader. Good day!