V-Portal..

Can go to hell. That's all.

Handy? Me?

Just for the warning's sake. This post has NOTHING to do with Japan. Ok, maybe a little Japan thrown in there, but that's more because of location, location, location than anything else. Not because it has anything to do with our lives here..

Not sure yet. I know one thing for certain, I know NOTHING about wood. Yup. Nothing. Not even what wood I want to use to build a toddler bed. Nope. Not a thing. Know what a biscuit is? Nope, not me (well, now I do). How about where to get decent priced wood? Now that, I kind of know.. LOL Ok, so they might have sorta told me where to get it at the wood hobby shop on base. And where is all of this coming from? Well, I decided (being the brilliant woman that I am) that since I couldn't find a toddler bed on base, I'd just have one shipped. EEEHHH. WRONG. Nope, too heavy, won't ship to APO/FPO. Well darn. Then I thought I'd look at the exchange's website and order one (we can do that), and there were some cute ones, but the only ones I wanted were all like $200+. And then my Mom did it. She did it alright. Darn woman introduced me to Ana White. Oh yeah Mom, you did it...

So, I look at this woman's blog. Not only does Mom point me DIRECTLY to the cutest darned toddler bed, she tells me that since I can build Ikea furniture with no problems, I should be able to do this. Oh, and I should look at other things on the blog. Oh GOSH did she do it then... Did you know that there's also a twin sized bed that matches that toddler bed? That toddler bed is a scaled down version of it.. OOHH and THEN there's also a queen sized bed like it (I don't want it, but OMGOSH my entire house could match). So now I'm determined. I'm determined not only am I going to make a toddler bed for Molly, why, I think I'm also going to make Kadie a new twin bed with trundle (oh yeah, there are plans for a trundle) because the movers screwed up Kadie's bed. However, in the meantime (after talking to the girl at the wood hobby shop), I can bring in Kadie's bed and we can probably fix it. Woo hoo for that! Anyhoot, back on track here. Yeah. I've decided I now hate everything that is wood (or well, MDF and particle board) in this house and want to make it myself and replace it. Oh yeah. And if you know me, you know what that means.. I'll have a half finished house.. LOL

In all seriousness though, I really do want to make a toddler bed for Molly. After that, we'll see where we go next. I'll probably fix Kadie's bed and leave it be for now. If all goes well, then I'll make side tables for our front room.. We need side tables that I like - desperately. I have cheapo ones from Ikea. And when I say cheapo, I mean cheapo - we're talking $7.99 baby! So I'd like to make this (oh and I LOVE the third picture down.. sooo beachy)... And while we're at it.. This too.. And this.. And well, I could keep going, but you get the idea. There is a LOT I want to build. Heck, I can even re-build the storage cube bookcases we have right now. Oh that would be wonderful, I could have them in a color I like..

In other words, I want to build a lot which means I have a lot of work ahead of me. That's fine and dandy, if only I knew a single thing about wood other than it's hard. LOL So I headed into the wood hobby shop today (finding it was a feat in itself), and had a lovely chat with a girl who worked in there. Got an idea of what it'll take me to do it, but nothing on price, or even wood since all they have is maple and cherry and since she's only going to be in this bed for a couple of years, I am not too keen on spending that much on wood. (oh and btw, typical MWR run thing, they were out of wood until today). We had a nice little chat about different things where I realized I'm in WAY over my head, but hey, has that EVER stopped me? Nah, I didn't think so. :) So, now I will be stopping in again tomorrow to talk to the manager about what wood type he suggests.

uh huh. Yup. I'm in trouble.

Emergency?

Sorry I haven't been posting. I was regular there for a few days.. LOL Honestly, though, it's just been that not much has been happening. So much so, that I haven't even thought to myself, hey, I need to blog about this. Well, except maybe that Molly finally sat on her potty seat (not that she went, she had her diaper one still). Yup. It's been that boring.
Mostly, we've just been hanging around the house, not doing much. We have been doing stuff with friends, but like I said, it's mostly just the three of us. Poor Kadie, this has to be the most boring Summer on record for her.

On Sunday, we went to a friend's house. We had plans to go out into town in search of that ever so elusive fabric store. Well, we decided that hey, since it wasn't far from her house to the gate, we'd walk. Good idea! A little walking won't kill you. Boy was I wrong. Little did I know that the heat stress flags had been raised to black on Friday. Kadie was doing AWFUL by just a block or so away from her house. By time we got to the NEX, she could barely walk. Thank goodness for good friends - she actually walked back to her house to get her car so we didn't have to walk Kadie back or take a cab. Thank goodness too - she really could barely walk, every time we stopped, she'd sit down.. And then in the hallway to her apartment, Kadie started dry heaving. :( Poor thing. To top it off, our friend's one year old son was just floppy as a noodle. :( Poor guy. They all perked up inside of the nice, cool air conditioned house. So that really helped.
See? Boring. So boring that she's asleep.. At 5 in the evening..

Sooo.. That story was to explain the REALLY boring Summer. Yup. Really boring. It's too hot for the girls to do ANYTHING outdoors for any length of time. This actually includes trips to the beach. :( We are used to spending our summers out by the pool and the beach. Oh and to top it off, San Diego is having a COLD Summer. Yup.. It was in the 60s there today. Ugh - you guys suck there BTW. I miss it a lot. I love it here, but I miss my SD weather. So, instead, we've been doing everything we can indoors. My girls are itching to play outside, so much so that when an emergency happened today (search and rescue were called out), they actually sat on the deck and watched. Yup... They ran around the deck while I took video, pictures, and chatted with our neighbor about what was happening.. (and the people who lived here before us who were apparently quite loud and we're quite.. haha we're very quiet. who knew)!

They had set up an emergency command station type thing.You could see them looking out into the water with binoculars.



Yokosuka Search and Rescue. They were the second ones there (there's a police car about 10 yards forward). They are getting out their scuba gear..









You can see here how many more emergency vehicles there ended up being, and how traffic was building up.







All of this went on for about an hour or so, and then stopped. They just packed up and left. No one ever went into the water, no one ever came out either. So I don't know what happened, but it was interesting to watch.. Oh and I almost forgot..


Yup.. They had a helicopter too. It was so close and loud enough that BOTH girls had their hands over their ears.. So much for a boring evening. :)

We Interrupt This Regularly Scheduled Dinner..

To show you that a one Kadie Haworth has lost her first tooth.

More pictures.. No words to say, very TIRED after a long day with very little sleep...

Happy Birthday Molly

So today, my baby girl turns two. I'd say we're leaving the baby phase and entering the kid one. :)

So all I want to say right now (many pictures to come later) is happy birthday Molly!!!

Sunset in Akiya

Sunsets here have been.. well.. lacking for what they should be living on the coast. That's due to the cloud cover we normally have. Usually, you get little to no color, and I just want to cry for the sunsets we would have at Sunset Cliffs in San Diego. The past two days have put me to shame. They have been absolutely GORGEOUS. Yesterday, I missed most of the sunset, but I caught it after the sun had already gone down.. It was almost mystical with the clouds surrounding Fuji.. See? Just beautiful.

Tim was fairly mad (well, not really, but you know that "you suck" mentality). It seems that lately, EVERY time you can see Fuji, he's on duty. It was visible nearly the entire day last Saturday while he was on duty, and then I could see it again last night! So this morning when I woke up and could still see (what I assume is) Endoshima like I could yesterday, I told him that I was fairly certain we'd see it tonight. Sure enough, on our drive home from the NEX and Blue Street (a trip that was only supposed to take two hours took about five.. LOL), Kadie pointed out Fuji. :) We got home and I instantly pulled out my camera and headed downstairs to snap some shots of it. :)

I headed back upstairs where Tim (my bartender for the night) was getting some drinks ready. I was just sitting down to upload the pictures when we heard a big boom. Keep in mind that while we were in AOB, they told us to that during the Summer, they shoot of fireworks and have shows on the beaches constantly. When we found this place, one of the things we instantly pictured was us sitting on our deck, watching fireworks being shot off all Summer long. I was SO excited. So Summer comes around, and nothing happens. We don't see any shows. :( I figured we were in the wrong area - I wasn't sure how as the Emperor has a Summer home in the same city we live in, but you know, it was just one of those things I thought wasn't going to happen. Anyhoot, we hear a big boom and I look at Tim and say "fireworks." I headed to the window in time to see a few of them going off in the sky and I could see that they were shooting them off from the marina. Tim and I went outside (Molly stood at the window, and Kadie was getting ready for a shower). It took me a good few minutes to realize I needed to grab my camera, so I only got shots of one set, but it was beautiful! Right at sunset, so the fireworks were visible, but there was a world of color behind them! Just beautiful!! It occurred to me as we were watching the fireworks go off that Summer is JUST starting here in Japan. Their Summer vacation is much shorter than ours and is just beginning. I can only assume that this is the first of many shows to come for us! (YAY)!!
We came back in after that, and I noticed that the OCEAN was red from the colors in the sky.. Ohhh so beautiful. I couldn't grab that through the lens, but here are a few more pictures of the colors overall...





Ok... So maybe I did get the pink/red water better than I thought I did.. LOL :) I just love it..

I also love that if you look at the bottom of the picture, you can see how the Japanese will stop on the side of the road to take pictures of Fuji when they can see it. Shortly after I snapped this shot, another car pulled up behind them..









I really do love the colors.. They are just so pretty tonight..

To top if off, the moon was very clear, so with all the colors, you also had a great view of a crescent moon..





Plus.. Yesterday marked the end of the rainy season!! WOO HOO!!!!!!!!!! Could it be any better than this?!

Welcome Aboard the USS Blue Ridge

So several weeks ago, Tim's ship had a family day cruise. (YAY for not having to wait two years to finally have one like the Princeton did! haha). The cruise took friends and family up to Tokyo where the ship had some business for the weekend. Lucky for us (for once), Tim didn't have duty, and Yokosuka wasn't off limits to them. So instead of taking the bus home with the FRG families, Tim and I asked a good friend if she could pick our girls up from the CDC so I didn't have to be back by 5PM. Instead, we got a "date" night.

The cruise wasn't anything out of the ordinary. Being Tim and I (and not all that enthusiastic of anything ship related), we walked around the main deck for a while, and headed back to his space where we talked and/or read the entire time. We were also lucky that one of the people in his shop took his sea and anchor detail while I was on board. (Nice since they were at sea and
anchor the entire time we were on the cruise).

I just have one thing to say about Tokyo bay.. EW on the water - it's ALL brown.. In San Diego, once you get away from the bay and the immediate coast, the water turns this gorgeous aqua color.. In Japan, it was still BROWN.. eeewww... Remind me never to swim in that bay - the water in Sagami Bay (where we are) is the gorgeous aqua color most of the time. If it's not, it's a steel blue. Anyhoot, I was a little bummed we didn't get to go on deck and see as the ship went under the rainbow bridge (apparently, the ship BARELY makes it under the bridge), as Tim was relieving people to go eat lunch during that part, and I don't think I would have ever found my way back to his shop without his help. By time we got to go back out on deck, the ship was mooring to the pier in Tokyo. Funny thing, I have NO idea what these things are called (I have an idea of what they do though), but they needed to be moved, and in a hurry. At first they tried to move it by hand (guy with suit and tie on included), but it didn't go so well. Next thing I know, they've got the rope anchored to an SUV that's backing up very slowly. :) A few minutes later, they were suddenly trying to move the ones on the other side.. By hand. So apparently, they can move one by hand, but the other must be soo much heavier because it needs a car.. haha :P













If you don't know, the BR isn't just one command, it also has the 7th Fleet attached to it. (Ship's crew - they basically belong to the admiral on board. Tim says his next sea tour he wants ship's crew.. lol). They were the ones with things going on in Tokyo, they had a big top while they were in port there. I believe it was to celebrate something like 50 years of friendship between the Japanese and American Navies. Anyhoot, because of that, we weren't the only ship in port, nor did we have the only band. The Japanese Royal Navy and the 7th Fleet Band played back and forth. It reminded me of the Pixar short "one man band" (I think that's the name) where the two men play bigger and louder than the other for the little girl's money. :) It was cute and nice.

So that's where I'm ending for now. We got off the ship around 1:30 (about an hour after we were scheduled to moor), and went off in search of food and Tokyo Tower. (TT is the red/white Eiffel looking tower in the 4th picture). I'll post some more pics of that later, but right now, it's 11:15AM, and I really need to go do the dishes this morning!

Molly the Lion

So since I've been absent from here (sorry Bran), there's been a lot going on here. Tim's gearing up to leave again, so we're just spending the time we do have with him. For those that don't know, Molly, who used to love baths, has decided that Japanese bathtubs just don't cut it. As a result, we struggle at bathtime which comes around a lot less often than it used to because of the struggle. Well, normally, Tim's the bath giver, but since Kadie was acting up tonight and ended up having a lecture from him, I was the lucky one. She was still her usual self, but afterward is where her fun began. I don't know how I missed it before, but this kid LOVES her towels - she has two like this one - the lion and a zebra. I could NOT get her to take the towel off until she was finally settling down for the night.. In the meantime, I took advantage of the situation and snapped a few pictures. :)

She's rawr'ing at the camera (and you)!

So other than Molly deciding that her towel is her new favorite piece of wardrobe, we've been enjoying our Summer here. Surprisingly, the humidity doesn't bother me nearly as much as everyone told me it would. Heck, I don't even think it bothers me as much as I was worried it would. lol :) Of course, our dehumidifiers work WONDERFULLY, so I can't complain too much. The one thing to get used to is that Summer is rainy season here, so to do pretty much anything outdoors, we have to be prepared to be in the rain too. Also, it changes a lot - this morning it was pouring, this afternoon, it was gorgeous! Weird... Definitely something I need to get used to.

In other news, Kadie is back in ballet here. She hates it. LOL She also loves it. She hates that she gets sweaty during ballet, but we told her it's a form of exercise and since Coach (Silver Gate Coach guys) told her exercise is important, she feels she needs to continue with it. haha I hope she likes it again soon. :) The hard part is that there isn't a window or anything to me to see what's going on - talk about driving a Mom crazy - I wish I could see it and snap some photos of it.. Other than that, she wants to go to art camp this August, so hopefully, there's still space for camp then when I take her to ballet on Thursday. That should make her happy and feel that I'm less the villain in her life.. Right? Well, we can only hope.. :)
I do think that one of these days I'll take a pause from everything going on around me to stop and actually upload photos.. Today's not the day, but maybe tomorrow.. Well, we can hope right?