Goodbye Levi!

Transporting a dog back from Okinawa is not for the fain of heart. Nor is it for the light of pocket!  With our impending move, we came up with a complicated plan to get Levi back in the least stressful way. And it was still plenty stressful!

Dan had a conference in San Diego to go to.  So he bought his tickets and added Levi onto them.  Then discovered his plane had downsized and could not take pets.  He scrambled and 72 hours before, was able to have reservations.  Whew!  He had a one way ticket from Okinawa to Osaka on ANA, Cost: $60 for the dog.  Then he had a one way ticket to fly JAL from Osaka to LAX.  Cost for the dog: $400.  That was about double what it would have been with his original China Airlines flight, but whatever.  He was going!!  This is the photo of Levi chillin' at the Quarantine office in Hana.  You have to go there 24 hours before your flight leaves to make sure you have all your paperwork.  We did.

Monday, March 9, Levi was off to the USA!  Here's my good boy, ready for his flight to Osaka.

This is how he came out at LAX!  He was the goodest good boy and did just fine.  Hopefully this is his last flight ever!  He is off to spend a few months with the grandparents until we can move back and pick him up.

One of these days I will say NO..... but Today is not that day

Callie likes to foster dogs.  Dan and Marian do not enjoy this.  Delaney and Rylee sway their opinion based on the weather. We had told Callie no more fosters till after January.  But January was a bad time and we pushed her off longer.  With Levi leaving, we agreed that she could foster once he was gone.

Well, the day before Levi flew out, our foster organization had a hoarding situation with 20 dogs needing homes.   I said that we could take one if they needed us to.  They needed us to.  With fingers crossed, we went out to pick up a dog.  On FB they had referred to the dog as Oreo.  When we got there to pick him up, they called him Cheese.  Neither name is good, but we don't have anything better to call him, so he is kind of nameless right now.

But this is the sweet boy. 

He is solidly medium sized. I think he is around 6 months, but he hasn't been to the vet yet to know anything about him. 

He is a snuggly boy. 

And he does the funniest things with his paws. 

So far he has been great- no accidents in the house, no chewing stuff.  He occasionally howls when he is sad and lonely (he went from living with 19 dogs to zero!), and will pull stuff out of the trash, but he's a good boy.

His white ear is always up, and his black ear folds over. 

Something else Dramatic!!

Marian wanted cute braided buns and this was my best effort.  I guess down on brown does not show up well.  Sigh. They were super cute, I promise!

And then..... this girl decided it was time to cut her hair. She talked about it for weeks before I finally called my haircutting friend and made an appointment for her to come over and snip-snip it. 

This is the "Before" shot. Look how long it is!  And it is SO thick and heavy.

This is how short she wanted it!

She absolutely loves it. 

And it is really cute.

Rylee also needed  haircut.  She was getting a bit scraggly.  But I couldn't cut her hair and do the layering properly. 

 And somehow Rylee only got a "Before" picture and not an "after"  I'll have to download the pictures on my phone and see if we got one. Oops!  We trimmed maybe 2 inches and it looks so much neater. 

Adventure Time

Our Adventure this week was to walk across the island.  Sort of.  We drove across the island, the short way, and parked by the beach, then walked the scenic route back to the base. It was somewhere around 5+ miles.

The beach we parked at had this random mermaid in the water.  What the heck?!

Of course I needed a selfie!

And there was this random pirate figure as well.  So fun.

This was why we had parked there.  It is a memorial of some sort.  I didn't research this adventure, so I'm not sure what it is for, and I feel bad about that.

We had to walk across a mountain, and off the road were these stairs.  Lots of stairs.  (Full disclosure, my awesome photographer friend Anna took this shot!)

View from the top of the stairs.

This also was at the op of the stairs.   

(Another Anna Photo!) This is the oldest tomb on the island, I think, from 1400's? And someone important is buried here. 

We walked on windy little roads, saw the ocean, walked over a mountain and wandered picturesque streets.

Did I mention ocean views?!

Amy and Brook, two of the awesome ladies I got to hang out with.

 I love Japan!  Look at these adorable plants.....

The flowers were growing out of large shells.  So kawaii!! 

We stopped by Nakamura House- the only still-standing Japanese house from a long time ago.  It was very cool.

And it had awesome landscaping.

Then we went to lunch at this foodie  place. You know, the kid of place where they only serve 5 things and they are weird?

This is my "raw ham, fig and blue cheese" sandwich.  Thankfully raw ham only meant not treated and cooked like ham usually is.  And thankfully it was really tasty.

We left at 9am and I got home a bit after noon, with a bit of sunburn.  It was a great morning!

Callie's Play

At Christmastime, Callie tried out for the Far East Drama Team.  She just wanted the experience, and had no thought that she would make it.  But she did!  She was a little distressed by that as she hadn't really expected to be chosen. But the Drama director assured me that Callie won her spot on her own merits and she deserved to be there.

Callie worked very hard for the next weeks, learning her part and perfecting it.  The 40 minute play was called "Women and War" and was presented mainly through letters written (and read by the actors).  Callie played a "donut gal" from one of the wars, and also played the part of an elderly woman remembering her role as a telegraph operator in WW2.

Showtime finally arrived and we took the family to see the play.  Callie BLEW me away!  The play was pretty intense and not for kids, and Callie played her part so well. I honestly had no idea she could do that!  I may have shed a tear or two or three at her part.  It was really great.

Sadly, Far East was not to be.  All the Dodea Drama Teams in the Asia area were suppose to go to Iwakuni to perform and compete the last week of February.  Unfortunately, the covid 19 corona virus blew up in Korea the week before, and all Far East competitions were cancelled thru April.  It was so sad.   Callie did not get to fly out to compete.  However, the drama teacher was able to set it up so that Kadena HS came over that Wednesday and both schools were able to perform for each other, and they held some hour long acting workshops for them. So Callie didn't get the whole week off school, just one day, but she did enjoy that immensely.

I know that photos can't really convey how awesome she was and how good the play was, but here are photos of Callie from it!