Where We Live

This is our funky house.  This is the front door, which faces.... the giant back yard!

And check this out!  Coolest thing ever!  We have a real banana tree crowing in our yard.

Even more awesome- it is growing actual BANANAS!

We unpacked the machete and did a little pruning on the tree.  The girls thought it was so much fun to hack up the stem.

No one lost any limbs... except the banana tree.

These were bowing the tree down, and they broke off during a storm.  We brought inside to see if they would ripen. 

Oh yeah, back to the house stuff.  This is the view from our front porch.  The front porch that faces the back yard.

And the view from the other side, where we have a sliding glass door to this side of the house and this view. That bright yellow is the new elementary school, which the girls will walk to next year.

This is my new van.  It is a Toyota Hi-Ace.

And Dan got a matching silver Cube3.  

Why I'm hating life

While I was playing with family and having a marvelous time in the USA, Dan had been in Okinawa.  He miraculously was offered a house exactly where we hoped to be.  We had been told that Aug 29th was the estimated arrival of our household goods, so Dan got a set of loaner furniture.  They do a one time drop off and pick up of this loaner furniture.  So, when our stuff arrived on JULY 29, a month earlier than anticipated, Dan didn't have the loaner stuff picked up, in case I wanted to keep some of it for the next 3 years (I did). So he had a house full of furniture when the movers arrived with all our furniture and crammed it in.  Dan was alarmed at the space all the boxes were taking and asked the movers to unpack.  Apparently "unpack" meant "dump contents in a pile on the floor", because that's what they did.

I arrived home to a house I had never before seen and to this awful mess on August 16.  I was not pleased.

This is the kitchen.  Since he was using it, Dan had put things away a bit so it doesn't look too awful.

This is the dining room.  

Different dining room angle. 

Dining room from the other side.

Living room, with all the dressers and night stands in it. 

 Other side of the living room.

Front entryway.  These are about all the boxes left to unpack and there were about 30 of them. (2 weeks later and most of them are still there!) 

 View down the hall, mattresses and beds lining the wall.

The big closet.  And I think, It HAD to have been easier to put things in the back and fill it up that way, rather than dumping it all in the front.  There were an awful lot of "What the HECK?!!" moments during the first few days.  And why?  Why is stuff in all the wrong rooms?  Why is all the closet stuff lying on the floor rather than hung up?  Why are my Ball gowns under a pile of toys in the girls' room? Why?!

And why didn't the movers put the support bar on Delaney's loft bed?  That one had an answer.  Because they broke 3 of the 4 barrel nuts that went to it.  But, HOW?!

 This is how I felt the entire first week.

On the plus side, I don't know that I mentioned that Dan was able to get Levi over to Okinawa easy peasy.  Our most amazing and awesome neighbors in Iwakuni, who loved Levi more than us, doggie-sat him all summer.  A week before I flew in to Okinawa with the kids, Dan had a work trip back to Iwakuni and he was able to add Levi to his return ticket and brought the dog back with him.  Poor Levi was so confused.  But he is happy now that all his people are home!

Going Home!

 Is it really going home if you haven't really been there?  Well, that's what we did.  Tuesday August 15, we were at the airport at 4am, when the Tulsa airport opened.  We checked in to our 5am flight and started the insanity.  We had 9 (gasp!!) bags for the 6 of us, although does it count if one was a carry-on? Three of the bags were perilously close to the 50 pound limit, with one of them clocking in at exactly 50 pounds on their scale! But we got it all checked in, boarding passes printed and off we went.

A sampling of the luggage.

4:30am shenanigans in the airport on the way to our gate. 

We flew from Dallas to LAX and then from LAX to Tokyo, and from Tokyo to Naha, Okinawa. 26 hours of travel, I think it was.

The girls were happy to watch whatever they wanted, and they slept very little. 

We had to get the luggage in Tokyo to run it through customs.   This cherubic face was the exception. Tempers were short, since we were all very tired and grumpy.

Waiting for the final flight and Callie could not stay awake.  I wasn't sure I could get her up and on the plane! But we all made it and all the kids sacked out for pretty much the entire 2 hour flight. 

Happy to be done traveling and happy to enjoy this when we arrived in Naha.

Too much fun

 Did I mention how much the kids enjoyed plying with Aunt Miranda's kids? It was a bit different for my girls, since we are not into much physical wrestling sorts of things.  It was (mostly) enjoyed.

The boys were thrilled to have someone to jump on.

And the girls apparently didn't mind the smooshing. 

Callie and Marian also spent an entire afternoon catching pets. 

They caught a few cicadas and tied threads to them. 

I was impressed with their dedication and concentration. 

Marian and her new guy. 

Taking him out for a spin. (The other end of the thread is tied to that stick.) 

Apparently is started off well.... 

But didn't quite go as planned.  It buzzed around her and then landed on her neck. 

Hello, lovely.

The Park.... and an... owl?!

 We took a lovely walk to the park on Sunday afternoon.  We needed to work some wiggles out.

It worked.  There was some climbing.

And more climbing on things. 

There was posing. And lots of walking and rock throwing. 

And more posing. 

Yeah, everyone needed to pose on the posts. 

But they were so cute! 

And then there were jumping photos. 

Which were pretty dang funny. 

I don't know what they were doing but they are so sweet sometimes.

And then, as we were leaving this guy had an OWL in the back of his truck.  The kids asked him about it and he got it out for us.  Most random and awesomest thing ever!  He talked about it and where it came from (Asian owl from Japan rescued from a zoo, I think).   

It was a really neat experience and the kids all got to pet it.  It was a super nice guy and a super nice owl.