Our Week

Last Sunday, after I got dressed for church, Amelia comes in and says she wants to match me.  I'll take it as long as I can!  

 After church (and a church meeting we forgot about), we headed out for a quick hike.  Amelia said she wanted to match me again!  I 

don't know what was going on, but I like it!

All of the rain we got last week has turned everything green!  It's a great change from the dead, brown we see all of the time.

 When we got home, we played in the yard for awhile and then made a fire.  Caleb wanted to learn to chop wood.

 Monday, the kids received three different packages for Easter.  It was like Christmas!  Thank you!!

 Caleb got a camping knife.

 The rest of the week, we ran errands and saw Peter Rabbit...which was so good by the way!!  

Yesterday, we finally used our gift certificates (from Christmas) from Great Aunt Trina to DojoBoom.  Kevin Bull, the American Ninja Warrior, opened a trampoline place.  It was awesome!  Our neighbors met us there and they had a great time!

 If you look behind Caleb, the man standing there is Kevin Bull.  I can't believe he was actually there working!

Later that afternoon, the street was filled with neighborhood kids playing.  There were some trying to play baseball across the street that some were riding scooters and bikes.  It was inevitable that someone was going to get hurt.  That someone was Amelia.  She scraped up her shoulder pretty bad, her hip and her elbow.  We will be going out today to get bigger bandaids and gauze to keep this clean.  

 (Don't pay attention to the other two bandaids in the picture.  Those were past injuries).

We had planned a trip to the beach today, but I don't think ocean water would help her heal.  We plan on coloring Easter eggs tonight and then tomorrow we're meeting our friend, The Plots, in a little Dutch town, Solvang, that's about 1.5 hours north of us.  That will probably be the last time we see them for the next three years.  

This Week

Shawn was sick all weekend (and even missed 2 days of work this week, which never happens).  He took down the rock climbing wall and monkey bars on Saturday.  We attempted to see Amelia's dance studio perform at Garman's Pub in Santa Paula Saturday night, but had a 1.5 wait (and still weren't called until over 2 hours later).  We headed across the street to a little bistro to eat, which turned out to be so good.  (We went with our neighbors and had a great time.  They will be missed!)

After practices and games being rained out for the last week and a half, we finally got in a game last night.  Caleb got to play a little 2nd base and even scored a run after getting walked.

 We are in the middle of an atmospheric river (look it up) and are expected to get anywhere from 5 to 10 inches of rain over the next couple of days.  Ventura schools are closed due to possible mudslides and flash flooding. They SO need it here, but the land really can't handle this much in that short amount of time.

The 3rd graders performed this morning.  They sang and played 3 songs, one of which was in Spanish.

 Shawn and I have both had our medical exam meetings and were cleared for overseas travel.  The kids both have theirs tomorrow morning.  Once they send our medical paperwork to Okinawa for review and receive the OK from them, our move will be official-official.  I rearranged the entire kitchen and put colored stickers on the doors as I go through them (which will be terrible for the next 2 months.  I hate not knowing where things are in the kitchen!).  

Green for 1st shipment.  Orange for 2nd shipment and Pink for storage.  The house is getting messier, but hopefully organized.  Spring Break starts next week and we hope to have a garage sale to start getting rid of some of out things.  

Messy House

This picture doesn't actually show just how crazy our house is getting.  I've gone through Amelia's room, Caleb's room, the linen closet (one of them) and my clothes.  I've started garage sale piles and give away piles.  Any toys the kids decide to sell, they will get to keep that money and buy new toys once we get to Japan.  

In the meantime, we still live here and I can tell things are going to get disorganized very quickly.  Unless I stay organized........

Next thing on our list are our overseas medical exams, which are all  next week.  We hope that once those are finished, the clearances will come back quickly and then we can get serious about moving to Okinawa!

Organization is Key!

This is what we're in the middle of right now.

Getting organized!  

Following lists that tell you what to do 90-180 day out (yah, we're past that!),  60-90 days out, 30-60 days out, etc, etc.....  

Making sure we have all of our important documents in hand.

Medical forms, dental forms, passport forms (we have to have 2).

Printing out lists of things to take with you on the airplane, things to pack in the express shipment (things that will arrive before you), things to pack in your household goods shipment (may arrive months after you), common Japanese phrases, how to get a Japanese cell phone (because ours won't work there)...

I've been added to a few closed Okinawa Facebook pages, which has been huge!  Lots of questions already answered and most of these forms have been posted to their page.  The sense of community is already being felt.

I feel like I need to be doing so much, but that I don't want to do too much if we aren't approved medically sound to go. (That's a possibility, although we don't think we'll have any problem).

We've walked around the house and begun making lists of things we need to put on the [A] airplane, [J1] express shipment, [J2] 2nd shipment, [ST] store (they will store anything you don't/can't take), [$] sell (who wants to have a garage sale in the middle of all of this?!), [IN] important things we need to get to IN.  I've started a donation pile.  We cleaned out the garage on Sunday and filled an entire rolling trash bin with trash!  We marked things to, again, sell, store, take.  I'm wondering if we should just sell everything and then buy new when we get there?  It might be easier!

We are trying to get all of the major things that need to be down right this minute done first and then we'll focus on the rest.

But, in the mean time, we need to be organized!

We're Moving to Japan

Yes, you read that right!

We're moving to Japan in just a few very short months.

A few weeks ago, Okinawa was presented to us as a possible job for Shawn.  We talk about it, prayed about it, weighed the pros and cons...and then told them yes.  We then had to wait another couple of week to find out.  Of course, Shawn was in Virginia all last week, when we found out.  The three hour time difference and activity schedule here in CA made it very difficult for us to talk over the phone.  We waited until he was back and then told the kids on Saturday.  I think they were just as surprised to find out as we were.

(If you want to see the video of the big reveal, let me know and I'll send it to you).

If you're like me, geographically challenged anywhere outside of the United States, you might be wondering where Japan is....

Then there's mainland Japan, where Tokyo sits.

Follow that all the way south and just before the map ends, you'll see Okinawa. 

This is the island we will be living on.  There are a lot of military bases on this island, so I'm hoping we won't be completely out of our comfort zone.

(Who am I kidding?  We're going to be out of our comfort zone!)

If you look to the south, you will see Naha.  This is where the airport is located...for when you all come and visit us.  If you go north of that, you will see Kadena.  There is a large Air Force base there and we think we will be about 30 minutes to the east of that.

We already have friends of friends (friends of Shawn and Kelli Campbell's) who are there now and we just found out last night, some of our friends from New Bern are going to be stationed on the same base we are!  Is that not amazing!  Absolutely a God thing!  

We are very excited and nervous at the same time.  

In the words of Caleb, "It's out of America!"

We have heard nothing but good great things about Okinawa.  Everyone that we've talked to that has lived there, says it's their favorite duty station, they would have stayed longer and they'd love to go back.  There is so much to do before we can leave.  The list is long and daunting, but are going to just tackle one thing at a time and hopefully not get overwhelmed. 

This will be a major life experience/adventure for us and we are praying (lots) that God will bless our time there, ease any fears we may have, give us a great community and church, a great place to live....the list goes on.....that we'll learn how to drive on the left side of the road quickly, we will be able to learn a little bit of Japanese, we won't run into any banana spiders, that we will have family come and visit.....

Especially that last one!  

Stayed tuned....there will be lots happening as we prepare!