busy week, so far

There isn't much happening here in Japan for me right now. I can't complain about being bored because I've been home just long enough to sleep. The last two nights I haven't got home until 10 or later. Usually my bed time is 9, so I've been really tired. I don't like getting up at 6 am and have a bad habit of hitting the snooze button.
Monday night I went to Shibuya to meet with Kana. We sat in a coffee shop for a few hours and then went to dinner. It was so much fun just to sit down and talk to her. There aren't many people in Japan I can just talk to, so it is nice to have someone. We had omuraisu (or omu rice, Japanese rice omelette). It was good. Then I got on a crouded train home and took a taxi to our house 'cause I wasn't about to walk! Just as I was about to go to bed, Danny called me. The call dropped out twice and I couldn't sleep all night because I didn't get to finish the conversation with him. He said he tried to call me back but my phone never rang. He says that coverage sucked in Okinawa.
Last night I was invited to dinner and Pastor Terry and his wife, Sonja, house. I didn't think I'd be there as long as I did. It really was a lot of fun. They asked my questions and then Pastor Terry started asking me grammar, literature, and geography questions. It was kind of like playing Trivial Persuit! :) They enjoyed the Chinese Almond cookies I brought. Even though none of us are Japanese, I still wanted to follow Japanese tradition and have a gift to bring.
Danny seems to be having an interesting time on the ship. I can't tell the story (I will leave that up to him if he wishes) but it was certainly entertaining. I feel bad about complaining about how little sleep I've gotten because he wrote to me last night saying he had been up since 530 and had watch at 140 or something. Makes me feel bad (and that isn't any better).
My eyes are so tired I am having a hard time looking at the computer screen. I am busy tonight and thursday night, but I have free time afterwork friday. I'm not sure what I'll do with my time. There are chores that need to be done, but when I've got free time thats the last thing I want to do! Guess I should do it anyway. :P

The highlight of my day

Yes, I am going to Shibuya with Kana today and am super excited about that, but right now I am stuck at work. The highlight of my day was a phone call.
Danny just called me about 5 minutes ago! He is in Okinawa. I feel like it has been forever since I've heard his voice. His service was bad, but I got to talk to him for a short time and it made me so happy. Hopefully he will get a chance to call me later.
I'm so happy now. :D

Scooters in Japan

I found this video on youtube. You only have to watch about a minute of it (please don't waste your time watching all 12 minutes of it), but it really is how scooters and motorcycles drive on the roads and it is completely legal. This is why Danny hates them so much. They come out of nowhere and can scare the crap out of you.
BTW, he is driving on the express way.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAVVBjrTu0w
Scary, huh?

Ravens

I hate these birds, but maybe I should be keeping my eye out for ones that do this:

Here it is (Part 3)

Just as promised, here are the last 25 pictures of our trip to Sankeien Garden. I took a lot of pictures so please enjoy.
PS Instead of putting the pictures here I am including a link to the slideshow. Remember that you have control over the speed of the slideshow and other things. You can pause it or click a picture to see it alone. Or you can speed it up if you're tired of looking at them. :)
http://3587912960.slide.com/p/3/Sankeien+Gardens+Part+2?view=large

My haircut

Okay, got it done. Tell me what you think.

Comic

I am sitting at work bored out of my mind and reading the Stars and Stripes (military newspaper) for today online. I found this comic and although it is for February 23rd and you haven't seen it yet, I had to post it because it made me think of Danny and I.







Sorry it is so small. Click on it to make it bigger.

Hair

I am gonna get my hair cut tomorrow.
Does anyone have any thoughts, ideas or suggestions? I am definitely not getting it cut like I did last time!
Just thought I'd ask. Everyone knows I'll listen even if I don't follow advice. :)

I promise

I will put part 3 of the pictures up soon.

Biggest Loser

Greetings everyone! I know it's been a while since I last wrote, but I can't let Lori do all the talking. Anyway, I figured I'd take a minute to fill everone in on how shipboard life is going (since Lori's filling all y'all in on Japan). So the biggest thing is that I am now officially the Communications Officer and EKMS Manager. Basically, these are two huge jobs (and honestly, seperate, but still connected). Anyway, I just took over today, so it's pretty cool. The other big thing is that the MWR onboard is sponsoring a "Biggest Loser" (just like the show) contest while we're gone and I decided to take part (the only one from the Wardroom actually). The contest is a little rough around the edges this time, but it's still going to be fun. The unfortunate part is that the rules count only total weight lost, so that actually puts me at somewhat of a disadvantage. Other than that, I just want to say that I'm really looking forward to (possibly) coming back. Everything is sounding promising. Well, I send my love to everyone. Have a good one!

100 posts

Hey, I just saw that Danny and I have posted 100 times since we started this blog in August. Is that a big deal? Not really.
Anyway, the real reason I posted was because I have got a little more word on Danny and I coming back to the states for a visit. It doesn't look like he'll be going to the class in San Diego, but he is hoping to get two weeks off in May. I am not going to tell you the dates until they are final, but I've already started to look at tickets. We have to decide wether or not to bring the cat back. She may be more of a hassle than its worth. Especially considering that we haven't been able to officially adopt her yet. (I need to call PAWS again about that...) It may be cheaper to board her or just have someone look after her than pay to take her on the plane. One animal is allowed in the plane, but I'm afraid she would cry the whole time.
So that is the most news I have to share. I don't hear from Danny much. He is busy as always I assume and their email hasn't been working all the time. I consider myself very lucky anytime I get an email.
Well, its tuesday and I am back to work again.
I'll keep you updated.

Sad

I am sure most of you have had this experiance. You are typing an email and you accidentally hit some strange combination of keys and instantly your whole email is gone. Coincidentally you just happened to hit the right combination that has sent your message into oblivion, never to return. Just your luck it took you forever to write and it was pretty important.
Does anyone know how to get it back?
I have no idea what I did and I've tried everything I can think of. The page I was composing the email in is still there, but the little compose box is frozen which means I did quite a number on it. Really, I just wanna cry although I know it won't solve my problem. If anyone knows how to help, please don't hesitate.
That email took me a half an hour to write and I can never compose it quite the way it was before. The second time around never has the same heart to it, and this email had a lot of heart.

Here it is (part 2)

These are the first 25 of 50 pictures I chose as the best from our trip last Sunday to the Sankeien Garden. It is near our house and has a collection of old buildings and temples.
If you want to see a picture better or read a caption click the picture or hover over it. The slideshow can aslo be paused or sped up. Feel free to play with it.
I will post the other 25 pictures in a few day. Please let me know if there is anything you want to know about our pics.

Another one soon

I finally downloaded and edited the pictures from last sunday. They are in Photobucket waiting to be put in a slideshow, but I am trying to decide how to do it. There are nearly 70 pictures so I may have to do two seperate slideshows. The problem is the pictures are all from one place and I don't want to seperate them.
Are you all okay with watching a slideshow of 60-70 pics or will you fall asleep?
I want to get this up so Danny can see them.

I haven't given many clues this time, but Danny is gone. The ship left this afternoon. My boss was really nice and let me come in late since I went with him to Yokosuka at 5 this morning. Because I don't know how long he'll be gone and since he was home for nearly two months this time, I am taking it pretty hard. Honestly didn't want to go to work today, but I did. I also had reservations about going to a new bible study, but knew I needed to connect with other people.
Anyway, send Danny email and tell him to be safe and come home soon. As soon as we know whats going on with his schedule we can begin to work out our trip back home in just a few months. I promise to keep you all posted on that. Don't want to say anything until I have a better idea.

Much love from Japan.

More about that crazy weather

During school yesterday it was just a little wet and windy. Right after Danny got home yesterday, the weather got insane. We had enourmous wind gusts and lots of rain. Not so pleasent to go out into. The wind kept blowing our trash can open and hitting the lid on the fence. That sound is rather loud and annoying, so Danny put them in the shed. For some reason, the garbage guy took them out a few months ago and I have yet to figure out why.
Down in Yokosuka this morning, the wind was blowing pretty hard, but it is fairly nice up here today. I am still hoping for snow, but if it comes at this point it will be the latest snow in the documented history of Tokyo. Doesn't sound too hopeful, does it?
Ahh, lunch starts soon. Gotta go.
Please stay in contact with me. I am gonna need it.
Pretty soon I am going to start a petition for Danny to write something here, but I doubt it will do any good!

OH, last night

Just to tell you more about our interesting lives...
Danny left the base after work yesterday and told me he wanted to get somethings from Yokota. It is about a 2 hour drive on a good day. So at about 3:45, we left to head up there. We got on the expressway and it was seriously backed up. It took us 2 hours to go about 4 km. It was stressful and very annoying. There was an accident right after the point where three major roads converge (the Yokohama-Yokosuka toll road - also known as the YokoYoko), the K3 and the Hodogaya Bypass. So once we got through the accident, where they had all traffic down to one lane, it was about 6 o'clock. Just getting to Hachioji (which is the largest town close to the base) was 35 km away and the road getting there is always stop and go because of all the lights and evening traffic. We knew we had to turn around because things close at 8 and there was no way we were going to get there. Danny was upset because he couldn't get the things he wanted. They don't sell a lot of things in Yokosuka, which is very frustrating. We didn't have dinner until about 8 o'clock.
Traffic in Japan sucks.
I wonder if there is a better way to get there...

Rain

I love the rain. It makes me think of home.

I know this picture looks bright, but it is actually pretty dark and gloomy outside today. I haven't seen rain here in quite a few weeks so it is a nice change of pace. Now it just means that the kids will be inside for recess. Having hyped up kids (Valentines candy) all in the same room (Kindergarten- 5th grade) creates a lot of injuries...

PS. I took this picture on my cell phone.

Hello?

I guess it has been so long since I've posted something that you guys just stopped reading.

Here it is (Part 1)

So, I am trying to load the photos on to Photobucket right now. While that is going on I'll tell you about what Danny and I did this weekend. I was pushing him a lot to do something and get out of the house. My need to go out has decreased since I got a job and am out of the house more. Nonetheless, I wanted to take the advantage of a free weekend to see some things.
Saturday we drove to Atsugi (the naval air station). The directions out there sucked, but we eventually made it. The drive back was interesting 'cause we could find our way back to the road we drove there on. We took a back way because the signs actually said Yokohama on them, so we trusted. Eventually we made it back to the bypass and knew where we were.
After that we got on the toll road to get back home. Unfortunately for us, we didn't realize that we needed to take the exit instead of staying on the K3. It took us over the Yokohama Bay Bridge (or Yokohama Rainbow Bridge). This bridge is flippin' long. Kinda like driving over the Oakland Bay Bridge without the levels. It took us forever to get across and Danny was pretty peeved at this point.
Once we got to the other side we got off and turned around. Of course we had to pay the toll again to get back on. That is what sucks about getting lost on a toll road. So we got back to the other side and made our way back home. The plan of the day was to go to Atsugi and the to this park near our house called Sankeien Garden. We drove by and Danny offered to stop and I said "no, lets go home first". So we did. I'll make a long story short here. I wanted to go and then Danny informed me that they close the gates at 4:30 and it was already too late. I became very upset, but after I got over it I was determined to salvage the night. Plans changes.
There is a park on the water in Yokohama called Yamashita Koen (koen is the Japanese word for park). It is very popular with couples. I took pictures of it when I was there before so you've probably seen them. So we went down there and I made Danny try to be romantic for a while. :) After that he took me to "early Valentine's day dinner". We walked around and I was fascinated with this one place. Sadly I didn't take a picture of the outside. It was a Hawaiian cuisine restaurant. It smelled like coconut inside and the food was fantastic. It was a little expensive, but so worth it. Our drinks were 1080 yen each before tax. I had beef teriyaki and Danny had Coconut noodles with seafood. Mmmm. This is the website of the restaurant: http://sunaloha.com/yokohama.html
After dinner we came home and crashed on the couch. It was a great night.
I have to work on the slideshow now. I will post it below...

I hope the slideshow is bigger on your computer than it is on mine. I tried to make it as big as I could, but blogger over rode the size...

Still have to wait

I have pictures from Saturday AND Sunday to post, so you will have to wait a while longer. The ones from Saturday are almost done, but I won't get to post them until late tonight. I work until 2:30 and have an English lesson from 3:30-4:30. Danny is working tonight, so I will have time to post since I don't have to worry too much about dinner.
The ones from Sunday will have to wait until later. There is too many and I have to explain all that we did. It may take a while!

Coming soon...

I will be posting a new blog with pictures soon. Please wait while I fix them up.

A late update

Hey everyone.
Sorry it has taken me so long to write again.
I am starting my first full week at the elementary school today. It is hard because I know very little about what I am supposed to do and I am not very confident, but I am trying my best. There is a book here in the office called "Taking care of your child" that I am reading so I know I am doing the right thing when a student comes in with an injury.
While I am here doing nothing but still have the potential for work and am trying to find something to do, Danny has the day off so he is sitting at home watching the super bowl. I can't believe they get a day off for that! He seemed surprised that I didn't and I told him that children still have to go to school. The Super Bowl is not an international holiday!
English lessons are going well. I have one student I absolutely love. I love them all, but this one woman is so much fun and not so much work. It is just great to get paid to work with her. My other students do only semi-regular lessons, so I don't meet with them as often.
Well, gotta get back to work. I hope I can convince Danny to write something in here soon. He was talking about it the other day.