Christmas in Japan!

I'm being really good and actually posting about Christmas ON Christmas. Look at me being so proactive.

Just our tent all set up.

Garrett and I decided that we wanted to go camping for Christmas almost as soon as we got to Okinawa. We figured it would be the best idea when we had no family on island, and Daniel was going back to the States anyway. So with a little help from our parents, we were able to buy all of our camping gear. The story behind the stove is that we bought one at the BX, but I soon realized it was a propane fuel hook-up instead of a white fuel or gasoline tank stove. I just wasn't happy with that. So I looked online and found a fuel tank one on Coleman's website that was what I wanted, for just a little more than we paid for the other one even with shipping. But then, we were at a Monkey Man store (it's basically an all-in-one store/ combo of Home Depot and Walmart; It has craftsman things, housewares, sports things, furniture, dollar store like items, etc) and we just happened to be walking down an aisle that had camping gear. I saw a stove that looked just like the one I grew up using while camping with my parents. I was so excited to find one on island! Garrett said we could buy it then and return the one from the BX without having to use it for the camping trip or wait for one to be shipped to us. The unfortunate part is that this stove cost more than if I had even bought one online and paid for shipping as well. But, oh well. It's a Coleman and everyone I've talked to have said they or their parents had one and have had it for 30+ years. I feel confident that it's worth it when Garrett and I want to try to go camping at least once a month. 

About a week or two ago, we found out pets aren't allowed on the premises of Okuma, where we planned to go. It's military run, so even with the curfew in effect we were allowed to go. I looked into keeping Koji at the kennel, we knew that he would not lack attention because the girls there love him, but because of the holiday it was adding up to be almost $160 to keep Koji at the kennel. We do not, nor do we want to, spend so much to keep him in a kennel inside of a kennel (because of his history, that's what they would do). I had an offer from a friend I met on the Kadena Wives page, offer to come and feed Koji and take him out, and we were thinking of doing that, when we remembered a friend of Garrett's from FTAC who is a single guy living in the dorms. We asked Stetler if he would be willing to watch Koji and he said no problem! He would just live at our house while we were gone, and Koji would only be put into his kennel in our house when he left temporarily. 

Saturday we prepped our tin foil dinner(more on their tastiness later), made sure we had all of our essentials together, cleaned the house, and washed the bedding. (Shout out to my mom: DO THIS!! Prepping the tin foil dinners at home is sooo much easier and less hassle than doing it out camping. Everyone prepares their own and wrap them up and label them. Easy first night dinner! Also, we used pre-cut stew meat instead of hamburger... Oh my! I didn't even use ketchup, and you know what a big deal that is. Try it, I don't think you'll regret it.)

This is only about half the available spots.

Garrett and I decided we would leave Sunday afternoon after church and stay until Christmas day. So we loaded up the car, got ice for the cooler, and set out on the expressway. We had to drive about an hour north to reach Okuma. It is a pretty nice place. In peak season (summer) they have all sorts of water activities and lots of cabins, campgrounds, condos, etc. We found the Welcome Center and were told we were the only ones checked in for the adult campground so far. We could choose wherever we wanted to set up. Garrett and I though we would take a spot that was surrounded on three sides by hills, to try and block some of the wind; though the thinking was sound, it did not work the way we had anticipated. The wind was constant and I will just tell you it's a little tricky to put up an 8 man tent with two people in the wind. We got it done, who would we be if we didn't? We put our stuff in the tent and realized we wouldn't be able to use our air mattress because the door to the tent is too small, and the car was too far away; also that we forgot our pillows sitting on the top of the couch ready to be taken to the car. So we rolled up the extra blanket we brought, and used that as a very hard pillow. Garrett was a stud at starting our fire even in the fierce wind. In a few minutes, it was ready to pull to the side and throw on our tin foil dinners! We sat on the ground close to the fire and talked and shared some stories of our past camping trips. When we finally pulled of dinner to check, they were cooked perfectly. Garrett and I agreed we had never tasted a tin foil dinner so good. They were wonderful! Garrett kept raving about them and said he would continue to do so for years; know him, I don't doubt it. 

Don't they both just look amazing? 

Garrett was having fun taking pictures like he was Japanese

After dinner we sat around the fire a little longer. It wasn't exactly cold, just super windy and it brought a chill. The unfortunate part was that as soon as it was dark, we were ready to get into the tent and cuddle down in our sleeping bag. Since it was still early, we just huddled in our sleeping bag and goofed around. We had a friend Wall-E standing guard outside the tent to protect us from whatever was in the jungle surrounding our tent. However, he wasn't very good at protecting us from the wind. I was having severe flashbacks to being 10 or 11 years old and Big Bend National Park and blowing away in our tent... I was mostly fine but then the tent would thrash exceptionally hard and I would jump or whimper. Garrett was so good at comforting me and making me know everything would be okay. I just was still traumatized from the experience so many years ago that even though I knew we would be okay, I just couldn't help it. It was a very long night, to say the least. At one point we woke up and it was only 2 in the morning, but felt like it had to be at least 5. I think it was right around this time that I was freaking out and jumped and pulled the sleeping bag off our head and found the roof of the tent almost right on top of us. It then righted itself and was a the proper height, but it nearly collapsed on us. Oh what fun! 

In the morning we found a few loose stakes and a broken rope from the friction of constantly being pulled back and forth by the wind. We went exploring up the hill and down towards the beach to find beautiful sights just a stone's throw away from us. It was still very windy, but quite a beautiful day. We kept debating about whether we wanted to stay the second night or not. We really didn't sleep well, despite the wind's ferocity, there wasn't much free stuff to do on the grounds, we didn't have other people to interact with or play games with. We weren't even allowed on the beach that was right by our campsite. We finally decided it wasn't worth staying another night. We could go home, watch A White Christmas, drink hot chocolate, play games with Stetler, and be with our puppy! Around noon we took down our tent to discover a broken pole revealing the stretchy string, as well as another pole that was not in tip-top shape. I was not happy to discover that it had broken on our first use! I will be writing to Coleman and trying to get a replacement set of poles. We probably will be returning to Okuma, because it was nice, we just need a smaller tent if we're going to battle the wind again.

I have been on island for three months and the blue sea still amazes me

On the drive home, Garrett called up his family and got to talk to them for a while, which was nice since his work schedule usually makes it so he can't talk to them as often as he wants. When we got home, Stetler told us that Koji had not eaten any food at all. This really didn't surprise me; especially considering his past of not eating much. Unfortunately Stetler didn't stick around to play games with us, but we were able to take a long nap to make up for the lack of sleep the night before. Koji started eating almost as soon as we got home and settled. He was so excited to see us, even after 24 hours. I really hope that we can find a campground that allows dogs if we can ever get out of the curfew that's been set down and will allow us to be off a military installation through the night, other than a place of residence. He would love camping, I just know it. After our nap we put on the soup to cook and started A White Christmas. What a great tradition to watch it every year! It made me miss Shalynna and my Dad especially, since we always would watch it together. Garrett said he could appreciate the movie more now, because he's in the military. After the movie we each opened up on present; I got a rain jacket and Garrett got a PC Joystick for flying games. We finished off the night with hot chocolate, Oreos, and watching the sixth Harry Potter movie. It was a great way to finish off Christmas Eve. 

I forgot to take the picture before we opened Christmas Eve gifts. 

Christmas morning we got up early and opened our presents. We each knew pretty much everything, but we both had one or two that we didn't know. I LOVE the shirt my mom sent me; it has Superman kissing Lois Lane. It's just perfect. Thank you Mama! Garrett wasted no time ripping into the Lord of the Rings: War in the North game we got. Though I totally joined him and it was actually a lot of fun to play. Definitely a good one. We also got a Play Station Move, and a game called Sorcery that Garrett opened as soon as I quit playing LOTR to make food. We had yummy breakfast tacos for brunch. 

The rest of the day was spent just enjoying being home together and playing our new games. We hope you all have an amazing Christmas and we wish we could be there to share in it with you. Merry Christmas! We love you!

Let's Play Catch Up!

Okay, I know I've been terrible at posting this last month or so, but in my defense things got really busy, we got a dog that takes a lot of attention, I got really sick, then craziness with Garrett's work Thanksgiving, then actual Thanksgiving, then our things came in, and here we are! So to recap this month really quickly, before getting on with the real reason for this post.

We started playing soccer on the 18 CES intramural soccer team! Yay! It's been fun. We've shut out two teams, and got an automatic win for the other team not having enough players. I'm the only girl on the team, and I feel grossly inadequate compared to all the others. I can definitely tell I haven't played in a while, but I'm hoping to get back into the swing of it and show off that I actually can play.


Before our hike I'm about to tell you about, Garrett used his ingenuity to get ice into our camel bak when we don't have an ice maker or ice trays. The night before, we went to McDonald's for dinner and took it home to eat. When we were done with our drinks, Garrett said we should fill them up with water and freeze them. So the next morning, we just peeled the paper cups off and slipped the ice into the camel bak!

Isn't it beautiful?!

We went on a hike to a local waterfall. We literally had to hike up the river/creek. It was a lot of fun. It was a cloudy day, but warm enough that out of the water of the falls, you weren't cold. When we made it to the base of the falls, there was a Japanese couple there and they kind of laughed with Daniel, Garrett, and I jumped in the water and were swimming around, as well as going and standing directly under the water. (I wanted to have a somewhat dry shirt for the drive home, so I decided to just swim in my sports bra) But then the woman decided to join us and came in. There were also a couple Americans that came up after we were already there. On our way back down we found another water hole that we didn't stop at on the way up, that we climbed up about 5 or 6 feet on the rocks around and jumped into it. Definitely my favorite expedition since being on island. Garrett and I enjoy fresh water so much more than ocean water. It was so refreshing and amazing, so nice not to feel gross after swimming and playing in the water.

Koji, short for Kojiro, looking all cute!

In the middle of November we got a dog! Koji is three years old, is a picky eater, loves to cuddle, but is also an escape artist. He's been adopted a few times, but none lasted more than a week. We think they adopted him, but left him by himself all day while at work. We have found that he does not like being alone in the least. I'm home with him most of the time, but when we do leave, we put him in a kennel. We left him out a couple times on his own because he was tearing up the kennel, but one time we weren't as careful putting things away to take away temptation and he chewed up our Ethernet cable and the rope on the bottom of our blinds on our back door and the weight on the moving cord. So we zip tied the bottom of the kennel so the tray can't be slid out, and took out the pad, and he's been doing pretty well, even if he still doesn't like it. He hasn't gone potty in our house once, and only has tried to run off one time. He's a little more timid around Garrett (especially when he's in uniform) but, he still cuddles up to us, jumps up on our bed at night, and seems to genuinely be starting to trust us. He doesn't play with toys, which is a little sad, but we were told if we play with the toys ourselves we can teach him how to play with them and he might start, even if it takes a few months. We love our dog, and are doing our best to help him to know that we aren't just going to let him get away and that we are in this for the long haul.

Thanksgiving was a small affair, with just Daniel, Garrett, and I. It was sort of a last minute decision to have it at our house. We deep fried a turkey, and only had a few basics for sides. I just wasn't into the spirit much this year. Maybe it was partially being my first Thanksgiving making things on my own, not having all of my kitchen accessories, or that it was last minute and I didn't feel like fighting the crowds at the commissary to get the groceries I needed. Other than the gravy turning out awful and having to make package gravy last minute; and burning the rolls because I was concentrating on trying to fix the gravy, it was a great day spent with Daniel and Garrett. We had fun and enjoyed our time together. 

We finally got our house goods! Garrett was given the day off to help get our stuff in order. They came around 0830 and probably had all our things in in about 10 trips... It was a very short move in. Garrett and I were able to unpack and set up pretty much everything that day. I only saved unpacking our clothes and our office stuff. Clothes, because we bought a dresser, but I want to refinish it and feel it would be silly to put stuff in it just to empty it in the next week or so. We've rented a drill to drill holes into our cement walls to put pictures up and this is just a preview of a finished wall(the Bowen sign is temporarily there). 

Well, we love you and wish you the best as we shift into the winter season. 

Couch Time!

So we finally got our couch on Sunday. I found it on bookoo (similar to craiglist, but for military) almost three weeks ago, but told the couple we wouldn't be able to pay for it until after the 1st of the month. They were super understanding and said they wouldn't sell it to anyone else before if we really wanted it. We went to see the couch about two weeks ago. The couple moved off base recently and the couch was just too big for the space they have now. Garrett and I had to find this place, in the dark, and we had forgot the cell phone at home so if we got lost we wouldn't be able to call and get help. We didn't have trouble until we were trying to find their driveway. The house was back a ways from the road, and I hadn't had a very good description of it. Probably the first time Garrett and I have gotten testy with one another about something. But we found it with only two turn arounds and tossing caution to the wind and knocking on the door since they were Y-plated cars. Turns out our guess was correct. We saw the couch, loved it. Sat down, couldn't pass it up at all. It is incredibly comfy and I just didn't want to get up.
When the first of the month arrived I e-mailed the woman that we were ready to pay and take it from them. They said they would come drop it off to us sometime this weekend. They came Sunday afternoon while we were having a game day with Daniel and a friend of Garrett's from FTAC. Sunday was very rainy and stormy. Luckily they had covered it with plastic and sheets, though it still got a little wet in some places. They brought it in, we set it out and let it air dry for a few hours while we finished our game of Monopoly (which I bought at the Thrift Store for $1!) and ate dinner. Then I brought out my blow dryer and got the cushions mostly dry so the couch was safe to sit on. Daniel laid down on the couch and told us he looked forward to spending the night over here in the future. He didn't want to get up. After Garrett sat on it for a while he looked at me and told me I had made a good choice.
The next morning we found that the couch had dried fine and that we didn't have any weird marks from the water. We now have more sitting space than we possibly need until our government furniture is picked up after we get our house goods. We may not have any other furniture when we get our house goods, and may be using our air mattress and card table again, but it will still be great. We love our house and I really can't wait to decorate!

Cars and Houses... We're growing up!

So this week was pretty great. We were able to get our car on Tuesday October 16th. Let me tell you, Garrett and I both were so relieved to be able to have our own transportation. Garrett got a ride home from work on Tuesday, picked up the cash to pay for the rest of the car, and rushed off to go pick it up. We love this car. It is definitely different than my little Kia Rio, but it runs great. It's smooth, has full AC, a built in TV/GPS that scree is in Japanese so we basically can only use it for radio and cds... We haven't managed to even turn on the GPS yet. It's got a lot of space, which is what we wanted.

That's right, a pull up seat for a total of 7 seats!

We could have bought a smaller car, but we wanted to have enough trunk space for camping gear, snorkeling gear, etc. As well as have the back easily accessible for car seat/s when the time comes. (NO, I am not pregnant!) I've now gotten used to driving in Japan, though driving off base is still a little scary. The roads are narrower and the people are unpredictable. Examples: it's illegal to talk on the phone and drive, so they either stop in the middle of the road to talk or pull to the side and stop. They can be overly polite by sitting at green lights to allow oncoming traffic to turn right. It's not awful, and I'm sure it will just take some time to get used to it. Garrett and I made a special trip to the BX just for the test drive(and I needed band-aids).





We ended up looking at soccer cleats because the Branch president we met gets a group to play every Saturday morning. And any of you who know us, know that Garrett and I are big soccer players. We passed up last week because it was kind of wet and combined with tennis shoes, that doesn't work so well. They have exactly one option for soccer cleats in men's, girls, and boys, no women's; and all the same style, just different colors. Luckily I have small feet and managed to fit into a girls pair, and Garrett liked the one offered to men. Even with our tight finances, we couldn't pass up the opportunity to be able to meet new people, play the sport we love, and in the process release the stress we have been feeling.

Our awesome new cleats!

Garrett drove us to the BX Tuesday to get a few things and then to work on Wednesday, with me in the car to drive back to the hotel. He asked me like three times what side of the road I was to drive on, what side the turn signal was on, and where the gas tank was. Gas on base was $3.95 when I got gas on Wednesday morning after dropping Garrett off to work. Man oh man. It's a good thing we don't have to drive too much.
Wednesday morning I spent loading our car with all of our things from the hotel and checking out because we were getting our house keys that afternoon. But when I went to leave, the office was empty and the lady was no where in sight. So I figured I would take our cold stuff over to store at Daniel's house for the day and come back to check out. My first real driving(both in Okinawa and the new car) where it wasn't all left turns was in narrow ally-like streets on the way to Daniel's in the rain. You could definitely tell I wasn't used to the car's length because turning around was a nightmare. I finally made it back to the hotel and searched the building for the manager. She was really nice, but I sometimes couldn't understand what she was saying and had to guess. She ended up charging us for only 8 nights in the hotel, instead of the actual 12, and couldn't cancel the card because of international something or other. So she told me to come back in a few days to pay the rest of the amount. The total amount paid for the hotel was 151,200 yen. An intimidating amount that equals about $2000. We luckily get to file a TLA claim and get reimbursed for it because the on base lodging was all full for the time we needed it. After going through that, I had to go to one of the other bases, Camp Foster, to pick up our road tax sticker that basically allows us to get on base easily. That was a misadventure... I accidentally turned too soon and ended up at a different gate into the base. So I thought I would be able to get to where I needed to, but after a few turn arounds I headed back to the gate I came through and went the way the crudely drawn map told me (not a single street name on it). When I went through the gate I was supposed to I realized I was pretty much exactly where I had turned around before. Go figure. Through the rest of the day I ran various errands. Dropping of Garrett's blues to be dry cleaned so he can wear them next week. Picking up mail from the post office. Getting essentials for the house from the BX (dish towels, shower curtain, pillows, baking sheet). Picking up a set of dishes from the loan locker to borrow until our home goods get on island, this includes four place settings, cutting board, a single knife, spatula, large spoon, slatted spoon, can opener, peeler, three sauce pans, frying pan, and a strainer. I also went to the internet/cable company that services on base and got our modem to hook up internet into our house. Through all of this I was running in and out of places through a pouring rain. I was soaked. I'm sure I was quite the sight going into Garrett's shop to pick him up to go get our keys. We had no problem picking up our SEVEN keys to our house. Don't misinterpret that as seven different keys, it's merely seven copies of the SAME key. We reached our house to find the government furniture already in place. It's all in pretty good condition and definitely suits our needs. We truly love our house.

Front of our house, we're on bottom.

Living room

Large utility room

Office!

Our back yard

Entry to kitchen from living room

I love my kitchen! It's a great size!

Only downside from the other one is this has one bathroom.

One of the two bedrooms.

 I definitely like the one story better than the two story. I immediately started putting things where they belonged. I had had enough of living out of suitcases and feeling displaced. We soon realized that we had zero service in our house except for in our two front windows with the window open and our phone sitting on the track... It's quite the sight when we answer phone calls. It has to be on speaker and stay in that spot, or else it's lost. We sent Daniel a text to come see our place, but never heard from him. We also then realized that the shower curtain hooks I bought were too small for our rod. So we went to exchange for ones that work and get food. Garrett also treated me to ice cream at Baskin Robbins because the stress or everything was evident. When we got back to the house we had a giant surprise in our bathroom.

Yes, that is the spider. Garrett took a picture and then proceeded to make these videos while I hid in our living room. I was quite high strung that night and thoroughly freaked by that monster.

(Technical Error: I haven't been able to get the videos loaded on here so I will add them to Facebook)

 

Garrett's commentary made it a lighter situation, which helped me. But then after killing it, he came over to give me a hug and acknowledging that it really had freaked me out. However he made the mistake of trying to lighten the mood by lightly tracing his fingers up my back. I broke down, I was that freaked out and stressed. Daniel finally made it over to our house and he informed us that it was an Okinawan Brown spider and they are not dangerous and are quite good at keeping other bugs away. That's not enough incentive for me to feel sorry for the thing or to want another to come around. If he had stayed hidden eating other bugs, I could have remained obliviously happy that there were no bugs in my house. After I had calmed down, and we had all talked for a while we sat down and introduced Daniel to Munchkin. We played two rounds and another round of Zombie Munchkin. I think that was the latest we have stayed up since being on island... We are so grateful to have Daniel here. He's the closest thing I have to family, and I think he and Garrett are getting on well. He even has one of those seven keys to our house now.
We haven't had any other crazy things happen, so I will end this here. I hope you all are doing well and look forward to sharing more with you! Sure love ya!

First Week in Okinawa!

This was on Sat morning walk.

Okay, so the weekend was pretty good. Saturday morning we were able to Skype with our wonderful parents on the Bowen side as well as the two nieces there, Lily and Ivy. After we finished talking to them our sponsor Nicholas Mike, who is a Senior Airman in Garrett's shop, took us to the BX to set get a cell phone, get a few odd things needed (i.e. hand soap, razors, shaving cream, etc) and to the Commissary to get some food to sustain us until  we get into a house.

View from a pedestrian bridge.

View from our balcony.

View from our balcony.

View from our balcony. Yes that's the ocean in the background. 

Cell phone providers are very different than the US. There are about three carriers; Soft Bank, AU, and Docomo. We didn't even look into Docomo, we were told that it was very expensive. We were told that AU had more reliable service than Soft Bank though, our sponsor told us that most people in the shop had Soft Bank. The way the service works is that you can pay roughly $12 for the 'White Plan', 0100 to 2100 you get free talk to any other Soft Bank user, but from 2100 to 0100 it's $ .50 a minute during that time or anytime to someone other than Soft Bank. It's free text Soft Bank to Soft Bank, but $.04 per text to anyone else. The 'Double White' is exactly the same, but it's $24 and $ .25 per minute. It's so strange and I don't think I'm a fan. But alas, we got an iPhone to share. If we decide we want to get a second phone, it will probably just be a regular cheap phone. We mostly got the smart phone so that we can more easily talk to people at home. Which, we actually got an app called MagicJack and it allows us to call anyone at home for free. That's been very useful and I'm sure it will continue to do so. Also, the data plan comes with the plan, but there's no set usage. They just basically reserve the right to turn it off if we use it too much. It's a little odd, but oh well. They gave us a free wi-fi router with the purchase that allows us to have wi-fi in our hotel now, and aren't using the data on the phone while hanging around here.

This is the temporary case we got for our phone.

We were able to get some groceries, but I was wincing because I don't have any of my spices, didn't really want to have to purchase new ones that won't be all gone before mine come in. So I had to buy a lot of things from a box... I also bought a frozen pizza and returned to the hotel to discover that our oven is far too small for it to fit into and I can't work the stove because everything is labeled in Japanese kanji. Nevertheless, I know the dinner's not horrible when I have such limited resources as one small pot, one medium frying pan, one sketchy looking knife, a stirring spoon, a spatula, and very few miscellaneous items. I have to get what I can make with those tools. Saturday we also looked at the Lemon Lot for cars, but didn't find anything that really struck our fancy. I think we went to bed about  1900...
Garrett was waking up at about 0430 or 0530 for the first few days, and even now we still are going to bed around 2000. Garrett kind of wants to keep on the schedule so that he can wake up easily for work and PT. (I'll believe that when I see it from him. :P ) Sunday we were picked up by Daniel who is my older brother's best friend from high school, is currently dating my sister Shalynna, and is stationed here with the Navy. He took us around the local area a bit. We went to a scuba shop, Kadena Marina, Camp Foster (which is another base on Okinawa), and American Village. At Kadena Marina, Garrett and I bought our own snorkeling equipment. Daniel is an avid scuba diver and is working on getting his Dive Master certification so that he can teach others and lead dives. We ate at our first Japanese restaurant, which was actually a Mexican place. It was surprisingly good. American Village was a local mall-like place that had a lot of Japanese shops and was a 'tourist trap' as Daniel called it. We got to enjoy our first taste of Japanese ice cream in a shop very similar to Baskin Robbins. It was surprisingly good.

Driving the the first place. 

Monday we went out to snorkel with Daniel. We were supposed to go to a certain place, but the water was closed because of a rip tide. It turned out to be okay since Daniel had accidentally forgotten his booties for his fins. We instead went back to a beach that is a few blocks from his house. We ended up swimming for three hours. I had generously applied sunscreen, but three hours back up to the sun, without reapplication does not turn out well. The back of my thighs and shoulders got burnt and Garrett's calves got burnt. It wasn't a terribly awful burn, but it was still there. We had swam out a little, but decided to get out and walk over to another beach to swim out to a reef. The first stint of swimming, my goggles were great. The second one, they fogged up really bad. Because of this, I almost got bit by a sea snake... I couldn't see our of my goggles and I ended up swimming right over it. Daniel says he saw it coming up at me. I didn't see it until I was right over it, I jumped and swam quickly away. Garrett almost didn't see it either. We saw some really cool things. Bright neon blue fish, various urchins, lots of different fish, a puffer fish, and some other things.

When we finally got back to land we went Daniel's to start our equipment rinsing, freshen up, and he took us out to eat at a place called the Four Seasons. It is a teppenyaki steak house. They cook the food right in front of you and it was excellent. Garrett and I agreed that for now, unless we find a better place, that is our birthday-anniversary-possibly Thanksgiving place to go. We had some fried potatoes and onions, creamy chicken and vegetable soup, steak, grilled bean sprouts, and spaghetti. Man oh man. That was some good food. He cooked the food one thing at a time and put it straight onto the plate. Before you could finish that, he'd have the next thing on your plate. Unfortunately Daniel pulled rank on Garrett and he paid for our portion of the meal also. It is so great to have someone I know closely here on island. It makes the transition a little easier and he's been so helpful this whole time. On our way back to Daniel's house to hang out and watch a show he got Garrett hooked on, we wanted dessert. We passed this place called Mister Donut, and it just sounded really good to me. Little was I prepared for the way it actually was... The doughnuts all looked really good, but they make it with pure cane sugar grown on island and it just was not as sweet as I wanted it to be... Not to mention it just had a weird texture. That was a mild disappointment, but that's okay. I should have figured after knowing Yoko, my brother's ex-fiance who is Chinese from Hong Kong, and how she was with sweets. I may be wrong, but I think most Asian cultures don't go for the overly sweet like Americans do.
Tuesday we just got picked up early and taken into base. We ran errands getting everything in order, Garrett has a lot of in-processing stuff he has to do and has been running all over base all week trying to get a ton of signatures. We went to a housing briefing which basically we filled out the application for it and got told that since the occupancy rate on base is over 95% we could live off base if we wanted to. We decided that at least for now, we'll stay on base to get used to the island and everything. A lot of the homes have been renovated, but some have not. Everyone we talked to told us to take a renovated one and not be afraid to turn something down if it's old and gross. Now, remember that family of 6 that sat next to us on the plane? The last name is Burns, and we ran in to the Mr. at our housing briefing. We said hello and chatted a little (15-16 hours next to each other on a plane gets you to be rather friendly) he straight up asked us if we were Mormon. When we said yes, he said that they were too and that he had figured from a comment about caffeine Garrett had made on the plane. So I was right! I totally picked them out to be members from the very beginning. I believe they'll be living on Kadena as well, so we should end up in the same branch as us.
Wednesday we went to a Newcomers briefing that was long and just had powerpoint and introductions from all the organizations(offices) on the base. We also learned water safety for the island and road safety, as well as all the signs and how driving is different. We then took a 20 question test and got our SOFA license. Which is basically just the American license to be able to drive here. It's like a CPR certification card. Just has our information written on it and we signed it. No pictures, no lamination. Though I think I will take ours somewhere to laminate them so they last and don't start falling apart on us after a time. We didn't stay for the whole briefing after that, we just weren't learning anything we didn't know already. So we walked down to the BX, got Garrett a haircut and were picked up by his sponsor from there. I did a lot of puppy-dog trailing this week because there was always at least one thing I needed to be on base to do with Garrett, but the majority of the time I just tagged along or sat in the shop break room and read. But the good thing from this trailing is I am now more familiar with base and can get to the things I need to on my own. I also know the place and people where Garrett will be working. In the afternoon we did get to help with a few things for the Special Olympics that Kadena is hosting. It's a big deal on island and I was glad to be able to do something useful, even if it was wrapping kids artwork in plastic to waterproof them.
Wednesday afternoon was exciting! We called up Daniel and asked if he would take us to an auto dealer so that we could hopefully find a vehicle and not have to constantly need rides everywhere. We were told about this B.C Motors that was out Gate 2. We were looking around, found a Honda CR-V and Mitsubishi Pajerno that we liked and were the same price. We had pretty much said we would probably take the Honda, but wanted to check the place next door first to see if they had anything that we liked better. We wanted something that had a good amount of storage space in the back, wouldn't be too big to park or drive on island, and would last us while we are here. While walking over to Payless(not the shoe store, a car place) we happened across another car that caught my eye. We found that it was on hold, but the car behind it was similar in style and cheaper than either of the SUVs. It was a Toyota Spacio, and I instantly started feeling giddy about it. I wasn't really sold on the SUVs, I just didn't care for them all that much. I felt like we were settling. Garrett and I both liked this almost instantly; we started poking around. Popping the hood, checking for 'trunk' space, liking the inside. Daniel said he thought this was more for us and then Garrett wanted to know where the spare tire was. We opened up the back and pulled up the handle, thinking the tire would just be there, but no! It was a second row back seat that holds two people. That's right, a secret seat! It was just so cool it hooked us like no other; it was GAME OVER. It's not that it would be incredibly comfortable to sit back there, but if the need arises that we have to sit 7 people in the car, we are able to! Turned out the tire was underneath that. But Daniel, Garrett, and I were all totally enthralled with the second row of seats. Daniel joked about buying it instead. Just in case still, we headed next door and were none too impressed. Plus it just looked a bit shady; thought that could have been due to it being closed already... So we headed back to BC to talk to a salesman about it. Daniel immediately stepped into haggling mode and asked 'Now is the price negotiable'. The guy figured some numbers and dropped $1200 off the price. Not too shabby. Now it was about $1500 cheaper than the SUVs. We filled out the paperwork and now just have to take our money back there along with proof of insurance. While filling out the paperwork the guy pulled out this referral sheet and gave it to Daniel, telling him to come in for $50 after the purchase of our car was complete. Yep, even though Daniel just brought us here at our request and didn't even buy his car at this place, he gets $50. It was pretty cool. When we got back to our hotel, a Branch President and his wife stopped by to introduce themselves but when they found out we were offered houses today, it turns out they're in different boundaries for branch. Oh well, they were super nice and turns out President Hernandez plays soccer with some other people on Saturday mornings. So Garrett and I hopped on that immediately and are excited for it. They are also re-broadcasting General Conference this weekend so we get to go watch it!
Thursday I wasn't originally going to go onto base, but then we got the call for housing. Garrett's supervisor let us borrow his car on 'You-break-it-you-buy-it' terms. We picked up the keys to two places and headed straight there. The first one we went to was two stories, had really nice looking fake wood floors, pretty good counter space in the kitchen(much better than our apartment in Gulfport!), lots of closets and storage space all over, two and a half bathrooms, a small 'game room' upstairs. I liked it quite a bit, but we didn't care as much for the hard floor, the living room would make it a little hard to set up easily, the only space for a kitchen table would force you to walk through the living room to get to it, and the utility room door wouldn't open all the way without getting stuck on the washer. It had a ton of space for us, but we had reservations. We headed to the second place. It is one of four apartments in a building, but it's on the first floor. We had a time trying to unlock the FOUR locks on the door, not realizing that it is opposite of the US. This one we immediately liked more because it had carpet. the utility room is large with shelving space and cabinets above. The living room was a lot easier to set up furniture in (based on the cable chord in the wall), the kitchen was much larger floor space wise and gives plenty of space for a kitchen table (though the stove plates are weird. They look like record discs), this place only has one bathroom, but it also has an office room. Every room has a fan, and it has really good lighting. The back door doesn't open onto a kids playground, it's shielded by this big hill. We chose the second house we looked at. It probably is a little smaller, but it still can hold quite a few people and if family or friends come to visit, there's still plenty of space for everyone. I'm so excited for it and as soon as we move in I will get some pictures for you. We immediately started looking for furniture on a site similar to craigslist for Okinawa. The military furnishes it for us for up to 90 days, so it's not a hurry, but we want to snatch up deals and have time to get stuff that we like. We already think we found a couch that we like. Our acceptance briefing is Friday and hopefully we find out we can move in soon!
We miss you all and hope that you are doing fantastically. We are settling in here well and I think this is going to be a great experience. We know that the Lord sent us here for a purpose and we hope to find it and be able to serve Him well. I can't wait to meet the wonderful members here and be able to form the bonds that will fill the gaps that we are missing from having family near by.
Sure love ya!

*I know this should go with the last one, but here are a few pictures from our hotel*

Our bedroom. Sorry for the mess! The bed is hard, but surprisingly not that uncomfortable.

Our full kitchen. But the oven is far too small!
Maybe a foot wide inside. 

Our bathroom. The tub is deep but narrow. 

This is our living room. Kind of retro, huh?