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?

Moving: Okinawa!

Okay, so I'm finally managing to sit down and write about our 40 hour trip to the opposite side of the world. First, after having our home goods picked up on September 25th, with expected delivery to the island November 30th, I have learned a severe lesson. Pack lighter! I thought I had put enough in with our home goods and not left too much out to go in our luggage for the trip, but I was wrong. It wasn't awful, and in most cases we had about the same amount of stuff as everyone else, but it was not fun lugging it around the Seattle Airport and Garrett had to be turned into quite the pack mule a few times... But I'm getting ahead of myself now.
We left San Antonio on October 3rd. After getting up early to say goodbye to Mom Bowen, but sadly missing Dad, we went back to sleep for an hour or two, woke up and finished packing. We said our goodbyes to Melanie(and the kids the night before) and headed over to my parents' house. We played a quick game of Skip-Bo and left to go see Dathan at work before heading to the airport. As some of you may know, on the itinerary we received Garrett and I were supposed to the the same flight to Dallas, but not from Dallas to Seattle. Upon checking in, the guy told us he had got us seats together on both flights. We paused, and verified with him that we were on the same flight for both. He confidently told us yes, we were, and upon getting the tickets we looked at the flight number and time, and sure enough it was the same.(Remember for later!)
We ended up getting to the gate about 2 hours before our flight left at 415. We mostly just sat in the terminal, charging various things and lending a charger chord to another man on the flight who's phone was about to die. Upon boarding and getting situated in our seats the flight attendant came by to make sure we were okay with sitting in an EXIT row and the like. He then pointedly looked at me and asked 'Wait, how old are you?' When I responded with my age, he looked a little startled and was like, 'Okay, I just wanted to make sure because you have to be at least 15 to sit in this row.' Not that this is a new inquiry to me, I know I look young for my age, but I just found it quite humorous and had a good chuckle with Garrett about it. The flight to Dallas wasn't very eventful and when we got to the gate, found we were relatively close to our next gate and had about 2 1/2 hours until our next flight boarded. Right across the way was a TGIF, so we went in and had ourselves a pretty good dinner. Finally when our flight was called, I pulled out this set of boarding passes, looked at what should have been Garrett's ticket and did not find his name on it... It was some obscure name that Garrett and I could not even pronounce and kind of looked like the man had just hit a bunch of random letters on a keyboard. So Garrett, being the man he is, went up to the counter and told them that we thought we had been on different flights(his being two hours earlier) but upon check-in being told we were actually on this same flight, but this was not his name. When the lady asked his name, she remembered that yes, they had been paging him earlier, but he had not come... Of course. Luckily, she sorted it out and got him onto this same flight, just now we were no longer sitting anywhere close to each other.
When we finally reached Seattle, we had to track down our luggage which had been sent ahead on the flight that Garrett was originally supposed to be on. If you haven't been to the Seattle airport there are about 16 luggage carousels that go on FOREVER... Or at least it seemed that way to me. Upon walking all the way to the end trying to find the American extra baggage claim, we found out it was at the very first one, right where we had started... On this quest we ran into one of Garrett's classmates from Tech school Heron, and his wife, who are PCSing with us to Okinawa. After finally finding our baggage, we went upstairs to try and find where we needed to check in for port call. We found quite a few military personnel wandering around but finally got directed to a line that we were told was for couples, families, and those traveling with pets. So we hunkered down, introduced ourselves to the lady in front of us who happened to be between the Heron's and us. She was very nice, and an absolutely precious dog, and we found out she had been stationed here before for five years, and now is back with her husband, who is now an E9! She informed us that there was a USO room upstairs for military where we could find free food, bunk beds, etc. We headed up there for some food, and I also discovered a nursery complete with cribs and rocking chairs. I have to admit, it would be a lot easier to travel such a long way with small children with that sort of amenity in the airport. After sitting in the line (not too far from the front) we are instructed that this is only the line for families and pets... Singles and married couples were in another line that was extremely long by now. So we heaved our bags over there, just to be told one more time that we needed to be pretty much back where started in the other line. We waited around for another few hours and finally at 0230 they began check in for our 0850 flight to Yakota AB, followed by Iwakuni Marine Corp Air Station, and finally into Kadena AB in Okinawa Japan. I think by the time we finally got checked in and through security it was about 0515 or so. Garrett and I up to this point had not slept at all since waking up at 0900 on October 3rd. We found a spot at our prospective gate, laid down, pulled out our blanket and slept for 2 blissful hours before being awakened by the announcement that our gate was changing. So we packed up and moved to the correct gate, Garrett again fell asleep(under the chairs) and I went and washed my face and freshened up from before another full day of travel. We finally boarded around 0730 or so and were in the air. Garrett and I were sitting in two side seats with a family of 6 sitting in two of the three-person rows next to us. When I first saw them, I had this feeling that they were members. I'm not sure why, there really was no distinguishing factors and I never heard any mention of anything pertaining to our religion, but I just had a feeling. And throughout the 14 hour flight, Garrett and I talked on and off to the kids. There were 3 boys, probably around 10, 8, and 2 or 3. And a girl probably around 6 or so. At some point Garrett was talking across the aisles to Heron saying something or another about drinking caffeine and I noticed the father of the family give us kind of a strange look, but he didn't comment on anything.
When we finally landed in Yakota we were able to disembark the plane for about 45 minutes. Then we piled back on for another hour flight to Iwakuni, where Garrett purchased our first meal in Japan consisting of KFC and Taco Bell... Go figure. We finally loaded back onto the plane and reached Kadena around 1945 on Friday October 5th.(Okinawan time) by the time we had gotten through the 'check in' and finally gotten our bags it was close to 2030. While waiting for our baggage though, Heron's wife and I were talking some more and she had asked earlier if anyone's ankle's had swollen on the flight; when we landed in Kadena I realized my ankles had actually swollen. I couldn't feel the bone on the outside of my ankle and my calves were swollen up too. I've never had that happen to me on a long flight before, and I still don't know what caused it.
When we got out to the waiting area Garrett's sponsor, who is a Senior Airman in his structures shop here, was there to pick us up along with another guy from the shop who had a larger car. We went and got food at Burger King, and were taken to our off base hotel because on base had been full when Nick Mike had tried to set up our room. It's called the Eagle Lodge, and it's actually quite nice. It's got three bedrooms with five beds total, a kitchen, and living room. Our balcony overlooks downtown basically and you can see the ocean as well. Garrett and I were quite exhausted and after showering, Garrett was great and massaged my ankles and calves to try and get the swelling down. Then he took two cushions off the chairs in the living room to put under the quilt in our bed to prop my legs up.
For now I will end this post about our trip to Okinawa and tell you about our first weekend in Okinawa in my next one! I will try to add pictures later, but I am still adjusting to the time change it seems and find myself rather tired now, just barely at 1945. I know it's not riveting story telling, but I hope you enjoy keeping up with the G D Bowen family! We love you and miss you!