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?

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!

Finding Out the First Station!

So all of you probably know by now where our first station is going to be, and have probably heard from Garrett or myself about our reaction, but I thought I'd share it here just because.
Garrett came out of his dorm on Monday afternoon (23 July) and handed me his phone that was opened to a maps app that was zoomed way in. He told me to zoom out and I found myself looking at Okinawa Japan! At first I thought this was just one of his jokes and he was pulling my leg about where we were really going. But after asking him if he was serious five times, he showed me the paper that told us... I started crying immediately. My first thoughts were that it was so far away from our family and friends and that we would most likely be having our first baby (or two) ten THOUSAND miles from either of our moms... But I still felt excited nonetheless. And the more we talked about it throughout the evening, it continued to grow on me. Especially when we came to the realization that the Lord really has been on our side and blessing us extensively. We were both impressed with the idea to get married earlier than September in case we got stationed overseas, and here we are heading to the other side of the world. The Lord has known all along where He would send us and has given us the means to go there together with the lease amount of hassle in regards to paperwork for the military. Garrett also calmed my mind by bringing up what I'd known, but not been heeding; that the Gospel will be the same there and we will have a church family over there that will help us and provide the support whenever it is needed. We both are super excited to explore and experience such a wonderful place. We have plans to get scuba certified almost immediately after getting there and taking full advantage of the clear, blue ocean! I currently have my brother's best friend stationed at Kadena Air Base for the US Navy and he has been the most helpful in giving us small facts as our questions arise. It'll be good to get there and have someone who has been there for a while and is familiar and kind of get us settled in.
In case you don't know, Okinawa is not part of main-island Japan. It is it's own island south of Japan.

They are 14 hours ahead of Central Time and I have heard they have their own culture separate from the main island. There is tons to do on the island; from seeing historic sites, hiking through mountain and jungle, to snorkeling or scuba diving out in the beautiful ocean. Here are a few pictures of the beautiful island that will be our new home in two short months.

I look forward to posting pictures that we have taken ourselves and sharing our adventures from across the wide blue Pacific!

Moving: Gulfport, Mississippi

Thursday was a very full day prior to moving. Wednesday I had gone up to Austin to visit my sister and her family because it'd been a few months since seeing them. Thursday we went and toured her dream house, which is really fantastic, and then I headed back to San Antonio. My dad and I had to finish fixing my car that he hadn't had a chance to finish last Saturday. About 5 or 6 months ago I took my car in to get everything looked over and our mechanic had told me that I needed my rear wheel cylinders replaced as well as the inner and outer wheel bearings for the rear wheels. They quoted me at it costing around $338 for parts and labor and all. They told me it wasn't needed immediately, so I've put it off. I just had no desire to spend that much at the time. When I told my dad he said we could probably buy the parts and he could fix it using a car lift at the mechanic shop on base. It just took forever to get to actually fixing it because it hadn't been at the forefront of our brains. But we decided we should do it finally before I drive to Mississippi and won't really be home again with enough time to do it. So we bought the parts and it came to $150, and he took it to the shop Saturday while I was at work and I was going to meet him with I got off. But he finished replacing the cylinders before I even got off. And was advised to get the seals for the bearings just in case they were bad. he paid $8 to use the lift for two hours. So Thursday we took it to the shop again and took literally 45 minutes to replace the bearings. It was so easy! The longest part was probably trying to figure out how to work the lift, because it was different than what he had used the last time. So we spent another $8 on the lift for the second day. My car is running better than ever! It's so much quieter on the road, I coudln't get over it on the way home. So instead of spending some $340 dollars to fix my car and lose it for a full day to a day and a half at the mechanic shop. I lost two hours of time and spent only $166. I'm so glad that we were able to do it without a problem. After fixing my car, I went home and proceeded to load it immediately. My brother worked magic loading my car, though it wasn't nearly as full or difficult as when I drove to Idaho for school last falll.

There was so much space left, we should be able to fit Garrett's things on the way back to Texas in September. (At least I hope!) Having my car packed and loaded, I ate dinner with my family, and a sister from our ward brought over my wedding dress that she had finished hemming it for me. After my shower my best friend Kirstin came over who is home from school in New York for a week. We spent some good time reminiscing our years of middle school because when I had been cleaning and packing up my room I found a poster we had written a ton of random things on. She also wanted to see my dress on me, so we did that, and it is absolutely wonderful! I am rather excited to wear it in September. She left around 2200 so that I could get to bed.

Buzz, Bubba, and I were ready for the drive!



So Friday I left bright and early, 0430, for the drive to Gulfport. Buzz and I were ready to be on the road! After loading up the last few items, eating breakfast, receiving a blessing from my Dad, and filling up the gas tank, I hit the road. Let me just say, the drive between San Antonio and Houston was a tough one. I was extremely sleepy, but knew I had to keep driving to get through Houston before heavy morning traffic. My perserverance paid off, there were a ton of cars on the road, but they were all going fast. I don't think I had to go under 65 mph the whole way through Houston. It was great! When I finally made it to the other side, I kept my eyes open for a rest area. I knew that there was no way I would make the whole day without stopping to nap. I finally foound one about 30 miles before hitting Beaumont at about 0820. I parked in a nice shady spot, put up my windshield sun screen, cracked my windows, laid across my passenger seat, and promptly fell asleep. The blanket and pillow pile up that Buzz was perched on was incredibly comfortable. I slept for about 30 minutes and woke to my car beginning to bake and a man with a leaf blower walking by my window. I walked around for a bit and began my drive again. The day passed rather quickly and I made great time. I was at my apartment building by 1420. Unfortunately Shannon, our manager, called earlier and I thought I would be getting in around 1530, so there was a sign on her door saying she wouldn't be back until 1500. I went back to my car to figure out what to do for the next 40 minutes when luck would have it, she pulled up. So we got the paperwork signed and taken care of, I got the key to the apartment and I started moving in. The lady sitting outside downstairs from our apartment probably had many thoughts while I was unloading my car and carrying the set of three plastic drawers upstairs all by myself. When I finally got thing situated I took a shower and continued unpacking until Garrett showed up at about 1730.

After our reunion we decided to go get groceries and other necessities like toilet paper. :) We spend almost three long hours at Wally World and I was ready to get home at hour one. But we got things for sustenance for the time being and finally made it home. Unfortunately Garrett had a CQ (Command of Quarters) shift at 0800-1600 Saturday, so we woke early, took him back to base and I was able to go home and continue organizing and sleeping. :P When I finally was able to go pick him up we didn't have a crazy weekend out we mostly stayed in the apartment and enjoyed our time together. Sunday I got up early and made hash browns, eggs, and sausage. I also made a smoothie, but somehow when I was trying to pull the pitcher off the base it kind of unscrewed the bottom so the smoothie didn't exactly turn out well... I did manage to salvage about a cup full. I was very upset, but did not give into it and just let it run off my shoulders. We don't have an iron and Garrett didn't feel like leaving super early to go back to base to iron his white shirt so he wore a sweatshirt! I coudn't believe that he was wearing a sweatshirt in this heat, but he pulled it off. Our ward is a relatively good size. We got there early and were sitting in the chapel and had three different men(including the bishop) come and introduce themselves. A little girl behind us, probably no more than 2, apparently had become friends with Garrett when he was at the ward a month ago. She quickly came to sit with us and began pointing out our eyes, eyebrows, heads, etc. She is a handful, but so precious. Just before Sacrament was about to start a girl about my age walks in and sits a few rows in front of us. I lean to Garrett and tell him that is Taylor, sister of his friend Jake, who we were friends with (separately) in Texas. He didn't believe me because she now has a baby and we are in Mississippi. I hadn't seen her in well over a year, but remember her saying something about family in Mississippi and I knew that it was her. I knew her through a friend and her roommate that I hung out with all the time about three years ago. Garrett the whole meeting was determined that it was not her. So after meeting with the clerk to transfer our records to the ward, we were walking towards class and passed her in the lobby. She did a double take at us and we found out I was right. :) Her son Liam is about 4 months old I would say. She seemed extremely happy to see me and have someone her age around. We exchanged numbers and hope to hang out since we both are at home all day, every day. Relief Society was really good. I had a woman sit next to me and ask me if I was from Idaho. She was determined that I looked like I was from Idaho, not Texas. She was talking a mile a minute switching topics faster than a race car driver, but it was nice. She was very complimentary and couldn't believe my sister had made my earrings I was wearing and just kept going on and on. After the lesson, the president came up to introduce herself and said it was custom for them to come visit  the new sisters who move into the ward. That this following week wouldn't work because she was going with the youth to Nauvoo for Youth Conference but they would call me. And she also was pointing out all of the younger sisters that I may connect with and was just extremely friendly. When it came up that Garrett and I hadn't been sealed she immediately said she would come with us when we did if it wasn't too far away. It was very sweet. Garrett already volunteered to help buil someone's deck the following Saturday in Elders' Quorum. I think this ward will be good to us and for us. We look forward to getting to know it better.

Ready for the tour of our semi-furnished apartment?



The view from the door. Immediately to the left is the kitchen. The open door on the right is the bathroom and closet. Straight ahead is the all in one living-dining-and-bed-room.

 



I don't have a picture of the left side with the sink and dish cabinets because the window was messing up the lighting.

Sink area. Lots of space!

Right: is the shower and toilet.

Left: Walk in closet.












Our window seat (Now has a 39" TV in it)



Garrett did a great job hanging those evanly and in a good design.
Aside from leaving the hammer out; that I found very violently
with the bottom of my foot later that night.



Our wonderful air mattress with a green fuzzy blanket that sheds worse than a dog...



 

 

Wedding Adventures!

I will apologize now that there are not many pictures in this post. I promise I am working on collecting them from the various sources and will share them as I get them.
Well the wedding weekend started on Thursday for me. My bfffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff Ashley drove with me to Gulfport on Thursday, May 24th. We awoke at the crack of dawn and got on the road. Ashley is not a morning person and she let me know it very quickly upon waking her. However, soon she was her normal quirky self and we had an absolutely fantastic 10 hour drive. We spent our time making a list of every state license plate we saw (no multiples) and soon set a goal for ourselves to have a list of all 50 states in one day. We made really good time, though I may have been attempting to time travel occasionally... We reached Gulfport around 1530. After waiting at the gate entrance for base for 15 minutes while they took my license, insurance, and registration for my car and finally gave me a pass onto base, we cruised around base wasting some time until Garrett was out of school and trying to complete our mission. Finally having only two plates missing from our list, we went and checked into our hotel, which was conveniently just across the street from Garrett's dorm! I couldn't have planned it better if I had tried. As Ashley and I were still waiting, we collapsed onto our inviting bed and soon discovered that it was more comfortable than any bed I've ever had at home... Down comforter and amazing pillows; I immediately knew I could get used to it. Ashley fell asleep almost instantly, I was much too anxious to fall asleep. Finally I got the call from Garrett that he was ready. I hopped out of bed, grabbed my room key, and left Ashley sleeping nicely.
I walked quickly across the street and parking lot and stood waiting outside of the doors to Garrett's dorm. I was wearing my 'Future Mrs. Bowen' jersey and people kept coming out and telling me he was coming. I met Garrett's roommate before I even saw Garrett... Finally, after taking his dear sweet time, Garrett emerged from the building. We pulled each other into a nice good hug and kiss. We then learned that people were ready to head to the movie that we had planned earlier. So I ran back to the room to grab my car keys and see if Ashley was interested in coming still. Ashley had seen the movie before, so she opted out of going to continue sleeping. So I headed over to the dorm with my car and found Garrett and a friend of his, Michael Levison, coming in our car. Garrett wanted to drive, of course. So we headed to the theater following another truck full of people. We were seeing The Hunger Games. It was Garrett, Levison, and I, as well as three other classmates of Garrett. After the movie we went to eat at TGIF. I had told Ashley to call me if she woke and wanted to come hang with us, but still hadn't heard from her at this point. I knew we still had sandwich stuff from our drive and that she at least wouldn't starve. Finally around 2300 I believe, Garrett had to be back in his dorm. I quietly snuck back into my room. The blinds were still open, and especially because we were on the ground floor facing the hotel parking lot, I tried to quietly close them before getting in bed. BAD idea... All of a sudden a loud crashing sounds and I find the blinds falling on top of me, bruising my shoulder, and waking Ash. Though all I get out of her is a mumbled 'If you wanted to wake me, you could have just shook me.' and she turned over and fell back asleep. I was cracking up, but decided not to make even more of a ruckus by trying to put them back up where they belong.  So, I crawled into bed, Garrett called, and I was out like a light.
Friday the 26th dawned early, but I was excited. Ashley woke, saw the blinds on the floor, and said 'They got you too?' I soon learned that they had fallen on her when she had tried to close them earlier while I was gone, and she had just put them back up. So yes, we were a pair of winners in our hotel room. We showered and dressed and were pressed to hurry by a hungry man who was soon to be my husband. We walked across the street to meet Garrett and Levison at McDonald's for breakfast. Levison was coming with us to New Orleans for our big shin-dig. So we eat, Levison and Garrett head back to the dorm to pack, and Ashley and I put all of our stuff back into the car. We finally head out of Gulfport about 1030 or 1100. Garrett makes the drive to New Orleans (a little over an hour drive) and we get all the way to the Parish office where we are to purchase our marriage license. When Garrett comes around the car and opens my door, he looks at me and says 'Do you know what I forgot? ... My birth certificate.' First words out of my mouth, 'You're kidding, right?'. But no, he was not. So the four of us piled back into the car at 1215 or so and headed BACK to Gulfport. By this time Garrett had been hitting the rumble strip on the side of the road quite a bit and Levison and Ashley were joking and complaining about the driver. They even filled out a complaint card to be filed with the 'Future Mrs. Bowen'. We reach Gulfport and Garrett runs up to his room. We switch, so that I am driving BACK to New Orleans. The judge's office had called me Thursday to see when we were coming by to pay and to give the marriage license and everything. I told her that we would bring it by Friday. But the office closes at 1500 on Fridays and there was no way we were getting back to New Orleans, getting our marriage license and making it over to the office by then. Although, I'm pretty sure I made it back to New Orleans in about 45 minutes flat... In my defense, I was still one of the slowest people on the road. We made it back just before 1500 I believe but by the time we went up to the marriage license office, it was too late to go over to the judges office. Luckily I called as we were first heading back to Gulfport to tell her the situation and she totally understood and said we could just do everything on Saturday, just to make sure we brought exact change. So after the few minutes it took to get our license, the four of us were pretty hungry. We headed to Taco Bell to eat and kill some time before Garrett's friend, Gabe, came in on the Greyhound at 1730. We soon realized that we would not have enough room for all of our stuff plus the five of us in my little car. So we got permission from the hotel we were staying at to take our stuff and have it held behind the counter until the people who the rooms were actually under came to check in. Thus freeing up a lot of space in my car. After picking up Gabe from the station, we headed back to the hotel to check in and hang around for a bit. After not too long, my family showed up including my parents, brother Dathan, sister Shalynna, and my Aunt Judy. Everyone was rather hungry except maybe Levison, Ashley, Garrett and I since we had eaten not too long ago. So we headed around the corner to this little Italian place that at first looked a tad sketch to me, but we soon discovered was actually surprisingly good. Garrett and I, being ourselves, after finishing eating what we could of our shared spaghetti plate, got up and began dancing near the back, out of the way. We had no music, but just danced and talked some. Our waitress spotted us and told us we were going to make her cry if we didn't stop. The rest of our table was quick to point out that we were getting married the next day, and wasn't it rather obvious? She was extremely happy for us and offered many congratulations. After dinner Garrett and the guys left for their super secret 'Bachelor Party' in which they went to see Men in Black 3.
I found it almost hard to fall asleep, even though I was so tired from everything. Ashley and I stayed up talking about everything. Finally I managed to fall asleep and woke early to begin getting ready. Soon after doing Ashley's hair however, I realized it was not good that I had decided not to bring hair spray...

So my aunt found Garrett and asked him to run to the store to pick some up for us. It was soon discovered that my future husband was extremely forgetful this weekend. He had already been to the store to pick up socks and shoes, which he had also forgotten in Gulfport, along with his flight cap. So Garrett could not stay outside long on this day. Garrett and the guys left for the judge's office in my car and I went with my family in the van. After we arrived, the judge was not there yet, Garrett and I were still unable to see each other in proper wedding tradition. After the judge had arrived and Garrett had gone in to pay and to get things going, I waited outside with my Dad and Shalynna and Ashley to get the okay to walk in.

After walking in, being handed off by my dad, it sort of turns into a blur of just staring into Garrett's eyes, shedding tears of happiness, repeating what I'm told, and yearning for the day we are bound together for eternity.

 Every promise I made 'until death do us part' was made in my heart for eternity. I hope that Garrett was able to see that in my eyes and feel it in the death grip I had on his hand. Garrett didn't cry, but I definitely saw those big brown eyes of his feeling the same thing I was, he just didn't let the tears spill over. I promise that I am also working on getting the digital copy of the recording to add to this blog eventually, and if I don't make it before September, we are going to show it in September at a BBQ on the 14th.
After lots of pictures and signing all the official documents, we headed out to find a place to eat. After some brief miscommunication and frustration on the part of the bride and groom, we finally set up camp at the Clearview Mall across the highway from our hotel that had this wonderful restaurant called  Zea's. While waiting for them to get the table ready, I found I had an amazingly sweet message from my best friend Kirstin congratulating me and wishing us the best.

THE best strawberry lemonade I have ever had. It was so incredibly good! If you ever go to New Orleans, I highly recommend this place. The food was excellent as well. Though my sandwich was MUCH larger than I had anticipated. I was only able to eat half of it. We enjoyed ourselves a lot eating great food, having family and friends with us, and wishing more could have joined us for this small shindig.

This is the small cake that I had my manager at work make to bring along. I love the cake topper so much because it is Garrett and I exactly. He is always dipping me into a kiss and dancing. The hair colors were not correct when I ordered it, but I had no inclination to pay $7.50 per head to change it and be disappointed that they didn't come out right. However, my Aunt Alice happened to be in town when my cake topper came in the mail. She being the artist that she is immediately volunteered to correct the color and make it as real as possible. She did a superb job! Garrett and I proceeded to put napkins down our front and cut the cake. Both of us wary when we finally got our piece because we knew what was coming.

I think I did a fantastic job though. I got it up his nose and all over. :) Hopefully pictures I collect will have some non-blurry ones of the outcome of this palm-to-face moment. 

After cleaning up from the cake mess, we all headed back to our respective hotel rooms to change. After changing and hanging out for a while Garrett, Gabe, Ashley, Levison, and I headed to the French Quarter. After finally finding atrociously expensive parking we wandered over to Cafe du Monde for beigneits. They were rather good and not very expensive to get a plate of three. After eating Levison wanted to get a picture of the 'Bourbon St' sign. It was getting dark by this time, and Garrett was not exactly stoked to be around so many people getting drunk on a Saturday night of a long weekend. He was very tense and protective the whole time; walking behind Ashley and I constantly with one hand clenched on my shirt and the other in a fist over his wallet. Needless to say, we did not stay long. 

Well that about sums up the days leading up to our wedding. We had many more adventures the following days, but I will save those for another time. We love you all, and wish those that couldn't make it, could have. We look forward to celebrating with you September 15th when Garrett can come back to San Antonio.