A storm.

See that tiny hot pink dot? That's where I live. The island doesn't seem as small as it looks on the maps.

Typhoon Kompasu, my very first. I'm kind of excited to see what happens.


Anyone who knows me well probably finds this shocking. I've been TERRIFIED of storms pretty much my entire life. I have no idea where this zen is coming from.

Manly conversations....

Let me set up the scene...

We went to one of Josh's coworkers houses today for a cookout. His wife and I were at the kitchen table talking while all of the guys sat on the couch playing Call of Duty.

Single Guy was looking at us and said to our husbands

Single Guy: "You better watch out! They're plotting against you, lol"

Married Guy: "You aren't married dude, you don't even know."

Josh: "Yea, that's a great thing man, if they're friends then we get off easy."

Married Guy: "Exactly, they can go get pedicures and we can sit here and play video games and they'll be happy when they get home."

Single Guy just looked confused.

He'll learn. Eventually.

It feels like dating, this whole making married friends thing, because you have to both like both of them for it to really work well. I mean I'm sitting here hoping that she liked me too! They have two little boys just a little older than Thomas and seem to enjoy just hanging out with friends like we do...yay for the possibility of new friends!

My blog bores me.

We went to Torii Beach today, it's on the army base. It was great, they have hammock chairs and playgrounds, splashpads, waterslides, and a restaurant. There was also a big raft out on the water that Thomas loved jumping off of into Josh's arms.

But hey, you've seen one beach you've seen them all. Not really but it's just not very interesting.

We finally have some idea of what our pay/bills will be while we're here so that helps me sleep at night.

I thought about Christmas for awhile today. I think that Josh and I should just stop buying each other gifts for any gift giving holiday. In general we don't really know what to get each other. So I think we should start giving experiences instead. Who needs Christmas presents when we could take a day trip to a surrounding island? Just something that we wouldn't ordinarily do because it's a bit more expensive. I think it's a good idea. I haven't asked Josh yet though. Along with that I want to stick to the whole "want, need, wear, read" thing for Thomas. Otherwise I have a problem reigning myself in.

My parents haven't been on Skype lately. I miss them. That's all.

September is coming! September is coming!

My child is still very much in his "I love Daddy" phase. So when he started begging me to buzz his head when I buzz Josh's every week....well, I ignored it! His hair was so soft, and he's never had a hair cut before. But the next day he actually went to the bathroom and brought me the clippers and rubbed it on his head and made the sign for more. How could I say no to that?

So I did it. I clipped him. And yes I was creepy enough to keep a tendril or two and shove it in a drawer to eventually be put in a memory book. He sat very still and was excited when he saw hair hit the floor.

I think he looks like a cancer patient. But whatever, it's his hair and it grows back.

Look at these two. Cute aren't they?



This is his new thing, arm crossing. He tries out about ten different positions before he feels he got it right. He usually does this while we're reading to him. It's so grown up.


I wish I had my camera today. Josh dressed Thomas and without noticing he had dressed himself almost identically to his son. They both had on gray t shirts and khaki cargo shorts and sandals. Throw in the bald heads and it looked like they were headed for some cheesy family photos.


I'm excited for next month. Not only are there tons of birthdays to celebrate but I'm hoping we can get out to some more cultural stuff now that we have some idea of what our monthly budget will be. There's a bullfight, beer festival, eisa festival, Japanese tea ceremony, shi shi mai festival, full moon ceremony at Shuri castle....etc etc etc. I'm really hoping we can get to some of these things.

I'm really loving it here. To be honest, aside from Target, I don't really miss America...like at all. I miss family and friends, that's it. The people here are so refreshing to be around. They CARE. About lots of things. Not just themselves and money. I'm hoping we start turning a little Japanese while we're here. Caring more is always good.

Now would be a good time to learn how to sew.....

I've had a hard time finding clothes that fit for as long as I can remember. It's about ten times worse here.

I'm a very weird shaped person. If pants fit my waist then my legs are swimming. If a shirt fits my shoulders and chest then it balloons elsewhere or is WAY too long. In general all capris hit me mid calf, skirts are too long....so on and so forth. So I either look like a little kid wearing her mommy's clothes, or like a pathetic 20 something still shopping in the teen section.

I've tried on pretty much every article of clothing at the BX and none of them fit me. Literally. The few brands they carry just don't fit me. Of course I could get things that are sort of close and get them tailored, but they don't stock cheap clothing. They stock under armor for all workout gear, and a lot of Micheal Kors and Seven jeans. I'm used to Old Navy or Target pricing...ugh.

So sure I can order online, except I usually have to try on 2 or 3 sizes to find what works in that particular store. I looked at the clothes I already own and I have sizes from medium to extra large from the same brand.

All the clothes out in town are made for teeny tiny people. These girls have no chests or hips at all. You should see the bra section out in town, it's hilarious.

I'm giving up at the moment. I'll just look like a hobo I guess, and save my money for some sort of "What Not to Wear" spree when we get back home.

I've never missed malls as much as I do at this moment.

Obon in Okinawa

Tonight is the last night of Obon, which is a Buddhist celebration to commemorate the return of ancestor spirits. Eisa dancers walk all through the neighborhood and stop to perform at each Okinawan home as a means of entertaining and consoling that families ancestors. They have been drumming for hours now, up and down the all of the streets and they are just as loud and energetic now as they were three hours ago when they were right in front of our street.

I know the chanting by heart at this point and find myself saying "Ei SA SA!" in my head a lot.

It's just the coolest frickin' thing ever. I was looking for a picture or a video that would help share what it's like but none of them are good enough. It's like the difference between listening to a song on the radio or having that artist give you a private concert. I mean the drums are vibrating through your body and you can smell the big meals they've prepared, and the crazy whistling that they do..it's just an all senses experience. It helps that the night breeze is cool and there's a full moon out as well. It's very weird, to go outside and see this culture so different from my own and to smell the incense and just be so blatantly reminded that I'm not in America anymore, and then to walk back in my apartment to my very American life.

Just before midnight tonight they will set out lanterns on the water to guide the spirits back. If I knew what water they did this at I would go and be a spectator..but I don't and to be honest I kind of feel rude watching their celebration.

This blog post just isn't doing it justice. I guess there are some things you just have to see for yourself.

Home is where you make it.

Josh put a lot of effort into this and aside from the initial excitement Thomas doesn't seem to care. What an ingrate!


I've been pushing random buttons on my camera just to see what it does. This was the self timer option with ten shots. No flash meant that Josh and I ended up blurry. I thought it was kind of fun.





Those beach chairs are our couch. My mom bought them when she came to visit us in NC. I'm really glad we thought to put them in the express shipment or we'd be stuck with the yoga mat for a seating option.

Parks and planes.

This post is going to go backwards because the pictures start in the evening and go until the morning. Luckily it doesn't really matter. We went to two different parks today. The second time we went to the one right by our house from about 4-5pm, which tends to be a very heavy plane time. I guess the pilots want to get home for dinner.
Anyway, this is our building, we live on the top floor.


I've adapted pretty quickly to living so close to the flightline. I barely hear them anymore, unless it's one of those "faster than the speed of freedom" jets then they don't even show up on my radar. This is a nice quiet plane. We were just on the walking trail when I took this.

This is a different plane than the ones in the last two pictures, they just come in like crazy at that time of day. I can't think of the adjective I want for this picture, but it just kind of shows how out of place we are here. This beautiful tropical island, with calm waters and sandbars should be peaceful and fun, but instead it's interrupted by military aircraft. I'm used to it obviously, but it just doesn't seem very fair towards the locals.

Now we're back to the morning. This is a picture of Gate 2 street in the daylight. I've never seen it at night...but I've heard about it. Apparently there is a lady on this street who does some tricks with a banana, and buy me drinky girls are rampant. It's basically sodom and gomorrah.

This is a skanky bar, but it kind of shows how beautiful/ugly Okinawa is. It's the definition of a concrete jungle and it just isn't pretty. Now this happens to be a place of sins but it could just as easily be a daycare, they all look the same.

4play? Oh you're so clever....I think we'll be avoiding this street when Thomas is old enough to read.

In between park visits we hung out at home. Thomas actually laid down first to read the vibram catalogue, so Josh joined him. Thomas was tickled pink.

Tommy Lee Jones...he's the boss! He sells coffee well too.


I was talking to my dad today about how quickly I'm taking things for granted. Good heavens look at that view! I just don't notice it as much anymore, it's not quite as awe inspiring after a month of constant exposure.

I did a lot of talking today. I talked to Josh about how if there was ever a time in my life to make exercise a habit, it's now. He is a great resource that I'm not using. So many people don't have supportive spouses, and I do. I also have walking trails that are plentiful and usually bordering an ocean. I have free gyms and pools on every single base here that I can use whenever I want. So with that attitude we parked the car at Sunset beach and walked to Araha beach, played at the pirate ship and walked back. Once I get my real shoes in our next shipment we might even attempt jogging.

Mama monkeys???

You know you're going to have a good day when you see a sign like this. Who knew tigers pee in faces?


Josh had a day off of work this week so we decided to check out the Okinawa Zoo and Wonder Museum.

It's actually really close to our house and not expensive at all, I'm sure we'll head back here often. We stopped in the shop right away to get a drink and a snack and there I spotted this sunscreen. These people do not play around with Mr. Sun.

I wasn't sure what to expect of the zoo because I've been quite spoiled by Brookfield Zoo while I was growing up. Okinawa zoo is definitely not Brookfield. You know how the habitats are as close to their natural environment as possible and sometimes you need clairvoyant abilities to actually find the animal in the exhibit? You're not going to have that problem here. It was kind of sad though, these were not the kind of cages I would want to live in. The tigers had the same amount of space as the raccoons. Not very fair.

The positive side of that though is that Thomas could actually spot the animals. This little bat was so cute. Bats are everywhere here, you see them flying around pretty often, but this one, he's my homie now. He looked right in my eyes and crawled around in front of Thomas like he was putting on a show.

Then Josh pointed out this spider....if you need some perspective, that little brown spider to the left hand corner is about the size of a big wolf spider in Illinois. EEK!
This is the monkey that Thomas called mama. Maybe he thought it was wearing makeup?

I found it very appropriate that this sign was just a little askew.
Despite the sad looking enclosures, anytime we saw handlers with the animals, which was often, they seemed to really love them. He was just rubbing his elephant friend and watching him eat.
If I had found a lion for Thomas to sit on I would have done it, but this is as close as I could get to a cheesy big cat photo op.

The zoo is tiring. It's very hilly. So were very glad to hang out in the cooler Wonder Museum.

He's a giant! There was a giant chair too that would have made him look tiny but it was always full of kiddos.
Josh and I were pretty excited about this wall, but Thomas was freaked out so we moved on fairly quickly. Maybe next year he'll be all about it though.

Liquid magnets, they moved based on sounds. It was freaky, and cool!
People sized kaleidoscopes. Thomas would have stayed in these for hours.
I don't know how this worked at all, but you stood in front of the screen and it captured your movement. The look on T's face when he realized that the picture moved when he did was priceless. He started waving very enthusiastically.
Most of the Wonder museum was for older kids and we were hungry so we decided to head out. We had a really good time there though. You can rent little pedal boats and you can fish there or feed koi fish. There were also rides and a stage so we'll be sure to go back and try out the things we missed this time.

no real point to this

Shocking revelation, restrictive diets don't work for me. The second I can't have something I want it. So after two days of caveman I felt like crap and was over it. So we went to Bella Napoli for dinner. It's a little pizza place and they have some interesting varieties of pizza available. We weren't in an adventurous mood though so we went for pepperoni and vegetables. We haven't been in an adventurous eating mood for awhile though. Sometimes you just want to know that what you ordered will actually taste good.

The restaurant was bright orange and had a bistro/cafe kind of feel. Their decorating was a bit random....fake owls anyone?



The view however was very nice. Thomas was very happy to have view of the seawall, where he could point out surfers and people walking their dogs.
We didn't realize the mango smoothie would be as big as he is. He only drank about two inches of it but it kept him quiet for a good long while so it was worth it for him. He's a smoothie freak.

The best part though was that the pizza was actually really good. It's all made from scratch and it was delicious. Thomas ate two whole pieces (minus crust) all by himself. He NEVER eats that much so he must have agreed on the taste.



Other than that we haven't done very much, just running errands and everyday stuff. I tried to get a cute picture of Thomas and I, but it was unsuccessful, so this is what I end up with. I was trying to get him to smile. He just kind of looked at me like he felt sorry that this is what I've resorted to.


We bought a blender. It was a great idea. Thomas has been eating fresh fruit smoothies and he doesn't seem to notice the spinach and carrots we put in there too.

This is our neighbors door. Freaks.


We had to pay our bills this month. You pay your electric and gas bills at the local corner stores, we actually set up GI Bill pay so we won't have to do this again but it was kind of fun to do it once. I like the cartoons on our bill. I'm wondering if the moon on the right doesn't mean there are discounted hours to use your electricity.
While we were paying the bill we spotted another weird kit kat. Salt and caramel flavor. It tasted like that fake caramel/coffee smell in chapstick or lipgloss.


And to round out the post, some Engrish. "The Calolies from The sushi are indiciated for your benefited". Good to know.

Curtains and weird neighbors

I hate posting without pictures, but I can't find my camera cord. So oh well.

We got our first electric bill, and it wasn't too bad, but I've talked to more than one military family who talk about their $5-600 electricity bills and I'm scared! Especially now that we have our myriad of electronics here. (Yay for tv!) In an effort to not be paying hundreds of dollars for electricity we went on the hunt for thermal/blackout curtains. We're already fans of how much it helps Thomas sleep.
The problem here is that shopping on base means very limited options. Most colors only had one or two panels on the shelf...I needed 8 panels. To be honest, I'm just not a fan of sage, or navy or burgundy. I spent hours online, falling in love with curtains that were backordered or can't be shipped to an APO address and gave up. I asked around about curtains in town, but they're expensive to begin with and throw in the very sad exchange rate and it's just not worth it.

I'm going to embrace the pathetic amount of options I have. It's forced simplifying. We ended up with chocolate brown in the bedrooms, and sage (yuck) in the guest room. While I'm not a fan of how any of them look I've gotta say, the blackout properties of the chocolate colored curtains are amazing. It's like the batcave in there! We aren't even running AC in those rooms and it's bearable. That's incredible! $40 bucks a window is well worth it.

I'm pretty sure Josh and Thomas don't ever want to hear the word curtain again.

We got neighbors...I think. We heard people moving a few things in. But since then we haven't heard them at all, although they did put tin foil on their door. I think they may be huddled in there wearing tin foil hats waiting for aliens.

We also got Thomas his Halloween costume. We were planning on a shark costume we had seen online, but again they don't ship to APO. We were at the BX and I noticed that there were only two toddler costumes left, one was a little miss sailorette and the other was a peanut. So I went for the peanut costume. I asked Josh if he would get a syringe costume and be an epipen... he didn't get it.

That's really all I've got. Having our express shipment get here kept us at home from all the celebrating this weekend, but it's so nice to feel like it's a little more like home.

A big step.

Growing up I always thought I would have two children. Everyone has two children. It's just what you do.

I was wrong. (Shhh, don't tell Josh, or my mom)

Josh went to the doctor today to ask about getting a vasectomy. All Josh has to do is get command approval and they'll do it, and Josh's OIC didn't care at all. I'm pretty amazed it was so simple as we had heard that there's no way they would do the surgery on a 20 something with only one kid.
(Which frankly, really pisses me off, the military is in charge of so much in my life, the last place they need to stick their noses in is in the size of our family) Rant over. So anyway that was big weight off my shoulders to know that it won't be a big deal.

I'm aware that not everyone will be happy with this decision but at the end of the day we have to do what's best for our family. Our little threepack is perfect as it is.

We have been talking about this since Thomas was born. Well, to be perfectly honest we spent about six months dancing around the topic, neither of us wanting to admit we were happy with one, for fear of limiting the other's wants. Eventually it came out and I think we were both relieved to admit it and even more so that we agreed with each other. We agreed to wait awhile to make sure we weren't making this decision due to sleep deprivation, but now more than a year later we are even more confident in our decision.


I adore being a mom. It's truly just the coolest job on the planet, but I think that every mom would agree with me that it's also really hard. I want so much for him and I believe that in stopping with our only that we can give him so much.

Sometimes I think I'm a freak, because other women are so baby crazy and I'm just not. I like babies, don't get me wrong, but they're kind of boring and needy. I see newborns all the time and after the initial "Aww so cute!" I think, "Thank God it's not me."

I think that says a lot.


I did so much reading about only children. I hunted down forums, asked friends, read blogs about only children trying to find out about their lives. It seems that the stereotype of maladjusted freak only child is just plain wrong. There are decades of research to prove this, as well as a lot of anecdotal evidence as well that only children are turning out just as well, if not a little bit better than children with siblings. It's also one of the fastest growing family groups in America.

Our biggest reasons were emotional, financial and logistical. Emotionally, I lost my damn mind after Thomas was born. It was awful. I don't ever want to be that out of control ever again. It also took a toll on our marriage. It's very important to me that Thomas has a healthy loving relationship between his parents. Josh and I are both introverted and need alone time. With only one child we're able to have our alone time, our couple time and our family time without cheating any of the other areas. I'm also not the most patient person, nor do I thrive on chaos. I believe Thomas will benefit from a mom who isn't stretched thin and overwhelmed.
Financially, raising kids is expensive. I'm sure it could be cheaper but I don't want to sacrifice my ideals. I want him to have organic food. I want to homeschool/private school him. We want to be able to let him explore whatever interests he has, to travel, etc. We want to have a retirement plan in place and funded so that he will never have to carry the burden of our care on his shoulders when we're old. It's also important to us to be able to travel and visit family, which will always be easier to afford and execute with only us three.

Tonight we took a walk down the beach at sunset. It was high tide so there wasn't any of that gross low tide fish smell, the waves were gentle and the sky was a beautiful array of pink, orange and purple and as I walked with my men I realized that all of my rational reasons don't matter so much. What it really comes down to is that I'm truly enjoying my life. I love parenting more as Thomas grows. I'm not pining away for his babyhood. I celebrate every new milestone without any real longing for the past. When we're walking and Thomas reaches for both of our hands, or when we're asleep and Thomas has his arms stretched out so he can touch both of us, or when he busts into one of our hugs and demands kisses from both of us...well it just feels perfect to me. Whole. Complete. Content.


In other news....out stuff is through customs and *should* be delivered on Saturday. I'm not holding my breath but I'll be so glad to have some of our belongings back. It's probably another month until we get our furniture, but at least we'll have some of it!

Probably the most boring post ever.

"Hey Thomas J, tomtom, little man, what are you doing in the cabinet????"
"I'm hiding mom. Leave me alone."
(Okay so he didn't really say that but he did kind of whine and grunt and close the door)



"Oh okay, sure thing baby."
*Giggles and shrieking*
"You're not very good at this."


In other news, we went to the Farmer's Market. It was freaking awesome. Josh and I are going to attempt a caveman diet. It's a big thing with his crossfit obsession. Basically, no grains, no dairy, no processed crap. Only food that a caveman could eat. So that meant we needed to find fresh produce, preferably organic. There is no way we were going to pay the obscene amounts on base for fruits and veggies that die in two days, and are probably covered in chemicals.

Anyway, we ended up buying,
a bag of carrots,
two dragonfruit,
broccoli,
tomato,
bananas,
cucumbers,
wax apples,
blueberries,
and green peppers.

For a grand total of about $15. That's a sweet deal.


This is a wax apple. I had high hopes, but it's super tart and I can't take it. Josh liked it.

Josh also thought he would like these. I don't know what they are. They were very gelatinous, and squishy, sort of stress ball like.


Needless to say, they're in the trash now.