Life in Japan lately

 It's finally "Summer" in Japan.  We tend to get the warmer weather a month or so later than the states do.  We're still in the rainy season, but thankfully it's getting better.  With my husband being gone, it's hard to find things to do to keep busy and when the weather is bad, it's almost unbearable being here.  I will say that you'll either love overseas tours or hate them, and sadly I'm starting to hate it here.  I dislike the constant change in schedule our ship seems to have. That is no one's fault and I know this.  Needs of the Navy and all.  Sometimes, I just need my husband home with me.  That's all.   I dislike that drama and rumors just seem to fester and thrive on base.  And if I'm being honest here, I miss freaking Target.  And Chipotle.

We have 8 more months left here, 7 if we're able to take leave early.  We are up for orders but weren't selected for any this last cycle.  I guess one positive is that we can hope Florida orders are available when the new window opens. We just want to know where we're going from here.  Something we can focus on when the schedule is rough or when we're homesick.  The Navy's motto should really be changed to "Hurry up and wait."  Should we start a petition?  I'll sign it!  It's not that I don't know how these things work, I do.  I know they take time and it's not like the higher ups can just snap their fingers and make things happen.  CO's can't say, "Oh no sir, we won't be going underway next month, I don't feel like it."  It would be amazing if that were the case, but it's not.  There's a lot I could say and get in to here, but it's pointless so I won't.  I'll just say that we're anxious to be DONE with this deployment and be together as a family again.

Okay...now on to happier things!

Our door for the 4th of July.  Kaylee completely made a mess of her footprints, but oh well.
She wants to leave it up until her Daddy gets home from Deployment.

In a recent post  I had talked about my favorite restaurant here in Yokosuka, CoCo's.
It's a curry place and I HIGHLY recommend it to those who have never been.  I was not a fan of Indian curry until my husband forced me to try this one day.  I fell in love and have never looked back.

A kids plate from CoCo's.
I get Chicken Cutlet Curry, 2 kids plates, cheese naan and a Coke, all for ¥1700.  It's a little over $20 and WELL worth it in my honest opinion.
It's easy to get to, right on 16 across from Daiei. Check it out if you are stationed here or here visiting the area. You won't be sorry. 

Indian Delicious Curry
My friend Liz introduced me to this one day.  My Yoko BFF Sarah has also raved about it. I still think I like CoCo's better if the kids are tagging along, but if it's just me and the husband, or my girlfriends, I might go here instead. They have so many different curry flavors but what will get me to go back is the Naan.  It really is....Delicious.
I must remember to drag Kendall, his mom, and my parents here!

I have recently decided to take my kids out to eat off base twice a month.  You guessed it, on paydays. Last night, I just got a wild hair up my butt, as the saying goes, and got me and the kids dressed and we headed out to CoCo's.  It was great spending time with them, just us.  It's a tad-bit stressful at times and with the heat walking is terrible, but our kids are troopers and didn't mind at all.  Plus, when a child leaves CoCo's, they turn in their "Panda Cards" and then they get either candy or a toy.  No wonder they love CoCo's.  Adults love it because of the different spice levels.  I get Level 3, and it goes to Level 10.  However, to get past 5 you have to have eaten 5 and then you'll receive a special card? I have no verification of this, just hearsay but numerous people have told me they will not prepare anything above Level 5 without a card.

I'll just say...WTF America?!  Where are our badass varieties of Kit-Kats?   This doesn't even BEGIN to cover the flavors Japan has.  Green Tea seems to be the most popular at our 7-11.  If they can even CALL themselves a 7-11...they have no Slurpee's, Big Gulps, or even a soda machine.  Tisk tisk.  Although....it may be one of the reasons Japan is probably the healthiest and fittest country in the world. Touche...touche.

What better way to beat the Japanese heat than at the pool? 

Only Southerners understand the expression, "It's too hot to go to the pool."  Our temps have been NOTHING like the heat wave that is hitting the USA right now, but it can take your breath away at times. Still, it helps us pass the time and allows this Momma to get a good tan before Homecoming. Gotta be looking good when my Sailor gets home!

Speaking of...I think I'm doing a FANTASTIC job of it!  Busting butt every day on my workout!
*Insert war cry here!*

Ready to head to CoCo's

And THIS is how I looked while getting us ready to head to CoCo's. 

FINALLY...the weather was good enough to take our summer pictures!
Kaylee said, "This one will be for Daddy when he's on his boat."
This little girl misses her Daddy and loves him, there's no denying it.

I call this, "The Cheerleader Pose"

Oh hi!

 

And last but certainly not least, one of the cutest pictures I've ever taken of my son.
He was supposed to be coloring while I cleaned my room and this is what I found when I was done.
Busted. 

So while my husband is off galavanting around the world doing his Superhero thing, this is what we've been up to.  It's not much but it certainly beats sitting around the house twiddling our thumbs waiting for the time to go by.  I have plans to head to Fuji-Q Highland Park with a friend in a few weekends from now and I'm looking forward to that.  I mainly want to go to Thomas Land with my son, he'll love me forever and a day if we go there.

Check out Fuji-Q Highland <----I even went above and beyond the call of duty and found an English website for you. I believe this should earn me a medal of sorts.

Also over the summer I plan on taking a trip to Fuji Safari Park (sorry, couldn't find an English site but the pictures should be enough), probably with the MWR.

My mother-in-law will be here in September and then my parents are coming in October so I'm trying to come up with awesome things to show them.  Yeah...that's my story and I'm sticking to it.  I also plan on tricking my dad in to eating Octopus flavored ice cream, or maybe Habu Sake.  I've had it and surprisingly, it's not bad.  We'll be leaving Japan early next year and we need to get all the site seeing out of our system before we leave.

Habu Sake...I'm feeling generous, now you don't have to Google it yourself.
Sake that is fermented in the venom of a Habu snake, or Pit Viper. If it is not fermented correctly, drinking it can be fatal, which is why it is such a huge thing in Japan. And it's extremely expensive to buy, sometimes costing as much as 300 US Dollars. 

So that's what we've been up to lately.  As always we are missing the head of our family but my kids are Navy Brats and I'm a Navy wife, so we're doing just fine.  Keeping the home fires burning and all.  It goes without saying that I can't wait to have him home again.  I just need to kidnap either Stewie Griffin or Marty McFly and force them to send me in the future to Homecoming Day.  Words will never be able to express the feeling of my husband stepping off the brow and me being able to wrap my arms around him. It's a feeling of being complete, like he's real again and not just words on a computer screen. True happiness can be found at the end of a Deployment.

Here Comes The Bride

My best friend of 20 years got married over the weekend! Of course I'm stuck in Japan and couldn't attend, but thanks to technology, I was there.  

See...here I am with my totally awesome Momma!

And here is the Bride and her Daddy <3

It, of course, wasn't as good as actually being there.  Actually getting to take my Maid-of-Honor position like we had talked about when we were little girls, but I was able to see some of her wedding. 


I met Amanda when I was 6 years old. I was in Kindergarten and she was in 1st grade (Thanks parents for not conceiving me earlier!!), and our classes combined one afternoon for a movie.  She was sitting in front of me and had the longest, darkest hair I'd ever seen in my long 6 years of life. So naturally I started playing with this strange kids hair because lets face it, small children can make friends in the weirdest ways. Anyway...BOOM! Friendship started.  


Normally this is where I'd do a photo journey of our youth, but she'd probably kill me and I'm not too keen on showing some of those pictures myself.  I mean...we were just too beautiful for words.  With our...*Gulp*...bangs and lanky legs.  Simply. Stunning.  At least our parents told us so.  


Fast forward to high school.  I only do this because I think we'll still be friends if I show these.  With high school came petty spats, gossiping about "those girls" and drooling over some of the male specimens we went to school with.  We had similar tastes in boys so sometimes this is would lead to an argument that sounded something like this:


Amanda: "Haley...you knew I liked *insert random name here* and I saw you talking to him in Senior Hall."


Me: "Yeah, well I saw *Some dude* buying you a coke out the machine earlier and you were all smiles then."  

Tacky Day 2003 - of course she looks awesome.

Ahhhh...high school.  Somehow, we made it through with friendship still in tact.  Now I could go in to every little fight we had, and believe me there were plenty, but I'd rather focus on the good stuff.   There were more sleep overs than I can remember. Our parents could've claimed us on their taxes, respectively.  Girls Night Outs.  Parties down at the cabin.  Sneaking out of her house.  I mean...that had to have been..."those girls"...not us.  


After she graduated, we headed down to Panama City Beach. Now THAT was something I'll NEVER forget.  Without going in to detail:  Jager+Funnel+Amanda=hilariousness we can laugh about now. 

PANAMA CITY!!!

This was another trip to PCB, but we look super cute in it, so I'm sharing it.  It's a girl thing.

That was in May of 2003, I followed suit in 2004 and just a few short months later, I met my husband and moved away from home.  






Still, through the years we've remained friends.  Even though she hated Kendall when she first met him. Even though I lived 750 miles from her and then moved to Japan.  Even though I missed the birth of my honorary niece, Isabel.  She still wubs me!! 

At my "Going Away. Again." party - 2011

I can't say enough how much her friendship means to me.  Outside of my family that I was born in to, she's been the only constant in my life and I in hers.  That's because our coolness bounces off one another.  We can't help it.  

Christine, Me and Amanda - 2010

As always when we hang out, hilarity ensues.  The night usually ends with Amanda giving a speech about how much she loves everyone.  Every picture has us with our tongues hanging out. I haven't quite figured out why we do that. Wether we are sitting around in PJ's, going shopping, drinking - moderately of course, or talking on the phone, we have a great time.  We spend more time laughing than we do talking sometimes. 

Her calming me before my wedding...see the looks of stress on our faces?  I can.

And some time after this picture,  she met Brandon.  Well...re-met him??  We've known him almost all our lives.  We went to church with him and Christine (2 photos up from here) is his sister, we went to school with her.  Most of the girls in our church would drool over Brandon.  Sometimes quite literally, would drool.  I didn't call this person out to Amanda's attention that day, so she has no clue what I'm referring to there.  But I do and I can't stop laughing at the memory.  Anyway...They bring out the very best in each other, although I know sometimes they can't see that.  Brandon and my husband could be long-lost brothers in the attitude department, so Amanda will understand my previous sentence.  Sometimes we just want to throw a rock at their faces.  But we still love them.  And what's better, Kendall and Brandon actually LIKE each other.  Kendall hated Amanda's last boyfriend with the undying passion of a thousand suns, and because he and Brandon are so much alike, we were worried about them meeting.  Luckily, the boys hit it off almost immediately which left us PLENTY of time to do what we do best;  Drink margaritas and have girl talk. 

Us in my parents awesome garage

Okay, so she wasn't drinking Margarita's in the above picture, since she was pregnant with Izzy...but this was the only picture I have of the 4 of us where we weren't acting incredibly stupid.  Don't forget I'm trying to post pictures that she'd approve of.  


But - now she is a married woman. This won't change anything in our friendship department.  Most people worry that being married will change things, but that was never a worry for us.  I'm just upset I couldn't be there.  Another reason why I'm ready to leave Japan in our dust. Seeing pictures from their special day and hearing the stories, I know it was a beautiful ceremony and I can see the joy in their faces.  I wish them all the love in the world and many, many more years to come.  

The Bride and Groom with their beautiful little Isabel

Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful and endures through every circumstance.

1 Corinthians 13:7

Getting up to date

I'm awful.  I forgot about this blog.  *Hides behind couch*

Alright...since last September what all has happened??  Let's see...let's see....???

Well we still live in Japan.  
We haven't traveled anywhere else. 

Yep.  I'm boring. 

Ahh well.  I still have an awesome husband, kids that are awesome 80% of the time, I have all my limbs and they function as they should, so I can't complain about anything.   I'll just take this time to post some photos of major things I want to talk about.  

 OCTOBER:

          Kendall and I went to the Navy Ball!  Isn't the love of my life handsome? LOVE that man!

My babies on Halloween! Kaylee was Snow White (again) and Dylan was Flash Gordon

NOVEMBER:

The little humans

The LASSEN FRG took me out for my birthday!  Good dinner and then karaoke in the Honcho!

DECEMBER:  
- So by this time Kendall had been underway for some time and we were gearing up for a homecoming just in time for Christmas! :)  Those are the best Homecomings!

Kaylee had just finished her first tap recital! 

The sign we made for Kendall! We surprised the kids that night, they had no clue he was coming home!

Best. Feeling. EVER. 

I just feel the need to share with you all the look he gives me when I want a picture of or with him. He'll kill me for this, but hey, this is what a good wife does.  She posts pictures she knows her hubby will hate.  This is just payback for him snapping a shot of me being sick as a dog on our family day cruise. BAM BABE...this just happened. 

Christmas in the White House! 

 JANUARY: 
- Besides ringing in 2012 with my family, nothing of importance happened.  I mean, I don't know for sure, but judging from our pictures we didn't do much. This is what I get for not updating my blog for 7 months.  What is WRONG with me?!

FEBRUARY: 

Kendall had told me a while ago that he wouldn't buy me  any more flowers until I bought him some.  I'm sure he was joking about that, but I took it seriously. So this is from me to him, not the other way around as the picture might suggest to the normal viewer.  

MARCH:
-Apparently nothing of importance happened in March either, but here is a photo taken by our 4 year old daughter.  

Not bad, eh?  I thought she did rather well for such a novice photographer.

APRIL:

Oh yeah...I started working out in December.  I have lost 15 pounds total and 3 inches off my waist! I know...go me.  Hold your applause until the end of the caption.  THIS dress, my husband sent me while he was on our first deployment together back in 2005-2006.  I was 20 years old at the time and had no children, size 0, 98 pounds. And look...it fits again!!!  6 years after getting it, 2 kids later and it fits again!  NOW you may erupt in applause.  Thank you!  You're embarrassing me.  NO, keep clapping! 

Dylan turned 3! Leave it to Kendall...the man hates pictures. We had to celebrate  before his birthday though since Kendall was underway on the actual day.  Yay Navy life! 

Dude's actual birthday!  I can't believe he's THREE!

Yeah, that's us...petting a dolphin.  Big deal. Happens all the time if you're awesome like I am. But seriously...this was during an MWR tour to Kamogawa Sea World here in Japan.  Amazing place and yes, I paid 1000Yen to be able to pet this dude.  I'd do it again too.  Although next time we go, I'm getting a kiss from a killer whale.  Pray it doesn't find me extra sweet and decides it can't let a little morsel like me go.  

Us at Sea World.  

Random shot because I love this top.  Women are allowed to post shots that aren't relevant to a conversation as long as cute clothes/shoes are involved. 

MAY:

First trip out to Zushi Beach and I've lived here for 2 and a half years.  Shame on me. 

Bought myself some golf clubs.  Kendall plays and I'm hoping we'll be able to have this in common.  If he'd ever be home for longer than a week. So far though, I have been able to hit the ball almost every time.  Not bragging or anything.

JUNE: 

-Ahh June.  June brings the beginning of Summer and the pool being open every day. It also brings us to the current month.  So as of now, Kendall is currently on what is classified in Japan as a "Deployment."  Obviously I won't be putting any dates/lengths of time out here, but this is the longest we've been apart since my first "actual" deployment with him.  However, we got lucky and they had to come in to port for a pit-stop for 3 days so we got a little break in the middle of this thing! He surprised me and took leave.  Sneaky old man.

I may be a little biased...but I think we're an extremely good looking and simply awesome couple. Just sayin'.

We went to eat one night at a place whose name I can't even begin to read.  Traditional Japanese place where you have to take off your shoes upon entering. You have private little rooms where you eat.  So far, this is probably my favorite place to get Japanese food.  Now Coco's is my FAVORITE, but it's curry and that's a whole other post. 

Now...people who have never been to Japan think, "Ohhh...I love Japanese food, I'd love to live in Japan."  I know, I was one of them.  But REAL Japanese is NOTHING like Americanized Japanese. These, my humble readers, are dried fish of some sort and they were casually hidden in our fried rice. They are either a constant ingredient in their rice, or they were put there maliciously by our waiter.  Either way, once we realized what they were, we casually put the rice back in it's bowl and covered it with a plate.  Even my husband, who'll try anything once, didn't eat it anymore.  Come on...dried fish babies in fried  rice?!  Should be a sin...

We had an amazing 3 days together.  It was the best time our family has had in months. We aren't complete without our main man home.  We just kinda cruise through the days until we're whole again.  I can't speak for every couple in the world, but for Kendall and I, the Navy life works for us because it makes us appreciate the days we do get together.  In our case, absence really does make the heart grow fonder.  Not to get all deep and mushy on you, but he is truly my best friend in the entire world and I consider myself to be the luckiest woman alive because we have each other and the strong, happy marriage we have. 

Not a Daddy's girl at all. :)  

And look! The sun came out long enough in the rainy season for me to get burnt! WHOO HOO!  I know, yall must think I'm crazy.  I don't LIKE getting burnt, but it turns in to a tan soooo.....      Next time I'll use sun screen. Happy?  

And my final photo for the day.  My Nanny sent me some of my PawPaw's things.  You may or may not remember the sweetest, most caring and understanding man in the world left us this last July.  In some of the photos she sent was this newspaper clipping.  It is a story about Kendall's first ship, USS Cape St. George, getting in to a gun fight with Somali pirates. Immediately after seeing this, the tears started falling. He was an Army Veteran himself and loved to poke fun at Kendall calling him a "Swabby" but he was beyond proud of my husband and his career in the military. Just last week I found a movie my mother made me for my 25th birthday. After the pictures came videos of my friends and family and the first one was Nanny and PawPaw.  His first sentence, like it always was when I'd call him was, "Hello there my little Navy wife." He continued with, "I never thought you could make it in the military life but you have and I'm so proud of you."  I will hold that movie near and dear to my heart for the rest of my days just to hear that man tell me he was proud of me and the life Kendall and I have made together. 

So there you have it.  A long post, yes, but I've gotten you up to date and I promise I won't fall behind again.  If we could pinky promise through the internet, this is where we'd do it.  

Yo ho, A Sailors life for me

Right now, I could go on and on about the crapass part of the Navy, but instead I'm choosing to focus on a fun part of the Navy.  I COULD say things like, "THEY SERIOUSLY LEFT WITH ALMOST NO WARNING AND WITHOUT TELLING US WHEN THEY'D BE BACK? AGAIN!?!?!?!?!"  But I won't.  I could say, "I can't wait to get back to the states so we can have a more solid, structured schedule."  But that would just be silly of me. 

So, as I said, I'll focus on the latest fun thing our ship has done, the Friends and Family Day Cruise.

1. I just want to bring attention to the fact that a water fountain is called a "Scuttlebutt" on Naval ships.
2. I can't BELIEVE grown ass Sailors need to be told to NOT put noodles down the drain.

Kendall and I.  We have so few pictures together while he's in any sort of uniform.  And I'm just going to say it...coveralls are hot.

The Roostertail.  We were cruising right along at 32knots, with rough seas. It was quite a thing to see.

Here we had a weapons demo.  This reminded me of the Wives Cruise I took with Kendall on his old ship.  I remember being amazed by the sheer sound and amount of rounds that were used. This time around...still amazed. 

And like last time, we made me a bracelet of the shell casings.  :)  One from the CAPE, and now one from the LASSEN.

Speaking of rough seas....

USS George Washingston (CVN 73), our Aircraft Carrier.

We were able to get a demo of GW's jets.  I have NEVER in my life heard ANYTHING so loud.  Absolutely amazing!!

Flyover from GW's helo.

LASSEN'S Battle Ensign.  Such a large flag. 

And a purely accidental shot of my husband.  As I stated earlier...Coveralls are hot. 

It was actually a very fun day, even though we had to work and the fact that I got sick once.  It was pretty amazing to get to do all that with Kendall.  To him, it's just a job and I guess I can understand that, but to me it's something I don't get to see everyday.