I'm back!

Hello again!  

Sorry for that unannounced sabbatical (although if you remember my very first post I was very clear that I have a history of unfinished projects, so don’t say I didnt warn you!)  I had considered just letting this blog go quietly into the dark night, but yesterday I talked to my mother and she asked me what was going on with this thing.  I said I just haven’t had much to write about lately—things have been pretty boring around here and who wants to read about that?  Mom said (and I quote,) “But Laura, people are demanding it!”  I’m suspicious that her comments may have been a combination of mother’s love and exaggeration, but just in case people ARE rioting outside her door, I figured I’d better get back in the saddle and keep up with this thing.   However, I will warn you-- the newness of Okinawa has pretty much worn off so most of the stuff you read about on here will be the boring, uninteresting life of a military family living overseas.  If you fall asleep at your computer/ipad/wherever you’re reading this--don’t blame me. 

Ok, let’s see…I don’t even know where to start.  Last time I wrote, Typhoon Guchol was barreling down on Okinawa right before our summer vacation to the States.  Long story short, we did make it to the States (although it only took 32 hours,) we had a busy, fun, tiring vacation, and by the time we got back here in late July I was sure I wouldn't get back on a trans-Pacific flight for a very, very long time.  But, never say never, right?  And I can already see that I’ll probably go back on my word.  

Here are the kids waiting in Chicago for our flight to Tokyo.

We had about six weeks of sort of lazy summer.  We went to the pool a lot , Andrew started baseball, and I joined a running group.  No, that wasn't a typo.  Last Spring a friend invited me on a run with a group of other moms.  Running is a very popular activity around here, and for several months I had been trying to get into it.  The name of the group was “Stroller Warriors” to which my first response was, “But I don’t have a stroller.”  My friend, Laura (that’s her name too) said not to worry, there are lots of other mom’s without a stroller, and Mary would be just fine riding along with us on her bike.   Apparently I surround myself with people who like to bend the truth to get me to do things, because when I showed up Mary was the solo rider, and I was surrounded by young moms changing diapers, breastfeeding, and pumping up their stroller tires.  I definitely felt out of place, and we hadn't even started running!  Once everyone was fed, pumped, and changed, the leader of the group said something like this.  “We’re going to head on over that huge bridge over there, and once we run over that, start your time.  Go 15 minutes out, then 15 minutes back.”  The idea is that everyone returns at the same time so speed/ability don’t count.  Unfortunately they didn't take into account my fear of heights--or a nervous five-year-old panicked about riding her bike over this huge bridge.  We eventually did make it over the bridge, but by that point most of the runners were heading back from their 15 minute run, so we turned around, went right back over the bridge, and called it a day.

So, a scary first time with the Stroller Warriors, but they were a very nice group of ladies.  In the summer they started a “Couch to 5k” sub group.  “Couch to 5k” is an 8-week training program geared to non-runners who would eventually like to be able to run the distance of 5 kilometers (in a row!)  So, one evening in late July I found myself back in the crowd of diaper changers, breastfeeders, and stroller-tire pumpers.    I also had Mary and Andrew riding their bikes way ahead alongside me.  Apparently when you’re worried that your kids are going to ride into traffic and get run over by a crazy Okinawan motorcyclist, you tend not to notice the pain, breathlessness, and overall misery that accompanies running.  Eventually, all that training paid off, because September 22  I was doing this

I had very low expectations of my first race.  Basically, I wanted to finish without the assistance of an EMT, and I wanted to finish before they shut the whole thing down.   My greatest fear was that I’d be rounding the final stretch, only to see all the race organizers packing it in.  Luckily, I reached my goals. 

So, I should probably throw in something about the kids in this post.  They’re already about a quarter into the school year, and they all seem pretty content with their classmates and teachers.  Michael is well entrenched in middle school as a seventh grader; Emma is enjoying being at the top of the school in 5^th grade; Andrew is happy in his “only 3^rd grade” class.  (versus his 1^st/2^nd combo class of last year) and Mary is loving kindergarten. 

Speaking of Mary, she celebrated her 6^th birthday a few weeks ago.  Rather than a big party with all her friends, she chose to go to the aquarium with her family.  I loved this plan.  We started off the visit with playtime on the wild, death defying playground in front of the aquarium. 

The flying kid in the green shirt is Andrew.  

Then we wandered around the inside of the aquarium for a while.  We spent a long time at the shark exhibit.   Apparently millions of years ago there used to be some big ass sharks swimming in the ocean around here.  I’m very glad they aren't out there anymore.  We got a little silly in this exhibit, and Bill was rather embarrassed by us.  Here we are in the jaws of the giant monster shark.  

Oh my gosh, I almost forgot all about our typhoons!  It has been a crazy year for storms around here.  We had three storms in 6 weeks.  With the first two, they kept telling us, "This is THE BIG ONE" folks.  Make sure you prepare."  So, we brought in all the furniture, tied town the shed, filled the tub with water, stocked up on Chef-boy-ardee and junk food, and completed all the other typhoon preparation tasks.  By the third one, everyone was so tired of typhoons that the warning messages were minimal.   The big preparation message on the radio was basically a version of, "We've been through this twice already....you know what to do people....don't make me tell you again."  So we half-heartedly did most of the stuff we were supposed to do.  Unfortunately, that third one did end up being THE BIG ONE.  You might have seen this video on the news over there.  The car flipping section happened at one of our Marine bases over here.  If the video doesn't work for you, here's the link:  

Typhoon Jelawat flips car

Turn down the volume if you have little ones around--the language is a little PG13.....Marines...what do you expect.....

Luckily, none of our cars flipped over, and other than some minor debris (tree limbs, leaves, parts of other peoples' roofs) we were fine.  Unfortunately for the kids, the typhoons mostly happened on the weekends so they only missed one day of school. The speed of recovery is quite impressive.  One day there are cars flipping all over the place, and the next day it's business as usual.  

Well, folks, that's all I've got. I'm sorry things haven't been more exciting.  Maybe this will inspire us to do some more exploring around here....or even (gulp!) travel to other parts of Asia.  We shall see......