Merry Christmas!!!!

Friday, December 25, 2009

Wow... we are so sorry that we have not updated anything since September. In the next couple of days we will be posting a 6 month in review for everyone. We do have tons to share. John has been busy with Airman Leadership School and Jess has been busy with the school PTO. Staying busy is the best way to past the time while being stationed so far away from family, but we do find time to enjoy the things while living in Japan. It is about almost midnight on Christmas and we had a great day with the kids and enjoyed seeing their faces with all their MANY toys that Santa left. Santa must know how well Brie and Jordan are both doing in school this year and know that they have been pretty good kids. Here are a few pictures of kids this morning. Jordan received a Toy Story bed tent that Daddy set up later tonight and Brie with her clean room with all her new stuff.

Summer has come to a end.

Monday, September 7, 2009

Where did the time go? How the summer has ended and how fast our kids have grown. Last week Brianna headed off to 4th grade and boy do we remember living in Fayetteville and sending her off to Kindergarten. WOW!! She has gone a full week of school now and really is starting to understand how much responsibility she will have. She had homework on the first day!! Her teacher is Mr.Crawford, which Jess requested due to volunteering with the school doing PTO. Though all teachers are awesome, she felt that Brianna's personalty would do better with Mr.Crawford.

As we head to week 2 of school for Brianna it starts the first week of school for Jordan. He will start Kindergarten tomorrow (Sept.8)!!! Yes, KINDERGARTEN!!!! This past week Jordan was able to meet his teacher and learn where his classroom was located. He knows the school pretty well with being Jess's little shadow & helper with the school PTO. His teacher is named Mrs. Sterry. She is actually from NC too. On Friday Mrs.Sterry and Ms. Mitchell(Aid) came to the house for a "home visit". They come to observe Jordan and get to know him in his own environment for about 30 min. It is a great way to get to know them too. They gave Jordan his first "family project" homework. Jordan had to create a face that resembled him to be displayed at school. Since it was a "family project", we all were able to help him out. Jess made the shirt, John made the hair, Brie made the eyebrows and Jordan drew the face and wrote his name.
We took a few pictures of Jordan's first homework project.
Here is also a few pictures of Brie on her first day of 4th grade.
We will post again tomorrow with Jordan's first day of Kindergarten.

Summer Beachcombing.

Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Well the kids and I decided to head to the shores and just find anything we can find. Our main goal was sea glass, but our first day was all about Sand Dollars. We heard about a place called "Sand Dollar Beach" and so we ventured out. Looking for both sea glass and sand dollars... we ending up finding tons of sand dollars. Whole ones too. We also found 2 baby crabs. They were so cute. The kids were a bit scared. All in all it was a great couple of hours and just fun to get out. Here are a few pics from Sand Dollar Beach.





Now today we headed to a place called "Shipwrecked Beach". They had very old ships that are wrecked on the beach. I don't know the history of them, but I am searching for it. I will let you know what I found. Here we did find our first ever find of sea glass. Tons of it. It was a about 1/4 mile till we ended up coming to the ships, but a nice walk to find beach treasures. The kids and I had so much fun in the last two days going beachcombing. We have definitely found a new hobby while here in Japan. Now my next find is finding a glass ball float. Those are rare and are highly hunted. I will be lucky to leave Japan with one of those. We shall see.
Here are pictures from Shipwreck beach.

New Pictures Up. :)

Sunday, August 2, 2009

Here are some more pictures we have finally uploaded. We added 3 Slide shows. We also updated the last slide show too.

Enjoy. :)

Tokyo Vacation 2009

Sunday, July 19, 2009

Well we are back from our first official vacation in Japan. “Tokyo 2009” is now complete and we are all well rested from our miles and miles of walking, standing, and waiting in line. Our vacation started a day earlier than expected with a shorter than expected drive to Tokyo with a stop at Yokota Air Base. We stayed there a night (after checking in at 1 am) and enjoyed an early morning stop to their BX and commissary. Sounds exciting right? Well it was for us, buying big boxes of freezer pops, clothes, and shoes for the kids that you can’t always find here at Misawa. Following our quick shopping stop we journeyed to the New Sanno Hotel in downtown Tokyo. We navigated our way without getting lost at all and found our Military Resort Hotel quite easily and were very impressed from the beginning. After a quick stop to Tokyo Tower and a long walk (we got lost walking back to our train station), we returned to our hotel and journeyed back out to Roppongi and T.G.I. Fridays for a meal and drink. We definitely miss the States…

We decided then that we should consider getting started early in Tokyo for day 2. So we did. Disneyland was next. The characters, rides, and overall initial experience of Disney was overwhelming to the kids, but it didn’t climax until the next night at Disney Sea. The third day overall (second day at Disney) found us at a parental moment where it makes us realize why having kids are special. Brianna started to cry as we were leaving Disney knowing that there wasn’t a third day planned for Disney on the schedule. It was quite the moment and hopefully made her realize that these situations are not always going to be there. It was definitely a “Kodak” moment.

Throughout the next 3 days and 2 nights that were left, we went on a train/metro trek through Tokyo, stopping at Krispy Kreme in Shinjuku, Claire’s Boutique in Harajuku, and the Imperial Palace in downtown Tokyo. We also drove to Ikea in Funabashi to get some more shopping in and stopped by Rainforest Café near the Disney Resort for a quick lunch. Our final night in Disney, we hiked through Roppongi again and stopped by Outback to satisfy some more cravings and Hard Rock Café for desert. Mmmmmm…..

The final day we spent with one more trip to Ikea, Krispy Kreme, and surprise stop at the largest mall that we’ve ever been to at LaLaPort at Tokyo Bay. Huge!!! It wasn’t planned but we couldn’t resist. A stop by the Wendy’s for burgers and Frosties made it worth it. Yes, we miss (and love) American food!!!

Although we probably walked a total of 50 miles (it felt like more), stood in heat, and spent more money than we planned, it was worth it. We didn’t spend a lot of time in the hotel (and the time we did it was either for breakfast, sleeping, or swimming) and we spent a lot of time out and about. We didn’t do everything that we wanted to do and that’s why we’ve decided to do it again next year. Stay tuned…

Jordan's B-day Updates.

Thursday, July 2, 2009

Wow... It has been way tooooo long since we have updated everyone with pictures and family happenings. The summer has started and yet it is still about 60 degrees during the days and 50 at night. We had a few 80 temp days, but not many. But living in a home that has NO AC this is no big deal to us. We see a lot of fog and clouds during this time of the year and they call it "Sea Fog". Well the kids are both home during the day and boy they are driving Jessica up the wall. They are very excited that we will be taking our first vacation while being stationed in Japan in about 10 days. We are going to be heading down to Tokyo for about 7 days. Yes.. 7 Days. We are going to hit up Tokyo Disney, Ikea, Tokyo Tower and of course a few American restaurants that we have not been to in about 3 years or more. There is a OUTBACK, Tony Ramo's, TGIFridays and Hard Rock Cafe to name a few... :) Yes.. we will try to hit them all, even if it is just to take a look and have a appetizer.

We did not get a chance to share some of the pictures of Jordan's B-day Party and where we ate the night of his actual birthday. Every year, we allow Brie to pick out a restaurant for her b-day night. For the past 3 years, she has always wanted to go to a place called Vikings. Well now it was time for Jordan to decide. He decided a place we have never tried and so this was going to be adventure for all of us. We all enjoy Sushi and so we went to place we really don't know the name, but we call it the "Turtle Place". There is a picture of a cartoon turtle on the building. This place was so neat and fun for all of us. It was also very well priced. You order your food on a computer screen located at every table. When your food is ready, it is placed on a mini "Tokyo Train" and stops right in front of your table. Most plates of sushi are around 100 Yen and with about 4-6 pieces. Very good price and fresh.
Here are some pictures of that fun adventure.