"Blessings"

I don't think I'll say much about this song and just let it speak for itself. The very first time I heard this was on the drive to church on a Sunday morning shortly after moving here, right after John left, and when I was just beginning the daunting task of coordinating with insurance and doctors and just desperate for answers for my baby boy. It was perfect timing. Even listening to it this morning had me in tears all over again. I hope it blesses you as well....

"Blessings" by Laura Story

I'm back....for real this time!

Well friends...I'm back! I see that it's been almost 8 months since my last post and that was just a video of Z Bug. Wow has he changed in 8 months!! Getting back to the blogging world is something I've been contemplating for quite a while. I'm such a private person and tend to keep things all to myself except for a few close friends and family members. But, I don't journal and I feel like this is such a great way to record life and be able to look back at everything. So I decided to give it another go around. I even thought about creating a whole new blog and even took the steps in doing so, but decided to stay here after all. I also decided to keep the title "Island" of love life and learning. Our little island of Okinawa is where our family pretty much began and I'd like to remember it that way. I have so many things I feel like I need to catch everyone up on but that will come in future posts. I won't try to fill in all the missing gaps at one time, so if you're reading a post and are completely lost about something, feel free to comment and ask any questions you want. Our life is crazy complicated to try to keep up with. ;)

For those of you who don't know, I am currently living in Dallas, Texas with Izaak and Maverick while John is finishing up his tour in Okinawa. We are here due to Maverick's health issues and have been apart from John for 4 months. He will finally be coming home next month!! In fact, I'm actually getting ready to go see him 4 weeks from today! I don't remember something I've ever been so excited about in my life I don't think. I left there not knowing I wasn't going to be going back to say goodbye. It's so emotional for me every time I think of Okinawa. There my home still is with all my things in it. There are the friends I left, some of which I know I'll never see again. There John and I lived the longest together. There our 2 precious boys were born. I very much consider that my home and our beginning. I will forever hold a special place in my heart for Okinawa; my Okinawa. My husband laughs at me when I remember the place with such fondness because he likes to bring up the times I cried and complained and wanted to "go home" so badly. I'm not saying that every single day there was a bed of roses. I definitely went through some cabin fever and rough times. But overall, I'm so happy that I got the amazing opportunity to live there, and I hope that one day we can be stationed there again.

Well I guess that's all for this time. I'm actually really looking forward to making frequent posts here now and I'm glad that I'll have an outlet for stories, pictures, memories, and whatever is on my heart. Thanks for following! :)

Video Update

Long Time No Blog

My apologies for taking almost a MONTH to make a post on here. We were busy with the move and then I was so exhausted from the move to do anything and then I just got lazy! Haha. So for a quick catch up of what's been going on.

We've been in our new house for 3 weeks now. We really like it and it was worth all the hassle it took to get here. There's much more room for our family and we are really enjoying the extra bathroom AND dining table!! We hadn't had a table since we moved here a year and a half ago so it's been great! I will post pics at the end of this post. A warning to you though, the house is not done yet! Still furniture arrangements to be made, new bedding to be ordered, and rooms to be painted, etc. And I certainly didn't clean up before taking these pics. hehe.

We had our 20 week ultrasound last week and found out that we will be having another little BOY! We are very excited and currently working on a name for him. Unfortunately, they gave us very lame pictures from the ultrasound and those 3 lame pictures that we did get, got messed up by the faulty printer and have squiggly rainbow lines all over them. I was NOT happy. We didn't even get a picture of the proof of boy parts! Well at least I am even more excited now about getting our 3D ultrasound while we're in Dallas. We better get some good shots then!

This past Saturday, Izaak and I attempted to hop a Space A flight from here to Seattle. We got up at 2 am and arrived at the Air Force base airport at about 3:30. We had to wait until almost 6:30 before finding out that we were not able to get seats on that flight. I was definitely bummed out, but was going to attempt taking a C5 later that day going to CA. Turns out that flight was delayed until the next morning. To make a really long story shorter, I was not guaranteed seats on that flight either, it was going to Hawaii first and we had no idea how long we would be there. Could have been hours, could have been days. Then we would have had to go through the same ordeal there trying to get on the plane to CA. It was just too stressful for me and I decided not to attempt it. Good thing because I found out later that there's no way I would have made it on that one either. So now we're looking at just buying tickets for both of us to leave out of Naha airport this Saturday. So *hopefully* I will be in Dallas this weekend! Which means I will still have a total of 3 weeks in Dallas which is great!

Well that's pretty much a brief summary of what's been going on in our lives recently. Here are some pics!

Looking into our kitchen from the dining/living room
And this is looking into if from the hallway coming in from the front door
Looking into the dining room from the kitchen
Living room
Our very messy and not finished bedroom

Master bath. Ahh I love saying that!
Oh and here's a pic of our FIRST meal at our wonderful table!
P.S. I didn't add pics of the boys rooms because there's not much to see. The baby's room has a changing table, dresser and suitcases in it right now. And Izaak's room has a crib and toys scattered everywhere! Don't worry, I will make a post after I finish their rooms........someday. :)

HOORAY!

We're getting the keys to our new house on FRIDAY!!! Then we have 1 week to be out of this house. I already have babysitters lined up and I am ready to go!!

Our New Home!

Ok well you wanna hear another doozy of a story? So yesterday John talked to the housing lady again and she told him that our 1st housing option (see previous post) is getting ready to be renovated and we'd have to move out of it in January anyway. ......I don't even know what to say except WHY would that even be one of our offers?? You people just don't make sense! But I don't know why I still get upset and say, "That's RIDICULOUS!", because it's the military and after 5 years I should be used to this! Haha. Anywho...John went ahead and accepted offer #2 even though we hadn't seen it because, well, it just makes sense since we only get 2 offers! So we got to go see it this morning and oh boy was I happy! Newer, nicer, cleaner, and guess what?? They're putting in BRAND NEW CARPET!! I was just thrilled! I was excited to be getting carpet anyway but in the back of my mind I kept thinking about all those other peoples dirt and germs that I just wouldn't be able to suck up with a regular vacuum and that my babies would be crawling around on it all the time. But I wasn't complaining! It was just an extra blessing that I found out about this morning so praise God! Now if I could put in a request I'd ask that the new carpet not be blue but ya know...even if it's purple I'll make it work! Izaak and I are going to the hardware store today to look at paint samples. I'm excited!! Our housing appointment is set for Tuesday and I believe what they're saying right now is that the house won't be ready for move in until May 3rd (which is only 10 days away) but I'm kinda hoping it's no later than that so we can get moved and unpacked as much as possible before Z and I head to the states for 6 weeks. I seriously doubt I will get any painting done before then but seeing as how we're only allowed to have 4 gallons of paint every 90 days, I figured I'd go ahead and get what I know I want now so that by the time I'm ready to paint Izaak and baby M's rooms, I'll be eligible for more paint. LOL. Oh the life! I was able to take a few pictures but there were about 10 Japanese men who didn't speak English in there doing repairs and whatnot and I guess they never figured out that we're the new family coming to look at our new house because they were giving us awfully weird looks the whole time. Most of them were in the kitchen and living room so I didn't get any pics of in there but TRUST ME it's much better than the last house! Oh and someone was in the master bath so didn't get to see that either. But don't worry, I will be taking lots of pictures of the move!! I can't wait!!


The outside of the tower. Looks pretty much exactly like the one we live in right now. I labeled our balcony and the baby's window if you can see it in this pic. The only downside I would have to say about this apartment is that the balcony is directly above the trash room. So I'm hoping that I can still open the doors and not smell yucky trash. Also, that's where people go in and out of the tower so I'm hoping it won't be too loud.

Welcome to our new house!

Nice laundry room directly on the left when you walk in the front door. I'm so excited that I get to do laundry when the kids are sleeping now!! (Our current laundry room is right outside of Izaak's bedroom). But I'm also just so thankful that the washer and dryer aren't in the kitchen!
The view from the dining room balcony.

The guest bath. SO much nicer than the other place!
Nice hall closets.
Baby M's room is the first one on the right.
Izaak's room is the 2nd bedroom on the right and is slightly bigger than the baby's room.
Me and John's room and look! We get 2 closets!!
And we get a nice big storage room in the hall with shelves. The place we're in now has a storage room (without shelves) and we have definitely put it to use! The 1st place we were offered did not have a storage room so I'm not sure what we would have done!
And here is Z Bug making a mess of his on the go-in the car-broken up pancake in a snack bowl breakfast after we went to see our new house! :)

And to end my happy story, I thought I'd share a poem I just read this morning that TOTALLY fits my life right now. I really like it.

"Dandelion you're like me, set adrift to ride the breeze
Drifting here and settling there, to grow as if you have no care
Only those like you will know, the sudden rush to rise and go
On any ground, you will abide and you never do decide
Flying with no tie that binds, always leaving friends behind
Trying not to show you mind; dandelion I'm like you
I put down roots that have no glue, so I'll move somewhere new."

New Housing Option #1

So since we're expecting baby #2, we now qualify for 3 bedroom base housing. We weren't even sure if they were going to give it to us before the baby was born, but thank goodness we were able to get on the waiting list! Our counselor at the housing office told us we would be getting a call within 2 weeks, but acted like it would be less than that. Well today makes 2 weeks. I called yesterday and left a message for her. Didn't hear back. Called again this morning and didn't get an answer. Called for a 3rd time this afternoon and finally got her! I told her that I had left a message for her yesterday (25 hours previous) but she ignored me then proceeded to look up our name and place on the list and said, "Oh yeah, your options are ready now to go look at." Umm...really? So no one cared to call and let us know that? She told me we could go look at them this afternoon or first thing in the morning and then let her know tomorrow which one we chose. So I called John and we decided to look at them today and I started getting ready. Right in the middle of brushing my teeth, the housing lady calls back and says that one of the houses won't be available to look at until May 3rd but we can look at the other one today. So I said, "Oh ok so we don't need to call you tomorrow?" She replied with, "Oh yes you still need to let me know tomorrow which one you want." I said, "....Without even seeing one of them??" She goes, "Yes." Ummm...ok. Am I surprised? NO. But that's just ridiculous! John called her back to try to sort it out but he got the same story. So he heads over to Foster housing to pick up the keys while I go to the house that supposedly we can't look at but we decided we were going to knock on the door and see if anyone was home to let us look anyway. So I'm waiting in the car when John calls and says that the house we can't see until May 3rd (the one I'm sitting at) IS open and available to look at today but the other one is occupied and they have no plans of leaving anytime soon. So he ends up staying there another half hour to figure out which house we are supposed to see. In the mean time, Izaak and I play outside and wait for him. Then he calls back and says, "Ok, the tower you're at now, we can look at it but not until Friday." Oh my goodness how could we get 3 different stories in 1 day?? And he finally figured out which number the other house was (the lady gave me the wrong number) so I met him over there. Can I say.....GHETTO!!!!! Wow I would much rather stay in my house now than move into that place! I just laughed the whole way through the house and kept saying, "NO WAY. ABSOLUTELY NOT." Thank goodness the other house is in a newer tower and is carpeted, has its own laundry room, is a bit bigger, is on the 2nd floor instead of the 9th, is closer to John's work among other things, and is not in a school zone! I can't wait to go see it! Thank you Lord that we're getting this 2nd option because I think I would have cried. I forgot my nice camera but took some pictures of this place on my iphone. Hope you get a good chuckle out of it. And sorry to my friends that are here and didn't have a choice but to live in a place like this. :(

So obviously this is the kitchen...with a washer and dryer.
Look at those counter tops!
The view from the dining room into the living room.
The living room
Izaak loved running around the empty place! This is heading down the hall from the dining/living room.
Hall bathroom.
1st spare bedroom.
John showing Izaak the view (the reason he wants this house). I could care less if I'm looking at a soccer field or a trash dump, I would just prefer to have a nicer house.
2nd spare bedroom.
Showing Izaak how to hide in those weird closets.
The master bedroom. Didn't get a good pic of it but it's pretty much like the others.
Master bath.
So what do you think? Would you have chosen option #2 even without being able to see it but just knowing it's newer and nicer? Me too!! I'll post about that house on Friday!