A short walk to Chinese

We took a walk on Saturday night.  This street is just outside our house and leads us off base.  They say in the spring these are full of cherry blossoms.  I can't wait to see it!

Just outside of base.

The street was lined with sunflowers.  Alexa was in heaven.

There are soda machines on almost every corner.  But, we've heard it's not polite to eat and drink while on the go.  It's better to drink the whole can of soda right there, or take it to your car to drink. 

We ate at the Wok.  And yes, it's a Chinese restaurant.  

Luckily for us, it had a picture menu, so we just pointed to what we wanted to order.  It was a little more difficult asking for rice, but we finally got it.  I think "rice" will be an important word to learn in japanese.

We got some practice using chopsticks.

I think Cailin has the right idea. :)  Alexa did very well with them.

I tried to use them for about one bite and got frustrated.  Forks are way more efficient!

First days in Japan

On the Tuesday we left Seattle, we had to be to the airport by 5:00 am.  This is how we found the girls right before we had to wake them.  It was the worst having to wake them up so we could sit at the airport for 3 hours.

The flight was 9 1/2 hrs long (it was suppose to be 11).  The girls did pretty well which was such a relief for their parents!  Our only problem was that when we got to Japan it was 6:00 pm Seattle time, but it was 10:00 am here.  So, we had a whole day to try to stay awake before we could sleep.

We finally made it to the hotel where Brad's coworkers had left food for us.  We did take a little nap even though we wanted to sleep a lot longer.

Here we are.  Our first day in Japan.  Don't we all look so happy to be here? :)

A few days later, we got our house.  We were able to get a 3 bedroom because of little brother on the way.  Thank goodness!

We live in a quadruplex-type setting with 4 houses connected together.

This is our backyard.

Here's the playground across the street out the front door where the mosquitos love to feed off of us.

Our kitchen.  Surprisingly bigger than I thought it would be.

The girls think this is the best part of the whole house.  Since we have very few toys, they spend their time in the closet climbing this pole and hanging on the bar.  It's like a jungle gym inside the house!

They might be disappointed when our hangers come in a few weeks and their clothes take over.

So far we've enjoyed being here.  We're looking forward to exploring and maybe learning some Japanese. :)

Seattle

Hello all,

It's been a while.  Hopefully we can keep you updated a little more now that our lives seem a bit more interesting.  

During the transition from Idaho to Japan, we were able to spend about 10 days with family.  It was so nice to see everyone before we left.  Unfortunately, I didn't take a single picture!  What was I thinking???!!  Anyway, I guess we'll have to start after that.

  

In order to get to Japan, we had to take a military flight out of Seattle.  Since we have friends there, we decided to take a day and a half to spend time with them.  Seattle is a beautiful city!

Whoever made Boise the city of trees must have missed Seattle in their travels.

The VanWagoners were great hosts.  We spent Sunday night thru Monday with them.  They fed us good food, gave us a place to stay, and showed us around the city.  

Here we are on the ferry ride into Seattle (Sorry for cutting your head off, Jared).  

The girls loved hanging out with Gus and Max.

You can't really see it too well, but I guess they painted the top of the space needle orange this year to celebrate its centennial.

We're glad we got to spend such an enjoyable day before our LONG flight that would be happening bright and early the next morning.