Vongfong

So, if we haven't already lived through tornadoes and earthquakes, we now get to add typhoons to our list of experienced natural disasters. We were pretty excited when super typhoon Vongfong was headed our way last month, but, just like most tornadoes we were supposed to live through, the poor thing died down just before getting to Okinawa and ended up being nothing more than a night of lots of wind, lots of rain, and not much of anything else.

Okinawa is built to withstand these typhoons. Seriously, the architecture here is pretty ugly for that very reason. Buildings are nothing more than blocks of solid concrete, solid, ugly concrete. Not that I should complain, because knowing this means we have nothing to worry about except for maybe lost power when a typhoon hits. Unlike tornadoes, where we had to worry about our house potentially being blow away. Here, we just sit inside, eat lots of food, and just kind of hang out, worrying about pretty much nothing. The base puts us on lockdown. Totally lame in my opinion, but we'll abide by the law nonetheless. 

Our fist typhoon was pretty uneventful. In fact, I'm fairly certain the storms that brought tornadoes into Oklahoma were far worse than Mr. Vongfong. 

I mean, this is about as exciting as it got. Boring: 

Chocolate. Skipping. Sanity.

Today was one of those days. It wasn't particularly bad, but it wasn't totally awesome either. Let me paint a picture for you. We're still living in TLF. Basically meaning we're still in hotel. Wait, haven't we been here for over four weeks? Why yes, yes we have. Don't worry (or so I tell myself) we'll be in our house next week. Happy Birthday to us! Anyway, we're still in TLF which basically means we're in two tiny hotel rooms (an upgrade from being in one tiny room when we first got here), but we have none of our stuff, and our rooms aren't big, and they're overflowing with what stuff we do have here. Gwen had a morning nap today, which I don't always get her down for, but today I did, and she slept until almost 11. Preston goes crazy because the poor thing is so bored, and I don't blame him, so am I.

There's not much to do when you have to be quiet and we have the bare minimum of toys to play with. So, perhaps a lot of T.V. watching takes place, but hey, we do what we've got to do.

So anyway, by the time Gwen wakes up, we're all a little stir crazy, so I attempt to take us to the 100 Yen store here, a store that deserves it's own post because it's amazing. Far better than any American dollar store will ever be. But who should happen to fall asleep in the car on the way there? Oh Preston-man. His poor boredom wore him right out. So, instead of wasting gas driving around while he slept, we sat in the parking lot. For an hour. And most of that hour I was trying to keep Gwen from crying and waking him up. It was lots of fun.

We finally made it to the 100 Yen store an hour later after he woke up, grabbed what we went in for, and headed back home. And of course, awhile after we were home, Preston pooped his pants. And not just a little. A lot. A whole lot. We've randomly decided to work on potty training while we're in transition, because obviously now is a great time to do that when our lives have just changed entirely. But, shockingly enough, he's been doing awesome. Except he's decided to not poop for a few days and today it ALL came out. In his shorts. On the ground. And down his leg.

I may have spanked his bum for being so naughty when he knows all too well that that crap, quite literally, belongs in the toilet. And then, he got cleaned off with a cold shower. Oh, and I made him scoop up his poop and dump it in the toilet.

Did I feel bad doing all of that? Well, kind of. A little tough love was thrown at him today. Thankfully he threw me some sweet love when he hugged me and told me he loved me. Ran away, and then came back to give me "just one more kiss!"

He's the best. But that was just plain disgusting!

John took the kids so I could have a little me time, work on a project, and basically be kids free for awhile. Then I made dinner but no one showed up to eat with me because they were stuck in traffic. So, instead of being annoyed that I had a hot dinner ready, I sat down and thoroughly enjoyed eating by myself, in the peace and quiet of our lovely hotel room.

But, after four weeks in TLF, and a crazy day, I needed chocolate. So, I left the kids with John and ran to the BX across the street, basically a modified Target meets Walmart for us military folk here on base. And of course, on the way home I decided to skip because I thought it would make me feel better. And it did. I think I might need to skip more often.

End of story, I'm going to bed.

Tomorrow will be better.

Hamahiga Island

Whenever I'd tell people we were moving to Okinawa, their first reaction was always "Wow!" immediately followed by, "That's SO far away!" and then we'd finally get the response, "What made you want to go there?"

Well my friends, this, this is what made us want to come to the beautiful island of Okinawa...

We've been stuck in the midwest for far too long, and while we absolutely loved our time there, sometimes you just need a drastic change. Instead of being landlocked, we're now surrounded by nothing but the ocean, and for now we're quite alright with that.

We're beach bums at heart, and this is what what we were most excited about, playing at the beach. All. Day. Long. I do miss my cornfields though, but I digress.

Snorkeling. Scuba diving. Paddle boarding. Surfing. Kayaking. Jet skiing. You name it, we want to do it, and we're determined to visit as many beaches and islands as we can and to become the best beach bums that we know how to be.

So, who wants to come visit?

And so the journey begins...

The past few months have been nothing short of crazy. From having a baby, to packing up our lives and moving half way across the world, with a few stops to see family along the way, we haven't really slowed down one bit. And I like it that way. I really do. Minus the part where it's totally taken a toll on my sweet two year old and all sorts of craziness has come seeping out of his personality. Patience and love, two things I've tried to incorporate more abundantly into my sometimes uptight self. Me uptight? Never!

So, instead of catching this blog up on what we've been up to, let's just jump right in to the present. Just know, we loved spending time with family and friends in Utah and California. And if you really want more of a day to day peak into our lives, follow me on instagram, amy_lovell, and you'll be all caught up.Or at least as much caught up as I care to share in this social media happy world.

Now, let's jump right into how we got to Japan and all of the fun that happened along the way. And maybe you don't care, if that's the case, I'll just throw up some pictures for your viewing pleasure and we'll call it good. For those who care about the details of our adventure, read on...

 

Our flight was scheduled for 1:40am on Thursday morning, August 28th. That day we did the best thing to do before a LONG flight, take it easy. We bummed around Sunnyvale with John's sisters family, and kind of laid low, knowing we had an entire night of traveling ahead of us. To say either one of us was looking forward to heading to the airport that night would be a lie. We both felt anxious and completely uncertain as to what in the world we were about to do. Move to Japan. All the way across the pacific. Far far from family and everything that we've always known. What were we thinking? Oh yeah, that we wanted a fun adventure for a few years and we were living up to our motto. Travel on someone else dime.

 

Thanks to our brother in-law for staying up late to drive us up to San Francisco that night, we took two sleepy children into the airport and kissed the ground of the USA goodbye. Or so we thought. Instead we sat around waiting to board our flight, only to be told that there was a mechanical issue with the plane and our flight would be delayed. Twenty minutes later, they came back on the intercom to tell us the exact same thing. By the time our flight was actually supposed to be taking off, we were then told the flight was simply cancelled. Yes, cancelled. Awesome.

The moment they said to head to the check in counter, John took off running, along with the other 300 annoyed passengers, to try to be the first in line. He almost succeeded. A few people beat him to it, but we were still some of the first in line and it was a good thing, too, considering they thought it was the best approach to make everyone come up to the counter simply to hand out a piece of paper with a phone number on it for us to call to reschedule our flight. A number that wouldn't have anyone available to answer until 6am, it was only 2am. To say everyone was annoyed would be an understatement.

Thank goodness the travel agent at the counter had pity on us and rescheduled us for the same flight the following night. Just what every parents wants to do, drag their children to the airport at 11:30 pm two nights in a row.

It was now close to 2:30 in the morning and we still had to go back down to baggage claim to get our bags before we could head out to a hotel for the night. The flight attendant said she took care of scheduling us a room, too. She was hooking us up...or so we thought.

Our bags, oh our bags, we thought they were never going to come. Meanwhile, it's close to 3am and Preston is having a heyday with the fact that it's WAY past his bedtime, and he's not being forced to sleep. He was running all over that near empty airport, singing songs, playing drums on everyone's luggage, and being a good reminder that delayed flight, cancelled flight, or schedules not going as planned, there was no need to be upset, because life is good and you make the best out of whatever is thrown at you. At least that was the message I got from him that night, and I'd like to think everyone else did, too, since we heard the comment, "at least someone is happy about the situation" numerous times that night. John and I couldn't help but laugh to ourselves the entire night at how goofy and happy he was being. Oh how we love that crazy boy of ours.

We finally got our luggage and headed out to find a taxi to take us to the airport. But there was a slight problem. Taxi's aren't lined up outside the airport at 4 in the morning, and everyone we called didn't have a car large enough (at least at the time) to take all of us and all of our luggage to our hotel. So, we spent another good half hour trying to find a way to the hotel. Thank goodness for the airport shuttle that was waiting upstairs at the arrivals gates and saved the day. We FINALLY made it to our hotel...only to find out the flight attendant hadn't actually booked us a room and they were all sold out. All sold out except for one Queen Suit that was going to cost us $299 for the night. I've never not cared so fast about the price of a hotel room. All we wanted to do was get our kids to bed and get a little shut eye in ourselves. And thankfully by 5am we were all doing just that.

By 11:30am the next morning Preston was up and ready to go for the day. That poor boy has forgotten how to get good sleep in since we left St. Louis. It's been rough. But minimal sleep aside, we were determined not to let our last day in the states be wasted by being stuck in a hotel room. Instead, we did what any good Candrian would do when the Giants are playing and headed into San Francisco to go watch the game, that just so conveniently happened to be in the afternoon that day. Preston loved it, for a few innings anyway, and then his lack of sleep caught up with him. We stayed until the 8th inning and headed back to the hotel to attempt to take a nap before the dreaded 11 hour flight that awaited us...again!



Naps happened, but were short of course and we were certain that nights flight was going to be disastrous. Gwen screamed the whole way to the airport and didn't want to sleep. Preston went from ornery to hyper to crazy tired all in the matter of seconds and we were certain we were destined for the worst flight of our lives. Thankfully Gwen fell asleep the moment we got on the plane, and with the help of a little Benadryl, Preston asked to make a bed on the floor of the plane so he could sleep, too. It was like music to my ears. We made him a bed, and before we knew it, he was on the ground sound asleep. It was fabulous, except for the part where we hadn't even taken off yet, and of course they were going to make us buckle him into the seat for takeoff. Um, have you met my child? Do you know what he's like when he doesn't get enough sleep? Of course not, but if they knew, they most definitely wouldn't ask us to do that. Instead of even having to worry about that, we set my purse on his chair, threw a blanket over top of it, tucked some of it into the seat pocket in front to look like legs and help cover the sleeping child below, and had my airplane pillow slightly poking out to look like his head. Best sleeping dummy I've ever seen and it worked like a charm. We may have given ourselves a pat on the back for that one.

Overall, aside from a slight meltdown after Preston woke up in hysterics after only three hours of sleep, the flight was a success. They both slept a majority of the way, and when either of them was awake, they were relatively happy and calm. A far better flight than anticipated. Halleluiah!

We landed in Taiwan around 5:25 in the morning, and after a fairly short layover, we were finally on the last leg of our journey. Finally! We got to fly business class from Taiwan to Okinawa, and surprisingly enough, Preston fell asleep once again. Too bad it was only an hour long flight. He woke up slightly grumpy and a little bit mad. The side of him that is VERY hard to reason with.

Our sponsors met us at the airport and loaded us up to head to Kadena, the Air Force Base where John will be working, and where we'll most likely be living for the next three years. The drive to base was a little strange seeing everything written in Japanese along the way, and driving on the left side of the road instead of the right. That will definitely take some getting used to. Not to mention, it's pretty humid here and the car I was in had terrible AC. I felt like I was melting the entire way. Welcome to Okinawa I suppose!

We got to our hotel here on base, and it pretty much took every ounce of my overly tired self not to break down into tears. With all of the pleading for a larger room from John for the past few months, our current living situation is less than idea. Until we get actual housing on base, we'll be living in a nice little (and I mean little) studio room that would barely be an adequate size for a bachelor, let alone a family of four. Nothing like living cozy with each other for the next few weeks. Maybe this will teach both of the kids to be really awesome sleepers because Gwen's going to have to learn to sleep through Preston's screaming, and Preston is going to have to learn to sleep through Gwen's crying. It should be a fun few weeks. Let's just say, I'll be praying my guts out we get into a house asap! Feel free to pray for me!

And here we are, the second day into this crazy adventure, both kids are napping, and it's currently 6pm...we were all in bed by this time yesterday. Somehow we'll all adjust, I'm sure of it, but let's just cross our fingers we're not all up by 3:30 tomorrow morning again.

Okinawa, we're ready for you!

Catch up

I can't believe it's been two months since Gwen joined our family. Two months. Good grief, that was the fastest two months of my life. I still feel like we have days where we're adjusting over here, but then we have really good days and I think I've got this whole mothering thing in the bag. But let's not kid myself, we've spent a LOT of time in front of the T.V. because you know what, sometimes I just need a minute to feed Gwen without being pulled in another direction by a very demanding little boy.

I like to think he's a pretty smart cookie and that T.V. isn't totally damaging him. I'm also glad that in five years he won't remember that I sat him in front of the T.V. a lot so I could get things done. At least I hope he doesn't remember because i'm pretty sure I can't recall a single thing from when I was that age. 

Moving on. 

We move soon. Like two weeks soon. And oh my goodness I've done nothing to prepare. I think that's how I handle big changes, I wait until the last minute to focus on what really matters. It's my way of saying, 'this isn't really happening' but it is, and we're exciting. But how do you really prepare for an overseas move? I have no idea! Instead of focusing on the here and now, I'm worried about how our rooms are going to be decorated. 

Gwen has been a champion baby. She eats, sleep, and poops on occasion. Sure, she fusses too, what baby doesn't, but overall she's awesome, and I feel lucky. 

She loves to coo and smile at you and sometimes I think she fusses because she just wants someone to talk to her. No one can get her to coo like Preston though. Anytime he's around her, which is a lot because he's a little obsessed, she's fixated on him. I hope they grow up to be the best of friends.

We blessed her in church on July 6th and it was so nice to have my parents fly into town and my sister and her family drive up from Tennessee. One day we WILL live close to family. I keep telling myself that and it gives me hope that it will happen. We just need three years and an entire ocean separating us first before we can settle down somewhere. But it WILL happen. I love family too much to always be so darn far apart. 

Gwen is so opposite of Preston in so many ways. I can lay her down wide awake and she'll fall asleep on her own. She's already rolling over and has been since she was only a few weeks old. She sleeps awesome in her crib and gives me a solid eight and a half hours of sleep most nights. It's heavenly. My fingers are crossed that this sweet little girl gets more of her dad's personality than mine, but, she does have red hair so we'll just have to wait and see. But I have high hopes for her that she'll be a little more relaxed and a lot less dramatic. But yes, I'm raising a daughter now, so, I'm not holding my breath on that one. 

Preston just gets smarter and smarter each day. The things he says and comes up with blow my mind. He notices everything around him and he makes sure you notice everything with him. He's obsessed with trains, and tractors, and airplanes, and I'm excited to move and give him a whole big boy room designed around all of those things. See, that's really the only place my mind is, I'm scouring pinterest like crazy lately. 

My favorite Preston sayings lately are:

"You know what my want, mom?" this is his way of stalling before naps and bed, he always wants something. 

"It's ok sweetheart, it's ok!" whenever Gwen is fussing. 

He loves to sing her Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, and if she stops crying, even for a moment while he's singing, he proclaims so proudly, "She's happy now!" 

The other morning when I went to get him out of his crib he said to me, "You know what my want mom? Watermelon, and sausage, and eggs! Will that be fun, mom?"

And his prayers, oh his prayers, they are the cutest thing in the world. He blesses everything in sight and my favorite part is when he says, "...please bless Jesus!" 

I've got some good kids on my hands. They're pretty much my favorite. 

Smitten

I'm a bit obsessed with my children. 

Do you blame me...

Timing

I've been a bit of an emotional wreck these last few days. Everyday I'd think, it's one day closer to my mom leaving, and that would set me off. See, little Miss was supposed to come earlier, giving me more time with my mom and me as a parent of two. But, everything happens for a reason, and subsequently that resulted in less time with my mom to help me transition. But either way, I'm forever indebted to that mother of mine. She's a saint, and I don't know what I'd do without her.

It was so nice to spend 10 days with her. She's truly amazing. If you only saw all of the things she accomplished while she was here. Let's paint a visual. Think dinners for probably the next week made and in the freezer. She helped me recover a chair. She made Preston three new shirts, and three new pairs of shorts...and three pairs for me, too. She refashioned five onesies, and oh man are they adorable. She grocery shopped for us, did our laundry and picked up after us, and and and. I'm not kidding when I say this lady is super woman. I don't know how she does it all. I really don't. I aspire to be like her someday. Oh man, she's the best. The best of the best.

And I hate that she had to leave.

Not only does having a baby make hormones go all wacky, but you know what else does that to you, too? Preparing for an overseas move. Like WAY overseas. We're moving to Okinawa in August, and don't get me wrong, we're over the moon ecstatic, but, with those feelings of being ecstatic also comes the realization that family is no longer a quick plane flight away. Oh no, family will be far far away from us for the next three years, and that's a lot to swallow on top of having a baby, too, you know. But I just keep reminding myself we're moving to paradise, and that eases the sadness. Paradise. What a dream!

Good riddance!

The timing of life is something I just have to laugh about lately...or try to anyway. Cause boy, oh boy, my emotions are all over the places lately. Thank GOODNESS for a calm baby so far. Now to just hope it lasts for a good long while because it makes everything seem a little more bearable at the moment. Ok, a lot more bearable.

Isn't she just precious?

I'm pretty sure she gets cuter by the day.