Living the Dream

Anna supervises some of the unpacking activities

Scott was joking that we are living the American dream now (and actually living in America). We now own a home, have two new cars and 2.5 children. The typical American family.

We've also been enjoying some of the "luxuries" of American living again. Now, to be fair, a lot of these things, like the small washer and dryer and dishwasher, wouldn't have been an issue if we lived on base in Okinawa, but we chose to live off base in a Japanese house. It was a great experience, and we would do it all over again, but it really made us appreciate American appliances, among other things. :)

The buttons on our Japanese washer

Doing laundry for the whole household took me no time at all yesterday now that we have our big American washer and dryer again. Our little Japanese washer will fit about half as much as our American one and our dryer will take five hours to dry that amount of clothing (I am not exaggerating). So what used to take 10 hours to dry (two half loads) now takes an hour! It is the best thing ever! We kind of got used to the tedium of constantly doing laundry so getting it done so fast seems like such a luxury. Also our washer in Japan doesn't do warm or hot water so we had to run a hose from the bathroom if we wanted anything washed in warm or hot water. It's so easy to just press a button for that!

Our Japanese dishwasher

Our American dishwasher is another thing we are loving!! After dinner in Okinawa it took us quite a while to get all the dishes washed since our Japanese dishwasher was so small. A dinner plate is the biggest thing you can fit in there and only about four of those will go in at a time. I ran the dishwasher in Japan about four times a day and we still ended up handwashing a ton of things that won't fit in there (big bowls and cutting boards etc). Now I can do one load a day or one every other day and everything gets washed so easily. It seems to take us five minutes to clean up after dinner instead of 30-45. I love it!

Our fridge and freezer are much bigger than our Japanese ones (the new fridge came with the house). We can actually fit a lot of stuff in there! Plus our fridge has an ice maker and ice dispenser (and ice crusher) in the door! I love my ice!! It's my fridge dream come true!!

We have a garbage disposal which I am loving! We've lived in places other than Japan that didn't have garbage disposals, and actually neither of our parents have them at their houses, but having one is very nice!

Our oven in Japan (we bought a small one at the BX since we didn't have one in our house)

We have a big American oven! I wasn't able to make a full batch of anything while we were in Japan. Making muffins took sooo long since I could only bake 6 at a time. 9x13 pans would not fit in the little oven and I couldn't run the oven at the same time as the dishwasher or the circuit would pop, so baking was always an adventure. I'm loving the spacious oven!!

Having a master bath room is nice. And we have a nice tub in there! We had one tub in Japan and it was literally in the farthest spot from our bedroom...downstairs and on the other side of the house. I like to take baths at night sometimes and it's so convenient now! Another little luxury!

Having cable TV. Living off base we only had the seven or so AFN channels, which got old really fast. We couldn't watch hulu or stream netflix off base since we had a foreign IP address, but we managed to download a few shows from other sites on the internet and use a sling box to get some shows on tivo. Tivo was nice but there was a painful delay of about ten seconds for any button press. It's nice to have regular tv again...and no more AFN commercials!!

Our balcony in Japan - our yard equivalent

We've never had a yard - we certainly didn't have one in Japan - and the kids are loving it, even with the cold weather!

Regular American grocery stores. I went grocery shopping yesterday and was able to get every single item on my list! I don't think that's happened to me in three years! It was wonderful. I am really grateful we were able to get American groceries at all in Okinawa, but the old expired food, limitations on what was available, and expensive and limited produce got old in a hurry. It's so nice to have so many options! We are really so lucky to be living in America!

Don't get me wrong, we had a great experience living in Japan, but I am really appreciating a lot of the things about being back in the US!

See a tour of our Japanese house HERE and HERE.

Rice Paper Door Repair

We have (or had) these beautiful rice paper doors in our house. Within our first year of living in Okinawa they got a few holes in them. Once Anna got on the scene the number of holes significantly increased (notice all these holes are at toddler height). I was very sad about it at first, but our friend told us they weren't too hard to fix. Scott thought we could try and fix them ourselves, although I was nervous about it. So since we are finally moving out, here is our attempt at fixing the rice paper doors. Here is a before picture of one of the doors right before we attempt a fix. So sad. The other one was actually worse.

Scott got all the materials. The roll of rice paper even had directions. We couldn't read it, but at least there were pictures.
I didn't get a lot of pictures in the middle, 'cause I was helping him do it all, but basically we had to wet the adhesive on the paper to get the old paper off. Then we put special glue and tape on the wood. Next we rolled out the rice paper, pulling it tight and smoothing it over each wood slat with a special smoothing tool.

Then Scott cut off the excess with a utility knife (that's what he's doing in this picture). And finally we let it dry. It was a little touch and go there in the middle, but Scott was very confident it would turn out well...

...and it did!!

Of course, we did all this after the kids went to bed. And I was terrified that in the one day we would be in the house with the fixed doors, the kids would somehow poke a hole in them again.

Matthew was impressed with the nice doors and we only had one frightening incident, which luckily, did not cause any damage. Phew!! The doors are back to being beautiful again! We won't be able to enjoy them, but we do have the satisfaction of knowing we fixed them ourselves. :)

Swimming time

I haven't been blogging much lately 'cause nothing remotely exciting is going on. Here's some of that non-excitement.

We got a bigger inflatable pool for the balcony this year. I finally blew it up so the kids could play. It's starting to get warmer. It was overcast this day, but still muggy and over 80. And it only gets hotter from here.

Matthew wanted me to take a picture of him sliding on his belly. He never really committed to the belly sliding, but he liked posing for the pictures.

Anna wanted to get in on some of the picture taking too.

A little bird landed on the building next door and the kids were trying to coax him over by yelling, "COME HERE BIRD!!" at full volume. That didn't work, but when we left a few pretzel crumbs on the wall he came over for a visit.

Anna watches the bird too. After she saw the bird liked the pretzels, she kept asking for more pretzels and then chucking them over the balcony. We stopped giving her pretzels after that.

Our Sick Week

Last week the kids and I were sick with colds, pretty much all week. I was pretty miserable for a few days there, but am feeling a lot better now. I felt like a terrible mom since I was just laying on the couch most of the day all week. Anna would cry at me and say, "Don't sleep mommy!" And Matthew would say, "Mommy, I'm going to be the Holy Ghost (a church reference he just learned) so I will make you feel better and not be sick." He's so sweet.
Scott was a little sick but still had to go to work. Things at his office, just like most places in the military these days are stretched very thin by all the deployments. Poor Scott. He's very stressed.
We played outside on the balcony a little bit during the week, 'cause they were getting a little stir crazy in the house. Here's Anna playing with some sidewalk chalk and bubbles from an automatic bubble machine we recently bought. Great investment!!

Playing with the water table. They love it.

Matthew loves throwing the water.

I was getting desperate for indoor entertainment. Here's Matthew playing with some pegs inside. I just like the picture.

Another day on the balcony. I laid in a chair with a box of tissues while they played. It was a survival mode week.

There's the ocean from our balcony. Someday I hope to feel well enough to go there in person.

A Tour of Our House - Part 2 (the upstairs)

Our back balcony (upstairs)
Matthew is playing with his water table.
It looks kind of empty back here.
I think we need some plants or something.

Playing in the water

Matthew loves to find the puddles...and then sit in them.

The view of the ocean from our back balcony
It's there, I promise!

Our upstairs bathroom
(this one has a shower and toilet together, but no sink)

Matthew knows how to turn on the water in the bathroom
(check out the wet pants)
That's why we keep the door closed!!

Matthew's bedroom - in a kinda messy state.

Matthew "reading" his books

Our bedroom

More of our bedroom

Our guestroom/office
The empty futon frame normally has a mattress on it :)

The front balcony - outside our guestroom

The view of the ocean from the front balcony!
(again, the ocean really is there!!)
Extra points if you can spot Matthew's bald head...

Our car - as viewed from above!! Isn't it beautiful?

A Tour of Our House - Part 1

The Tatami Room (aka Matthew's play room)

The Living Room

Dining Area

Kitchen

Storage and Laundry Room

Washer complete with homemade English subtitles

One of the bathrooms - the tub and shower are in one room and the toilet is in another room, while the sink is out in the hallway. It's a bathroom revolution!