adjusting to life stateside

I was only out of the country 10 months this last time, but it's weird being surrounded by American-isms again. Okinawa is so polite. I realize TSA isn't the best way to categorize our culture, but wow, the TSA people in Dallas were so incredibly rude! In Japan they are so polite, gentle and understanding.

Jet lag has been awful. I stayed with the baby to help him get adjusted while Jared worked on getting re-adjusted to live 13 hours behind us. Poor Finn had a hard time with the jet lag but finally adjusted after a week and a half or so. The first day back tricks you, as you think you have tons of energy but then you come crashing down. I bet sleeping on the flight over would help with the jet lag but I really can't sleep on airplanes well. Plus I had to take care of the baby and he only really slept for the last 4 hours of the flight.

It's nice to hear random radio stations, see commercials and use the DVR to pause and fast forward through television shows. It's nice to go to the grocery store and see lots of options, it's nice to find shoes in my size at the stores. I love America. I love being able to be a mom who gets to go to Babies R Us and Target. I love being able to see family in friends IN PERSON and not on my Skype screen. It's a good life here.

The long trip home

We decided to break our trip home into segments, as this is the first time we traveled to the States as a family. Mom, Finn and I flew back to Okinawa when he was barely 3 months old and that was a piece of cake compared to flying trans-pacific with an 11 month old. The Sunday after school let out we flew to Tokyo's Haneda Airport, decided to take an airport bus service to the Tokyo Narita Airport area, spent the night at a hotel there and start trying to fly stand-by to the States the following morning. Finn was a lap baby for the Okinawa-Haneda segment and we felt every ounce of his 9.15 kilograms. My loving son loves to smile and squeal with excitement. He's not at the point where he realizes not everyone is as in love with him as we are. It was a bit challenging, but we did it. When we arrived at our hotel in Tokyo he was so happy to finally get down and be able to scoot around our hotel room. Being as it was Father's Day we decided to grab dinner in the hotel restaurant. Holy expensiveness! Our meal was over $100.00, for a hotel buffet and two beers. Yikes! Finn was getting pretty cranky so it was one of those dining in shifts meals. The hotel was also the crew hotel for Delta Airlines so it was more like staying in America than staying in Japan. The next day we were up bright and early to head to the airport to try to get a flight home. The American Airlines agent was a sweet as could be but told us our proposed flight to Dallas was overbooked and she very seriously doubted that we would be able to make that flight. This would create a chain reaction in us not getting to Louisville that day. She said there was a later flight to Los Angeles, but that was less than ideal as we'd have to hope for empty seats to Dallas from LA, from Dallas to LA, etc. There were a lot of seats on the flight to Chicago, but we'd have to get someone to pick us up in Chicago, etc. As you can see, there's a bit of a headache when flying stand-by but it's ALL WORTH IT. It's part of the adventure, right? Well, this was our first adventure like this with Little One and we just wanted to make it home. We were instructed to check back in 40 minutes before the flight departed to see if there were no-shows. I called home and informed my mom of the updates and could hear the disappointment in her voice. We showed up at the ticket desk at exactly the time instructed and we made the flight!! Finn and I had bulkhead row seats (he had his own seat, yeah!) and Jared had an emergency row seat. We couldn't have chosen better seats-how lucky were we? The 12 hour flight really did fly by, I didn't sleep but the baby slept a little and the daddy did as well. We were able to make the connecting flight to Louisville in Dallas and everything was honestly magical. There is no place like home!

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School's Out for Summer!!!!!!

June 18th finally arrived. Phew. My school has a neat (and relatively new) tradition where on the last student day, a half day, there is a school-wide End of Year celebration. There was a huge blow-up obstacle course, a dunk tank, popcicles, music, the kids could bring their skateboards/bicycles/scooters and everyone just played outside. Thank goodness it didn't rain. The sun even made an appearance! It was such a nice way to end the school year. It was a tough year, definitely the most challenging I've had so far but we all made it through relatively unscathed.

Here's to summer!

Family Visit!!

We were lucky enough to host my Aunt Nancy, Uncle Joe, and cousins Will, Ben and Bridget for a leg of their summer family vacation. They tackled Japan (what an awesome summer vacation!!) and spent some time with us in Okinawa before heading up to the Mainland. The weather wasn't always cooperative during their trip, but we were able to head to the beach (despite the low tide) where we got to experience a persnickety "lifeguard" who couldn't decide where he wanted us to plant our umbrella in the sun. We got to experience the aquarium in Nago and a couple other spots. I wish we could have taken them to more locales on the island but I think they had a good Asian adventure. Pictures will follow when I can locate the card with the pics from their visit! We knew we'd see them in two weeks at Powers Lake so it was the easiest "good-bye" we've ever had to say at the airport. What a great family, what a great vacation!!