Daddy's Home Video

Here is the video when Daddy came home.

Singing at church

Today there was a combined service at the main base chapel. It was a youth Sunday, so the youth ran everything. The children sang a song. Emma did great! Note: She had just gotten a watch , and you can catch her checking her watch in the video, silly girl.

Long Day

Today was a long day. Emma has been getting eaten alive by something and her bug bites are really bothering her....even at night. It made for a rough night. But we had stuff to do. We ventured out together on the shuttle to go to main base. We had a lot to do. Steven needed to go to the cell phone place to get a plan. He also wanted to go to the gym to workout. We needed groceries and stuff from the bx. We needed to check mail and return library books. And I thought we could go by the lemon lot. Well...that turned out to be too ambitious. Somewhere along the way Emma’s bug bites were bothering her a lot, and that with being tired and hungry did not look good for running errands. So after the bx she and I came back home and Daddy finished the errands. It’s taking some time to figure this all out...it will be better when we get a car though. Right now we just need to try to not do to much. 

Daddy put up his hammock again. Emma always wants to be in it with him. At least when they were reading she wasn’t wiggling.

Chopped Liver

Well, I am back to being chopped liver now that Daddy is here. They have gone on walks, read books, played with balloons, snuggled in the hammock....lots of fun. Sometimes I do stuff with them, I did go on a walk with them tonight.  I tried to go back to Emma’s room where they were, but Emma told me I was supposed to be on my phone on the couch. Poor kid missed her Daddy! Pretty sure there hasn’t been any fits thrown since he has been here either. 😏 I’m not complaining though...I’m enjoying the break. It is weird to have so much extra time on my hands. I may even read a book! 

Today he did some in processing, we got our unaccompanied baggage and Emma stayed home from school. She really could have gone, they had a field trip, but she was too excited about Daddy and getting the rest of our stuff today. I am very excited about those things, too! We may have also watched the NFL draft while he was running errands. 

She set up her fan so that it keeps the ballon up in the air.

Playing in packing paper.

Not a great picture, but all I could get. 

Update: I will say that they did bring me flowers from their walk and they were drawing me pictures in her room apparently. So I’m not completely chopped liver. :) 

Daddy’s finally home

Guess what I’m doing? Nothing. (Well, the blog actually.) But I have the house to myself! Steven took Emma down to the playground. 

She got home from school and I had the cake stuff all ready to go. The front bowl is the over mixed marscapone cream. The bowl behind it is the better one. 

My little pastry chef. 

She wanted to make a sun.

She decorated it all by herself. 

All done!

Our neighbors were selling a double wide hammock on FB, and I bought it. Steven has already set it up. Emma calls it a swing. She loved snuggling with Daddy in it...unfortunately for Daddy she is super wiggly and got out and back in several times. But they had fun.

I posted a video on Facebook of her open the door when he came home. I will post it on here later. She was pretty surprised. And she has been VERY chatty ever since he got here. :) 

Back to baking

Shhh! It’s a surprise! We are making Daddy a surprise cake for him when he comes home! It is a fancy cake...way more complicated than we have tried before. But my friend made it in CA and it was delicious! I also see why now...it’s so rich! I mostly found all the ingredients...but this will be the most expensive cake I have ever made. In fact, it was taking so long that Emma just started doing the dishes. 😂 But that needed to be done, too.  Today we made the elements: lemons curd, blueberry sauce, baked the cake and did the marscapone cheese stuff...which I may need to redo. All the stuff they do on tv is harder than it looks!  We will finish it Thursday. 😉 

Since we had so many egg whites left over, we tried a recipe we found on Facebook. They were good, too.

My little helper! 

Here are our recipes:

https://ciaoflorentina.com/lemon-olive-oil-cake-recipe-berries-mascarpone-lemon-curd/

http://www.eatingwell.com/recipe/262604/flourless-chocolate-cookies/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=alr_20180421&utm_content=alr_internalcrosspromo

Pretty things

This morning, Emma wanted to give her teacher some old, faded fake flowers that she found when we were unpacking. She even wrote her a note. It was so sweet...and she was very upset and cried when I wouldn’t let her. I promised her we would go get a real flower after school to give to her. So we did. Such a sweet girl! 

Pretty colors!

Daddy made this for Emma, and he is going to give it to her when he gets here...in a few days!!!

Unpacking

We finally have stuff! Yesterday our house hold good arrived and we began unpacking! The movers got here right at 8, and got to work unpacking crates in the basement while FMO moved out the temporary furniture. It only took a couple hours to get it all in. I took a friends suggestion and had the movers unpack the kitchen...probably won’t have them do that again. They only ended up unpacking half of it, by mistake. They unpacked things like glasses, jars, vases, and since they had already filled the counter tops, they put the glass on the floor...right in front of cabinet doors. I ended up unpacking the plates, bowls, mixing stuff....what I really needed. But it is done. Next I unpacked Emma’s room...which was very exciting for her. It helped me out too, because then she was busy while I did some more work in the kitchen. I feel kind of bad for her...she keeps asking me to play, but there is so much to do! We went to bed late last night, and unfortunately I am learning there is not much sleeping in here since the sun comes up so early. (I’ve ordered new curtains for our room, because if we want to sleep past 5 we need to get curtains up.) Even with not getting enough sleep, Emma woke up in a great mood. She swept and mopped the floor right after breakfast. Then talked to Daddy and finished unpacking. 

As of right now, I would say we are 95% unpacked. All the boxes have been opened. We still have a couple unpacked, because I am waiting for Steven to get here to help arrange a few things. But we took all the broken down boxes and paper-filled boxes to the basement, which helps the mess a lot. I have some pictures, but is a mess...we still have a lot to do. I will probably get a lot done this week while she is in school. But it is SO nice to have our stuff. It makes it feel like home. I can feel us settling in, and I think we will even more when we get the rest of the mess under control. 

Emma had a rough start to moving day. So this is what she ended up doing while the movers were here. It was just too hard for me to keep track of her and deal with the movers.

Unpacking my kitchen for me...seemed like a good idea at the time.

Living room day 1.

Dining room day 1.

Kitchen right after they left. Ugh. Emma of course wanted a snack, which is funny now that I look at the picture.

While I worked on the kitchen, she set the table. :) A Chaplain’s wife brought us dinner. Emma ate like an adult. 

For those that have never moved with the military...these packers pack everything. This time they packed things they weren’t supposed to...lighters, liquids in glass jars, etc. 

She decided to vacuum. Our normal vacuum is in unaccompanied baggage.

Emma’s room.

So nice to have all of her things in one place.

She cleaned before bed.



Living room day 2.

This will be my next project.

Our room.

Bigger than our other rooms we have had. Also, I need a dresser, there are no shelves here!

Mail

Well today we checked our mail for the first time since we got here. I had gotten the combination to our mail box earlier, but I hadn’t checked it since my packages were not scheduled to arrive yet. One was scheduled for today, but they were both there. I’m wondering how long it actually takes stuff to get here since it seems like they got here earlier than Amazon said. But we are excited to have our packages...and I will be ordering more soon. I know our BX is bigger than usual, but honestly it still doesn’t have a lot. 

She tried to guess what color it was at the bus stop...Frozen? Green? Light green? Poop colored? 🤦‍♀️ 

She never did guess pink, but I think she likes it .



My new rain boots since mine broke right before we moved. 

Japanese or Spanish? Yes

So last I told you, Emma has Spanish class. Then last night, she came home speaking Japanese. I didn’t know what she was saying, so I had her speak into my Google Translate app. She was saying either “What is your name?” or “How old are you?” Or both. I was confused. So today I asked her teacher. They have...both! I can’t remember the details, but I think the teacher said they have Spanish class on Wednesday and Friday, and ‘culture class,’ where she would learn about Japanese culture, every few days, as part of a rotation with music, art, and PE. Hopefully she can keep them straight! I know enough Spanish to be able to telll the difference of which language she is speaking at least. And thank goodness for Google Translate! I have a feeling we will be using it a lot. 

Work from Culture Class...which really confused me.

Walking to school in the rain. It’s nice to be able to walk. She is definitely a California girl. Yesterday it was about 50 degrees when we were walking to school. She said it felt like winter. But tomorrow the sun comes out!

Doing mom’s hair

I haven’t posted much lately because we are in a lull....the fun in between part of moving. We are in our house with limited stuff, have no car, and are still gettting settled and used to the new base. Thankfully our stuff gets here Friday! And Daddy gets here next Thursday!!!!! After that we will be much more on the way to feeling settled and at home here. 

This weekend we mostly tried not to drive each other crazy...which can be hard. But thankfully Mrs. Kimble took us to the commissary so we didn’t have to take the shuttle on Saturday. We did take it Sunday morning to go to chapel on main base, and also we needed to buy pencils for Emma’s homework. We went to both the traditional and contemporary services yesterday,  we both liked both of them. 

On a side note: I’m glad we came to Japan when we did, this kindergarten is obviously different than her other one...it’s not a huge difference (except for the Spanish class that she apparently has), but I’m glad she will have some time to catch up and make friends.

In between services, we watched Iron Chef Gauntlet, and talked to Daddy while Emma did my hair. Mrs. Kimble took us to the Library, and Emma picked out a princess hairstyle book. So she did my hair. Next time maybe I can do hers, but she was very focused and worked a long time. Also I’m terrible at taking selfies, my phone was in the way of my hair! 

Mom’s princess hair, by Emma. Emma also took these two pictures.

Not bad for a her first try! Although she thought she braided it.

First day of kindergarten, take 2.

Today Emma had her first day of school. She was excited until she got there, and then she was pretty nervous. But I think she had fun. She said her favorite part was having lunch early. (An hour and a half earlier.) She said they did not do the pledge of allegiance, but they went to “Spanish class” where they “learned Japanese.”  Everyone I met raved about her teacher, so it sounds like she got a good one. 

I went to PWOC this morning. I forgot how exhausting it is to be the new person. I don’t know if it is like this for everyone else, but I was drained afterwards. This PWOC is a little different from what I’m used to...not bad, just different. Everyone does the same study and they just break off into smaller groups to discuss, one of which I was assigned to. My group also had a lunch afterwards (lots of eating), since two of the ladies are having babies soon. I was so tired I forgot that I needed to get school supplies for Emma. I remembered after school, of course. So we ate dinner at 3, and hopped on the shuttle. Our last couple days we have been super exhausted (like 3 hour naps plus full night of sleep)  and our last shuttle experience was not good. Emma and I were both beyond tired, and she was crazy and I was frustrated. I didn’t want to take her on the shuttle for a very long time again. However, we needed to go, so we went. It was a much shorter trip and we played “I spy”’while waiting for the bus. (And we brought our jackets!) I never play games on my phone, let alone let Emma, but I had one from when I put one on the iPad. So when we got stuck at the flight line we played a game for a few minutes and then we were home. Much better trip. 

This is Emma after her first day of school in Japan, because I didn’t think to take one before school when she had cute pigtails and bows. 😏 

Rest day

Today we woke up at 5, so better than 4, but still pretty early. It’s hard to sleep in when sun comes up before 5.  We were planning on going to chapel and then riding the shuttle to main base, but when we got to chapel we discovered that the traditional service on main base is at 11, the one by our house, the contemporary service, is at 5. So we walked back home, about a block away. We thought we would just ride the shuttle in the morning, but when we got back up to our house, it became obvious that running errands was not going to be a good idea. We are still adjusting, tired, just needing to stay home and rest. So that’s what we did. I got the tv working, and we watched some Food Network that was on AFN. Then we ate and headed to chapel. I definitely think we are making progress adjusting....sleeping during the night, getting out, having groceries. But there are other things that will take longer...waking up and eating at normal hours, meeting people, and other thing that just go with being in a new place or traveling so much and living in such a different place.  

The doll in the kimono that Mrs. Kimble bought her at the 100 yen store.

She also bought her this apron, which is being used as a doll carrier in this picture. She is a creative girl! I know she misses her toys, but she finds ways to play and pretend! 

Getting out of the house

Well today we got out of the house! We played at the playground, went to the cherry blossom festival, played in the hallway with neighbors, and went off base with a new friend. The cherry blossom festival was right on our street, and it was fun to walk around. There were lots of food booths/street food, a few games, and music. We walked up and down the street once and then she was ready to go home. When we got home Emma heard some kids playing out in the hallway, so she wanted to go see them. She was shy at first, but then she warmed up and played. I’m always nervous about other kids...some of them weren’t listening or being nice, and they were kind of noisy from inside the house. I do like that they play out there, but we will see how it goes...technically they are not supposed to have all that stuff out in the hallway. After lunch MSgt Kimble’s wife, Catina, picked us up and took us off base to do a little shopping. We went to a Japanese market/grocery store, a 100 yen ($1) store, and their version of Walmart...all before going to the commissary to restock our kitchen. We also got Taco Bell for dinner! Yum. When we got back we talked to Daddy. While we were talking Emma went to hide, and fell asleep. 😊 

I think we had a cherry rose ice cream in a crepe. It was in Japanese, I ordered “the pink crepe.” It was delicious!!!

Playing with friends in the hallway 

She found little shopping carts, little baskets, and this cart with a short seat on it.

She fell asleep hiding beside the couch

Getting settled

Today we got the keys to our new house! We brought all of our stuff over and started unpacking our household things...towels, pans, untensil, etc. We put in some shelf liners and went to the park that is by our tower. This afternoon they delivered our loaner furniture, and we also have internet! Sleep...well, let’s just say we are still adjusting. Tired, cranky, trying to stay awake...that’s kinda how we are, but I think we are gettting better. No naps today, but we will probably go to bed early. I have a feeling after this weekend we will be good. 

Crying because she didn’t get the room with the bathroom and front porch

She was running in the spare room and got a rug burn. 

Apparently she couldn’t walk because of it 

Playing at the new park

This tree has flowers that remind me of roses.

New park

Checking our other buildings

Living room area

Living/dining room


Master bedroom

Master 

Emma’s room

She calls it the queen room because of the dresser and mirror