Where do I start?

Wow!  Where do I start to describe the last 9 days of our lives here in Japan?!?  Friday, March 11, 2011 started out just like any other Friday for me.  I spent a couple of hours having Friday morning coffee with my girlfriends, then Kenny had a small break from lunch so I met him for lunch as Santa Sushi.  (Yes, that is the real name of the restaurant.  It is one of our favorites here!)  After lunch, I met back up with some of the girls to do a little shopping at the BXtra.  On my way home, around 2:00pm, I decided to stop at the salon here by my house to see if they had any openings for a pedicure that day.  Just my luck, they had one right then!  So of course, I took it.  I had my Kindle in my purse and just sat in the massage chair relaxing while I was getting pampered.  Around 2:50pm as she was painting my toenails I began to realize that I was moving more than just the massage chair was moving me.  We all stopped and just looked at each other kinda like, "Oh crap, we're having an earthquake."  So, at first it really wasn't a big deal.  We get little tremors here in Japan a lot.  Well, then it kept going and getting stronger by the second!  At this point the Japanese ladies working in there told us to get outside.  The humor to the situation is that here I am barefoot with the toe separators on my feet trying to run outside.  I'm sure I looked a little strange.  The shaking felt like it lasted forever!!!  I've heard different reports that it lasted 2-5 minutes.  The buildings were all swaying, and I'm not going to lie...I was scared.  Once we stopped moving, we thought it was all over & went back inside.  They finished up my toes & I went next door to pick up my dry cleaning.  That is when the 2nd big one hit.  I had been frantically trying to call Kenny, but the phone lines were all jammed.  We had no clue what was really going on.  As soon as the 2nd one finished, I went straight to find my friends Lynn & Mindy who live across the parking lot from me.  Kenny had been trying to find me too, but he didn't know where I was.  He had talked to Lynn, so I knew that he was ok.  Once we felt it was safe to go back inside, we all went to Lynn's house.  I finally got ahold of Kenny & he told us to turn on the news because a tsunami was heading straight for the coast of Japan.  We learned that the earthquake that we had just experienced was one of the largest in history!  At the epicenter it was a 9.0, & they estimate that we felt it as a 5.1 here at Yokota over 320 miles away from the epicenter.  WOW!!!  The second one that followed about 30 minutes later was somewhere close to an 8.0 I believe.  (I could be wrong on that one.)  We immediately knew that life in Japan had just drastically changed for us.  Since last Friday we have had close to 500 aftershocks or new earthquakes.  Some have been small enough that we don't notice them, and some have woken us up at night.  None of them have been nearly as strong as the first two!

We were very fortunate to have no damage here on base, & everyone was safe.  Praise God!  Unfortunately the rest of Japan was not so lucky.  The area near Sendai is completely devastated by the earthquake & tsunami.  The rest of the night we sat glued to the news to try to understand what was happening, & if we were safe.  We have been & continue to be very safe here at Yokota!  We have zero radiation in our air, we have power, water & food.  We are truly blessed!

Immediately, our active duty members went to work.  Planning, organizing, making sure everyone was accounted for, etc.  Yokota Air Base is now the hub of military relief efforts for Operation Tomodachi, which translated means Operation Friendship.  I could not be more proud to be a part of this community, & the work that we are doing to help our wonderful host country of Japan.  It has been amazing to see how the AF & our sister services our working together to bring aid to our friends here.  Our military members are working around the clock planning, flying, doing search & rescue, delivering relief aid, & many other things.  They are working extremely long, hard hours.  Kenny has been working on average 14-18 hours a day.  There is no such thing as a weekend here at Yokota AB right now.  Everyone is working 24/7.

This week has been a whirlwind to say the least.  I have not had time to sit down & write it all out until now.  I have been staying busy cooking meals & baking cookies to take to all of the guys working with Kenny.  I have also had the opportunity to volunteer with the Red Cross some on base.  I am surrounded by an amazing group of friends here.  Since all of our husbands are working around the clock, we have had a lot of girls nights.  We have laughed, cried, talked & sat in silence together.  We have been scared, shocked, and felt a peace that only God can give us.  I know that God is in control of this. 

Kenny & I have made the decision that I will stay here in Japan unless they government does a mandatory evacuation of Japan.  This is our home.  We are here together.  I can not imagine leaving him here right now.  This is where I belong.  This is where God has placed us, & He has a purpose for us to be here.  I ask that you would please pray for the people of Japan who have lost everything.  They have lost loved ones, their homes, their cities.  Please pray that they will be able to cool the nuclear reactors.  Please pray for the military doing the relief work.  Pray that they will get the rest they need to do their jobs.  Please pray for us, the families here, that we will remain safe.  Pray that we know how to support our spouses the best way we can. 

I know this post is a little all over the place, but to be honest the last 9 days have been a little all over the place.  Know that we appreciate your thoughts & prayers.  I will keep you as updated as I can either here or on facebook. 

Happy Valentine's Day!

Well, it's probably a good thing that I've never really been a big Valentine's Day fan....this was the 1st of many Valentine's Day that Kenny was gone for.  The beauty of being an Air Force wife is that I definitely was not alone!  Kenny is only gone for about 1 month, so I'm one of the lucky ones.  Last week, several of my friends husbands left for a 4-5 month deployment, so it's pretty easy to keep my little one month in perspective.  This weekend we all kept super busy together!  We had 2 baby showers & a Work Widows Valentine's Dinner.  It was so much fun!!!  Then last night Lynn, Mindy & I had a dinner & movie night.  It was a perfect, low key night.  I hope you all have a great week!  Remember to say a prayer for our troops who have to be away from their loved ones on Valentine's day. 

A Quick Getaway!

We love Yokota Air Base!  We have such an awesome network of friends here.  But even with all of that, it is nice to get away from here every once in a while.  The problem is that when you live in Japan, there aren't very many places that are close & cheap enough for an overnight trip.  EXCEPT...the awesome military hotel in downtown Tokyo!  We love the New Sanno!!!!  It is a very nice hotel that we get at a great price!  Well, last week, I was able to convince Kenny to take a day off during the week so that we could go to Tokyo without the weekend crowds.  It was just what we needed!  On our walk to the hotel from the train, we noticed a new winery that has opened a tasting bar right next door to the hotel.  After we dropped our bags off, we went back for a wine tasting.  It was great!  It is Kenzo Estate Winery.  Their vineyard is in Napa Valley, but it is a Japanese company.  We got to meet Kenzo himself & his wife while we were there.  They were so nice!  After the wine tasting we went back to relax at the hotel.  We then treated ourselves to a 4-star 5 course dinner at Wellingtons.  One of the restaurants in the New Sanno.  It was delicious!!!  They have a regular menu as well the course menu that changes monthly.  We went there when Mom & Dad came to visit & just had to go again.  We are so lucky to have the New Sanno to go to for a quick escape from the base. 

Worst.Blogger.Ever.

So, I was just noticing that I haven't blogged since August....That definitely earns me the title of the Worst Blogger Ever!  So, since there is no way I can possibly post all of the pictures and every detail of all the things we've done since August, I'll give a quick recap & try to add a few pictures.  I promise to do better!

September:  I spent all of September at home in Arkansas.  It was awesome!  I loved spending time with my family & friends.  Kenny even took some time off work & met me there.  It was the perfect timing for a trip home.  I got to go to a Razorback game, the lake, and and OU game with Kenny.  We love college football at our house!  We also had a retirement party for Kenny's dad. 



Caroline & I at the lake



Kenny & his dad at the retirement party

October:  We started the month off by leaving Arkansas & going to Seattle for a week.  One word...GORGEOUS!!!  Neither one of us had ever been there before, and we loved it!  Kenny had to go there for some training, so I got to tag along.  We celebrated our anniversary a little early with dinner at the top of the Seattle Space Needle.  Such a fun night!  It was nice to have a relaxing night there with him because he was going to have to be gone on our anniversary.  Probably our favorite thing that was did was drive through Mount Rainier National Park.  It was breathtakingly beautiful!  We also got to take in a Mariner's game.  We like baseball at our house too.  Probably the best thing about going to Seattle was that Kenny & I got to fly home to Japan together.  It's such a long flight to be on by yourself.  I loved having him there to lean on to fall asleep.  =)

Kenny & I at Mount Rainier

November:  We've decided that while we can't be with our families for Thanksgiving, it is a great time to take vacation.  We went to Saipan for Thanksgiving.  It is a tiny island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.  It is one of the Northern Mariana Islands.  Saipan is a very important historical sight from WWII.  My Pa (my dad's dad) was actually on the island during the war before being on the 1st ship into Tokyo Bay after the bombing of Hiroshima.  Kenny & I had a great time taking in the historical sites & relaxing by the pool and beach.  It was probably the  most relaxing vacation we've ever had!

The view from our Thanksgiving dinner in Saipan

December:  Well in case you don't know... I LOVE Christmas!!!!  Spending time with family and friends, decorating, the smells, the lights & most importantly, celebrating the birth of Christ!  Unfortunately, I had a nasty cold that lasted about 3 weeks which put a little bit of a damper on the fun.  But, we still had plenty of fun!  We spent Christmas Eve & Christmas day with our Yokota family.  We are so blessed to be in a place where we are surrounded by such great friends!  God has definitely taken care of us!!!



Kenny & I at the base Christmas tree lighting ceremony



Amanda, Me, Michelle, Melissa & Lynn at the 36th Christmas party

And now here we are in January.  I thought things were supposed to settle down after the holidays?!?!  They definitely haven't!  We have been so busy, but I love it!  We just went snow skiing with a group from base.  We had such an awesome time!  Our dear friends the Miner's were on the trip with us.  We had so much fun laughing and skiing our way down the slopes.  We definitely made some lasting memories on that trip!!!  Kenny & I are hoping to hit the slopes one more time this month before he has to go on a trip for all of February.  It is so beautiful here in the mountains of Japan!  We love getting out of the city and into the mountains here.  It makes us feel a little more at home without so many buildings around.  But don't worry, there are still millions of Japanese people around to remind me that we aren't in Arkansas anymore.  =)   

Whew! I think that about sums up the last several months. I know I missed a lot, and I'm sorry. I will try to do better!



Friendship Festival

The past few weeks have been pretty busy here at Yokota!  This past weekend we had Friendship Festival 2010.  It is a yearly festival where we open up part of the base to the Japanese nationals.  We had a static display of about 30 planes.  The C-130's did their thing with some airdrops & the helos flew around some.  We sold tons of food & had bands playing the whole time.  Oh did I mention that it happened to be one of the hottest weekends of the year!!!!  There were about 140,000 Japanese people on base for the festival.  Kenny was the Air Boss for the show which means he worked a lot to get ready for this thing!  We really had a good time, but I was glad for it to be over so that Kenny could have a break. 

In super exciting news....I'll be in Arkansas one week from today!!!!!  I can't wait to hug & kiss on my family!  It's even more exciting because Kenny gets to join me for a week there & then we are off to Seattle for some training. 

I'm going to try to attach video for the 1st time, so we'll see how this goes.  It is some video of personnel drops that the C-130s made during the festival.

The Air Force Family

Yesterday when Kenny came home from work I hugged him a little tighter, sat at the dinner table talking a little longer, sat a little closer to him on the couch & cuddled up to him a little closer as we went to sleep.  Four C-17 crew members from Elmendorf Air Force Base were killed into an routine training flight.  They were training for an air show that was to take place this weekend at their base.  I am so saddened for the families, friends & Elmemdorf community.  I can not even imagine what they are going through.  We truly are a family in the flying community.  In some way everyone knows everyone.  We have friends and family that fly on C-17s as well as other aircraft all over the Air Force.  I know Kenny's job has some inherent risks, but the reality of those risks hit me yesterday.  Our time here on this earth is not guaranteed.  Remember to tell the ones you love how much you love them.  Please join me in praying for the families of these 4 crew members as they mourn the loss of their loved ones.

Blah...

In my effort to do better about blogging, I figure I should do it even when I don't have anything fun to report.  So here goes...this past week definitely was not the best week we've had here in Japan.  I was sick with a summer cold for about 9 days & Kenny was on a trip that kept getting extended.  It just kinda sucked!  Kenny's trip was supposed to be a 7 day trip that turned into an 11 day trip.  Oh well, at least he's not deployed!  As you know, I tend to be quite social, so being sick in the house for that long with Kenny gone was brutal for me.  I was so bored & lonely, but didn't feel like doing anything.  Thankfully I'm feeling better now & my hubby is home!!!  Glad that week is behind us and we can move on!

They are shutting down the power on our side of the base on Saturday to replace a transformer that was destroyed in the flood we had about a month ago.  So what did a few of us girls over here decide we should do with a day of no power????  We're heading to IKEA!!!!  Kenny decided he'd rather stay here to catch up on work (his office is on the other side of base).  I can't imagine why he wouldn't want to go spend a day at Ikea with us....  =) 

That's all I know for now, nothing much right?  It's almost time for me to start the countdown for getting to go to Arkansas!!!  32 days, but I'm not paying much attention to that yet, ok maybe I am!  =)