So after a whirlwind of activity the last few weeks, let me catch you up on the trip! The last couple weeks at home were crazy. Mom and Freddy came up to take my car back down to florida and thus has officially become my moms car. I will miss it so much. That car was perfect. I made the two of them WORK for that car. My brother helped us move furniture and fixed my toilet. My mom helped run around with the pets and vet visits and dealing with overnighting USDA documents for them. I was a stress ball to say the least, and mom handled me quite well!
We made sure to hit up all our favorite restaurants before we left and took mom to the oyster bar on chuckanut drive for her birthday dinner. I also made SURE I had some RedRobin before I left as well. How I will miss those burgers and garlic fries...sigh
My neighbor helped Evan get Oliver's crate to the airport the night they left. I was SO worried our crate would not be considered large enough, or that something would be amiss in our paperwork. I was actually working myself up into a minipanic attack about it in the car before we got to the airport. BUT it turned out everything went very smoothly. The guys at the desk did not even LOOK at the paperwork at all, barely looked at the dog and said "your good to go!" So off the boys flew that night
I then had 2 days to make some final goodbye prep to our house, which, after dropping our price (ouch), we did finally rent. Apparantly our new renter has a better credit score than us and is a computer game software engineer. What a perfect person to rent our house (I hope).
My trip with sweetpea went smooth as well, although her water dish had fallen off the front of the crate, so who knows how long she went without water. I got a one way 10 hour flight (fortune!) but also the non--reclining seat in front of the emergency exit (misfortune). I brought three books to read and did not crack a single book cover. I dozed, watched tv, and ate in 30 minute increments the entire flight. Our plane left at 4:30am but we had to be at the airport by 11:30pm. After boarding the flight, one passenger was unaccounted for, and they had to find the bag he checked and remove it before we could leave, which delayed us 30-40 minutes. As soon as I heard we would be delayed I put my new hot pink neck pillow on and CRASHED. I do not remember the taxiing out, the takeoff or anything until abotu 40 min into the flight. My flight buddy was pretty nice, and enlisted marine leaving his wife and baby in the states for 2 years while he is in okinawa. yuck.
Once we arrived in Japan, there was a 2 hour trip to the base kennel, and another 30 mins to our base. Oliver was doing well at the kennel, but I couldnt stand the idea of him being cooped in the kennel all day and since its difficult for me to get to the kennel I decided to get a dog walker. We are on a totally different base, will be in classes all day everyday next week, oh and have no car. So I hired a sweet 14 year old girl (through her mom) to walk Oliver 2x a day for $10 a day! CHEAP! There is even a dog park on the base they will take him to as well. I met the girl today and handed her $80 to get started and she seemed amazed to be holding that much money in her hands at one time. They thought he was very sweet as well (who wouldnt I mean cmon?) so I am happy with the situation so far.
Housing is still on hold - not sure where that is going yet, but we should figure it out sometime next week.
Our room is super sweet. Its small, but is a good use of space. The sink in the bathroom is HUGE. I mean I know americans are bigger than japanese people, but the sink is a little overkill.
I'll post a pic of our 'command center' which has both laptops, two phones, tv, dvd, cameras etc.
More later - sorry about the lack of pics but it will get better! We go on our first off base adventure tonight with a couple from the command who also have no kids, but a dog at home to worry about - perfect for us. Hopefully they like us and we can keep them ;)
