Today Joe went on his first flight! He's been very anxious to get back in the plane; he hasn't flown since before Thanksgiving!!! That's a long time in the flying world. He is flying to Korea and refueling a bunch of planes- it's an 8-hour mission. He said if he gets to fly into Korea 10 times, he gets a special medal!

While he was gone today I decided to venture out into town. One of my favorite sites is www.okinawahai.com- it has lots of great information for places to eat, shop and things to do. I've been looking for places to shop and I heard about this little plaza down south by Camp Foster. I loooove going to the gift shop on Camp Foster (it's only open 4 days a week with varying hours) and they have the neatest stuff. So I figured after I went there I would go to the plaza that was pretty near by. I was proud of myself for finding it and not getting lost. Well sorta. The directions weren't exactly correct, it said to go down two stop-lights and turn right when really it was three stop-lights. No biggie! I found this store called UniGlo that reminded me of an Old Navy. Basic tee's and shirts for reasonable prices. They also had a shoe store, but their shoe styles aren't really my thing, and a HUGE 100yen store (it's similiar to a Dollar General, lots of thins for a buck, but also lots of other things for a few bucks). I found some great things for around the house for cheap! YAY!

Last night Joe and I were craving Mexican food so we went to this place we'd seen called Obligato. It was really good and we discovered that no restaurants use sour cream because the Japanese hate it! You have to go to a speciality shop to find it (or of course at the commissary). I also found my new favorite drink- mango juice!!! It's soooo good and I'm pretty much obsessed with it. They sell it in the little vending machines you see EVERYWHERE along with most restaurants. Now I just need to find a little shop that sells it in big bottles so I can have it at home :)

Today after running around town, I forced myself to get some things done around the house. I hung the curtains in the guestroom and hung up some decorations upstairs. I have three loads of laundry calling my name wanting to be put away but I lost my motivation and got side-tracked browsing at various shops online :)

I finally charged the battery on the camera and I hope to take lots of new pictures soon! For some reason my computer freezes everytime I try to upload new pictures on Facebook, so you'll just have to keep checking on here if you're interested in seeing photos. Hope all is well with everyone!!! Keep us updated with how you are!!

Pics of the house

The house is looking semi-decent so I decided to snap some photos of the house. We're still planning to paint the master bedroom, hang up the rest of the decorations and still put some knick-knack things away. We're also super excited to get a chain link fence installed this week for the pups!!!

Hallway view from the front door. The pups wanted to be in all the pictures :)

Living room area.

The sliding back doors to the backyard and dining room area.

Our new wine rack!
Another view of the dining room area and downstairs hallway.

Stairs leading to upstairs. Pretty old and dungony (yes I made the word up) looking. Hoping to hang some pictures as soon as we figure out how to drill into the cement walls (good for typhoon season!)

A few new additions. This is on the landing between the two sets of stairs. Our Shi Shi dogs and vase with hand-made paper flowers.

Upstairs hallway. On the right is the masterbedroom, on the left is the guestroom and computer room. At the end is a full bathroom.

Master bedroom. We just bought new dressers... yay for being "grown-ups"!

Old school closets (the vents are good though so the clothes get ventilation and don't get moldy from the crazy humidity).

Guest room. Needs lots of work!!! The quilt Joe's mom made us!

Computer room/storage room until I figure out where to put all my teaching supplies and kids books!

Laundry area/kitchen entry by the front door. Don't mind all the laundry!

Nook area in the kitchen. Still trying to organize it... everytime I try to put hooks up, they fall off the wall because of all the humidity!

Japanese Pedicure

One of the first things I'd heard about when I got here, was the amazing pedicures the girls get at CoCok's! I'd been dying to go after I'd seen all the other wives cute toes, and today my friend Julie and I finally got to go!

I was amazed when they gave me a huge book of endless designs to choose from. I literally looked in the book the whole time while they gave me a good 30 minute leg massage! Amazing! It was a little pricey, but worth it. They did all the painting by hand, and rumor has it that the paint lasts for a month because they use acrylic paint! I wish my camera would take a close up of all the crazy intricate little painting they did, but it just comes out blurry. I can't wait to go again and choose another neat design!!!

More unwanted visitors...

Today we had our rugs delievered and I was anxious to set them up as soon as Joe got home from work. We put one in the living room and then one upstairs in the bedroom. The one in the bedroom turned out to be quite the struggle... it's a little difficult to put down a 9x12' rug when you already have all your bedroom furniture in the room!!! So we decided it'd be easier to take the mattresses off the bedframe so we could life the frame easier.

Well, as we were carrying the box spring, my eyes suddenly focus in on a MASSIVE cockroach (I'm not kidding, it was at LEAST 3-4 inches long!) right in front of my face on the box spring. I immediately drop the stupid bed and scream on the top of my lungs!!! Joe saw exactly what I was screaming at and dropped the bed and went to swat the nasty bug and it flew away! It wasn't until then he saw ANOTHER one crawling around.

I've read about it being very common for people to have geckos and roaches in their house, but encountering them back to back has been way too much!!! I'm not sure how I'm going to be able to sleep tonight!!! I'm going to have nightmares... UGH!

Midnight visitor

Last night we had just turned off the lights and went to bed when suddenly Joe and I heard this strange sound. It sounded almost like a bird, and I asked Joe if he heard it too, but he figured it must of been something outside.

About five minutes later I hear the noise again, and it was clearly NOT outside!!! It definitely sounded as if it was coming from inside the bedroom and I instantly turned on the lights and insisted Joe go inspect!!

We came to the conclusion it sounded like a bat (like we really know what a bat sounds like, but hey, it sounded good at the time) and Joe timidly opened all the closet doors while running back two feet everytime he opened one... fearing a big black bat might fly out of the door! After opening all the doors we didn't find anything. Lastly, he decided to shake the curtains and suddenly I squeal because I see something scamper across the top of the curtain rod across the wall.

To our surprise, we had a gecko in the house!!! Now, we didn't want to kill it because according to Japanese tradition, they are supposed to be good luck!! I was just a little afraid to sleep with a gecko running around the bedroom... I didn't want him crawling all over me while I was sleeping!

So I had Joe try to get the little guy so he could put him outside. Needless to say after about 20 minutes of trying, the gecko escaped through the window (although I insisted he was still in the bedroom). And what were the dogs doing the whole time? They were fast asleep on the bed and never even knew there was a little critter running around the bedroom. The mystery of if a gecko really makes the strange sounds we heard last night still stands... I'll have to google that.

It's coming along

We've been in the house for two weeks and things are great!!! I think we have 90% of the boxes unpacked! We have a bunch of books to unpack but don't currently have the computer room set up. In large part because the big bookshelf is broken and we have to wait for the claim to go through.

Joe and I decided to treat ourselves to some bedroom furniture. We didn't get any in Columbus because the bedrooms were so tiny, we weren't sure it would all fit! The master bedroom here is a bit bigger and we have plenty of space for two dressers. Plus, the closets aren't as big, so I need to put all my clothes somewhere! :)

In the midst of unpacking and moving furniture around, we almost had a broken toe incident!!! All of a sudden, some furiture pieces leaning up against a wall started to fall over and Joe rushed over to catch it before it fell to the floor and broke. It all happened so fast so I'm not really even sure what happened, but something fell on his toe! He started yelling for me to "Get it off me!" and I wasn't really sure what he was referring to until I looked down and saw a pool of blood around his foot.

I instantly moved the big box off his toe and called our friend to ask if we should take him to the hospital over on Camp Lester. After giving it a few minutes and wiping up all the blood (good thing I'm not queazy at the sight of it!) he determined he didn't think it was broken. I rushed over to the Shopette to get the following items: bag of ice, gauze, large bandaids (2 different boxes) and motrin. The lady looked at me a little funny as I checked out.

Anyway, other than that one little incident, everything has been going well. We got the cable and internet set up in our house! We get about 70 channels (13 AFN and the other are regular cable channels which air one day later than it does in the states) which I think is amazing! When I lived in Germany we only had AFN. So it's great to be able to watch some of our favorite shows again!

I had a job interview today for a preschool position over on Camp Lester. The school is so cute and of course the kids are adorable. It's a full-time position which is great, but the downfall is it's for the next school year which is several months away!! Even if I get the job, I'll still be bored until then. Hmmm...

Joe's been busy catching up on reading, studying and preparing for his sims. He's had 4:30 wake-ups this entire week, but hopefully next week he'll be scheduled for afternoon sims. He's pretty tired from doing no work for several months on casual, to jumping in and being completley loaded down with tons to do all of the sudden. He's liking it, but he's anxious to actually start flying again.

For those of you who didn't get my email, we're on Skype now!! We hope to use it in replacement of phone calls to stay in touch with everyone!! It's free (you just need to have a webcam with a microphone). Let us know if you're on Skype so we can look you up!

Well, other than that we haven't been up to too much. Just trying to finish setting up the house. We've found a few really yummy places to eat too! Our newest favorite is CoCo's... it's a curry house. You can choose how hot you want your curry from a scale of 1-10!!! It's pretty intense and the guys really love to see how high they can go. Of course, I'm a wimp and I go with mild, which is below the 1. Hah. Oh well.

Anyway, hope all is well for everyone!!! We can't wait to talk to everyone on Skype!

KABLAM!

Just a funny little story about Kella...

Another new thing the dogs have never encountered is a sliding glass door. In the living room we have a big one that leads out to the backyard... this is the way we take them outside. Well the other night Joe was taking Kella out and all the sudden I hear this "KABLAM" sound...

Alarmed, I look outside and see poor Kella shaking her head and Joe laughing. Apparently she didn't realize the door was closed and ran right into it! I think she learned her lesson, she's been careful to make sure it's open ever since...

All moved in... sorta.

We finally got the internet set-up at the house!!! Anyway, this week has been really busy, but I must say, it's nice to have my things back!!! On Monday we got the keys to the house and the first thing we did was pick up the pups from the kennel!!

Tuesday, our baggage shipment came and then Wednesday, our household goods came!!! Needless to say, I've been very busy unpacking!!! I've pretty much got the kitchen set-up and the living room is in the works. The rest of the house is pretty much just a maze of boxes! Joe started full work days this week, so I'm hoping over the weekend we can get the majority of the house finished!!!

When the house is loking decent, I'll post some pics. Don't get too excited, it's a super old house (we are supposed to move into a rennovated one within the year, but we'll see...) but it's got lots of space and works well for us. If we end up hating it, after a year we can move off-base. That's a good amount of time down the road, but I think we'll be able to enjoy the house (and the neighborhood full of kids!!!) to its fullest!!!

The little things

The little everyday things here just amaze me! People must think I'm a "crazy American" taking pictures of regular ordinary things!

I think this is a form of a taxi... they have regular taxi cars here but this guy was riding around Naha and "biking" people around. Too neat!

A group dancing and drumming in the streets of Naha. Very cool!

Some building in Naha that I thought was really neat! Not everyday you see something like this!

Ok, you're seeing this correctly. It's a snake in a bottle. This liquor is very famous, and very expensive here! It's called Habu Sake... I don't think I'll be trying this one!

The little dogs on both sides of the door are called Shi Shi Dogs. They're supposd to bring good luck when you walk through a pair! Joe and I found some really nice ones to put outside our front door!

Aquarium

On Friday, Joe and I ventured up north to Naga where the aquarium is!!! We'd heard great things, and I think it's the 3rd biggest aquarium in the world. The picture to the left is of two whale sharks. Look how HUGE they are in comparison to all the people looking at them from down below!! They were amazing and I was in awe just watching them swim around. People keep telling us to get scuba certified so we can go on a dive with them!!! What amazing creatures!

One of the first things we got to do when we walked into the aquarium was look and touch the starfish exhibit! It looks so perfect I didn't think they were real, but they were! The Japanese lady in charge kept telling people to be careful, not to stack them on top of eachother, and to make sure to keep them under the water. Beautiful!

This was by far one of my favorite things I saw this day! I'm not sure exactly what it is, but it was this HUGE big blue fish with the biggest lips I'd ever seen!

Joe and I taking turns to stand in a shark jaw!!!

We even got to go to a dolphin show! It was really fun and they had two different type of dolphins- the typical bottle nose dolphin and another one I'd never seen before. It was really dark and had a smooth rounded nose and seemed much larger than the bottle nosed ones. They were so smart, I was amazed!

Here are some additional photos that I really liked from our trip! I took so many it would take ages to post them all, but these are some of my favorites!

Rain, rain, go away!

Well, we've officially been here for two weeks and living out of the suitcases, not having my dogs, and sleeping on an air mattress is officially starting to take its toll on me. We're staying with two friends, but they're bachelors and their house momentarily consists of a 42" TV and hardwood floors. Needless to say, not much to work with, so we try to spend most of out time out and about exploring.
We can't wait to go to the office tomorrow and pick up the keys to our house. I know unpacking and setting everything up will keep me very busy! I'm hoping to do some painting, get the fence setup for the dogs and hopefully get things unpacked! I'm also excited to do some laundry! I attempted to do some loads while we're at our friends place but they have a Japanese dryer that does not seem to work!
This whole week it's been raining... a lot. It makes it hard to go exploring and walk around the island. My car seems to hate the rain and likes to slip and slide all over the roads. In large part it's because the roads have a lot of coral mixed in with them, so when it gets wet it instantly becomes super slippery. Also staying on the correct side of the road and remembering which side is the windshield wippers and which side is the blinker is coming easier. I just read a friends blog and they moved to England and their stories about driving on the other side of the road is so true. I'm constantly cringing when I'm the passenger when Joe is driving because I feel like he hugs the center line constantly! It's hard to adjust centering yourself on the other side of the car!
On Friday Joe and I ventured up to Naga, a city up north on the island to see the aquarium. It was only about 50 miles away, but it took an hour and a half to get there. The maximum speed limit was about 60km, which is equivilent to around 35mph? The speed limits are super slow and traffic is a pain in the tush. There seem to be stop lights every other minute so getting from one place that is only a few miles away even takes some time to get to. Anyway, the aquarium was AMAZING! I don't have my camera adapter handy right now, but I will post pictures soon. We saw these huge whale sharks that were the biggest gentle giants. Everyone has told us how they went scuba diving with them so when Joe and I get certified we will definitely have to dive with them! We also saw a neat dolphin show and they had some interesting dolphins. They had the typical bottle nosed dolphins but that also had these very dark grey round nosed ones that were pretty large. I'm not sure if they were local or where they were from, but they were neat looking! The place was huge and we only saw a portion of what there was to see. We can't wait to go back when it's really warm outside to see the botanical gardens, the butterfly exhibit and some other neat things! I'm so excited to settle in and feel like we actually live here!!!

Contact Information

In case anyone wanted to send us any mail, please e-mail me (melissa_bisson@yahoo.com) and I will send you our mailing address!!! It's a PO box, but really you treat it like any stateside mailing address. The only big difference is you need to fill out and attach a customs form if you are sending a package! Also, some companies do not ship to PO or boxes so beware.

We have local cell phones which if you want the numbers we can give them to you. However, we plan to really only use them for local calls on the island. We hope to set up Skype when we move into the house next week. That way we can talk via webcams or through telephones with everyone back in the states.

Anyway, just thought I'd throw it out there in case anyone wanted our information!

Ready to settle

Well, we've been here for a week and a half and it's been really fun exploring and getting used to the island, but now I'm ready to settle down! We went to housing and they said our house would be available to move in next Tuesday, but early key pick-up was Monday afternoon... strange. Couldn't they just say we could move in Monday afternoon?
Anyway, it'll be nice to start setting up our home, get the dogs from the kennel (poor guys probably think we've abandoned them!), and just put our roots down. Our baggage shipment is already here, so at least we will have some of our stuff right away! We shouldn't have to wait all but a couple of weeks for our big household shipment to come. It's supposed to be here no later than March 23rd! I can't wait to have all my things again and to stop living out of suitcases!!!
During the housing meeting we also were informed our house is lined up for rennovations in December. Wonderful. This means they will move us out of our house and into a new one... right around the holidays. There are a few pluses to it. The AF will move us, and hopefully they will be moving us to one of the newer rennovated houses. If all fails and they end up moving us to a crappy house, we can keep the things in boxes and find a place to live off-base in February (we are required to live on base for 1-year because we accepted base housing). It'll be a drag, but oh well, you never know what to expect with the military.
This week is Joe's birthday! Poor guy almost forgot with all the craziness with the move and everything. I tried to sneak to the commissary yesterday while he was at briefings to buy stuff to make him a cake, but as soon as I was checking out he called and wanted to meet for lunch. So we met in the parking lot and he spotted all the cake ingredients. Busted... oh well, so much for a surprise :)
The weather has been a bit gloomy and breezy. It's funny, it's in the low 70s but it feels SO cold! I guess my blood is already thinning out and I only want warm weather! They say in March is rains a lot. Hopefully there aren't any typhoons anytime soon... yikes.
That's about all for now. Joe and I have just been making lots of trips to base for meetings and briefings and doing a little exploring in our spare time. We've been to so many different restaurants, it's been fun! So far we've had Japanese, Korean, Italian, Indian, and Turkish food. YUM! I've been slowly getting started on all my applications for work, they're a bit daunting. One for subbing at the DODDS schools is literally about an inch and a half thick! Then I have to take all the information from the applications and input them into a computer. Hmmm, I wonder why the actual application for a teaching position was easier than a subbing position?
Well, that's all for now, I better get ready for the day... I never know what we are going to end up doing here!