Abby is 6 months old!

Time really does go by so fast and I can't believe my little girl is already 6 months old!! She is sitting up on her own pretty well these days and rolling over with help. I'm sure all too soon, she will be crawling all over the place. I took her for the 6 month well baby check on Friday here at the US Naval Hospital. It was our first experience with the physicians on base and for the most part it was a good experience. The pediatrician was very nice...very professional...very quick. He did his check, asked a few questions, and off he went. Oh well...I think I'm going to miss our pediatricians back home who took their time and answered all your questions in detail. Anyway, she is doing great and weighs over 15 pounds! After seeing the pediatrician, it was vaccination time. Instead of having them done in the pediatric office, we had to go down the hall to the Immunization office, where they do all vaccines. And it was one of those places, where you wait for 20 minutes for a 30 second procedure...oh well...I'm just happy to have a healthy baby!
Not too much else to report...we've been spending lots of time at all the parks and trying to stay indoors during the heat of the day, because it is very humid here and almost unbearable. However, I hear that the true summer heat has not even begun...yikes...I'm going to find the swimming pool very soon! Here are a few pictures that we have taken around base.

This is the Navy Lodge where we live...for now.

This is our room number in the Navy Lodge in Japanese.

Here is one view.

There are a lot of parks around base...so we have spent lots of free time there with Kaylee & Abby. Kaylee loves being outside and it gives us a chance to get out of the hotel room.

Apparently, there is no age limit at these parks.

She loves to swing!

The best time to go to the park is after dinner when the sun is going down...there's a wonderful breeze coming off the ocean!

The Wrong Side

After dropping the girls off at daycare this morning, Ryan and I finally had a chance to show our mastery of driving on the "wrong side." Because neither of us paid attention in AOB, we showed up to the wrong office and had to commandere a mail truck in order to make it to the right place on time. We checked-in using our VA driver's license and military ID cards, and were then given the keys to what I thought was the USS George Washington Aircraft Carrier on four wheels. It was acutally a Japanese-style BMW wanna-be...and it was huge (Mom, it reminded me of you old white caprice). I volunteered my shoes to another student who had forgotten the "no open-toed shoes" requirement, and off we went.
I thought driving would be nerve racking, but I think I was more nervous while the others were driving. I kept praying that they would remember to stay left. When it came to my turn, I was actually pretty calm...I continued to say "stay left, stay left" in my head...maybe even out loud at times. It was not as hard as I thought it would be to stay left, maybe because there were other cars driving around or either I was very focus..."stay left, stay left!" Surprisingly, I don't think I hit the windshield wipers once...even though I know I will. After making a few right turns and a left, we had to back up into a parking space. Luckily, there were no other cars around so it wasn't too bad. Poor Ryan had to park the car in it's original parking space at the office with a concrete wall on one side and a large van on the other. I could barely watch while he was driving. I think I was nervous for him and scared he'd start driving on the wrong side too. He did a good job though, and walked away with hitting the windshield wipers only a few times. Fortunately, we all passed and no one was injured and we can officially drive in Japan now. Ryan spent the afternoon getting all the paperwork, tags, and insurance completed and we are looking forward to taking a drive tonight!

Our First Week

Starting on Monday, Ryan and I had to attend an Area Orientation Brief / Inter-Cultural Relations class. The girls were not able to come to the class with us, so we had to take them to the hourly daycare here on base. I was very nervous about leaving them and of course worried about it all weekend. On Monday morning we set out for the daycare, but we told Kaylee that she was going to go to school like her cousin, Caroline. I was hoping she would be excited about it, which she was at first...until we got there and she realized that we were leaving. She cried every morning after that and it seemed to get worse as the week went on, but she would always say she had fun. She even said she made a friend, MacKenzie. They get to play outside twice a day which she loves to do, and she did some arts and crafts including making her Daddy a Father's Day card. Abby was a little fussy the first two days, but I belive most of this was from lack of sleep and a lack of schedule. By day three, she seemed to really enjoy herself. I would come during my lunch break to nurse her and she would be sitting in the floor playing with toys and smiling at the other babies. I've even notice that at home now she seems more content playing with her toys, instead of wanting to be held 24/7. Other than Kaylee crying when we left her, the daycare thing worked out nicely.
During our orientation class we were told about the different things here on the base and then had two days of lecture about living in Japan. It actually was very interesting and we are so excited about getting off the base and exploring Japan. Ryan's looking forward to bathing nude in the hot springs here in Japan and having a wild monkey massage his back. We'll see if that actually happens...I won't believe it until I see it...and I'm not sure I want to see that! On our last day of orientation we had our driving class and written driving test...which we both passed!! We have the driving portion of the test tomorrow (Monday) morning. I hope we can remember to stay LEFT! I'm excited about getting my Japanese liscense, but I'm not ready to drive off base...they have some crazy rules here and I'm just not that brave yet!


We did find a car in the lemon lot, and in case it's not obvious, the lemon lot is where out-going PCSers sale their "lemon" cars for a good price. We found a Toyota Ipsum, which looks kind of like a small mini-van. I personally think it's really cute! I wasn't expecting to meet a lot of people during our first week, but we have and everyone has been so welcoming. We have meet several families with small children and I'm excited that Kaylee and Abby will have lots of kids their ages to play with.
I even met some girls who like to scrapbook and went to a "Stampin Up" party where we spent the evening talking and making greeting cards.
We've been doing a lot of walking this week, mostly because we can't drive, but the weather has been nice and it gives us something do. This hotel room gets real small very quickly, and Kaylee gets bored fast! We have spent a lot of time at the playgrounds and strolling through the Exchage. We do have a small kitchenette in our room, but I like to think of Chili's as my kitchen this week. There is a chili's right next door to the lodge and we have eaten there several times. There is a hand full of other restuarants on base too. We haven't been off the base yet, but we're looking forward to experiencing the Japanese cuisine very soon...except sushi...don't think I can do that one!

Flying to Japan

Finally, I get a chance to sit down and start this blog. It's been a crazy week full of different things and sleepless nights! Our flight from Dulles to Narita Airport in Tokyo went better than I could have ever imagined. Both Kaylee & Abby were very good and thanks to some new toys and games they stayed entertained, thus preventing the other passengers from jumping out of the plane. Actually, Kaylee & Abby slept on and off for about half of the trip. We did give them some pediatrician-recommended Benadryl, but it didn't work exactly like we had hoped. Apparently, Kaylee is in that 5% of children who sometimes process Benadryl like sugar. We gave it to her in hopes that she would sleep most of the 14 hours, but of course she became wired soon after the lights were turned down and everyone else was attempting to sleep. This lasted for a really long two hours, and during this time she couldn't keep still and didn't want to sleep...so I guess it could have been a lot worse. Eventually she did drift off to dreamland and slept the last 4 hours of the flight. After landing in Narita, we had about a two hour drive to Yokosuka, and it was very different to sit in a car with the driver on the right side of the car. During our drive to Yokosuka we passed the Disney Castle just outside of Tokyo, and Kaylee made it quite clear that she wanted to go there. After getting to the base, we checked in to our room at the Navy Lodge, had some dinner, and attempted to go to bed...or so we thought! We slept for a few hours and then both Kaylee and Abby were wide awake at 0100...(I'll let you convert that to civilian time). Unfortunately, this continued for a few nights, as it took Kaylee about three nights to adjust to the 13-hour time difference and it took Abby about a week! So needless to say Ryan and I are still catching up on our sleep, but we did have a little energy to explore the base this past weekend.