These are a few of my favorite places...

1. Smyrna, GA, USA


2. Valdosta, GA, USA


3. Panama City, Panama


4. Fripp Island, SC, USA


5. Little Rock, AR, USA


6. Fussa, Japan

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• Great vacation rentals at TripAdvisor

Ode to my Magical Oven

I'd like to take a second to brag on myself for the wonderful treats I've been baking lately. I'm beginning to think that we have moved into a home that has an oven with magical powers. Seriously. I have made cookies, a cheesecake, a chocolate-chip pecan pie, and now chocolate chip cookie dough brownies. (Is your mouth watering???) And EVERY single one of these dishes has turned out perfectly. I mean... seriously. It cooks everything evenly, and I can't brag enough about my magical oven. My cheesecake didn't even have a crack in it, not ONE! Amazing.

Now, I'd like to take a tiny bit of credit because "Hey", I made the batter, I prepped everything, I put it in the dish, and I put it in the oven, but that oven, whew, it is really doing the dirty work. I guess I'll hand out some other credit to the people who gave me the recipes... my mom, my Aunt Joy, George's mom Kathy, and the one and only Mrs. Betty Crocker (I'm only assuming she's married).

Anyway, maybe I'll take pictures of the things I bake from now on. I also have something delicious smelling in the crock pot. Maybe I'll share the recipe and photos if it turns out well. Stay tuned.

Now... if I could only get that magical oven to magically clean the kitchen...

The Long Awaited Pictures!

Hello! It's been a while since I've posted and since the house is finally in order (for the most part!!!) I thought it was time to take some pictures and post them here for you all to see. :) Enjoy!!!


The view from the front door looking in


Our 'makeshift' foyer/ living room

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Another view of the living room, from the front door


Looking from the dining room


Looking to the right on the balcony (on the other side of that fence is off-base)


The view if you look to the left, on a clear day you can see mountains! (Note: George's new grill)


The view straight out the back door


The Laundry Room, which is in the kitchen. I had George hang curtains so there is a bit of a separation between the two. It's working well.


Kitchen/ Laundry Room


Kitchen


Dining Room


Our itsy-bitsy bathroom. ::sigh::


Guest bedroom/ my crafting area. I can't wait to get our wedding scrapbooks done (I know it's been 2 years but give me a break, my scrapbooking stuff was in storage for 9 months of those 24, and it took me at least 6 to get all the pictures developed!)


Guest bedroom again, a better view. Who will come and visit??? You???


Our bedroom


The built in closet. The guest room has a lot of storage built in too. Neither are walk-ins but everything fits just fine.


Bedroom again. I realize that my dresser top is a disaster, but hey- you saw the bathroom. There is NO counter space, so there all of my things are going to sit!

George's New Toy

I realize I forgot to mention George's new car! For those of you who don't know, George has this... obsession... with Jeeps. That's all he wants. He just wants an old Jeep Wrangler to play around in. He bought one and used it while we lived in Corpus Christi and he could play with it on the beach. He really misses it. Well... we made it here to Japan and he did everything in his power to find a Jeep Wrangler here. All the ones we've seen here are much newer and out of our price range for our cars in Japan, but he searched and searched... and found the next best thing. A Diahatsu Rocky. The top comes off, and there is a sunroof and he just loves it. It's in great condition. It's a 1994 with about 65,000miles on it. It is a little bit cute, I'm just not going to love it because I am a 'negative Nancy' as George likes to say. :)

Here are some pictures.

Moving In, Our 2nd Anniversary, and Trains

Whew! What a busy past week or so! It seems like we have done a ton!

On Monday we went exploring off base to find paint to paint our house. We figured since we'll be here in this house for 3 years (which we can't even grasp what it's like to live anywhere longer than 6 months right now...) we may as well paint the house a pretty color and enjoy it! We got a guide from here on base on how to ask for lead-free interior paint. George asked the guy and we think we bought the right paint! :) We painted the living room a light green and the dining room and 'master' bedroom a pretty gray. That's all we tackled for now but maybe in a year or so I can convince George to paint some more of the house.

On Tuesday we got the keys to our house and started painting right away. It took 2 coats of paint in each room so it took most of the day to finish. We were pretty exhausted by the end of it!

On Wednesday around 9:30 the movers came!!! We were SO excited to see our things!!! The movers were wonderful! We had a team of 3 guys, 2 of which spoke English very well and the third guy who didn't speak a lick of it. He was my favorite. The guys looked like Apolo Ohno, Jon Gosellin and Rufio from the movie Hook. George didn't agree but I'm telling you, we had 3 celebrities moving us in! The first load they brought up the stairs they all took their shoes off at the door but I told them they could leave them on. I forget that is such a common thing here in Japan! We bought them water and doughnuts and they were very grateful to have them. They got the stuff brought in, assembled most of the stuff and unpacked the boxes. That was the first time I've ever had them unpack our stuff, and I gotta tell ya, it sure was nice to not have to break down boxes and deal with all of that trash!!! But that being said there is also a negative to it... I don't feel like I know where anything is!

Thursday we spent the day cleaning and unpacking and then went to a promotion party for some of the people in George's squadron. We had to take the train to get there and it was pretty confusing but we followed a big group and we made it there safely! We had a great time and got to meet a lot of fun people. The party was at an “Irish Pub” and it was a really cute place, I wish I would have taken my camera! I also managed to hit my arm really hard on a table while I was there and it made it swell pretty bad; bad enough that I took it to get x-rayed the next morning!

Friday we went to the urgent care center on base and they looked at my arm, x-rayed it and then sent me home with instructions to rest it and put ice on it... nothing was broken (thankfully!) but it still really hurts, even now and this is almost a week later!

Saturday was a neighborhood barbecue! We had pretty crappy weather but it was a great time and we got to meet a ton of our neighbors. They had corn-hole, horseshoes, and badminton! I brought a cheesecake. It was delicious, if I do say so myself! All of the desserts and food were phenomenal! I tell you we have some wonderful cooks in this little neighborhood of ours! There were kabobs, gumbo, pulled pork sandwiches, sides galore, sangria and a ton of desserts. Yummy! Unfortunately the rain did not hold out and around 4ish we got some rain but they had rented tents so we were covered! But man, a Memorial Day BBQ in the rain and 50ish degree weather, not my idea of the perfect picnic but we still had a lot of fun!

On Sunday we went shopping! We made it to the Joyful Honda, which is NOT an auto-store for Honda's but instead it's kind of like a Home Depot. They have everything there! They have furniture, home repair stuff (hence the Home Depot), kitchen gadgets, home accessories, gardening equipment, crafting stuff (yay!) a pet shop, (double yay!) a liquor section, a food court (with the best Japanese food I've had to date) and even a grocery store. It's huge and it feels like you are walking through an Ikea! We also went to the Seiyu, which we think is owned/ran by Wal-mart. They carry 'Great Value' and 'George' brands, as well as 'Mainstays' and other things like that. The word Wal-mart is nowhere to be found, but we're pretty sure it's all the same thing. We bought ice cream from a vending machine in there and it sure was good. The Japanese people love their vending machines. They even have beer and cigarette vending machines on the street corners. Seriously.

Monday was our 2nd Anniversary! I can't believe how quickly 2 years has flown by! When I really think about it, I can't believe that in 2 years we've moved so many times and done so much! We have definitely not had a dull marriage and I don't think we're going to slow down the 'fun factor' anytime soon. Life is such an adventure with George and I love every minute we can share with each other. He really is a wonderful husband and I feel so lucky to have found him when I did. :)

For our anniversary we decided that we wanted to go exploring! We looked up train times and walked to the train station from the base. We had McDonald's for lunch and it was delicious. ::Side Note:: The American Fast Food here is 100% better in Japan. I don't know what they do to make it so wonderful but everything you order looks just like the menu picture and tastes way better here. My double cheeseburger and fries were excellent. We didn't know how to ask for ketchup in Japanese and we looked around and noticed that no one else had ketchup on their trays so we went without, and the food was still good!:::

After McDonald's we hopped on the train and rode to Tokyo. We went to the Epson Aqua Stadium (aka aquarium) and saw an AWESOME Dolphin show and a cool Sea Lion show too! They also had penguins and lots of fish, but after going to the Atlanta Aquarium, this one didn't even come close to being as cool. But they did have a Dolphin show so they got plenty of cool points with me!!! We had dinner at a cute little cafe called Mama's Food or something along those lines. They had mostly Mexican food. I ordered beef fajitas and George got fish and chips (hey, I said mostly...) My fajitas were SO spicy. I mean, unbearable. I don't like spicy food anyway, so George (poor George) had to trade me. The fish and chips were very good and George made it through the fajitas just fine.





...then we had to get back on the train and head home. HA. This was terribly confusing. We just could not figure out the train lines! I'll see if I can find a link to the train maps here and post it so you can see just how confusing it is. Then take that and pretend you're standing in the train station at rush hour and all the signs are in Japanese. Go. See.... not so easy! We eventually figured out which train to get on and where to change trains, and then which other train to get on, and then at which station you change again etc. I think we changed trains 3 times. Ever seen the video's of the Japanese people pushing to get on the trains??? Well, we chose to avoid that and walk down the platform and get on a less crowded car. We realized that it was probably a business class of some sort... but chose to sit down anyway because the train started moving and we didn't know how to open the doors to move from one car to the next. After we sat down in the nice cushioned, air conditioned, pleasant smelling seats, the train lady (I don't know her official title, I'm sure it's more fancy than train lady, but that's all I got) came to us and started talking in Japanese. Did we know what she was saying? Of course not, but we knew we were in the wrong seats. I tried to show her my train card in case she was collecting money but that didn't satisfy her. George finally got smart and repeated the name of the station we were going to. She understood that we didn't understand and we were then led out of the lovely train car to the crowded train car. George and I could not stop laughing. Maybe you had to be there, but trust me, it was very funny. We finally made it back to the base (whew!)

Train map: (scroll down)
http://www.tokyotopia.com/tokyo-train-map.html

Train video: We didn't quite experience this, but you get the picture.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STNWc7Rlpfk

On Tuesday I started my new job! I may have forgot to mention this... so here, I'm mentioning it. I got a job! I'm the newest teacher at an English school off base. It's about a 15minute car drive there, but it's all semi-main roads so it's not a bad drive! It's a pretty easy gig, I go in the afternoons, once the children are out of their regular school and they come to our school. I talk English with them, they can be anywhere from three years old to adults. Most of them are happy to be there and are eager to learn English, some of them just need to get outside and play! They work all day and then have to do their 'extracurricular activities', such as English classes, and I think they are just exhausted! They are all really precious and I think I'm going to enjoy working there a lot! It's about 14 hours a week, give or take so it's not very rigorous, but very entertaining and I think it's going to be a blast.

Our house is still a disaster but once it's in order (hopefully in the next few days) I'll get pictures up, I promise!

That's my life in a quick summary, we still love Japan and still miss all of you. Leave comments, they make me smile. :)

Love always,
Chelsea

Coffee, Shopping and Karaoke!

Yesterday was Friday and it sure was fun-filled. We had such a good day that by last night George and I agreed to extend our tour to a 4 year instead of a 3... and we've only been here a week. (Don't worry, nothing official)

The morning started off with me going with Jane to meet up with the spouses of George's squadron. Throughout the morning there was probably 12 ladies or so drop in and out of coffee and everyone was again, so welcoming and friendly and I'm really glad I got to meet everyone.

After the morning coffee George and I went on hunt number 3 for an entertainment center. This has been the biggest pain. The BXtra here has a very limited selection of entertainment centers. And they do not have coordinating accent tables either. So, we spent hours, and literally, hours... of staring at the same 3 entertainment centers, moving end tables to see which would match better, measure, debate around it, stare off into space, stare some more, measure again, move a different table over, take a picture of the wood with my iphone, walk to another piece of furniture and stare, take it's picture, stare at the phone, sliding from one picture to the next, try to remember what our old furniture looks like, stare, debate, stare. Nightmare, and a half.

In the end we bought an entertainment center with a hutch that we think our TV will fit in perfectly, and we are going to hold off on a coffee table and an end table until we can find one that we like and matches, and use our old ones (pending they aren't destroyed in the move).

At 2:45 we were done there, I told you, hours. And we had pizza-hut which is conveniently located in the BXtra so after you spend literal hours staring at furniture and you had to smell the pizza the whole time, you must order something. Then we came home, George Skyped with his friend Steven and I napped for an hour or two on the couch. I think a nap is all I needed to get over the jet-lag. Everyone kept saying I needed to be on a regular sleeping schedule, and I don't know why I didn't think to just take a nap, because for me... naps ARE a part of my normal sleep schedule!!! Since I've been napping, I feel great, everything feels pretty normal now and I am thankful for that!

Our friend's we've been staying with this whole time, their first anniversary is this weekend so they went off for a weekend trip and left us here to doggie-sit and house sit. So we went to the O-club for dinner, where they have a huge, free buffet each Friday and cheap drinks.

We sat with some neighbors and they invited us to go out to sing Karaoke. We were both pretty tired but were somehow talked into going, and man- are we glad that we did! We went to a little place not far from base that looks like an old motel. In each room there is a long table with 2 benches that run along each wall, a tv mounted on the wall and the place to control it, as well as a little hand held machine to enter in numbers of which songs you want to sing. They have several books with English songs, just like any place in the states would. But each group gets their own room! So you don't have to be shy and you don't have to wait for an hour for your song to come on! We went with about 10-12 people and it was such a good time! You can even bring your own food and drinks in! Coolest place ever. SO fun. Oh, and they give you 2 microphones so no one has to sing alone AND a tambourine and maracas!


Us at the Karaoke place!


George had to get home to make a phone call back to the states to get some paperwork straightened out (it's a long story) so we had to call when they opened, which was around 11pm our time, so we made it home at a decent hour. I got to call and chat with my mommy which was great, and one of my real favorite parts of the day. I really miss my family, and after one week I have the confidence that I can do this; this whole living on the other side of the world thing. It's going to be tough to not just be able to call when I'm out and about and running errands, but it's all going to be fine! I love you Mom, Dad, Alison and Travis! Come visit me soon!!!

Love,
Chelsea

Driving, Skype, Our New Car (well... new to us) and Yoga

We got a car and our drivers licenses!

We went to 'right start' which is a program designed to teach you all about the base and to get your records all set up. It started at 6:30am on Wednesday. We refused to let Jane wake up that early to drive us there so we chose to walk. It sure was hot for 6:30am but we made it in about 20 minutes, only a little sweaty. I knew George walked fast but fear of being late sure did light a fire underneath his butt. I was a good 2 strides behind him almost the whole walk, and I felt like a small child following her much bigger dad. Funny, because it's true. :)

I was the only spouse who came and probably a third of the information did not pertain to me personally but it was all informative and mostly entertaining. They really do offer a ton to do here on the base and it seems like it will be one heck of an adventure! I may try to go to the yoga class they offer here on base at 6:15 tonight! Oh, this base is weird in that they list most events and times in regular 12 hour time, instead of 24 hour military time. It really confuses me instead of simplifying things. Which I realize is pretty weird.

It was raining by the time our class got out around 3pm. So Jane came and got us. We had a relaxing evening at home. I took a nap from about 3:30-5:30 and I really needed it and I slept so soundly. Loved it! George and I were on our own for dinner and we ordered delivery from a place on base. I got fried chicken and steamed rice and George got a calzone. We got caught up on the American TV we've been missing. I finally saw the season finale to Desperate Housewives and we watched several episodes of Community and The Office. I'm disappointed I haven't been able to see American Idol but am keeping up with it by research of the contestants. (Though I don't know who got voted off this week).

We stayed up until 11 chatting with Lauren on Skype! I just think Skype and video chatting is the best way to keep in contact! We talked for about 40 minutes and it was nice to pretend we were back in the same house where we all lived together in Arkansas even though I'm in Japan and she is in Texas. We went to sleep and when we woke up to head to day 2 of Right Start Kyle Skyped us! So we had been to sleep and we were waking up and they had been up all day and were getting ready for bed. It still amuses me that we live on the other side of the world!

We got to day 2 of Right Start and sat through several hours of videos and power points about driving on the other side of the road. We finally made it to the test which was only written. George didn't miss any and finished in half the time I did and when I turned it in I missed one. But only one, and I don't even know which one- so I'll probably get a ticket for mystery question I didn't understand and got wrong here in the next week or so. :) (Way to be optimistic, huh?)

After we finished our test we had lunch at the BX, I had Subway and George had Popeyes (the fast food here in phenomenal). After lunch we met up with the lady who we bought the car from because she had to come to the insurance office and the tag office with us. We got all of that done in a little over an hour, and then... we could drive our new car!!! The lady we got it from has 3 kids so there were sticker remnants, sticky seat belts and random small toys strewn about but she helped us get most of that out. It's still going to need a good can of Lysol wipes and some 409 but then it will be fabulous!

George drove first, half way through base, we had to stop at the runway because of a landing plane (the road goes right across the runway!) and then after we finished up stuff at the insurance place I drove the rest of the way home. It really is such a weird feeling! Having to remember to go to the right side of the car, reaching over your right shoulder for the seat belt instead of the left, knowing that the shifter is on the left instead of the right, the blinker is on the right instead of the left... AHHH! SO confusing! I guess it will take some time to get used to, but I was really excited to drive! I didn't crash, but I didn't park in the lines very well. But no big deal. I was in the lines. That's all that matters.

If George had a blog he would possibly tell the story this way:

“One of the things we learned in the class is to not go over the tire shredders at the gates at an angle. Well... Chelsea... God love her... decided to change lanes just before these tire shredders and almost popped all four of our tires on our new car on her first day of driving.”

It's a good thing George doesn't have a blog. :)

Pictures of our car!











Another cool thing that happened this afternoon was that I was contacted by the Girl Scouts on base to ask if I'd be interested in getting involved. It'd be all volunteer work but it sounded really interesting. I could help with the summer camp they offer for all of the girls from 5 or 6 bases that all come to Yokota for a week long summer camp and then be a troop leader or assistant leader in the fall. I think that would be an awesome way to spend my time. We'll see how that goes!

Oh! So... I went to my first yoga class here on base. It was a bit of a let down but I'll give it a try again another day.... here is a short synopsis of the class. Please remember that I was doing yoga pretty regularly in Little Rock and I really enjoyed it, and I was pretty good at it too! But tonight... I was treated like it was my very first yoga class. I was a little bummed, but will try again.
The class was scheduled to start at 6:15pm. I got there around 6:05pm and everyone was in relaxation. The instructor asked me if this was my first time at yoga and I told him no, but it was my first time at this class. After this weird relaxation warm up we did 5 sun salutations at a pretty quick pace. On salutation 3, he came to me and told me that I was working myself too hard and that I needed to go to child's pose for a full 2 minutes and then rejoin the class. We did triangle pose and I had my hand on my ankle and he told me that I wasn't ready to do that and made me put my hand on my calf. I was SO frustrated with him! Then at the end we were laying on our backs with our feet in the air about to go into plow (I think that's what it's called... where you feet go behind your head) and he walked over to me again and told me to leave my feet in the air for the remainder of the poses. I was SO mad! We also ended the class with a 3 minute long "OOOOOhhhhhmmmmm" Over and over and over again. I guess I'm just used to doing it with Katie and Lauren and it was a little different, not bad per se, but different and I'll try it again and see how it goes.

We still love Japan and now that we have a car and get off base a little easier, we are going to spend the weekend exploring! Oh, and leave me some more comments, because I like them and it makes me feel like people enjoy my blog. Show me some love. Thanks friends. :)

Chelsea