March Madness

Chad and I keep trying to find things to do to keep ourselves entertained! In early March, we took an aerial tour of Okinawa. It was a pretty cool experience! We booked our flight through the Aero Club on base. It wasn't a sunny day when we went, but the visibility was still very good! We all flew in this tiny airplane up the west coast of the island. The pilot was very informative and pointed out all these different landmarks on the island. I think one of the most interesting things that I learned is that there is a Leprosy colony on the island. Not many people live there anymore, but there are still a few older people who do! Overall, it was a great flying experience!


Myah had her 2nd & 3rd heartworm treatment mid-March. She had to stay overnight at the vet; we missed her! When she got to come home, she laid around in pain for a bit but before we knew it she was back to acting normal. We have to wait 8 weeks until we can take her on short walks. After 12 weeks is when she can resume normal activity. I can't believe we have to wait 3 months until we can take her on her normal walks again. She's going to be so excited when she finally can go for walks!

This past week, Thompson Square (a country duo) came to perform on our base. Chad was working swing shift, but he was able to take a long lunch to come to the concert with me! It was raining a little bit, but it was still fun. We wish more good concerts would come to Okinawa.

Like I said, Chad and I try to find stuff to do on the weekends so we're not just sitting around the house being bored. We've drove past this place called Ryukyu Mura several times, so we decided to stop there on Sunday. It's like a village that is built to resemble traditional Okianwan culture. It was kind of cool to see all the different houses and stuff but it wasn't the most exciting thing. I've heard they have performances there of traditional Okinawan dances but they didn't have any while we were there.


We tried a new restaurant on Saturday! When we take walks at the seawall, we always walk by this place called Transit Cafe. There always seems to be people there, so we thought we'd try it out. It's a really small restaurant. The first question we were asked when we got in the door, is if we had a reservation. We didn't, but they were able to seat us anyways. But note to anyone wanting to try it, it's probably best to make a reservation. Like I said, it's small, they don't have many tables. We were sat at the bar area. The restaurant is on the second floor and looks over the East China Sea. We ordered the cheese fondue, steak with garlic butter sauce, and a cheese pizza with honey. I thought the pizza would be a weird combination but it was actually really good! It was great food but just a little pricey!

Like I said in my last post, I started going to the gym at the end of January. I'm proud to say that I am still going! I have been going 6 days a week, each session usually lasting an hour or more. I am following a 12 week program, and I am on my last month! These last 4 weeks of workouts are going to be a huge challenge, but I can't wait to see where it takes me. The weather has been a little chilly here lately but it's going to start warming up soon. I want to look good in a bikini!

Picture on the left is February 2014 & Picture on the right is March 2014

Like always, I leave you with some random pictures from Japan... until next time :)

Sushi Vending Machine

Creme Brulee Oreo Bars

Okinawan Purple Sweet Potato Kit-Kats

February Adventures

February has been a pretty busy month so far! On the 3rd of February, I celebrated my 25th birthday! I had to work all day, but when I came home Chad had the whole house clean and he had drove an hour away to get my favorite Okinawan cake! He even managed to put 25 candles on this tiny cake. It was perfect! We went out to dinner to one of our favorite restaurants, Sams by The Sea. It was delicious! I started going to the gym at the end of January, so for my birthday I got a lot of fitness related gifts. I got a new set of ear buds that actually stay in my ear when I'm moving and my favorite part is on the cord there is a button where I can turn the volume up/down, stop/play the music, or go to the next song. I love them! I am still waiting on a couple of my gifts to arrive in the mail. Chad ordered me a Polar Heart Rate Monitor watch, which I am so anxious to get! My Mom sent me an Amazon gift card, so I bought an mp3 player with it. It's tiny and will just clip on to my clothes. It will be perfect to use at the gym instead of having to wear a big armband with my iPod touch. I can't wait to get all my gear, hopefully my packages will arrive early this next week!

The best part about my birthday weekend was Chad surprising me by booking a trip to go whale watching! It was an amazing experience! We've been wanting to go but I was hesitant to pay the money to possibly not see any whales or get sea sick. We took dramamine the night before and the morning of, and thankfully the water wasn't very rough, so neither of us got seasick! Plus, we saw a ton of whales. I was surprised about how much whale activity we got to see and how long we got to watch it. It was a beautiful perfect day for it as well! The only thing that could have made it better if we saw multiple whales jumping. I did see one jump for a split second but that was it. Regardless, it was amazing and I highly recommend it to anyone who has the opportunity to go!

My coworkers also made my birthday special! Blossom had my desk all decorated when I came in to work. And the day after my birthday, everyone from my work went to dinner at Chili's. It's nice to have coworkers that you get a long with and consider friends.

The first couple days post-treatment, Myah was being such a baby.

Besides my birthday and being extremely busy at work these last few weeks, another thing that has been going on is Myah's heartworm treatment. We had to drop her off in the morning at the Vet for her first heartworm treatment on Valentine's Day. We were able to pick her up later that day to take her home. For the heartworm treatment, they don't have to give her anesthesia but they had to put a big needle deep into her muscle so it was really painful. We could tell she was in a lot of pain when we brought her home. She would try to lay down but just couldn't get comfortable. She likes to hide from us when she is sick, so she kept trying to go in our spare bedroom or office. I felt so bad for her! The next morning though, she started acting more like herself and now 3 days post treatment she seems to be in no pain. The only tough part is for the next month, she pretty much has to be on bed rest. She is not allowed to exercise. The worms in her heart are going to begin breaking up and if her heart gets pumping fast then there is a higher chance that one of the worms will get lodged and then terrible things will happen. Myah LOVES her walks, so it breaks my heart that she can't go and there's no way of explaining to her why. We have to take her back on March 13th for her second and third treatment. She will have to spend the night that time, but hopefully after that she'll be healed. She will then have to be calm for the following month as well, so it's going to be a long 2-3 months!

I almost forgot... another exciting thing that has happened this month is Chad sewed on! For all of you who are unfamiliar with this slang, it means he ranked up. He is now a Senior Airman! As mentioned in one of my previous posts, he got BTZ so he got to sew on 6 months early! Woohoo! One of the traditions that the Airmen have is to have their new stripe "punched on," usually resulting in bruises. Chad only got punched by 2 people, but his bruise is HUGE! 

Other than that, Chad and I have just been trying to get out and explore on weekends. We just take off and drive with no end in sight. We usually find neat little interesting villages and get to see a lot of the culture. Today, we went for a walk and I snapped some pictures to show everyone back home a little bit of what Japan looks like, so I'll leave you with those.

Our Adventure in Michigan!

We've been back in Okinawa for almost a month now and I've been meaning to update my blog about our trip home!

On Wednesday, December 18th, we started our adventure back to the United States! We had 3 legs of our journey. Our first one was from Okinawa to Tokyo. As we were getting off the plane for Tokyo, they were holding up signs and announcing for any passengers going to Washington D.C., which happened to be our next flight. They rushed us through security, and then we had to get to our gate, which little did we know was at the other end of the airport. As we were fast walking through the airport, there were several airport attendants who were looking for us and other passengers on the flight. They would radio ahead and let the people at the gate know that we were on our way. I had to add this story into my blog, because I just thought it was so nice of the Tokyo airport workers to get us as soon as we got off our first flight, escort us through security and pretty much all the way through the entire airport. I'm pretty sure we would never experience that kind of customer service in the United States. End of story is that we made it to our gate before the plane took off, even if I was sweating a little bit from running through the airport. It was a 13 hour flight to Washington D.C. and I barely slept a wink, which made it very long and tiring! After being delayed a couple hours in Washington D.C., we finally made it to Detroit where both of our parents were there waiting our arrival! It was so nice to see them all again! :)

On Thursday, Chad and I went out to lunch at Panchero's with my best friend, Brittany and got to meet little Miss Audrey for the first time!

On Friday night, we went out to dinner at City Limits and met up with a lot of friends we hadn't seen in awhile!

Before we knew it, Christmas Eve was upon us and the festivities with our families began. My brothers, who live in Kentucky, came up for a few days around Christmas. It was nice to see them, even if Adam left us all with his sickness! I was so happy to be home for Christmas this year! It just isn't the same celebrating without family around. My Mom and I went on a shopping spree and she bought me a ton of clothes for Christmas! It was nice to go shopping again, especially with my Mom!

One of the things that made me miss home the most was hanging out with our friends. It was so nice to just hang out, laugh, and have fun with our old friends. Brittany and Eric got stationed in Hawaii, while Chad was at basic, so it had been a long time since the 4 of us go to hang out. I am grateful that they were able to be in Michigan as the same time as us! We got to catch up with Amy and Kyle a lot while we were home too! Like I said, it was so nice to be around friends. It didn't feel like we had been gone for a year a half, it felt like just yesterday we had left them.

Another thing that I really miss while I am over here is Mason Cheerleading! I am happy that I was able to make it to a couple of their practices and a competition while I was home! I miss those girls so much! And I got to catch up with my good friend, Becca, who I used to coach with/work with/do everything with! It was really nice, but it made me miss cheerleading even more!

And a third thing that we both missed was all the scrumptious food here! I think we ate out just about everyday. We got to eat at all our favorite restaurants and we totally pigged out! (I'm happy to say, I got back to my pre-vacation weight a week after being back in Okinawa).

Toward the end of our trip home, I made a day trip up to Frankenmuth with my Mom and Greg. It was a fun day! We ate lunch, walked around all the little shops, toured a brewery museum, went to Bronner's (aka the World's Largest Christmas Store) and bought some customized ornaments and then ended the day at the outlet mall.

Another thing to mention about our trip is the horrible weather we experienced! We obviously knew it was going to be cold in Michigan but we got to experience first hand one of the worst Michigan winters in history. The first week, there was an ice storm that left us without power for about a day and half. We literally slept without any heat one night. The next week, we just got dumped on with snow! Tons of snow! We were snowed in for a day, but at least we had power and heat!

Despite the weather, we had an amazing trip home! The only reason we wanted to come back to Okianwa was for the warm weather and our dog, Myah! We had an awesome flight back to Okinawa. On our longest flight, we had a row all to ourselves so I was able to lay down and sleep for a few hours! It was a lot more comfortable than on the way over to the states, so we were happy about that! I could write for days about our trip home, but I'm sure it would get boring to you all. We have a year and half left in Okinawa and we're hoping we get stationed stateside after this! Seeing the world is great, but being closer to family is priceless.

News Update!

I wanted to update my blog before we headed home. Since my last update, we haven’t really done much but we did get some exciting news. Chad got put in for Below The Zone (BTZ), which is a competitive early promotion program in the Air Force. He had to go in front of a board early December, where he answered questions about Air Force history, current events, and his career so far. Being nominated for BTZ is a huge accomplishment in itself. Not all Airmen get that opportunity! For two weeks after the board, we waited anxiously for the results. He found out last Friday that he got it! This means that he will sew on Senior Airman 6 months early. Come mid-February, Chad will be a Senior Airman and he will hit his 2 year mark in the Air Force! I am so proud of him. He is a hard worker and I’m glad that doesn’t go unnoticed.

In my last post, I noted that Myah had a case of ringworm. We had been going to an off base vet since July and it still was not going away. In November, we took Myah to see the vet on base. At first glance, the American vet said it most definitely wasn’t ringworm. We had been taking Myah on an almost bi-weekly basis to see the off base vet for 4 months to treat her “ringworm”, and it’s not even ringworm, WHAT?! The bad news is that the on base vet doesn’t even really have an idea what this spot on her skin is. She put Myah on oral steroids for 4 weeks and those actually seemed to help a lot! Her bump was still there but it had decreased in size so much and she didn’t even itch at it anymore. But as soon as she stopped taking the steroids, not even 2 days later, the bump had grown in size again and additional smaller bumps had appeared. UGH! We took her back to the vet and she said the next step would be to sedate her to take a biopsy of it and potentially remove her skin from that area. Since we were getting ready to go on vacation, she gave Myah steroids to stop the itching in the mean time. When we get back from our visit to the states, we will have to schedule Myah’s appointment to get a biopsy. I feel so bad for her!

If that wasn’t bad enough, Myah also tested heartworm positive. We’ve had her on Heart Guard ever since we adopted her, but the vet says she may have had it when we first got her and the first test they did just came back negative at the time. We have opted to do the adult heartworm treatment on her, which will also have to be scheduled when we get back from vacation. She will have to have 2-3 procedures and for 30 days after each procedure she is basically on bed rest. She will not be allowed to exercise at all, which means no more of her nightly walks that she so much enjoys. My poor baby!

Enough of the bad news… the good news is that we are leaving this week to visit our families for a whole month! We are beyond ready to get off this island! We feel like we’ve done and seen everything on this island and are ready for a change! Myah will be staying in our house with a friend while we’re gone. We’re going to miss her so much! She will probably be the only reason I look forward to coming back to Okinawa. That… and the warm weather

Typhoons Fitow & Danas

Last summer, we arrived in Okinawa in late July. A few weeks into our time here, we experienced our first typhoon. We would go on to experience 3 more typhoons all before the end of September. This year was quite different! Typhoon season in Okinawa officially runs from June 1 to November 30. We finally got out first typhoon of the season on Saturday, October 5th. I felt better this year knowing what we were in for and even excited to have our first typhoon hit the island! This island was built to withstand the fierce winds and rain that typhoons bring so they don't even worry us at all! Typhoon Fitow had us locked up in our house all day Saturday. We don't have cable, so we rely on Netflix for our main source of entertainment. Well with everyone and their brother using the internet, Netflix wasn't working out too well for us. It would have to buffer every like 3 minutes. We gave up on that pretty quickly. We started watching DVDs that we own. I'm not a big fan of watching movies that I have already seen, so it got boring pretty quickly! We had gone to the video store to rent some movies before the storm hit but they were sold out of all the good ones, of course! Typhoon Fitow didn't hit us very hard, it just brought a lot of rain. The winds weren't even that strong at our house. There was a flattened cardboard box that had blown into our yard before the storm hit, and it was still there afterward. Considering one of the typhoons last year was flipping cars over, this one was pretty weak!

Since the storm had passed by the time we woke up on Sunday morning, we were able to leave the house. After one day of staying inside, we already had cabin fever! I think the worst was knowing they were reporting another typhoon was approaching the island and predicted to hit us on Monday afternoon. The first thing we did was go to the commissary to get some extra groceries. Of course everyone and their brother had the same idea. One must avoid the commissary at all costs before and after typhoons, it's always a mad house! We had enough food to last us through Monday, but you never know with these typhoons how long you'll be stuck inside! We got in and out of there with the essentials pretty quickly. We spent the day out of the house as much as we could since we knew we'd be cooped up inside the following day.

By Sunday night, we were already in TCCOR 2 again, which means destructive winds of 50 knots or greater are anticipated within 24 hours. Typhoon Danas was quickly approaching Okinawa! The different sites I follow on Facebook were all reporting that Danas was going to be more of a direct hit than the last typhoon and some even calling it a Super or Severe Typhoon. Monday morning we were in TCCOR 1 and still able to be out and about. We took Myah for a walk to try to get as much crap out of her as we could so she didn't have to go out during the "Super Typhoon". By 11:00AM we were in TCCOR 1C which means you have to stay in your house because the storm is here. What a joke! It barely rained today and I don't think our trees barely moved. It was weaker than Fitow in my opinion. I waited all day to see this typhoon and nothing even happened. It was another boring day at home but at least this typhoon hit on Monday so we didn't have to go to work :) That's always a plus! We went into TCCOR Storm Watch about 7:00PM and shortly after Chad got called into work. He only has to work a few hours and then he'll have all day tomorrow off. So while he's gone, I'm sitting here bored out of my mind and that's why I'm updating my blog for once.

So that was our exciting long weekend full of typhoons. I didn't even take any pictures or videos of the storms, that's how unexciting they were. We didn't have Myah last year during any of the typhoons so I was kind of wondering how she would act during one. She acted like she didn't even know anything was happening and she kept wanting to go outside like she normally does. She didn't even care that it was raining and windy during the first typhoon. She had to do her business and that's all that mattered to her. I think she even wanted us to take her on a walk during it! lol

Speaking of Myah... she has had a case of ringworm since June. We've been to vet just about a dozen times now and it's still not going away. It's not getting any worse, but not getting any better! She's been on fungal meds and antibiotics for months now. This last visit, they finally gave us this shampoo to bathe her with 2-3 times a week. The kicker is we have to keep the shampoo on her for 10 minutes. Let me tell you how fun that is! I just hope it clears it up and I was finally happy the vet wanted to try something different. I just want it to go away!

On a good note... 71 days until we're America bound! We are so excited!!! :)