Ie Island - May adventure!

April was a pretty boring uneventful month for us, but we started May off with a bang! On Saturday, we took a ferry to ie island. It was a short 30 minute ferry ride on this huge ferry. I was impressed by the ferry, it even had a little snack shop on the inside. After arriving on the island, we found a place to rent bicycles. I got a purple one! Unfortunately, it sounded like it was going to break down on me the whole time. I literally thought the chain would break and we'd be on the other side of the island. That would have sucked! The island is small enough to ride a bike all around it. Everything I read said that it was mainly flat so riding a bike wouldn't be a big deal. I don't know where they went but there were quite a few hills we had to go up, twice they were so big that we had to get off our bike and push it up (our bikes didn't have gears on them). But it was so much fun riding bikes around and perfect weather for it!

Our main purpose of visiting ie island was to attend the lily festival! We were a little nervous about going because it's Golden Week here in Japan. There are a bunch of holidays the first week of May for the Japanese, so they call it Golden Week. A lot of them will take off work and travel during this week which means traffic and all the tourist attractions become super busy! It turns out that we had no problem with traffic or crowds, it was a perfect day to go. The lily fields were beautiful; tons and tons of lily's. The smell was amazing as well!

Other than the lily's, we stopped at a few other places around the island. We hiked up Mt. Gusuku, which is the only mountain on the little island. It was about a 15 minute hike up; there were stairs so it was a pretty easy hike. Lots of stairs, straight up too, at times I felt like I was climbing a ladder. When we got to the top, we got a nice aerial view of the island!

We also stopped at Wajee View Point, Niya-Thiya Caves, and the Ernie Pyle monument. The Niya-thiya cave is where Okinawans hid as the Great Okinawan War was happening. There is a stone in the cave that is said to be a fertility stone. If you pick it up, supposedly you'll get pregnant. Don't worry, I didn't touch it! :) Our last stop before the port was the Ernie Pyle monument. Ernie Pyle was an American journalist who died in the Okinawan war.

Overall, it was an amazing day trip! If we ever go again, we agreed that we should take all our snorkel gear. There looked to be quite a few good snorkeling spots on ie island!

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