Abby Cakes

There is just a magic that radiates from this little one.  I love being able to wake up each morning looking into those big blue eyes and hearing, "good morning mama."  I just smile at her and she smiles back and then she takes her hand and strokes my cheeks.  She is still and not energetic yet.  It is calm and I can see the sun coming in through the window highlighting her blonde her and fair skin.  And then I think to myself that she is a blessing.  She has been my sleeping buddy and I love not feeling so alone when I go to sleep at night.  She definitely has a special place in my heart.  I just can't hold her, kiss her, or squeeze her enough.  Why can't I make this last forever?  Every age she has been has been my absolute favorite.  She is my Abby cakes!

What makes these photos special to me is that they are true to life. I also spent a little extra time making my own B&W conversions. After looking at them on a different computer screen I realize they don't look quite as good as looking at them on my high resolution screen.  Oh well.  I still have so much to learn about B&W conversions but I thought this was a good place to start. 

First Day at a New School

I debated back and forth whether or not I was going to enroll the boys in elementary school while we are here in Virginia. I am lucky to have a great sister-in-law who did most of the leg work for me and got everything set up for me to easily enroll the boys in the same school her kids go to. Other than filling out tons of paperwork I only had to have the boys get an updated TB shot. They both started school today and came home with smiles. They LOVE going to school at Creighton's Corner Elementary School with their cousins. Andrew is in Mrs. Luvier's 4th grade class and Peter is in Mrs. Canada's 2nd grade class. The first thing the boys said to me when they walked in the door was, "I made so many friends today." There is no question in my mind that they are going to a much better school in terms of environment. It will be nice to be out of the DoDD school for a bit where Andrew was constantly being surrounded by kids who had really bad mouths and a teacher who had no control over his class. Andrew's saving grace at his school in Japan was Mrs. Pollard who he went to for advanced math. She is great and we do miss her and how she challenged Andrew. His new teacher here in Virginia has already spent some time with him one on one just trying to get to know him better. I am pleased that the boys are happy. Routine is good for them and for me. I feel like I can move forward without as much stress.

The Turners Visit

Our super fabulous friends drove down from Pennsylvannia to come and visit us for the day. To say that we were flattered to have friends drive so far just to see us is a total understatement. Joy and I first met when our husbands were in Medical School together at USUHS in Maryland. We had our first babies around the same time and it has been fun being able to keep in touch over the years and watch each other's family grow. We were able to visit them while they lived in Hawaii during their Residency and they came to visit us in Washington during our Residency. We have remained good friends all this time which has been fantastic. The kids played so well together and I absolutely loved being able to talk and spend some time with my good friend Joy. I will be forever grateful for our friendship and can't wait for future adventures together when we are done with our tour in Japan. Thank you friends for coming to visit us and helping us forget for a short time our woes of being separated from our home in Japan.

Leaving Japan

We definitely had mixed feelings about leaving Japan.  Without going into too many of the details we had basically been given the opportunity to voluntarily leave Japan with assistance from the military.  Since we had already purchased tickets to fly to the US in April we were able to change our tickets without any cost to us so that we could leave earlier.  With the uncertainty of what was happening up at the Nuclear Power Plants up in Fukushima and the ongoing rolling blackouts, gas rationing, and school closure we made a decision for me and the kids to leave and get out earlier rather than later.  The night before we left we found out that we would actually be given orders to leave which would allow for some reimbursement of some of the costs we would face heading back to the US.  This was a huge blessing in our mind. 

Our 12 1/2 hour plane ride ended up being a great experience.  We were all up for the first 4 hours or so and then one by one each of the kids fell asleep which was great.  Since we left in the afternoon I figured that they would sleep most of the trip, which they did.  I did not sleep very much on the plane as I had a lot on my mind.  I couldn't have asked for a better trip.  Going through customs and immigrations and getting our bags didn't end up being as much of a hassle as I had anticipated so that was good.  We were greeted at the airport by Mike's dad which was nice.  We all piled into the van and headed only 10 min to his house for a pancake dinner with the rest of the family.  It was nice to be surrounded by cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents.  I think the kids really enjoyed being able to have instant playmates.  I was happy to finally be off the plane, happy to eat a normal meal, a little tired from having stayed up all night, and a little sad that Mike was not with us. 

I had no idea how the transition would be and how the kids would adjust.  It took us almost an entire week to be completely off of jet lag.  The first 3 nights we were awake by 3am and finally by night four we were all sleeping until 6:30am.  Those first nights and days were rough.  Being in a new environment also added to some extra stress but eventually we made it through the first week.  The kids had fun staying at their cousins house but after a week of 8 kids in the house I realized it would be a little less overwhelming to be at Grandpa's house so we packed up our bags and moved only 5 minutes away.  How nice that they live so close to each other.  I was excited for my kids to finally have an opportunity to have one on one time with their Grandpa since they don't get that often enough.  It has been great being here so far but it still pains us to be so far from Mike.  I never imagined how much it would affect the kids to be away from him.  I should feel blessed that they love their dad that much.  I don't blame them...he is a great dad.  We can't wait for him to get here in a few short weeks.

The Aftermath

Here are some pictures we have collected of the horrible destruction and hardship after the massive earthquake up North in Japan. God bless the people of Japan.

The Quake that SHOOK us all

Today we headed over to Disney by the Sea and made it to the park before it opened. The line was already super long but we didn't care because it was a gorgeous sunny day. Since we didn't make it to the Tower of Terror last time we were here I choose to stand in line with the three older kids while Mike went and got fast passes for our favorite ride, Raging Spirits. After waiting in line for an hour and realizing that it wasn't going to be the 80 min wait that was advertized when we got in line, we decided to jump out of line and head over to ride Raging Spirits. It was a good decicision as we would have been waiting for over 2 hours to ride Tower of Terror...not worth the wait for any ride in my mind. I rode it once with the boys and then Mike rode it 4 more times with the boys. We ended up being able to get 2 rounds of fast passes for this ride which was lucky. We decided to go and do some of the smaller rides and eat lunch until it was time to use our fast passes for Journey to the Center of the Earth.

After lunch we headed over to the Mediterranean Harbor to explore the Fortress. Seeing that Abby had fallen asleep in the stroller I knew that she and I would not be able to participate in the Fortress exploration as there were just too many stairs to climb. I hung around nearby snacking on a maple churro and watching the water show. It was neat watching the different boats enter the harbor and the jet skis zooming around the harbor with kites attached to them. I was enjoying this quiet moment by myself until I started to feel a little dizzy. At first I thought it was the vibration from the boats entering the harbor but as I looked at the speakers behind the wall in front of us start to sway, I as well as many others started to step back from the wall just in time to realize that we were in fact having an earthquake. At first I just thought it was a typcial earthquake in Japan. Then it got harder and harder and it kept going and going. It went on so long that I actually had time to think about how scared I was. I think there is something inside of us all that triggers when we start to feel completely hopeless. For me the first thing that went through my mind was Mike and the older kids. Not being together was terrifying for me. In fact, it was the one thing that made me almost start to hyperventilate. As the earthquake kept going I actually thought, "Is this the end?" Not at any time in my life have I ever had those thoughts. It was then that I started to think, "Am I ready?" My next thoughts were what I should do with Abby. Should I wake her up and take her out of the stroller in case I had to flee or should I just stay put. It was amazing to be around so many Japanese people that have been trained for this kind of disaster. Their calmness helped me to remain calm as well. After it finally ended I frantically, with shaking fingers, tried to call Mike. I think I dialed his number 22 times but every time I dialed it failed. With every attempt I started to panic. When it looked like people were starting to stand up and walk around a bit I just paced in the same area until Mike and the kids finally made their way back to us. I could not have been happier at that moment to see my family back together again. It didn't seem like the older kids were shook up at all by the first quake. Before the earthquake hit they were all ready to get into an elevator to explore another level of the fort. Right after Andrew pushed the button to the elevator the earthquake started. At first they all thought it was part of the attraction but soon realized it was indeed a real earthquake and moved to an open area. Emma started crying, not because of the earthquake, but because she wanted to go on more rides. She obviously didn't know what was going on.

After moving to a more open area I was starting to feel like I just wanted to leave the park. As we waited to see how the park was going to respond to the earthquake we got hit with another big quake. This time the kids started to panic and we immediately got down and started to pray. Abby was still asleep at this time which was a blessing. After surviving another quake Mike and I started to look at each other with worried faces. We were advised to all sit on the ground and after some time sitting there I finally had to get up and go to the bathroom which just happened to be located right next to where we were. It was while waiting in line that my phone began to ring and I realized it was my skype ringing. I looked and saw that it was my mom. She was so relieved to hear that we were ok and it was then that I learned how serious the quake really was. We were so grateful the she and my dad were able to book us a room at the hotel we stayed at the night before. I have never been more grateful for my iPhone, Skype, and Facebook than at this time.

Were were pretty much quarantined inside the park until 6:00pm by which time we choose to stay to see if the restaurants would open up so we could go inside and get warm and possibly get something to eat. We were grateful that up to this point we had water and small snacks to keep the kids happy. At one point we were standing on the entrance side of the harbor when we heard a extrememly loud noise. It was a bit freaky but we didn't know what it was. Then we heard a big boom. We later learned that it was the Chiba plant exploding. Here is a picture of the smoke cloud from the erruption at the plant that we saw from Disney. This new development definitely hightened our nervousness about everything that was going on outside the park but we had to remain calm. The people at Disney were great. They had been passing around tableclothes that people were using as blankets and cardboard boxes for people to sit on. Trash bags and bubble wrap were also being passed around to use as protection from the cold.  We were fortunate enough to be around someone who was passing out disposable hand warmers.  At one point we decided to head to the bathroom but the line was over a 100 people long. A kind Disney worker saw our big family and directed us to the handicapped/family bathroom of which we were grateful. Maybe it was Abby crying that tug on his heart strings but nevertheless, we felt blessed. Shortly after that we were finally able to go inside one of the buildings. It was so nice to be warm again. All the tables and chair were taken so we found a nice spot on the floor and a sweet couple brought us some cardboard boxes to sit on. Mike was in and out of the building trying to gather information. We eventually decided to head out of the park and make our way on foot to the train station where they had buses running to the various hotels in the Disney Resort.

While on foot we started to see some of the destruction from the quake. Many of the roads were muddy and wet due to the after effects of the earthquake and the fact that Disneyland was built on reclaimed land. When we finally made it to the station we were sick to see how much damaged occured there. The sidewalks were all mangled and there was mud and water everywhere. We finally did make it on the right bus and before we knew it we were in the hotel. It never felt so good to be in a hotel. We were extremely blessed to escape having to sleep in a Disney restaurant on cardboard boxes.

While on the 11th floor of our hotel we got the kids ready for bed and quietly made our escape plan in case of another big quake. Mike was able to secure a big loaf of banana bread for us all to eat for our "dinner." It was food and we were grateful that is was not granola bars and fruit snacks. We were finally able to get a hold of some of our American friends that also live in our town and they were able to drive by our house to let us know that everything from the outside looked find. That was a huge relief. With the roads closed we were unsure when we would be able to go home. This night proved to be a restless one as we got hit with multiple aftershocks. I am pretty certain that there was one atleast every 30 minutes. Some were bigger than others and one was so big it scared us enough that Mike jumped out of bed and got dressed in his street clothes and shoes just in case we needed to evacuate the building. Mike and I didn't get much sleep that night..maybe an hour or two. I was grateful that the kids slept all night long though.

We stayed in hotel all morning watching cartoons and the news. It was so depressing seeing what was happening up north. Some of the roads remained closed and every so often Mike would disappear to find out the latest intel on the road situation. I was overwhelmed with the amount of thoughtfulness from friends and family through facebook and email. Everyone's thoughtfulness and prayers brought a sense of peace of a very troubled heart. I will forever be grateful for the prayers that were said in our behalf. We did make it home without too many problems. I know that we were blessed. I don't doubt that the hand of the Lord was with us these last two days.