Celebrating Easter

The Saturday before Easter, we joined the Perrins at the 25m heated pool on Camp Foster. Although all of our kids were shivering, they loved being able to play in the water with their dads. Kathy and I hung out under a pavilion and chatted while keeping watch over the babes.

Sydney was so independent in the water, I loved seeing her go to town with her floaties on.

Still a major Daddy's boy, Shawn had a ball jumping to Spencer, and even tolerated getting dunked a few times.

After we got home and cleaned up, we colored Easter eggs. My kids absolutely loved it, the eggs were all colored in no time. Everyone got an equal number of eggs, and Shawn was done with his in about half the time Sydney took to decorate hers.

Even Spencer was getting into it, busting out his computer so he could made an accurate depiction of a Superman logo.

On Sunday after church, we attempted (in vain) to get a decent picture of our kids in their new Easter clothes. Sydney refused to be in a picture, so we attempted to get one of Shawn and Kate. The sun was right in their eyes, they couldn't even look at the camera :) 

The kids participated in our little neighborhood's annual Easter egg hunt. These kids were certainly eager to find some candy! Sydney took off on her own pretty quickly, but Shawn stayed close to his Dad.

After all the eggs were found, Spencer and I didn't see Sydney. We suspected she found a secluded spot to go to town on her treats and went to search for her. We were right! Except this year we found her before she started eating all her candy.

The Hurst's hosted Easter dinner, and as usual, we had a great time with all of our friends. The next morning I woke up to feed Kate and felt like I was gonna puke, but I held it together. Then before I got back in bed, I went into the bathroom and threw up. Spencer woke up feeling a little queazy, but went to work anyway- work that day was a history tour of the island. I spent most of the day curled up in a ball on the couch feeling achy and gross, letting my kids watch who knows how many movies. Then I got a text from Stacey saying almost everyone who ate Easter dinner had thrown up at least once. We all had food poisoning! Luckily our kids didn't get it, but Spencer and I felt awful for the rest of the day. He'd spent the last part of the tour laying on a bench in the tour bus, then came home and crashed on the couch. We all felt much better the next day; it made for a memorable Easter dinner :)

Moving Day

We decided to pack our early in hopes of getting our stuff by the time we got to Maryland. When Spencer scheduled the move, both our big shipment and unaccompanied baggage were slated to arrive at our new place on June 9.

The "Aridatos" (or "Arigatos," which is what Shawn calls Japanese people) had their supplies out and were ready to go at 8am on moving day. Despite staying up incredibly late doing prep work, we weren't quite prepared. I was in full on panic mode trying to shove stuff into Kate's room, our designated "do not pack" area.

The sad view of 6234 C Camp Lester.

Kate's room.

Sydney and Shawn's room.

The dining and family rooms.

Those Aridatos were fast! They were driving away with our sealed crates just after 1pm. Thankfully this little cutie had no problems napping while they worked (no easy feat with those guys noisily taping up boxes).

Before packing out, I wasn't emotionally quite ready to leave Okinawa, but seeing and living in a mostly empty house definitely helped me feel more ready to move on! The stuff for our express shipment was packed the next day, and that one didn't go quite as well. They packed up a bunch of stuff that we wanted to keep for our last few weeks there (e.g. spices, other junk we wanted to throw out), so we had to go out and buy a few things. We had to wait a few days before getting temporary furniture, so we slept on mats we borrowed from the Perrins.

I was so excited to get our borrowed couch, chairs, and mattresses. We put the double bed in the kids room for them to share, and it was the loudest mattress ever. It creaked so loudly every time anyone moved an inch. In our bedroom, we pushed two twins together to make a fake king bed. I was on Syd's former mattress, which was perfectly comfortable, but the new one they gave us was terrible. We could feel the springs poking out of it. Spencer slept in it, and I insisted that we trade every few nights, but he was nice and let me sleep on the comfortable one every night- for 5 weeks! Poor guy. Thankfully we had really nice friends who let us borrow stuff. The Donahue's gave us a quilt and a TV, plus an Apple TV so we could still use Netflix. They were life savers!

Nurseries

Before our house was completely turned upside-down by the movers, I got a few shots of Kate's nursery. It was the exact same set-up as Shawn's nursery, but we painted the walls back to the base housing color (since I knew we'd have to before moving anyway) and I added some more girly artwork and stuff. 

We switched Shawn over to a toddler bed and moved him into Sydney's room about a month before Kate was born. That change marked the beginning of his terrible/incredibly needy nighttime sleeping routine. Here's what his nautically themed nursery looked like:

Trash Beach

A few weeks before our pack out, my friend Annie posted a picture on Facebook of an insane amount of green, blue, and white sea glass, saying she found all of it one one beach in less than an hour. A few days before the pack out, I developed an irrational fear that I needed to find as much sea glass as I possibly could so it could get packed up with the rest of our stuff. Annie told me she found her loot on "Trash Beach" and gave me directions, so that's where we headed that weekend.

It was up north near Camp Schwab, but there wasn't great access to the beach. We parked our car and had to carry all of our crap (i.e. camping chairs, towels, beach toys, beach umbrella, diaper bag, and stroller) down the sea wall steps and across a sandy channel to get to it. Thank goodness it was low tide, otherwise we wouldn't have made it. Either way, I'm sure we looked like the most ridiculous crew ever overloaded with stuff and trying to push a stroller through a bunch of wet sand. As we crossed, we saw thousands of hermit crabs, all with a bluish shell. And they hid under the sand so fast when we got close! It was kind of cool but at the same time kind of disgusting how many there were.

When we finally got across the channel, I immediately found lots of sea glass. Then Kate blew out her diaper, so we set up camp and I changed her in my lap. We were mostly shaded in the trees, but the sun would sneak through every now and again and get in her eyes. I found Sydney's sunglasses in my diaper bag and put them on her, and she looked so sweet!

I love her squishy little body!

I fed her while Spencer took Syd and Shawn to swim, and then I put her in the Bjorn so we could go hunting for sea glass. Unfortunately I couldn't find her sun hat, and she pooped all over her more protective clothes, so I created a classy get-up to keep her from getting scorched.

Lookin' a little white trash on Trash Beach.

Although I didn't get any photo evidence, Trash Beach did not disappoint! Our sand bucket was almost 3/4 of the way full of sea glass by the time we left. Once we noticed the tide coming in, we had to pack up pretty quickly so we could get back across the channel.

Since we were in the area, we visited Melody Road one last time. Shawn liked it a lot better that time around.

I couldn't help but look at the water and think, "Man I'm gonna miss this."

I Turned 31! (almost 6 months ago...)

As it turns out, having our stuff packed up and moved to the other side of the world immediately made Blogging fall to the last thing on my priority list. Although this is all what I remember from six months ago, I still think it's worth recording.

My birthday just wouldn't be the same without a traditional carrot cake, so Spencer whipped one up for me. Joke, I made it myself. But I did have some cuties help me put the candles in it.

Holy fire hazard Batman! Look at all those candles!

My kids are always so excited to dig in to the cake, the cream cheese frosting is the best.

Sweet little Kate hung out in the bouncer while we celebrated. She sure loves that little thumb.

We Bought A House!!

Spencer flew solo to Bethesda, MD for a house hunting trip. Dying to invest in something, he insisted that we buy instead of rent when he's in residency, then keep it as a rental property. With only a week to find us a place to live, we were both stressed- especially since he didn't love anything he saw. Then this new listing came up one morning, and he went to see it that same day.

To the left of the house in the side yard, he said this sold him from the start:

A kid-sized cemented in basketball hoop.

He said he could just envision Shawn "shooping"hoops there and loving it. One picture that I particularly loved was this:

A fenced in back yard (not the dogs!).

A few days later we put in an offer, and the sellers accepted it. They actually accidentally met when he went to see the house, and their realtor told our realtor that they liked him :) He was able to squeeze in a home inspection the day before he flew home, and we got word three days later that the sellers accepted all of the things we asked them to fix. It's exciting and terrifying all at the same time!

Chunky Monkey- Kate at 2 Months

Kate's 2 month check-up was a nightmare, because it actually happened over the course of 3 appointments. For the first one, I was on time but the doctor was very backed up. Kate was checked in, and after the nurse put her stats into the computer she said, "Uh, I think I need to measure her again." I put her back on the table and everything was correct. She was just surprised that Kate had grown 3 inches and gained 3 pounds since her two week appointment! Chunk! After that, we waited for another 45 minutes before getting put into a room.  Fifteen minutes later, I told the nurse I had to leave because I had to pick up Sydney from school (I'd forgotten my phone in the car and couldn't call a friend to get her for me). 

That chunk by her armpits just makes me smile!

Attempt #2 started fine… we got to see the doctor, but when we went to immunizations, they said they were out of the combo shot Kate needed. They told us one of their personnel went to get some from another clinic, so we could come back later that day or sometime early the next week, otherwise she'd have to get five shots instead of three. I opted to just wait and spare her getting poked that many times.

I love those squishy legs too :)

When we went in a few days later for attempt #3, I was so mad to learn that they were out of the combo shot AGAIN! And they had no idea when the next batch was coming in ("Tomorrow? Maybe next week? We just don't know.") I was livid, but I didn't want to get behind on her shot schedule either, so I was an evil mom and just went ahead and got it done. My poor sweet girl had to get 5 shots! I felt terrible! Thankfully, I think the front desk sensed my irritation and gave us a nice nurse that was incredibly kind. It was so much nicer that the 19 year old inexperienced corpsman who has no experience with babies that we usually have to work with. 

 
Kate's stats at 2 months:

• Weight- 12 lbs. 4 oz. (84th percentile)
• Length- 24.21 inches (99th percentile)
• Head circumference- 39.5 cm (71st percentile)

We love this sweet angel baby we've been blessed with!