Driving Around

Hello Folks,

I guess me and Angela will probably switch off writing different things on here. We are pretty boring people but we will try to keep updating this as much as we can. Right now all we have to write about are pretty normal things. This one is about just driving around. Since myself and Angela haven't made any solid friends yet we are left to driving around on the weekends and trying to find something to do. Today we looked up directions to go to the Toys R Us that is here so that we could check out the Babies R Us that is located inside it. Well Angela is scared to drive off base right now so I have to do all the driving. The directions were easy enough but we still somehow ended up getting off track. We were driving up and down roads until we ended going in a circle. Once back to where we started we went the right way and found our destination. It was pretty nice in there but there wasn't much that we liked at the time. We did end up getting two outfits for our upcoming bundle of joy ( one of them will probably be for Halloween though ). The store space wasn't as big as our Toys R Us so it didn't take much time to look around. It was in a two story building that was sort of like a mall. Except this place had like a grocery store on half of the bottom floor ( which that must be a popular thing cause we have seen it more than once ). So we looked around all the other stores and ended up in the grocery store part. It's not much different than ours but some of their bread items are made with faces on them ( like a bear). So that was funny. And I grabbed some type of coffee drink that was pretty good. It had a cartoon as the label. I thought that was a little weird to have a cartoon as the label but it didn't affect the taste so whatever sells I guess. After we left there we had to go to the PX to get water cause I guzzle it down pretty quick. So overall we were driving a little bit today. Which that is okay with me because the more you drive around the more you will find and learn where everything is. So you can always take something positive away from any situation. Learning new places will have to be our positive thing from this weekend. ( Alright your turn let us know something positive that came away from one of your situations, come on you can do it there is always something ). I'm just kidding you don't have too. I told yall we are boring cause that is all I got for now.

Well we will catch yall later.

Busy Week

Hey everyone (this is Angela)
It's been a little while since Ken posted so I thought I would this time.
So we've been in our housing now for a little over a week and are finally feeling settled. Once we get all of our things it will feel more like home though. We are anxiously awaiting the delivery of our household goods which includes all of our furniture, pictures, some kitchen things, and everything I used to decorate our house back in Clarksville. I am so anxious to decorate this place and make it ours. The bare walls are driving me crazy! haha. We went to a furniture store over the weekend and purchased carpet. Military housing doesn't have carpeted floors so that was one of the first things that I HAD to get. We did receive one of our shipments of belongings earlier in the week but it was just the things that we thought we would need as soon as we arrived here. Towels, linens, some dishes, the rest of our clothes and of course...all of the gaming systems (ken is happy he has his xbox again). But hopefully everything else will arrive soon.

We also purchased another vehicle this week so that I would have something to drive. I included some pictures, everyone say "go Angela!". We bought a Honda S-MX from our sponsor who was helping us out when we first arrived on the island. I call it the "mommy car". It's not real fancy like the Altezza, but it gets me from point A to point B. I have tried the driving thing a couple of times this week and it's not too hard. I haven't attempted to venture off base yet though so that should be interesting whenever I do. I still catch myself every once in awhile when I pass another vehicle thinking to myself "why is that child driving a car!?" But it's because the passenger's seat is on the other side of the vehicle of course.


I have met a few other military wives here and met them for lunch recently. I met them on an Okinawa message board. They are all very nice. One is actually from Clarksville, Tn! Small world huh? Ken and I have actually come across a few people here who are from Tn. The music director at the church we have been visiting is from Knoxville. And lately whenever someone finds out where we are from, they ask us if our families are okay after the tornadoes that came through. Thankfully we are able to say yes. But everyone back home has been in our thoughts and prayers and we hope that our hometown is able to recover soon. It's just surreal to see all of the pictures and think "that's our home". I'm sure seeing it up close is a lot different too.
Ken is trying to get involved and meet people as well. He recently joined a Dragon Boat Race team and has been practicing for an upcoming race on May 5th. Hope to get some good pictures then! He practices three days a week with his fellow Army co-workers. As long as they beat Navy and Air Force, that's all that matters apparently. : )

Baby update!! I'm 20 weeks and 2 days today. I had my first OB appointment here the other day. It was somewhat difficult getting an appointment because there are A LOT of pregnant military wives here. Apparently, we have nothing better to do...I don't know. Or there is something in the water. Anyway. Everything is good with Baby Freeman. I'm measuring 19 inches so baby is definitely growing! : ) I have an ultrasound scheduled for May 21 cause that's the earliest they could get me in with all of the other pregnant women here. By then we should know 100% if we are having girl. We are pretty sure that we are from the 4D ultrasound that we had done before we left, but there's always that slight chance of it being wrong. I was only 17 weeks at the time. I haven't bought any little girl things yet, but I am anxious to decorate the nursery whenever we know for sure. I've been able to feel her kicking a lot lately, which is the strangest but neatest feeling in the world! For some reason, she kicks the most during church..haha.



Well, I think that's all that we have to update for now....I type a lot more than Ken does I guess. We will blog again soon!

In our House

Minasan Konnichi wa ( Hello Everyone )

I know Angela just put a post on here yesterday but I am posting this one with pictures (everyone say Go Ken!!! ). Friday was somewhat of a busy day for us. We had to check out of our hotel that we have been staying at for the last 6 or 7 days. We drove around Kadena for a while so that we could get familiar with the base. Luckily everything is pretty close together. Pretty soon we will have to get out on the town and learn Okinawa better. After a little bit of just checking things out we were able to pick up the keys to the house. It is really like an apartment because there are four sections to our building. There is A, B, C, and D. We live in D which is on the top right of the building. We have 2 bedrooms, a kitchen, dining room area, a bathroom, and an okay size living room. Its not too big but its also not too small. We also have some government furniture since ours hasn't arrived yet. We got a table, 2 living room chairs, 2 end tables, and a bed. The pics on here might not be good but its all we got so far. We also had our cable and internet installed today. So you should see posts on here everytime we have some good stuff to share. We haven't met any of our neighbors yet so hopefully they are good people. Well I guess that is about it for now. Enjoy the pics of our car and house.

Later

Greetings from the Shogun Hotel lobby!

Hello everyone. This is Angela! : )
Just thought I would update our blog since there isn't much to do here in the hotel..haha. Thankfully tomorrow we will get to move into housing here on base so we will be out of the hotel. We went to our housing brief on Monday morning and Tuesday afternoon they offered us three different places to look at. We settled on the 2nd one that we looked at and we think that it will be a nice place for us. It seems to be a very family friendly area and even has a little playground just down the street where our little one can play, when she gets older of course! Ken went yesterday and picked up his car so we finally have our own transportation. Only problem is, we only have one vehicle so far, leaving me stuck in this lovely hotel while Ken is at work. No worries though. This weekend we will probably be buying a "mommy car" for me. Ken bought a Toyota Altezza which apparently back in the states would be a Lexus..classy huh?! : ) We will take pictures soon of the car and where we will be living. Things have been a little too hectic lately for us to take any pictures. Plus, we don't want to look too much like tourists! Haha. Things are very different here than back in the states. Even buying a cell phone and a car were an interesting experience. Most of the locals speak a decent amount of English, but I still have a hard time understanding them most of the time. I just look at Ken with a blank look. Hopefully it will get easier though. There is so much to get used to so it's probably going to take some time for us to get adjusted. I haven't tried driving yet but Ken has. It's very weird to be the passenger and be on the left side of the car.
We should have internet set up at our place by this weekend so hopefully we will get some pictures up then as well.
We miss everyone back at home and hope that everyone has a Happy Easter!!
Love,
Angela & Ken

1ST Post from Okinawa, Japan

Hello Friends,

Well this is our 1ST post since arriving to Japan. You probably already know that we had a long plane ride that when totaled up was around 17 or 18 hours spent flying. It wasn't bad for me but Angela had a hard time ( it was her first time flying ). The night we arrived I signed into my new unit here on Kadena AFB. Myself and Angela spent all of Friday ( April 3rd ) in-processing into that unit. I have a sponsor here that has been showing us around, so we went off base on Sat. looking for a car and cell phones. I have bought a car but I can't pick it up until I take the driving license test here. We also picked up our cell phones so if anyone ever has a international calling plan or card then you can give us a call sometime. On Mon. Apr 6 we have a housing appointment and hopefully they will offer us a house that day. If they do then we would be moved in a couple of days later. ( We have our fingers crossed ) Right now we are staying at a hotel on the airbase. So far we can tell that the Japanese are very courteous people and that we should like living here.

Sayonara for now