Paxton's Nursery

I couldn't wait to get moved into our new home so I could start getting the baby's room put together.  I knew I wanted to have white furniture, accent colors of green and blue and a starts/outer space theme.  I'm still really happy with how it turned out.

Before:

After!

View from the door.

Aqua chevron crib skirt and boppy cover.  Crib sheet, swaddle blanket and changing pad cover are Aden + Anais "Oh Boy" pattern of small blue and tan stars.

Rocking chair with jumbo cushions and Pottery Barn Kids rocket pillow. Accent table with blue and green Okinawa Glass Factory lamp.  Wall art from Etsy trafalgarssquare shop.

Star mobile from Pottery Barn Kids.  That little turtle in the corner shines stars all over the room! Shelves are filled with toys, 4 small frames, books, and a robot bank.

Jellycat lion an other softies in blue ombre basket (can't see too well, sorry!)

Changing pad in the "Oh Boy" Aden + Anais star print.  Star lamp, Jellycat elephant, light up lanterns and my first diaper bag - timi & leslie Marie Antoinette II. 

Can't believe my baby boy will be in there in a few short weeks! 

So there it is!  I got a lot of the stuff from Target and Amazon.  I'll be happy to tell you where I got specific things, so feel free to ask.  

We are all set with his car seat base installed in my car.  We have our Bob running stroller.  I can't WAIT to go for a run again.  And a big thanks to my awesome parents for buying the Bob for us!  I seriously love this stroller and can't wait to use it.  It's super maneuverable, collapses using one hand and seems pretty light weight.  We got the car seat adapter for when he's little, a tray for when he's older, and a cool accessory add on for the handle bar for water bottles, phone and other things that need to be on hand.

Jellycat helping me practice.

We have his Pack and Play, his swing and his play mat and all kinds of baby gear ready to go.  Pax is mostly all set.  But, I do still have an entire closet full of clothes that needs to be washed. And I should probably already be stocking up on diapers.  And I should probably practice my swaddling skills and how to put on/wear our 2 baby carriers.  Next week I have my next appointment with my doctor who will be doing my surgery, so I should know Pax's birthday soon! 

New Digs

A few weeks ago we were lucky enough to move into this great house in Pensacola.  We literally signed the lease the day it came available.  We looked at a whole lot of houses in the area, but I really had my heart set on this one.  I'm so glad we were able to get it.  Sure, it's not the biggest, newest, or nicest, but I love the street, neighborhood, access to everything and most of all I love that his house has a pool in the back yard.

Our first pool side dinner a few weeks ago.

The house also has 4 bedrooms, 2 baths, a living room, family room, breakfast nook, kitchen, dining room, and a 2 car garage on the side.  We love that we found such a great place to rent for the next 3 years! 

The house is really dark in this picture, hidden under the massive Live Oak tree in the front yard.  I LOVE that big old tree.  We have plans to paint the front shutters to brighten up the front of the house.

We put in the little flower garden around the mail box.  It's filled in a lot over the last couple weeks.  We'll see how it handles the intense FL heat this summer.  

We've been doing little projects like getting all the plumbing fixed, working on the yard and basically just trying to get moved in and settled.  The inside is mostly done, but we ordered a new bedroom furniture set, so I'll wait until we get it before I give you a peak inside.

I just love swinging on the front porch in the afternoons! 

I've wanted to live in a house for so long now.  I was so over living in an apartment!  But, wow, houses are so much more work.  The yard work alone, sheesh!  But, it's so worth it.  I love our new home!

Stay tuned next for a sneak peek into our baby's room!

A Must Read About Japan

For Valentines Day my wonderful sister sent me Japanland: A Year in Search of Wa. I immediately dug into this witty, entertaining travelogue about a woman who spends a year in Japan, trying to find wa - or harmony, and all of her adventures along the way. I haven't finished the book quite yet, but already I know that it is a book I will recommend to anyone curious about this country and it's interesting people. This book sheds light on the Japaneses iron clad morals and values system that guides their day to day behavior and actions. Sometimes living here can make me what to pull my hair out, but reading this book really helps me to understand the deep rooted cultural differences and has made me stop and think about how I act, speak to and interact with my host country. And it has made me really want to buckle down with my Japanese language studying. This book is full of laughs, adventures and culture and I am so so so very glad my sister sent this to me! I recommend it to anyone wanting to know about, interested or even thinking about visiting this modern, but very traditional country.

Come on in!

We've been moved in to our apartment in the Kinser towers for about 2 months now. I didn't picture myself living on base in the towers for our 3 years here, but I think we've done a pretty good job making the best out of our situation. I would love to have you all over for a big house warming party, but since most of our friends and family won't ever make it half way around the world to come visit us while we're in Okinawa I thought I'd invite you in by giving a little video tour of our place.

For those of you who are on your way here, you can get an idea of what to expect tower housing to be like and you can see the numerous pieces of government furniture we are borrowing during our time here. Because of the weight restriction we couldn't bring a lot of our furniture, but we did bring our couches and our bed.

I still have a lot I'd like to do with the apartment, but so far we're pretty cozy and it is starting to feel more like home every day.

So that's where the view is hiding

As I mentioned before, the view from our apartment may not be much...
But, the views from the roof are! I hope you enjoy these sunset pictures as we say goodbye to the weekend.

Up and Running

Hurray, I'm back. Internet and cable guy just left and as much as I love my iPhone, I missed the computer. And, I have to say, I actually missed blogging.

Ok, so to pick up where I left off, and to spare you the details of the horrid housing office, we were forced to choose between two exactly the same tower units in different buildings. The only differences were that one apartment didn't have carpet (which I liked), but wasn't in the building with my buddies, and the other apartment was the opposite. I begged, cajoled and said please as many times as I could, but nothing helped our situation, we were not going to be offered any other options. As this situation just happened to two of my friends, I expected this, however experiencing it was totally different. There is a system and that system cannot be deviated from, modified, or changed. Period. There is a complete lack of any type of care or compassion, who cares if that is where you will live for 3 years? Well, to make a long story short, we were forced to make a decision, so we picked the apartment in the building with our friends. So, on Thursday the loaner government furniture was delivered, we got the key and moved our things out of the Westpac hotel (yaaaaay) and went to our new home. Our first dinner in our new home, Subway, fancy schmancy.


We got some good luck however, in that our shipments had arrived on the island a week earlier. Both our shipments were delivered the next day, on Friday and it was like Christmas to see all my things again. The Japanese movers were super efficient, brought in all the boxes, unpacked and put the furniture together in 2 hours. We worked for the rest of the day and into the night to get the piles of stuff the movers unpacked into mounds on the floors and surfaces put away and somewhat organized. I have to say, the storage in this tower apartment rocks. I have tons of closets, cabinets and places to put stuff. They may be ugly, but I'm glad we have them. That night we celebrated with some Asti bubbly (my contribution) and the most incredible Dove chocolate ice cream (Boots' contribution). It was a very exhausted and quiet celebration, but it was such a sweet moment, I'll never forget it. I'll also never forget how amazing it felt to get into our bed that night. I never realized how amazing our bed was until we were without it for so long.

The rest of the weekend was spent running around getting things we needed for the apartment. Exciting things like trash cans and light bulbs. We had planned on going to the beach on Sunday, but when we got up it was so strangely overcast and almost misty, foggy looking. It was like smog. Well, it was sand from the China sand storm! Crazy! The past couple of days have been very thick and yucky, but thankfully today it looks to finally be clearing up.

We also did our first full grocery shopping trip for our full kitchen and nice big fridge. After cooking on a foreman and hot plate for months, I am thrilled to have a kitchen again. Boots and I love to cook together and we make really healthy, good for you meals most days of the week. I need to to some research on where to find organics.

In the states I had no problem going about my weird eating. I say "weird eating" because, well, I love food, but prefer for it to be organic, fresh and good for me. I know that meat isn't bad for me, but for personal reasons that I would never impose on anyone else (Boots is a full on carnivore) I do not eat beef, pork (or any mammal for that matter), duck, and try not to eat fish more than 2ce a month, so that leaves organic chicken, eggs, and milk. I was a vegetarian for a long time, and am thinking that if I can't find organic animal products I will soon be one again. Of course I eat food like gummy bears, Subway and ridiculously fattening ice cream from time to time (as I mentioned above), but generally I try to make smart food choices. It takes a long time for food to get here from the states, I get why it is harder to provide options here, but I hate to neglect my better judgement and potentially my health due to the lack of options. I'll just have to get off base and go hunting, for veggies of course. I mentioned to my friend on my way to spin class the other day that I love traveling, but hate the travel weight gain and over all crappy feeling from eating whatever and being all too sedentary. I've enjoyed getting back to working out and going for my runs.

Well, I went off on a tangent didn't I. Anyway, back to apartment stuff. On Monday I went to Eagle Hardware on base, handed over my signed form from the housing office and picked out paint. I have never seriously painted before. Sure, I "helped" my college room mate paint for about 5 minutes when we moved in, and sure I watched my parents paint plenty of times, so I went into it feeling a little foggy, but really how hard could it be right?! Well, Boots had 24 hour duty, again, and I was left to my own devices. I painted with determination, but wasn't liking how it was turning out. So, I googled "how to paint a room" on my trusty iPhone and thisoldhousecom brought up a very easy to follow tutorial, and even had pictures. I made some very beneficial modifications to my painting and continued on with more confidence. I painted for 7 hours, put 2 coats on the living room and one coat on the entry way and dining room. Yes, it was a lot of green. The color we picked out was sage green. For some reason on the walls it looks very Tiffany blue. I like it! I was nervous Boots wouldn't like it, but phew, he likes it too. I'm sure it's the worst paint job ever but I'm proud of it. He helped me put on the 2nd coat last night and touch up some spots I messed up. We took off the tape and there it was, our first ever completed home project!

So, we're unpacked, painted and pretty much settled. I have some more painting to do in the other rooms (eventually) and we still have the TV and pictures to hang, so we're not done yet. Stay tuned for pictures soon.

Do you know any good places to food shop on the island? How do you like to make a place feel like home?