Temporary Memory Loss

My hunny is home!! Yay! But, ok, lets all take a minute to make fun of him shall we? On Monday he flew home to Futenma and couldn't find his car. Luckily, I was already planning on leaving work early since my lesson canceled and was on my way home when he called and said he didn't know where his car was. He couldn't remember where he parked it and it wasn't at the squadron. I said oh, maybe the MP's towed it since it was sitting so long... who knows. I told him I'd come pick him up. After our reunion I said we should stop by and talk to the cops to see if they knew where the car was. Even though Brad really wanted to just go home, I reminded him how with both of our jobs, being a one car family is not going to work, even temporarily. So, in he goes to talk to the police. They have no idea where his car is, it's not impounded. So, we think, oh crap, the car was stolen. So, all night we are perplexed by the car situation, wondering if theft is covered by our insurance and wondering if Brad's car was off somewhere with a dead body in the back. We go to sleep and at somewhere between 4 and 5am Brad sits up in bed and says "I know where my car is! It's at Kadena." Dumb dumb! When he left he flew out of Kadena instead of the normal place at Futenma. I was so relieved to know what happened and so glad we didn't have to deal with the car issue. My husband blames his temporary memory loss to exhaustion, poor thing. Sometimes I forget where I've parked my car and have to make an effort to make sure I make note of where I leave it, but basically he can never make fun of me ever again. Silly husband!

St. Paddy's and Progress

Wishing you lots of Irish luck today and always!

I grew up very aware and very proud of my strong Irish roots and I like St. Paddy's Day because it reminds me of my heritage, family and memories of making leprechaun boxes with my sister and my mom's Irish soda bread, and corn beef and cabbage. Holidays are synonymous with traditions in my family. My parents always made them special. Now that I'm away from them I cling to these memories and think of how I will continue them with Boots.

Today I am also remembering my little cousin Connor who died in a car accident on Saint Patrick's Day. He was 11 years old. My heart still aches for him. My thoughts and prayers go to my family today, to my aunt and uncle who lost their only child. Connor was the baby of the family, a sweet boy and we will always miss him.

Connor must have been smiling down on us today because we've had some real Irish luck of our own. We have finalized our housing arrangements and will be moving in on Friday. Good bye hotels! And to top it off, both of our shipments are already here and will be delivered on Friday. I am so happy about that!

Boots had a monumental event happen yesterday. He had his first flight with his first squadron! I can only imagine what it must have felt like to have that feeling of ultimate achievement. All he's ever wanted since he was 2 years old was to be a pilot and he is done it. I am so happy for him and incredibly proud!

We are now the proud owners of two Okinawa cars:

We got the little green one today, very appropriate for St. Patty's. It is a 97 Nissan March, it is very little! The other one is small too, it's a really old Rav4. Cars on the island tend to be older, although you can find a huge range of options. The streets can be very narrow and speed limits are much slower than in the states, so some people choose to drive small cars with less power than a US car. Here, they have a JCI that you have to renew every two years, as well as a road tax every year. We were told to look for cars with AC (because I hear is gets insanely hot here) and cars with JCI's that don't expire for at least a year. We bought both of the cars from people on the island PCSing soon and it was really easy to get the title and registration transferred and the insurance set up. If you come here and are looking for a car there are plenty of car dealerships, but most people look on the lemon lots on base and online at OkinawaYardSales and JapanUpdate.