Kat's gymnastic team

Watch "Typhoon twisters gymnastic pass" on YouTube

house tour

so.. finally, here's a tour of the house.  I kept wanting to wait until everything is finished, and clean and put away.... It's never going to all happen on a day when i remember to video it!!! (if EVER!)
it's not very nice out today, but you can still see the view. 
  The house was BRAND new when we moved in, so that was for sure a bonus (one of the places we looked at had smokers living there, MANY japanese smoke, so that smell would probably never go away).
  I love the parking here, plenty of it.  Our next door neighbors are nice, 2 boys ages 10 (ju) & 15 (ju go)  I need to get curtains, i love we have a yard. I love our bike ride to the beach, and there are stores close.  I just wish the drive to base (Kadena) wasn't so long. And davids drive to work is even longer, probably 45 min.  Although i just found out about another short cut!  ANd it would be nice to have some more american neighbors.  our closest friends aren't far though, about 1/2 mile.

hope you are all doing well!!!

Kats birthday party

I'll have to have katerina add more, but she had a blast at her party. We had 11 girls sleep over, eat, play, watch movies and sleep.  Sort of. I made all these cute flower peanut butter and jly sandwiches, creame cheese and cucumber sandwhices, tiny fruit kabobs, bagel pizza bites, mini corn dogs, chicken wings, and it was all devoured before I could get a picture.
  I made Oreo cupcakes and the girls all loved that too.  They watched Madagascar 3 on the projector, balloon volleyball, then watched princess bride (or as one girl called it "that weird book movie"). Then mary Poppins.. by then I think it was 2am... and at 4 I was mean mommy telling them to sleep!
   David had to leave for Hawaii the next morning... but I continued to make 6 dozen mini muffins oranges baNanas apples and even brought out some peanut butter and Graham crackers.  Those girls ate!
   Then later that day was when we went to the beach down the street with our friends. It was a perfect beach day.  Ended with a glass of wine and bree for dinner.

Todays adventures.

So kids had a duel sleepover with the hyla kids... turns out the dads went to tbs together and they were also at the ball where david asked me to marry him. Small marine corps. Well they also got married summer of 98 and busy having kids at the same time we did... turns out it worked out great, Blake and nolan are 7th graders and katerina and Genny are both 5th graders and.. awesome gymnasts!
  So they had lunch over here.. saw this crazy huge spider here.. HUGE. And then we went to the zanpa light house. Walked around and got ice cream from the ice cream BUS. Yes.. they turned an old bus into an ice cream and hamburger stand. I was unadventurous and got chocolate. But they had sugar cane and salt cookie too.
  Then we went to this cool park close to here. They had some super slides. Two that were made out of stone that were super fast, and a long roller slide. Then. Little cave areas and the water went into there. It was very pretty area.
  David is still in the phillipeans, but will be home on kats birthday on Thursday. Yeah... it has been different here with out him, but glad I made some other temp single mom friends.
  Need to get to sleep soon. For the 4am wake up to watch football tomorrow. The sacrifices... tty all soon!

sleep over by nolan

Today i had a sleep over with my new friend named Blake. When we were at his house he should me his tablet. then we went on his tab and he showed me his mincraft worlds and they were awesome. Then we asked if i could sleep over and they asked if we want to sleep there or here we said here. We CAME HERE AND WE STARTED PLAYING MINECARAFT. oops caps lol o well.
 ANYWAYS. We were playing on my survival world and then i died. Well that was obese that was going to happen.  So once we died we started playing creative. at first we just played with tnt and made a giant crater then we had the idea to kill the ender dragon. I did finally by now its like 4 in the morning but I'm not tired and then the ending credits go and I passed out.

Super typhoon Jelawat... #3

So I guess they don't usually come as regularly as payday weekend... but they are! David introduced the kids to raiders of the lost ark... and stayed up late. Me and the kids r up now because we couldn't sleep through this storm. Nolan's screen kept slamming from one side of the window to the other.  And the bathroom vent things slam open and close. We lost power , but only for about ten min.
  I didn't get the boxes in yesterday so the video shows what happened there. Also forgot the garbage cans.... still have some garbage they haven't taken since we moved in.   That is a whole post in its own.  
  So its a day inside.. making biscuits and gravy for breakfast... maybe we can hang some pictures today!  Probably more games.,...  and the next Indiana jones movies..





so that was before the storm,... REALLY came.  The winds switched, we lost power for 58 hours, and those boxes made a horrible mess!

rocktober fest by nolan

Yesterday we went to Rocktober Fest with my my Friend Brandon.
They had a lot of things there. At first we only got 20 dollars and we got a burger for dinner then we bought some ice cream, then we got a funnel cake and then we wet back to our moms and begged for more money to go in to the horror house. It cost 500 yen a person and the parents gave us the money .  We went in and it was scary.  At first it was like OK that's creepy and then it just got scarier
there was a picture of the Mona Lisa.  I it was going to do something but i didn't no what, so I walked past it and it slid down.  The picture had a zombie behind it  jumped out and scared me so much.  Then later we saw two of my friends. we all went to see the burnouts. a burnout is were u have a car and it spins its back wheel and the car burns rubber.  There was smoke every were. It was awesome.

Roctober Fest by Katerina

I went to Roctober Fest a few days ago.  It was awesome! I wish you guys could have been there. I got to go to a haunted house it was so scarey.  I got ice cream, pizza, and a funnle cake.  then we went to a carneval part.  I got two giant hamers and nolan got a GAINT base ball bat! I got so much more stuff too. It was at Tory beach. The best part was playing the carnival games.

Philippines

Ill start this off by apologizing for the typos and grammer errors as this is off my tab....and i dont know how to spell.    Why the tab you may ask.  Well as the title states, I find myself in the Philippines this morning on the island of Palaawan It is beautiful country here, a volcanic island painted a rich deep green of tropical jungle.  It could be compared to Thailand, Hawaii or a a sister island owhere piggy, ralph and the of boys of lord of the flies fame spent their days..n The people thus far have been friendly, but the constant dangers of the insurgency are ever presentwith police everywhere.  Only use the ATM with the armed guard next to it and prepare for a TSA style patdown if you enter the mall.  All this in a town with almost no crime.
The highlight thus far has been the delicious fare we enjoyed last night dining oat a seaside resturant located ojn the water at the end of a pier.  A varity of fresh seafood fromMarlin Tuna and prawns were ordered and shared at kour table of ten.  The geckos kept away the mosquites, the waiters kept our glasses full of San Miguel and  even though ourguide shook his head as we ordered seafood which he assured us was not caught this afternoon due to an offshore storm, we dined in bliss.
Jeepnees are off limits as a mode of transportation but the trikes are not.  Somewhere in the history of this islan 100,000 155cc motorbikes were delivered here and have since beenoutfitted with frames and seats as well an an extra wheel ans serve as taxies for the entire population..  the rules of the road are simple...there are no rules and the number of lanes is not determined by some meangingless line, but rather the practical logic that the witdh of the road divided by the width of the vehicle plus 1 inch equals the number of lanes.  Life canbe so simple sometimes especially when there are no street lights

ESurprise!

So I went to this little produce store and bought all this for $13.50.  Pretty decent for some things and I love papaya, although it was 250 yen... almost $3. But.... when I cut it open... it was seedless! Pretty happy little bonus there. So that's my lunch along with the iced coffee... and now... getting g ready for ANOTHER TYPHOON. I really wish they'd just hit on Monday... that way we could just watch football all day long.. so. Need to clean up outside... bring my plants in... bikes in the storage shed.. all that stuff.  Ttys!

see whats under the sea

On Friday we found a NAKED hermit crab! It wasn't gross. We had to find it a home. So we found a bunch of beautiful shells. :( He didn't take any, so daddy just put a giant shell on him. We waited, found a few more shells took off the shell and hoped that he had just crawled in to it, he didn't. Then the moment came when he would crawl in to a shell, it wasn't a shell we gave him.  It was a tiny shell that he could barely fit his butt in to! But he gave up on that shell (thank good-ness!) Then we were looking for a shell that he first tried to get in to. Next mamma threw a shell that was just as bad as the first one he crawled into, and actually went in it! It was one of the shells are coned, but it was broken around the edges. He stayed in that shell until Nolan tried to give him a different one but he got scared and ran out of the one he was in. Finally, after the horrible things that this stupid hermit crab did, we found him a super nice sand cone shell. He took it as his new home.
On Sunday, when I was at the Kadena Marina, me and Nolan were swimming out to an island that was not that far out. We were about to come in and i thought to myself that I swam faster underwater. Right as I went down, I saw what looked like a good sized sea urchin. I was about to just swim over it, but then I realized that it was really a LIONFISH! I knew that Nolan hadn't seen one yet, so I stayed right over it and called him over. He took the goggles and looked down. When he bobbed his head up, he said that he didn't see it. So I put on my goggles and he got his friends, and I pointed to the lionfish. He went down to see a better look at it, and was amazed when he came back up. When we got home, I looked in the fish book, to see if I could find the lionfish that I saw. I'm still checking on the one page of lionfish.

baseball

Today I had a double header and I played left and right field. In the first game I sat out until the third inning then I came into right. There was one ball hit to me and it came at me fast. I was thinking about throwing it to first but then I saw the guy running to home and I gunned it to the catcher. It one hoped him and the runner was out by a mile.  I didn't really do anything else that game. The next game I got pulled into the game in the third again but this time I went into left. The first pitch that I was in the game I got a ball hit to me and I threw it to the cut off and he got another guy out at the plate.  A couple batters later I got a ball hit to me again and I threw it to the cut off
again and he got another runner out but this time at second. Overall today my highlights were in the field where I got three assists and two were at home.  We will talk about the hitting some other time.
Love Nolan

 

beef Jerky Production

So, the beef jerky production, is at its all time high lately.  We have gotten a new toaster oven (as well as a new TV, microwave, computer andphones) with a rotisserie and dehydrator.  Now we can make all the jerky we want. YEAH!!!  :) The beef jerky that we have made so far is sooo delicious. But Nolan thinks we marinated it too long.  We recommend 30 minutes of marinating in shoyu ( tahrs soy sauce for you non-japanese speakers) and chicago steak seasoning....about 3 tsp.  Stop on by for a sample, or order your own batch today!  Nolan had to cut all the steak into pieces, and he said he almost threw up touching the raw meat.  But he has no problem eating it now!

NOLAN

Hi guys it's Nolan. It's the third week in Oki. and I already have tons of friends.  I still miss all my frends in CA. though.  I'm on a base league for baseball. I'm the starting pitcher and I've done ok. My pitching is right on the money but my hitting hasn't really come alive yet. We just got hit by another typhoon. Sadly, we're alredy in tcore1-r (recovery) , so most likely were not going  to miss school. Thats ok though because, I get to see my friends. :0 :)
          love Nolan

I'm off the grid

When I tryed to get on to my email I signed in like I was 9. I had to be 13 to do it, so now I'm kicked off my email.  :( I got a new carpet, it's so cozy you should feel it. Go on I know you want to. :) I'm stuck  inside on a weekend because of the typhoon.  But I'm not scared.  I've been in one of the worst typhoons in 13 years a few weeks ago.  The typhoon's not even going to interfere with school. :(   Oh well not much you can do about it.        


LOVE KATERINA

                                                                                                 

Typhoon Sanba is here TC-1E!!!

Well another weekend and another typhoon!  So instead of snorkeling or going on a bike ridde around our new house, we're stuck inside unpacking all our stuff.  It's goign pretty good so far.  We basically have the entire downstairs unpacked and set-up with a new computer and some other little purchases.  And of course we finally have our internet back.  That's really good news for all of you because Kat and Nolan will now be weekly contributers.  Since they don't have to do journal entries at their new schools, wedecided to torture them by making them write a blog entry every week....trust me I'm as excited to see this as you are.
  Everthing else is just moving along fine.  Nolan is playing baseball on the base team.  Most of the kids havent played more than a couple years and some ar in their fist year playing so through two games Nolan has pitched 7 innings striking out 17 while allowing a couple earned runs....and a few unearned.  On Monday he starts with a legit baseball team (M-W-F practice from 1600-1830; 1-2 games per weekend, 90 ft bases, lead-offs etc). 
 Kat's gymnasics has stalled a little  Still no gym that will give here the 14 hrs a week she is used to.  But I think she is going to start swim team which is good beacause she is bouncing off the wall with way too much energy most days.  This weekend she had a cheer camp lock-in/sleep over.  She came back home the next morning with braided hair, painted fingeernails and a bag o sugar candy from a race she won.  I'm sre she is also a little tone def in the 15kHz  and higher range.

  Oh yeah and Emily's tennis tournament was canceled.

Hhg shipment comes today!

Yeah... I'm waiting right now for the movers to arrive with the rest of our stuff. Then... it'll feel like we can start to get settled. Still no internet or tv,   but hopefully soon. The house is very white and echoey so I'm excited about the new rugs david bought and putting g up some curtains. And the wine opened and can opener. It is amazing what u can do with a hammer and a screwdriver.  We bought a new toaster oven and it has a rotisserie function. And I made a "Costco" chi ken last night that everyone loved. Plus roasted a garlic bulb. Omg did kat and Nolan go nuts. Which also hopefully helps w the mosquitos. We didn't get bit at all on base but not so lucky here. We r trying b1 and the garlic. We have a  2nd loaner car now which is awesome til davids 2002 Celia is ready. Hopefully next week. OK. Gonna try and get  things straightened up before they come.  

Kadena steps

About to snorkle....

The first shipment is in

We got the keys to the house yesterday and were able to schedule to first of three of our deliveries of furniture and our stuff.  Today we got our express shipment which was awesome because it had all of our ski stuff which will come in handy in the 90+ deg heat.  We actually got a lot of good stuff too including our snorkeling stuff, bikes, some kitchen basics, and of course the PS 3 and the projector.  Tomorrow we are getting our loaner furniture.  That has also been a major headache.  For those of you that don't know, we were only able to bring a quarter of our normal weight allowance when we moved out here which means things like couches, dressers and entertainment centers did not make the trip. And to compensate us for not allowing us to bring everything, the military gives us loaner furniture for the 3 years we are here.  It's decent stuff, the problem is that when I went to sign up to get the furniture delivered I was told they were out of couches and recliner chairs.  And apparently their solution was for us to sit on the floor until some new ones came in.  So after several actions that I'm sure would get me fired by the likes of Amy and her HR rules once I get a real job ( I threatend to take the couch from the government furniture office), we are supposed to get both a sofa and chairs tomorrow....if you hear about me on the news tomorrow you will know how it went.  On to the good news, Nolan is gearing up for 4 games in the next week with his baseball team, and Kat has her first gymnastics practice on Fri, then again on Sat.  The coach there seems pretty good and because of the limited time they have in the gym tends to spend spend most of the time on skills relying on the girls to do strength and stretching on their own.  But she said a lot of the girls will meet together at the gym on off days and run, stretch and workout together when the gymnastics equipment isn't available. 
Well we'll post some more pics of the house, baseball, and the gym over the next few days. Not sure what the weekend has in store.  Probably more adventures in the ocean, and dining experiences.  h yeah one last thing.  Today me and Emily went out to eat at this little place near our new house...well somehow we totally jacked up the order (well it's probably because we know no Japanese) and ended up with enough food to feed the whole family plus G-ma G-Pa and the Rumbin clan (minus Tyler and Colin).  Yep here come the fat stuff your face Americans.

David got the keys to the house

after an extremely lengthy process, plus having to get $9000 cash out of one bank and then exchanging it for \6800, david returned to the rental agency to sign our lease.  tomorrow our express baggage, those 1000 lbs we last saw june 28 will be delivered. and then on Friday our government rental furniture will be delivered. hopefully with a sofa. the gov. housing office said they were out. great. i guess they want us to sit on the floor. but well be in our own rooms and not living in the small apartment anymore so im sure we will all be happier! we will have our bikes and im sure a ride around our new town is in order.
  the rest of our stuff is due to arrive around sept 20. pictures to follow

More Snorkeling

So after what both Kat and Nolan described as the worst day of their lives yesterday (more on that later), we decided to go snorkeling again today with our rented gear to a place called Maeda Point, or Maeda steps.  Its a combo snorkeling diving area where you walk down steps basically right to the water.  Then if you go to the left it drops off to about 100 ft and to the right more like 30 ft.  It was really crowded, but the ocean is pretty big so it was fine as long as you don't mind seeing other people while you snorkel.  There was a whole lot more to see than yesterday at Torii beach and even though the visibility was awesome , it has been better.  The water was warm and we got a ton more pics of the cool fish, coral, snakes and urchins...yes Nolan made an urchin snowman and freaked out this lady with his Steve Irwin like skills in grabbing all sorts of see creatures.  The highlight was probably the sea snake or the tide pools, while Kat got the award for the grossest move of the day by grabbing a sea slug and putting her finger into its mouth....well we hope it was the intake and not the exhaust end of it as none of us are Nudibranchologists.  So anyway after the worst day ever yesterday, where we got poured rain on at the beach, they ran out of snorkeling stuff for us to rent, Nolan stepped on urchins and coral tearing up his feet, Kat got poked by an urchin on the hand and I had to extract the spine, I smashed Nolans finger in the trunk, Kat sprained her finger playing floaty ball...I'll post all about that game another time, our "new" car got a flat tire, my fantasy draft got all fouled up, and we missed Gabby's (Nolan's friend that is a girl, not is girlfriend ;)  ) party, today was much better.  We even went out to lunch at this good little Japanese restaurant (maybe its just called a restaurant here) for a not so traditional labor day lunch (sashime ahi, miso soup, rice, shrimp tempura, and green tea anyone?).   And then capped the day by picking up Gabby and her friend and heading to the pool for a bit.  Back to school for the kids tomorrow while I put off working for another day for the labor day 96.  I think I've worked about 10 hours since 24 Jun...your tax dollars at work!

We miss all of you and totally look forward to the next skype.  Come and visit us soon we've got a TON of awesome things to go do, great food to eat, and someone has to come and help us unpack our house (we'll save you some boxes)!

car situation

bump bump ba buuuuump....

didn't make it to Gabby's house, we got a flat tire with our new car (1999 Nissan Preasage).  took awhile to get wd-40 to get the lugnuts off the car to get the spare on.  but everyone helped.

Torii Station Beach Day

Made our way down to Torii Station this morning after pigging out at a Yakiniku restaurant last night.  Torii has a nice beach with  stuff to rent, a huge water slide, grill, pavalions etc.  We rented some snorkeling stuff and David and Kat came back with some pics which I seriously thought they had downloaded from the initial camera settings or something.  Especially when they came back with about 50 pics of Clown fish,  schools of Blue Damsels and a Lion fish.  But the bite mark on Davids ankle from a triggerfish was too real to ignore.  So we all went back out to so that me and Nolan could check it out.  Of course it was low tide by then and super hard to find deep enough water to snorkel and then the skys opened up on us and we got a tropical rain shower that soaked us and drove us back to shore where we called it a day.  Heading out to a BBQ at one of Nolan's friends from school (YES she's a girl of course).  No big plans for tomorrow.  Probably more snorkeling and beach hangout, and maybe a BBQ on the beach.  

house hunting

augh-... well, we tried and tried, but could not get base housing on kadena. we were showed a small outdated 4 plex on mctureous, but that base did not have very many amenities. so we decided if we have to live out in town, lets live near the beaches. as of right now we have an offer in on a brand new beautiful 3 bedroom 2.5 bath home with an incredible view of the ocean. we r about 2 miles to the beach and a small base. but that base hase a gym tennis courts, dive shop, pool, 2ater slide, and lots of recreational activities. plus, one of the best beaches. now we have to hope no one has put in a better offer. its in yomitan area on the west coast, about 15 min from kadena gate.

school starts

with the typhoon, school started a day late, but no complaint
from the kids. nolan starts early, 715, but ends at 155. that has given him sometime to hang out after school. h3s able to take Spanish 1 and algebra 1 and will get hs credit! his favorite class right now is video production. I'm looking forward to some interesting movies from him. katerina, the lucky duck, starts at 845, so she's sleeping in til 8. she's making some friends and likes that she has art class. she also has Spanish, Japanese culture, music and pe. she's had some fun, all about me homework　this week.

Typhoon Bolevan

Typoon Bolevan recovery

post typhoon Bolevan

First week in Okinawa