New home

We got it!





House hunting

House hunting has been a top priority for us. We're excited to move out of the Lodge and also to see more of the city. The process to get a house off base is pretty neat. First, you visit the housing office and go look at a board of homes that are available.

For rent, we get a certain amount in Nathan's pay each month and if we are under that amount we don't get to keep the extra if there is any. So, we were looking for the nicest homes at our price ceiling. You can select 2 at a time to go see. We were there trying to pick the 2 best ones when an employee came over and said they were posting new homes in a few minutes. Then she pulled me aside and showed me a house that looked better than any that were already listed. She said it was in a very good neighborhood. So, we waited until they were officially posted and chose that house and another one to go see. The housing office called the realtors and set up appointments that same afternoon.

Here is the first house we went to see.

It is pretty nice. 1800 sq ft with 5 bedrooms and 2.5 tatami rooms. It is a good mix of the Japanese and American style. The tatami rooms and rice paper on the windows are really nice, but it's also very spacious - which we weren't expecting.

Here is the dining table with the half tatami area. The kitchen is in through the window by the table.

Here is one of the tatami rooms.

Here is the entry way.

Here is one of the upstairs bedrooms. This room has a loft in it. (Nathan approved the posting of this picture, even though I caught him off guard. Thanks, Honey!)

The house itself is pretty great, but the neighborhood just pushed us wanting this house over the top. The streets are very quiet and part brick which makes them really attractive. The realtor told us there are lots of kids and also a shopping center in the neighborhood. Right across the street is a park, which I'm sure would be put to good use if we moved in!

We love it.

Now, we're just waiting for the realtor and the housing office to negotiate the cat. We're hoping to hear tomorrow if we get it!

 

Oh, we did see the 2nd house we picked, too, but didn't take any pictures because it was clear this 1st house was the one we wanted.

Around the base

Here is the front gate to U.S. Fleet Activities Sasebo.

We have been here for 4 days now and have gotten to know the base REALLY well. Since we are staying at the Navy Lodge on base and don't have a car, it's been pretty difficult for us to do any exploring in town. The base is quite small and we walk the length of it to run various errands a few times a day. 

Here are some pictures of the views from main base. There are of course some really big ships. You can see the mountains in the background.

There are some really neat trees here. We've heard it is always green due to the mild climate.

We spend a lot of our time at the Navy Lodge due to the boys' naps and having it be our home base for now. Here is the neat park that is right in front of the Lodge. Our 2nd night here, the boys were still adjusting to the time change and I took them out there to play at 2 am. They were really confused as to why it was dark out and why I kept telling them to whisper - haha!

Here is the galley where we eat some of our meals. It is right across from the Navy Lodge.

This is a garden area outside the Lodge. They really do a good job keeping the plants nicely manicured. I saw a guy trimming the tallest green tree you see in this picture one day when I left the Lodge. When I came back 3 hours later, he was still trimming it! Not sure if he took a break or was just that dedicated. It looks good though. Also, notice the rocks have been raked. It's like a life size version of those mini stress relieving sand rakes I've seen before - very cool.

Auggie

For you Auggie fans out there, you'll be happy to know that she is doing well at Paws and Claws here on base. Above is a picture of her outdoor kennel - we only leave Wilson in there from time to time!  She had quite a lot of room in this kennel and her neighbors were 2 very large dogs, which made her look pretty cute when we came to visit.  She's since been moved to the indoor cat kennel. She purred like crazy when Nathan showed up to visit her yesterday. We are happy that she's in a good place for the few months she'll have to spend there!

Getting here

What a day! Or maybe days? We're still figuring this time thing out.

On Friday at noon, we were excited to get the news that the boys and I had our tickets booked to travel with Nathan. We woke up early Saturday morning and finished packing all of our stuff for the trip. Thanks to Amy and Kevin for watching the boys and carrying bags to help us get on our way! We ended up bringing 7 suitcases, 2 car seats, a crib, double stroller and 4 carry on bags...wow! We definitely packed with the idea that we'd be living out of these suitcases for the next few months.

Nathan went to pick up Auggie and we loaded up (and barely fit!) in a minivan to Dulles. Checking in Auggie turned out to be a major ordeal. Nathan had all paperwork neatly organized, so that helped a ton. One great development of the trip was that the price quoted to Nathan of $630 to put Auggie in cargo changed to $250 when we got there - that was nice! So we said our goodbyes to Auggie and headed for our gate. At this point we were all in great spirits with tons of energy. Please see above picture of Wilson helping out!

See you in Japan, Auggie!

Nathan's active duty military status got us on board first so we had time to settle in with all of our stuff up before everyone else boarded the full flight. We had 3 seats together in a center aisle and Nathan traded someone to get the seat in the aisle right behind us. Our flight was Dulles to Tokyo nonstop which takes about 14 hours. We were pretty upset to be delayed on the tarmac for almost 2 hours. The boys were being pretty good, but the idea of adding any time to a 14 hours flight was a little infuriating. The rest of the flight consisted of movies (Lady and the Tramp played over and over for the boys - they loved it. Every time a dog was on the screen Leo said dog which turned from really cute to not after about 5 minutes.), running up and down the aisles, screaming, sleeping (Leo not so much and Wilson taking over 2 seats to do it.), the boys flirting with the stewardesses (every time one of them walked by Wilson called her beautiful and Leo was just up most of the time so they all got to know him, ugh) airplane food, airplane bathrooms...you get the idea. It wasn't great, but it wasn't awful. One weird thing was that it was always light outside. We flew a route that took us across Alaska. It was fun watching the tracker information on the plane flying over the Bering Strait and the International Date Line.

After our long flight, we had to pick up Auggie and take her through customs to the next flight. She seemed in okay spirits, and we were happy to see they had refreshed her food and water. We had a personal attendant from United in Tokyo to help us through, but the delay of the first flight made us miss our connecting flight to Fukuoka. After some murmurs that we might have to wait until the next day to get another connecting flight, they got us on another flight leaving 2 hours later. We were relieved.

The boys exhausted during our layover in Tokyo. Yes, the mountain of baggage behind them is all ours.

The next flight was only 2 hours and we all passed out so it seemed very short. Nathan's sponsor was there to pick us up with a huge van. The drive looked beautiful, so we were sad to have to do it in the dark. We dropped off Auggie at the vet for the beginning of her 3-6 month quarantine, checked into the lodge and crashed. We're all pretty messed up with our sleep, but right now it's 8 am and we're excited to go walk around the base a little today. The Navy Lodge in Sasebo, our home for the next 45 days or whenever we find a place to live, seems nice. We have a little kitchenette, dining room and a tiny den for the boys to sleep by the front door.

Auggie is demonstrating how we all feel after the long trip out here!

Moving

Bye bye, DC!

Last week, we sent all our stuff off in trucks. Here was our moving schedule:

Tuesday - expedited shipping pick up. We sent bikes, inflatable beds and stuff we might need ahead of our main shipment.

Wilson's favorite part of moving - the trucks of course!

Wednesday - dropped off car for storage. Apparently, our Kia will be well-loved in South Carolina. They are going to drive it once a month and do oil changes and stuff for the 3 years that we're away. That was a nice surprise.

Thursday - movers packed and loaded up our stuff for the move. Not packing was so nice. They were total pros and pretty speedy about it. We're supposed to see our stuff by July 15th - yikes. Wilson thought it was hilarious when we told him it was going from a truck to a boat to get here. The boys had TONS of fun playing on and around the truck.

Wilson admiring our stuff all wrapped up. We were surprised they didn't use many boxes in favor of the wrap method.

Friday - movers came for our storage stuff. We'd gone through everything we own and tried to only take stuff we're going to need and use during our time here since we're not sure about how much space we'll have in the house we find. These movers removed what we had already packed and repacked everything with much attention to detail. I'm sure we'll be glad they did when we get our stuff back in 3 years, but it sure made our last day in the states waiting for them to finish a bit stressful!

Hooray, we're done!

Since we were clearing out our apartment, we moved in with Amy and Kevin for Thursday and Friday nights and had fun seeing the cousins play one last time. Friday, they made us a great dinner and we all stayed up late playing Catan. It was a great last night in DC!

Pajama party with the cousins. We will miss you Wally and Lottie!

Going away party

My family has been visiting DC for a few weeks to meet our new niece, Charlotte, and help us get ready for the move. While here, they surprised us by throwing a Japanese themed going away party. There were decorations complete with hanging lanterns. The food was fabulous sushi and other yummy Japanese dishes that my sister whipped up :) We also got a Sasebo novel and a few language guidebooks that I'm sure will be our most prized possession in a few weeks - thank you Aunt Judy!
We all toasted with champagne and sake and my parents gifted us their chopsticks set that they got in Okinawa about 30 years ago.

It was such a wonderful surprise and is making moving in a few weeks seem all the more real! Thank you, family, for a great party - the best part about it was the company... followed closely by whatever that fatty tuna nigiri thing was!

  I wish I had more pictures to post of the decorations, food and thoughtfulness that went into the night. I'm still getting a hang of this blogging thing, so I will make a mental note to photograph more diligently in the future!