Finding a home

Let's face it, sometimes moving can have it's stressful moments. It's inevitable. And given the fact that we just picked up and moved around the globe, I'm fairly impressed at how well we have managed. [especially with our little trouble maker!] There have been a few tiny kinks that we've had to iron out along the way, but nothing big--thank goodness! With that said, today we hit probably our most frustrating point in all of this. (which still may not seem huge but since everything has gone so well up till now, it's really all we've had to be frustrated about. haha) So bare with me here.

Since moving out of our home a few days into August, we have been so anxious to settle back down. We've done so much research on homes here and looked at floorplan after floorplan just trying to get an idea of what we will call home for the next 3 years. Now that we know how it really all works, nothing could have really prepared us, but it made us feel better at the time so no harm done. The way it's SUPPOSED to work is: you arrive, go to a briefing, tell them how many are in your family, pets, where you work, etc. Then you wait for the phone call. The phone call where they offer you two homes. Once they extend an offer you go by their office and pick up the keys to view said homes. You look at the homes and have till 330pm that day to tell them which one you want. Then you make an appointment for another briefing where they go over rules, expectations, etc., then 3 days later, you move in.

Now, this is how it actually happened: (we arrived on a Friday night so we had to wait till Monday to go into the housing office.)

Day 3 on the island, tired and not adjusted to the time change we venture in to our initial housing briefing ready to get the process started. Logan was a TERROR. I'm talking blood curling screams and fits like you see from kids at WalMart. I was mortified by his behavior. I couldn't even sit in the briefing. I took Logan to the waiting area where he continued to be a terror, but at least I could spank him and take him outside. One of the poor fellas who witnessed his many fits came out and asked if we were ok. My response was, "other than wanting to overdose on birth control right now, I'm good." He laughed, not knowing if I was serious or not, and went back inside.

Day 4 and 5 we heard nothing. Heard other people getting phone calls that attended the briefing AFTER we did, but we contained our jealousy and said, 'our turn will come.'

Day 6: In the middle of getting the car situated and in our name, Jon's phone rang! YAY! IT WAS THE CALL! They didn't have housing on the base we requested so they had 3 offers for us instead of 2. One offer was in Plaza housing (a duplex type home situation), and the other 2 were towers; one on a ground floor and one on the 3rd floor in the adjacent tower. At the end of the phone call she said, "oh but you can't come get the keys till Monday." UGGGGHHH. Like dangling a lollipop in front of a kid and then pulling it away saying, "you can have it after dinner...in 4 days." So we buck up and wait.

Present day, 9/16/13--we arrive at the housing office about as soon as they unlocked the doors, at which time they informed us that the towers were unavailable for viewing until Wednesday but that we had to make our decision today by 3:30pm. Ummmm..."so we can't see them? not even another empty one to get an idea of the home?" Their response, "No." So we opted to drive to the duplex home and see what that had in store. It was a decent little home. It drives me crazy when all the people on HGTVs House Hunters only view the negatives, so I will say it did have it's positives. It was in a cul-de-sac, had great storage and a beautiful sliding wall to get to the back. But it had a huge yard which we are responsible for, and nothing on base but other homes. No gas station, no child care, no shops at all--and again, pretty far from work for Jon and hopefully soon, for myself as well. Due to the location issue, we felt that even without seeing the towers, at least we know people on the base where the towers are and they had things to do on base. For instance: right outside the tower doors is a huge playground. Most nights we go to the playground to let Logan burn that last bit of energy before bed. He loves it, we love sleeping all night; win win scenario. It's also down the street from a huge soccer field and track, and the daycare we are putting Logan in is literally around the corner from the towers. Oh, and there's a PizzaHut down the street too. Mommy Win right there. So now the decision between a ground floor or the 3rd floor in the other tower.

Ground Floor: can flood during typhoons, has more bugs, is on the trash floor so kinda stinks. Also, this particular tower has not been renovated yet compared to the other so we opted for the 3rd floor unit. Taking a leap of faith here and trusting it's for the best! On Monday (next Monday) we will meet for our one on one briefing and then Wednesday the government furniture will be delivered until ours arrives. Thursday we will get the keys and can officially start settling down in our home!

Like I said, may not seem like that big of a deal but we were really hoping to get to see all our home options to feel like it's actually happening and to have an image in our head to look forward to. After a month+ of being homeless, we really wanted to SEE what could be our new home. But I will end on a great note and say that even without seeing it, we know it was the right choice and are so excited for next week!

In other news we are asking you say a prayer for me tomorrow night before you go to bed. I have a job interview on Tuesday afternoon here (Monday night on your side of the pond) and I need my nerves to be calmed and for confidence in myself.

I know this was a long post but finding a home was huge for us! I will post pics as soon as I'm able to take some!!!! Thank you all for keeping up with us! We love you!

A few pics!

 

 

Talk about breath taking!

 

 

 

 

The American Village

 

 

 This is our current view in our TLF room

Day 1

As I write this post, I am sitting at the kitchen table with Logan having a mid-night snack. He did SO well yesterday while we were out exploring the island and then waiting in line to set up cell phones...so when we got back to the hotel around 2:30pm it was time for a nap. I put him down and decided to lay down next to him to make sure he stayed in bed. Well, we both fell asleep. BAD IDEA. Jon came in around 6pm and said we needed to get up, to which Logan and I looked at him like he was crazy and then rolled over on our stomachs. It's now 2am here and Logan and I just woke up from our nap. FAIL. So he and I are sitting at the kitchen table eating a small snack while Jon snoozes away.

 

The island here is beautiful! It's so hard to even express. We didn't stop and get out to explore, really just drove around and soaked it all in. Pure amazing. They have an American Village here with shops and places to eat specifically geared for Americans. Huge ferris wheel in the middle of the whole village, it's truly a sight to see. I did manage to snap a few pics but haven't uploaded them quite yet.

 

We did manage to get our cell phones set up yesterday...boy that was interesting. They only have 2 carriers out here, both of which had shops at our BX on base. So we scoped out both shops. One had a plan where we could call home after a certain time unlimited...but then we were charged about 50cents a minute to call anyone over here. They don't have cell phone minutes here! So crazy to me. So we ended up going with the other carrier where jon and I get free calls to each other and to other people with the same carrier. As well as unlimited internet and texting to each other and others on our network. We don't get free calls home on our plan, but there are apps we are finding and of course, facetime and our magicjack. Our magicjack we sent in our shipment which we can get once we get housing...so once we get that set up we can make more calls. We can also receive texts for free on our phones and I think she said we can imessage other people internationally for free...but jon didn't remember her saying that so i'm not 100% there. otherwise its about 4cents a text. and if we call other people like Jon's work or something it's about 25cents a minute. So basically these cells are for us to be able to communicate between each other.

 

We do have a car that we purchased, it's a Toyota Will Cypha and it's oh so cute. But we can't drive it yet because we don't have our license! We will get that after Monday when we start our briefings on the island and stuff. Driving on the opposite side of everything is super hard to get used to. I think i'll be ok except when it comes to turning into places. And I guess they have a 3 car rule after the light turns red--that 3 cars are allowed to still go. Kinda neat but kinda dangerous. I think i'd rather stop haha. Anyway, I think that's about all I can think of and process right now. :) Can't wait to see what today brings and what all we discover! I am really wanting to dive in and try some local places to eat but Sunday is a down day for the locals here so not much is open. (from my understanding, anyway.) Love you all!

We Made It!!!!

Last night at about 725pm OUR time (525am Abilene time and 425am NM time), we stepped out of the airplane onto Okinawa land! Words can not express how elated we were to finally be here.

After arriving at the Seattle airport at 3am, we waited around for our actual flight 5.5hours later. That flight ended up being a bit over 12 hours. ROUGH STUFF. Time dragged. Logan was awake for the first 5 or so hours of it, and he didn't do bad during that. No real meltdowns that couldn't be calmed with a drink or food. Then we got him to fall asleep for a couple hours. Now, in our minds this was gunna be a 10 hour flight. Then, we had our watch set to Abilene time, not Seattle time, so when we were counting how many hours we had completed, we were adding 2 extra hours. So little Logan is napping, we're exchanging high five's thinking we only have 2 hours left, then 2 hours later we were quite devastated to find out that not only was the flight longer than anticipated, but we didn't do our math right...so 4 more hours! AHHHHH. The last couple hours on that flight were hard. Logan was a grump, didn't wanna sit (who can blame him.) Thankfully we were all seated together and there were about 5 families around us with boys the same age as Logan who did the exact same thing, so instead of grumpy looks from onlookers, we got smiles cuz they were just glad it wasn't their kid. haha.

 

At each stop we made we HAD to de-plane and sit in a holding area till the plane was ready again. Logan ran around at the first one to burn some of that energy, then he crashed on the next flights. It was kinda nice. Won't lie.

 

Once we landed we went through customs and waited for our bags for what felt like forever! Then an announcer said "McAtee" through a microphone to call for our sponsor in the crowds, and we were greeted with nothing but love and welcoming smiles! Such awesome people. Let me brag a moment...

 

They loaded all of our bags for us, gave us their cell phones, took us to our hotel which not only did they arrange, but they had stocked full of food and drinks for us, and they brought every one of our bags up the stairs to our room for us. Today we plan on going to look for cell phones and picking up mail, and our sponsor's wife is graciously taking us around to do all that. I really don't have pics right now, it all was such a whirlwind and we were so exhausted last night that we didn't get any. But the weather is humid, but beautiful!

Once we got to our hotel (home for the next month or so), I was able to make us a quick dinner thanks to our Captain and sponsors, and we showered and crashed! It was good timing because it was night time and we were all so tired. Logan slept all night except for waking once...he flopped around and talked for about 30min, then crashed again and woke around 7am! So we are hoping that will help us adjust to the time!

Anyway, I'll get pictures up later! Sending our love to everyone from JAPAN!!!!!!