19 Months & More!

Caden had his 18 month check up a little late since we were in the states for a few weeks. He weighed in at 29 pounds and 33.5 inches tall! Needless to say he is on the higher end of the spectrum! Haha! He received two shots and won't need anymore until he is four. 

Although his birthday is a good four months away, I have already started planning! We are looking forward to a bigger party this year since we are no longer island newbies and know a lot more people. 

My niece Kaisley just turned two! I can hardly believe it. It feels like just yesterday mom and I were frantically driving back to Tallahassee to a make it in time for her arrival. She is such a smart, spunky little thing. She has such a great personality and I cannot wait to see her again. 

Speaking of seeing her again........we will be flying to the states the end of October for my great friends wedding! I am honored to be one of her bridesmaids and can't wait to be by her side on her big day! Josh should be coming on this trip, and I am working on coordinating seeing his family too if they can make the trip down to Orlando. 

We still haven't had any visitors to the island. It is hard to believe we have almost been here a year. Hoping to get some guests next year. Hint hint!

Josh is continuing to excel in his career and just won Airman of the Quarter for the Wing. In other words the whole Base! He rocks!

I won a free photo shoot for Caden, here are a few of my favorites by www.genkimphotography.org

A New Year!

                            

We had a pretty great end to 2013. Caden and I traveled to the US the end of November. We traveled to South Carolina for a huge family reunion for my Grandmas 90th Birthday and Thanksgiving and then back to Tallahassee for two weeks. We had a great visit and saw lots of family and friends. It was so fun to see all the kids play together since they are all walking! While there we found out that both of my brother's families are expecting baby #2! We already know one is a boy due in June and the other is still not known but due in late July. Also, two of my friends are expecting in July! The first for one and the second for the other! The summer of 2014 is going to be a big baby boom!

After a rocky trip back to Japan, including an overnight delay in Tokyo! we were happy to be reunited with Josh. After a week of jet lag and colds it was time for Christmas! We went to a Christmas Eve candle light church service on a nearby Army base. We had a great Christmas morning with just the three of us opening gifts and just being together. Later we went to a friends house and enjoyed a Christmas spread with some of our Oki friends. We all have 1 year olds, so they keep each other, and us, entertained! 

New Year's Eve we had dinner with friends and then headed home. Josh and I stayed up and watched fireworks from our balcony from a nearby hotel. New Year's Day we went to Kokusai Street downtown in Naha. We spent the day checking out the interesting things Okinawa has to offer! 

2014 is already of to a great start! Josh received Airman of the Quarter for his group, winner out of five squadrons, and was given two awards! I am so proud of all that he has accomplished since April! This past weekend my best friend got engaged! So happy for her! Always a bridesmaid is now THE BRIDE!!! Her fiancé is awesome, so what it took a while...just waiting for the perfect match to come along!! Josh and I are now talking about making the trip back to the states for the wedding later this year. 

We are in early stages of potty training! We are soooo ready to be done with diapers, but we are letting Caden go at his own pace! He will get it when he's ready. He does like to sit on the potty and is identifying with the words poop and pee. He's had a few haircuts now and looks more like a little boy and less like a baby! Wah! I can't believe I am 5 months from having a 2 year old!

Josh and I have been wanting to expand our family for a while now, but we aren't having any luck. It's a bummer but as of right now we still aren't planning on fertility treatments. My annoyance right now is with people comments such as, Emily better get busy and oh now Emily needs to have a baby etc just because both of my brothers are. Shut up people!! 

I'm joining a dragon boat team here and start practice in Febraury. I am super excited although it's a very tough schedule! Looking forward to getting some great arms from rowing! Our big race will be May 5th!

I am hoping to get more regular with my blogging and finish getting my house decorated! Those are just two of my goals for the year (I have a bunch!)

Tantrums, Typhoons & Travel

Wow! Long time no blog! The past few months have been a whirl wind. Maybe that is why i am down to my lowest weight in years AND completed my first 5k! Caden is now 16 months old! I am now realizing I don't think I even did his 1 year post. I will have to go back and add one. Our toddler boy is one big pile of energy. He is all boy! I never quite understood this phrase until I had one of my own. His runs not walks, he gets into everything, loves to climb and explore, loves the ocean and making messes. He has a mouth full of teeth and when he was weighed at the doctor last week he was 25 pounds. Since it wasn't a well visit they didn't check his height. His next well visit is at 18 months, so we will see how much our big boy has grown at that time. The toddler tantrums have officially begun. They are not constant and are mostly centered around taking our electronics from him. We are working on correcting this behavior though. Other than the sporadic tantrums he is a spectacular kid. He is hilarious and loves to laugh at us and himself. This week we discovered his love for pb&j, and he started saying the dreaded 'N' word.....NO! It's so funny because he doesn't say no to things we say to him. Usually he will say it when he goes to do something we have already said no to. He's a trip!

This weekend we had Typhoon Fitow get close to our tiny island. We were in TCCOR1c which means we were not supposed to leave our residence. There was a lot of wind and rain, but no overall damage, power loss or flooding in our area. Today we finally got lowered to Storm Watch and went outside for a long walk, a drive to check a friends house and some outside time on the balcony. The fresh air did wonders for our mild case of cabin fever. We are now on standby for another one, Typhoon Danas. This one is going to be bigger and passing by as a category 3. We are currently in TCCOR2, so we will wait and see what happens. If we get to TCCOR1 I believe Josh will not be going in to work. Yay!

At the end of September my amazing Grandma turned 90! Such a great milestone! Next month, November 25th to be exact, Caden and I will be boarding a plane and making a long journey back to the states to celebrate. We are having a HUGE family reunion. Almost everyone on my moms side of the family will be attending. Aunts, Uncles, Cousins, Spouses and Great Grands! I am so super excited to see everyone. My dads parents will also be heading to Tallahassee at some point to visit while we are there. We will be coming back to Okinawa December 15th. Hopefully we can squeeze seeing everyone into 3 weeks. Looking forward to seeing family, friends and past co workers! Yippee!! Nervous about the travel since Josh is unable to attend, but I think I can I think I can!!

The weather here is still hot, but I am getting into the fall spirit anyway! I love this time of year and have my fall candle burning. 

10 Months!

I am soooo blog slacking. It's been a whirlwind since we arrived in Okinawa. Somehow in all the craziness surrounding the moved I skipped Caden's 9 month pics. Here are his 10 months even though I took them one day before he turns 11 months. He's weighing about 22 pounds which hasn't changed in a while. He has mastered crawling and is all over the place. He is so fast and follows us everywhere saying "mama!". He's pulling up on everything he sees including me! He still isn't walking, but he will stand by himself and get his balance. He is also furniture surfing and wall walking! He is doing way better with table food and I don't think he has found a food he doesn't like. He talks all the time and is saying bye bye, ball, mama, dada and a whole bunch of other gibberish. I am sooooo thankful to be able to stay at home with him now. He was at a really great daycare in the states, but now I get him allllll the time. It took Caden a while to adjust to the time changes. He is getting better, but since we are still in a hotel and his too is the living room, he wakes up around 6:30 or so...on Saturday since nobody disturbed him, he slept until 8:00! Woohoo! I think once he gets his own room again he will sleep longer. He somehow picked up a cold in the past day and I am hoping it will pass soon on its own without having to make a trip to the doctor.

Okinawa!

So we arrived in Okinawa around 8:30 Friday night. It was quite a long three days of travel. All of our 8 bags made it as well as our three carry ons, stroller and carseat. Our sponsor KP picked us up and took us to the temporary living facility. We got there around 10:00 pm. The TLF is great! It's a one bedroom with a full kitchen and living room. KP and his wife were so nice to stock it with some sandwich stuff, fruit and waters. There is a nice big comfy bed with a down comforter. There are two flat screen TVs. We will stay here probably about 21 or so days until we find housing. We can extend that if we need to. KP is going to take us to the BX/Commissary today so that we can get phones and some groceries. With the phone plan it's looking like we probably won't be able to text (unless I find an app) or it will cost us a lot per a text. They also said incoming calls would be free. So maybe check with your phone plans about international calls. We will get you the numbers as soon as we get them. 

The weather is pretty nice so far. It was really windy today and probably about 70 degrees. We haven't gone off base yet. We all went down for nap around 4:00 pm and slept hard. We all woke up at 1:00 am and have been wide awake since then. 

I got really busy and forgot to do Caden's 9 month pictures and update. Oops! I'll post some pics of him. He got a slow start with eating table food. By now he's getting pretty good at it. I will do a 10 month update this week. We have had tons of new developments!

8 Months!

Caden is on the go! He loves scooting around and has found a love for his books. He has one of his top teeth coming in and is getting over a cold so he's been a little crabby. He got a rash all over his body that really freaked me out. I took him to the doc and of course they said it was just from a virus and as long as it wasn't bothering him that I just needed to let it run its course. A whooooooole week later it's finally going away! Yay! He still has no interest in crawling and is just sticking to scooting. He loves to stand up and is doing a really good job at trying to pull himself up. I am thinking he's going to go straight to walking. We shall see!

And in other news.....I don't think that I announced that we've been stationed in Japan!!! We will be assigned to Kadena Air Base in Okinawa, Japan. We are so incredibly excited and a little nervous. We've been hard at work preparing for this huge move! My last day at work will be April 12th. So thrilled to be a stay at home mommy!!!

Kaisley's 1st Birthday!

We all had tons of fun celebrating Kaisley's 1st Birthday! Here are a few shots from the party...