love the rain

Even though it has rained almost every day since we've been here, I'm still loving it. Maybe it's because we lived in the desert for so long where it never rained. It's great though. Everything is so green and beautiful. And the humidity has really helped my skin to not be so dry. I love it!

pre-op

we had ben's pre-op appt today which means it's almost time for his surgery. yeah!! it has been long awaited and much needed. he's pretty much in constant pain, so hopefully this will help. i know it won't help right away, but hopefully it will finally start to feel better. the good news, if you want to call it that, is he shouldn't be deploying. the dr was saying it could very well take up to atleast 6 months for his shoulder to heal, which puts him into october or november at the earliest to deploy and his unit is leaving before that. but again, that will depend on how much the dr needs to do once he gets in there. the dr is expecting to have to attach the lubrium (cartilage i think) to the bone with tacks, but he won't know for sure until he gets in there and gets a better idea of what's wrong. so if he does end up doing that it's going to be a long recovery, hence no deployment for the time being. so i guess that is the good news. chances are good that he'll still end up over there at some point, we just don't know when. i pray that it's never, but it's the army and i don't always get my way. but anyway, so his surgery is next thursday, june 5th (which will actually be wednesday afternoon in the states). i'll let ya'll know how it goes, but until then it wouldn't hurt to keep ben in your prayers. we've already talked to the branch president about having someone come over to give him a blessing before hand. i'm not too worried, and i'm sure everything will go fine. so let's all hope for the best.

butterfly

one of the things i love about japan, is all the different butterflies and bugs. ok, some of the bugs not so much, but definately the butterflies. yes i actually took this picture. this little guy loves the clovers in our front yard. we have some pretty big bumble bees that like the yard too, but i haven't gotten a really good pic of them yet. but this is one of my favorites so i thought i'd share.

i'm a pro...

it's offical! according to japanese law, i am now a professional driver. really. if you have a japanese drivers license, you are considered a professional driver. watching some of the drivers here though, i don't know that you would call them "professionals." the roads here are rather scary. not only is everything backwards from the states, a lot of the roads are narrow and two lanes when they really should be one. i haven't actually driven yet, but just riding in a car can be an adventure in and of itself. the roads here on post aren't bad. they are about the same as back in the states. but you go outside the gates into town and you gotta be careful. we got caught on one of those really tight roads a couple weekends ago while we were out walking. yeah, scary stuff. anyway, so i got my license yesterday, which really wasn't that hard. i had to go sit in a class for a couple hours and take a written test. i only missed 1 out of 45. it was one of the road signs. if ya see the road signs here, you'd understand. they have so many different ones it's crazy. and even though some look like ones back in the states, doesn't mean they mean the same thing. but it's all good. i got my license and can drive now if i'm ever feeling brave. now to just find a car...

our house!

so here's some pictures of our house. keep in mind most of them were taken before everything was moved in. once i have everything unpacked and put away i'll talke some more. it's great having our own house again. and it's so big! we have 3 bedrooms and 2 1/2 baths just for me, ben and the dogs. we turned/are turning one of the extra bedrooms into an office. the other one, i'm not sure yet. proabably a guest room/future nursery. (no i'm not pregnant. not yet anyway.) it's nice having so much room though. our kitchen is huge with lots of counter and storage space. i LOVE having so much counter space. our house at ft. irwin had hardly any. and the sink is huge! it makes it so easy to wash the pots and pans and not get as wet. we have a seperate laundry room which is nice. has a door and everything. again, not like irwin where the washer and dryer hook ups were in the kitchen. we have tons of closet space too. especially in the master bedroom. holy cow! i've never had a closet that big! i love it though. the master bedroom is a little smaller that what we had at irwin, but we also have the huge closet and bathroom, so it's ok. it's a great house though. there is a family in our branch just a couple houses down. and there are a few others in the same area. it's nice actually being on post, and not out in the housing area. yeah the bigger commissary is out there, but it's not hard to find a ride. and if i really needed to i could walk. so life is good here. we're almost all the way unpacked. not much more i need to do. it is sooo much easier to unpack than to pack, that's for sure. speaking of which, i should probably try to get a little bit done today....

earthquake

i can offically say i've experienced an earthquake now. it wasn't a huge one, but we did feel it. it happened about 145 this morning. and honestly, i'm not sure if the shaking woke me up or if ben did. i was pretty out of it last night. ben was like "do you feel that? it's an earthquake." and still mostly asleep i replied "hmmmm." it didn't do any damage. just kinda rattled things a bit. it made the dogs tweak out. doesn't take much for them to do that though. i haven't felt any aftershocks or anything today, so i don't think we were that close to the epicenter. i guess this is atleast the second one to happen since we've been here. there was another one in the middle of the night the second week we were here that we just slept through. we had someone tell us about it the next day. so it wasn't the first and i'm sure it won't be the last. we'll just hope and pray we don't have any really major ones.

surgery

so as i mentioned in the last one, ben had to get another mri done. he was able to get that done friday at a hospital in tokyo. he came home sore because of all the dye and fluid they injected into the joint. but they got it done, put it on a disc and sent him home. we looked at it when he got back. kinda cool if i do say so myself. then he called the dr. and got an appt set up for today (tuesday). so we took the shuttle down to yokota, spent the morning hangin' out there, and then went to his appt. the dr. looked at the mri and guess what, his rotator cuff really is torn. he didn't entirely believe us last time. but apparently there is some other damage in there too. i guess the cartilage up there isn't looking that great either, which is probably more of the reason why he's in so much pain. so they scheduled the surgery for june 5th. we'll go back may 28th for the pre op appt and then the next week for the surgery. it will be nice to finally have this taken care of. considering he's been hurting since last october, it's about time that someone finally did something to fix it. i'm not sure what i'll do with him home all the time after that though. he'll have 30-60 days of leave afterwards. so we'll have to see how it plays out in regards to his deploying. we'll have to see how he's feeling when they start training to go. so that's what's new around here. we're getting settled into our house. i'll try to post pics in the next couple of days. we've still got a few more things to unpack. we're getting there though. it's nice though. we're loving it. it's great having all our stuff again, even if it is still in boxes. =)