Paging Dr. House...

I wish Dr House was a real doctor that I could take my husband to. He's not doing so well again. He's been hurting so much that we ended up going down to Yokota after church this afternoon to go to the Urgent care clinic. Zama doesn't have any real emergency care, so if we went there they would have sent us to a Japanese hospital and I didn't feel like dealing with that. So we made the hour and a half drive down to the Air Force base to see what they could do. Yeah, that was a waste of a trip. Yeah they got us in quick, but that was about all they did quick. They really didn't do anything for him. The dr looked at his medical record, said we can't give you any narcotics (because his dr down in Okinawa said not to), so here's some "liquid ibuprofen" and follow up with your dr at Zama tomorrow. Umm, yeah, thanks for nothing! They didn't do anything that helped with the pain, let alone try to figure out why he's having pain. I can't even begin to tell you how frustrating it is. He's been hurting for the past 6, almost 7, months and we still don't know why. And we can't find a dr who will do anything about it. I think our choices right now are to go back down to Okinawa, and have the dr there cut him open and see if he can find anything. And also start really looking into getting a medical reassignment and heading back to the states where he can see actual drs. Preferably at Madigan (Ft Lewis Washington) or Tripler (in Hawaii). I don't know how easy that's going to be though. But it would be so nice to take him to a civilian dr where they might actually do something to try and figure out what's causing the pain other than just trying to treat the symptoms. I'm so tired of seeing my man hurt as much as he does. :(

Holiday Cooking

Christmas here was pretty quiet for us. Just us and the dogs. We had invited some friends over to share a big dinner with us, but no one showed up. I can't say I was totally disappointed (although I was a little) just because both Ben and I haven't been feeling the greatest lately. But we still made a big feast for the two of us. Ben made the turkey, and I'm glad he did. He is so amazing in the kitchen.

Isn't it beautiful?! It was delicious! We bought a 26 lb turkey since we were expecting to share it with 5 other people. Needless to say we'll be eating turkey leftovers for the next month. ;)

I also tried my hand at pie making. I think this was the first fruit pie I've made, and I have to say I'm pretty proud of myself.

It's a Cherry-Berry Peach Pie. Made with cherries, peaches and blueberries, and I made it all by myself- crust and all! Ok so I used a pie crust cookie cutter type thing to make the snowflake on the top, but I think it turned out pretty nice. And it tastes pretty yummy too! :)

Photo Shoot

Here's a few of my favorite pics that we had taken.

4 years later and still so in love!

Gotta love the Idaho Sunsets. They were beautiful that afternoon!

Thanks again Holly! They turned out better than I could have hoped for. To see all of our pics, I've got them posted on Facebook or you can check them out on Holly's website. Just email me and I'll send you the website and password. :)

Vacation

After living in Japan for over a year and a half, we finally made it back home to Boise for a visit. It was a much needed vacation for both of us. We decided to take the military Space-A flight from the air base here in Japan to Seattle to save us a couple thousand dollars. I'm not totally convinced it was worth it though. They have two flights that fly from Japan to Seattle, one on Tuesday and one on Saturday. We told everyone we would be home on the Saturday flight, but thought it would be fun to sneak home a few days early on the Tuesday flight. Well, that didn't work out so well. We were planning on leaving Japan on the 17th, but the plane broke down and they cancelled the flight. Since we didn't know for sure when the plane would be leaving, we decided to get a hotel room there at the air base instead of driving all the way back to Zama (I know, a whole hour and a half away). So we stayed there, calling at least a couple times a day, until they finally got a plane to take us back on Friday. Still a day earlier than people were expecting us. Looking back though, staying in the hotel wasn't all that bad. While there I was less than thrilled just because I was ready to be home, but it was nice to have some alone time with Ben. We left the dogs with some friends, so we didn't have to worry about them. Didn't have to worry about work calling. It was just us. Anyway, Friday came and we got ready to go. Got all checked in, then sat around in the air terminal all afternoon and a good part of the evening. We did luck out when it came time to get our seats. We got first class seats. Lots of leg room, reclining seats, the works. It was the most comfortable flight I have ever been on. We did have a layover at Misawa in Northern Japan. It was only supposed to be 2 hours but ended up being 4. I guess they were having issues getting the plane fueled up. But we finally got back on the plane, and it wasn't long before both Ben and I were passed out. We ended up sleeping most of the trip, which made it more pleasant. We got to Seattle about 4 Friday afternoon (yeah we gained a day coming back). The airline gave everyone an apology letter and a $50 Visa gift card for all the problems that the broken plane caused. That made us feel a little better. We got through customs, got our bags, and went to find a flight to Boise. We got up to the ticket counter, and we found that we had lost Ben's ID card. So we're searching everywhere for his card, while rushing around getting tickets for our next flight which leaves in less than an hour. We went to Lost and Found, made a couple phone calls, and found we had left it at the customs counter. They get someone to bring it up to our gate while we go through security and get ready to board. We get to the gate, get his card, and have just long enough for me to pull out my computer and tell my brother to be at the airport to pick us up in about an hour. We fly into Boise, and I can not tell you how happy we were to be home. We met my brother at the gate, got our bags and headed out to the car. It kinda freaked me out a bit as we pulled out of the airport. It really felt like we were driving on the wrong side of the road. It's a good thing my brother was driving. We had to make one stop before we went to the house. We had to stop at Qdoba and get dinner. They have the biggest and best burritos there. So good! We got them to go, headed home, and just as we were getting out of the car my mom pulled up, coming home from work. I don't know who was more happy to see who. We went in, visited for a little bit, ate dinner, watched some football, then went to Wal-Mart. Yes, our first night home we went to Wal-Mart. I miss that store! Saturday was our anniversary. 4 years! We went to IHOP for breakfast, went and saw New Moon at the theater, and did some shopping. Ben got a new pair of Oakley sunglasses and I got a new ring with my birthstone in it. That night we went with my family to a friend's house for a "Wild Game Party". Every year they have a party where the guests bring whatever game they may have hunted that year. Nothing too exotic this year. Lots of deer and elk. It was good though. Sunday we went to church with my parents. Had the whole family there. Pretty much took up the whole bench. :) It was nice to visit with those friends that we haven't seen in a couple years. We went and saw the grandparents after dinner. It was nice to visit with them too. We didn't do much the next few days. For Thanksgiving, we got together with my mom's family. They were all there, all 40+ of them. It was good though. Turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, my aunt's rolls, pies, oh so good! It was great! We spent the rest of the evening/night playing board games. We decided not to stay up late or get up early for the Black Friday Sales. We went out later in the afternoon and hit up Old Navy and a couple other places. Still got everything we wanted, with not much of a crowd, so it all worked out. The next week wasn't super eventful. We did go to the temple with my parents and my dad's parents. That was a really special time, for me at least. Again, that sweet peaceful feeling was there. I love it! We had planned on going down to Idaho Falls to visit Ben's family, but decided not to. Ben wasn't feeling well and didn't know if we could make it that long in the car. So his older sister, Savannah and her husband Charles and their boys, came up to Boise to visit us instead. We had dutch oven chicken and potatoes and made a some peach cobblers. Dominic, our oldest nephew, really wanted to help so I let him help me make the cake batter for the cobbler. After that, both Dominic and Eli (the younger one) got a kick out of playing with the dishes in the kitchen sink. It was pretty cute. Eli cuddled up on the couch with Ben after that to watch some tv before bed. They are such cute boys. I can't believe how much they've grown since we've been gone. We had a good visit though. Not really long enough, but Charles had to get back for work. We sent all the Christmas presents with them so we didn't have to worry about shipping them. We had brought one suitcase full of only presents home, so we really didn't have to ship any, which was nice. :) Let's see, what else did we do while home... Lots of shopping. It was so great to be able to go out and actually have some where to go and stuff to buy. I had a shopping afternoon with my mom and sister. Ok, so we only went to Craft Warehouse, but we spent a couple hours there. That's such a cool store! We also went out to Caldwell to visit with our friends, the Miller's, from Ft. Irwin. It was so good to see them again. Holly did a photo shoot for us (I'll post some of those pics in another post), and they turned out great. I'm so happy with them. We stayed and had dinner with them, played with the kids, and talked and visited for a while. The kids were super excited to use the chopsticks we sent them for Christmas last year. They were pretty proud of themselves when they could pick their dinner up with them. It was pretty funny. They are such cute kids though. Such a great family. I can't wait until we get out of the military and move back to Idaho and we can get together more often. There was also an afternoon when I went with a couple of my brothers to Downtown Boise to take some pictures. One of them had to take some photos for his photography class at school so I went with him. I got a few cool pictures of my own. It was nice and cold by the time we got done, so naturally we had to stop at Moxie Java and get some hot chocolate on the way home. :) We had a kinda white Christmas while we were home. We celebrated early with my family before we left. It was so nice to see snow again. We actually got quite a bit while we were there. We were afraid we might not have been able to fly back up to Seattle when we were supposed to because of the snow. Our flight did leave on time though and we made it back up to Seattle to try and catch our flight back to Japan. We made it on the flight, which was not nearly as comfortable as our flight over. The plane wasn't as nice and no where near as comfortable. We had a 4 hour layover in Fairbanks, and a 1 1/2 hour layover in Misawa. It was a long trip! From the time we left my parent's house to the time we got to our house, it had been 32 hours. Waaaay to long for my liking! I wasn't entirely ready to leave the states. I was ready to get back home to the dogs and our own bed, but I didn't want to come back to Japan. I'm ready to be back in the states. We've got about a year left here in Japan. Hopefully it goes somewhat fast. It was so nice being back home for the 3 weeks we were there though. Oh, I almost forgot... I got contacts while we were home too. I'm loving not having to wear my glasses. Still tend to have some issues taking them out, but over all they've been wonderful. I debated for quite a while if I was going to get them, finally decided to do it, and really couldn't be happier about it. :)

The Good, The Bad, and The... Ummmm... Yeah...

We'll start with the not so happy news... Our chameleon, The Bandit, died over the weekend. One thing we didn't know when we got her was that the females tend to have more health problems, and she was no exception. One of the big problems was that she lost sight in both her eyes, she didn't eat much, and just wasn't doing all that great. So we were expecting her to go, and she lasted a lot longer than we thought she would, but it's still sad. It does solve the problem of what we would do with her when we go home for a few weeks, and the problem we would have had when it came time to move again, but it's still sad. We'll get another one someday, because they are really cool animals, but it won't be until we're out of the military and done moving around (whenever that will be...).

Now for a little more positive news... we bought a keyboard the other night! Someday we'll get a real piano (again when we're out of the military and done moving around), but this works for now. Ben has been wanting to learn to play, and it's been a while since I've played, so we bought a keyboard. It's pretty cool. It's got the lessons built into it for the songs that are pre-programmed. Ben can already play the melody line of "Silent Night." He is a quick learner. We're still working on the reading the music part of it, but it's a work in progress. I'm pretty impressed with him, and I know he's proud of himself. But he's such an awesome guy who can do pretty much anything and everything anyway, it shouldn't be much of a surprise. :)

Now for those of you who are patiently awaiting "the news"... this isn't it. No, I'm not pregnant yet. We're still trying. I've been taking the fertility med Clomid the past couple months and it hasn't helped yet. I'll start round 3 of it tomorrow. It's really kind of frustrating that it hasn't happened yet. Before Ben came home, I really felt that it would happen shortly after. But here it is 3, almost 4, months later and it still hasn't happened. I know it will happen when the time's right, but when it's something you want so bad and you have the constant reminder all around you that it's something you can't have, well it can be a little depressing. If it's any indication how ready we are, we've already got the nursery set up. Maybe we're crazy for doing it so early, but we had some extra money from Ben's deployment and just happened to find a crib/dresser/changing table set that we loved for $250 (I'll post pics one of these days). And we also used my Deployed Spouses Discount at the Px (before I couldn't use it anymore) to get a car seat and stroller that I loved, along with a few other things. So we've got all our big purchases taken care of. Now if I could just get pregnant...

Sweet Peaceful Feeling

Have you ever noticed that when you are trying your hardest to be your best, that's when Satan is working extra hard to make you fail? I sure felt that way tonight. The first Friday of every month is our scheduled Branch Temple Trip, and Ben and I made the effort to go. It wasn't without some hassle and trouble though. We had to get new temple recommends as our old ones were expired, so we were scheduled to meet with a member of the District Presidency before the session. With our District (Stake) being so spread out (literally from one end of Japan to the other), meeting with a member of the District Presidency isn't always the easiest to arrange. But we had it set up to meet at the temple and just do the interviews there. The plan was to take the bus down that leaves from Zama that they have set up just for us. Well, that didn't happen. Ben had let his command know Monday that he needed to be off early Friday so he could be back in time. They said it shouldn't be a problem, but wouldn't know for sure until Friday. Well, that never sounds good. And guess what, it wasn't. His commander didn't let him leave until about 445, we were supposed to get on the bus at 500, and it's a good 30-45 minute drive from where he works to the house. So I ran down to where they were meeting, let the Elder's Quorum President know we wouldn't be on the bus, but we'd take the train and get there as soon as we could. I ran back home and got everything ready so that as soon as Ben got home all he had to do was change and we were out the door. He got home about 510/515 and we were out the door by 530, but then we had to walk down to the train station which is a good 10 minute walk. We missed the train we needed to be on so we had to adjust our route a little bit. We got there without much trouble though. We were supposed to have our interviews at 645. We didn't get to the temple until about 710/715, and the session started at 730. So we kinda rushed through the interviews, and hurried to change. Somehow we made it there on time. And let's just say, it was what I needed. I've needed to go for a while now, and just being there in that special place with the one I love, I really couldn't have asked for more. Ok I could have asked for a little more time to just sit there and soak it all in, but we were taking the bus back so we couldn't sit there all night. It was such a sweet peaceful feeling though. To sit there in the Celestial Room with Ben, not having all the noise and stress of the outside world pounding on us. It's really an indescribable feeling. The temple is such a blessing though. We are so lucky to live so close (only about an hour away) and we're going to make it a point to go more often. Our next trip will be when we go home for Thanksgiving and I can't wait. What a great feeling! I'm loving this Spiritual High right now. :)

November Already?!?!

I realized I hadn't updated my blog for like a month so I guess it's time to play "Month-In-Review". Nothing really happened. There ya go! :) Just kidding, sorta. We really didn't have anything happen. We had the "typhoon" (aka wind and rain) at the beginning of the month. Ben had most of the month off to recover from his shoulder surgery. He just went back to work last week. The first time he's really had to go to work since coming home 3 months ago. It's been great having him around. Even being sick and hurt. He is slowly getting better though. His shoulder is doing alright. He's ahead of schedule for where is range of motion should be, which is good. He starts the strength training part of physical therapy this week, but I think we're gonna take it a kinda slow just to make sure he doesn't re injure it in the process. We're happy to report that he hasn't had any kidney stones in the past month. He's on like 5 different pills for it, but they are working so he's not complaining too much. He still has the pain in his side, but we still don't have any answers there yet. It was getting better for a while, probably because he was all drugged up for his shoulder, but it's starting to not do so well again. Hopefully we figure it out one of these days. Anyway, he's back to work and doing alright. As soon as he got back they made him the Training Room NCO. Meaning he's in charge of that particular area. He gets to make all the schedules, and I don't know what else. But stuff is getting done because that's what happens when he's in charge. :) He has to attend a class in Hawaii in January. Oh darn! We're gonna try and find someone to watch the dogs and I'll get on a military flight and meet him there. We're excited for that trip! As for me, I haven't been up to much. I've worked a few days here and there, but not really a whole lot. Not nearly as much as I was last spring. It's been alright though. Since Ben was home, it wasn't like I was sitting here doing nothing. Then I got my new calling in Primary which I think I mentioned before. We had the Primary Program last week (I got to sit with the Sunbeams), and then yesterday I officially started my job. I'm the new primary chorister. I think it'll be great, but I really have no idea what I'm doing right now. Yeah, I can get up there and wave my arm around, but I'm at a loss when it comes to planning which songs to do, how to teach them, etc. Then I get mixed messages as to what I'm supposed to do. The Primary President says to just do what I want, but her counselor (who has been around longer) says/thinks we should be working on these certain songs. So I'm kinda confused. We're having a Presidency meeting tomorrow (because I guess I'm kinda the Secretary by default too) so hopefully I'll have a better idea as to what I'm supposed to be doing. But if anyone out there has any tips or advice I'm more than open to them. :) What else happened this month... Oh, we got a new washer and dryer. New to us anyway. The heating element on the dryer went out and the washer was making the clothes stink. I'm not sure what was causing the washer to do that. Some bad connections that got moldy maybe? But regardless we have a new washer and dryer and it's so much easier to do laundry when I can get it all done in one day because it doesn't take 3+ hours to get a small load of clothes dry. So that was pretty much our month. We didn't really do anything for Halloween. We "carved pumpkins". Kinda. Japanese pumpkins just aren't the same as American ones. They aren't as slimy and the inside is just different so you try to carve it and it kinda just falls apart. :( I miss going to the pumpkin patch and getting humongous pumpkins with my family. Oh well. I did hand out candy to the few trick or treaters we had, all 20 we had. So it wasn't a very exciting night. Much like the rest of the month- not very exciting. November will be better though. We'll be home for Thanksgiving. I'm counting down the days! I can't wait! We'll be home soon!