Ketchup

<-(sunrise view from our balcony.)
Hello all. I know it's been a while since my last post but there's not a whole lot to report...

We bought Rockband 2 for the Wii and have been enjoying that. Andrew plays the drums, I sing and Helayna "plays" the guitar. We've been trying once again to potty train Helayna without success. She just isn't interested in the potty and when I put her in regular underwear she just pees them and continues playing-she couldn't care less. She's actually grown hostile toward the potty so we've decided to just let it go for a month and try again. Silas has mastered crawling backwards but hasn't quite caught on to crawling forwards. He can also do baby push ups! Andrew managed to capture it on video:

We're still enjoying our apartment but the weather has been rainy and cold most days the last couple of weeks so we haven't gotten out much. Friday night I babysat for our friends Della and Mario Vargas and kept their 2 year old boy, Dominic, while they went out. Saturday Andrew's shop had a football game and cookout at the recreation center right across from our apartment. Silas didn't like being out in the cold so we went shopping at the NEX while Helayna stayed with Andrew and played with his shipmate's 11 month old son, Gabe. 

Sunday night, Mario and Della returned the favor by keeping Helayna and Silas while Andrew and I went out. We went bowling with some guys from his shop for about an hour, but I got bored with it after I kept guttering my ball. We went to this little restaurant called Pepper Lunch in Yokosuka where they serve your food raw on a very hot plate and you cook it yourself. Then we went to the Honch to sing kareoke and just enjoyed having a night to ourselves without the kids.

We stayed up late on Tuesday to watch the inaugeration of President Obama, which took place at 12AM our time with his speech starting at around 2AM. We were very tired but still had Della, Mario and Dominic over for dinner last night. Andrew made spaggeti, meatballs and garlic bread all from scratch. Saturday we are all planning to go to the Buddhist Temple that I've wanted to visit since I got here, and go out to dinner afterward. Hopefully the weather will be nicer than it has been the last few days and I can get some good pictures.

Currently we are waiting for Andrew's Eval. which will determine a lot concerning the path of his career and whether or not he will re-enlist in 2011. He should get it in the next month or so and we are hoping for EARLY PROMOTE! 

We still haven't gotten our address. Andrew has to go to the post office and Housing I think and they won't let him leave work to do it. We're going to try to get it done this weekend or next if possible. 

I guess that's about all the news I have. Will update in a couple weeks. Feel free to call or email us any time! Peace.

Settling In

First of all I apologize for the delayed blog. We finally got our internet set up on the 26th but it was all messed up and kept dying every 5 minutes so every time I tried to make a blog post it would die on me and I'd have to start over again.

I'm sure most people reading this know by now that we moved into our apartment. It's a 3 bedroom highrise "Fugi Heights" is the name of our building. We love it! It's pretty spacious, has a beautiful view of the ocean from a balcony in the dining room and a big stainless steel kitchen, where Andrew has been spending a lot of his     time. I bought him a cookbook for Christmas and he has taken up cooking as his new hobby! On Christmas Eve he cooked roast duck and made fresh "beer bread" from scratch! Tonight for my birthday he is making me fresh home-made pasta and Italian bread. :)

As far as furniture so far we have bought our living room set, a wrap around couch with a recliner, and entertainment center and our dining room set. We still have to get our beds delivered and then Housing will come and pick up the loaner furniture we've been using. 

Anyway our Christmas was okay. We celebrated here a few days early because Andrew thought he had duty on Christmas Eve but it turned out that he didn't. We spent Christmas day in Negishi with Andrew's shipmate Mike Hood, his wife Casey and their newborn girl Paiten. They also have a dog and 2 cats so Helayna had a blast. Other than that we have just been really busy getting things for the house. We were lucky enough to get an apartment right across from the commissary and NEX. Every day we realize that we need something we don't have so we go for a NEX run. 

Andrew is planning to take a week of leave toward the end of the month and I am hoping we will get to do a little more sightseeing. If I haven't mentioned it already, the weather here is gorgeous. We haven't needed anything more than a light jacket since we got here. 

Also we now have a phone number. It's 7cents a minute for us to call the States and free if you call us. If anyone wants our phone number feel free to email me and I will give it to you!

Anyway I hope everyone had a good Christmas and a Happy New Year celebration! Peace.