Boat's Home!

I love fall for many different reasons! The colors on the leaves changing, the cooler weather that's brought in, and since being here in Japan, Brian coming home! Also new to this year, fall means I'm entering my 3rd trimester, only about 60 more days to go!! Brian and the GW came home last Monday, November 21, and we got to watch him fly in at the squadron. Such an exciting thing to witness, with the thwacking of the helo's from a distance, listening as they get closer, and watching with anticipation as they come in on the approach in their formation. What a great day! Only a few days later, we were able to celebrate Thanksgiving together (Brian missed last year), and were able to enjoy a 3 day weekend all to ourselves. Brian and I decided we better enjoy these last few weekends to ourselves to sleep in and relax before Baby Carnes arrives! Since coming home, Brian and I have been busy preparing for the baby. Brian built the crib, and we worked to set up and arrange the baby room. We've been making lists for whatever items we have left that we need, and starting to seriously think about packing our hospital bags (we might be jumping the gun a little bit....)

Another thing that fall brought was my baby shower! 2 of my good friends here in Japan threw is for me, and it was fabulous. It was so well put together, and so beautiful! We had a bunch of great food, some fun games, and present opening (of course). I am so thankful for all of the support from friends here!

Keep reading as the clock keeps ticking down to D-day....hopefully sometime BEFORE January 28th!

Sinagpore Again!

Just got back from a fun adventure to Singapore to meet Brian and the George Washington, again! I was lucky enough to get to go last year, so when I heard the boat was going again this year, I definitely wanted to be there. Singapore is great, people speak English, signs are in English, and there are foods from all over the world just down the street. You can experience every country within a 1 mile radius. Plus, it's always warm. Great!

We stayed at a different hotel this time, in a different area, and had a blast. We ate until we were stuffed, laid by the pool to relax, and enjoyed spending time together. I guess this was our own little "babymoon", so we wanted to take time and enjoy our last chance for it to be just the two of us, at least for another 18 or so years! Unfortunately, our trip was cut a bit short due to some humanitarian aid the GW needed to provide, but we were able to enjoy the time we had together. Hopefully, next year will bring some new adventures!

A New Addition...

Sorry it has been so long since we've managed to put up a post. Though day-to-day the cruise seems to go by slowly, looking back, time has flown since the last time we posted. Not much has changed here in the land of the Rising Sun, except for one small thing... the Remote Carnes family is expecting a little baby! A boy, in fact! We found out in May that we were expecting a new little bundle of joy on January 28, 2012. Shortly after we found out, Brian had to deploy, so I was left to deal with the "morning" sickness all by myself. Eventually, that tapered off, and things started to improve. Brian came home for about three weeks recently, and he was able to attend the ultrasound that told us that we were expecting a boy! He was very excited, both to have been able to be there, and to have a son to follow in his footsteps... Just as Brian arrived home, I started showing, so Brian was able to see that a little bit, but he's in for a big surprise the next time he comes home! I will be MUCH farther along. Brian left recently to go back out onto the George Washington for a bit, and hopefully will be visiting some fun places that I can go visit him at! Check back for more shenanigans by this family!

Earthquakes, Tsunami's, evacuations, Oh My!

Well, it has been quite a ride since we last posted in November. We were busy celebrating Brian's return from deployment, enjoying a quiet Christmas together, an exciting 6 day stint in China, Brian's birthday and an earthquake!

Brian and I spent our Christmas going to The Nutcracker on Christmas Eve, and over to a friend's house for dinner on Christmas day. It was low key, as compared to what we are used to, but it was nice. We even had our first-ever real tree! I managed to keep it alive while Brian was gone for almost 2 months! Soon after Christmas, Brian and I left to go to China for a few days. We flew into Beijing, spent 3 days there, then went to Xi'an for 2 days, and Shanghai for 2 days. It was such a great trip, we got to see the Great Wall, the Forgotten City, Tian'an Men Square, the Terra Cotta Warriors, and the Bund in Shanghai. We squeezed in as much as we possibly could, but had a great time!

Shortly after returning from China, Brian's squadron went down on a detatchment to Kadena, Okinawa for 2 weeks while I held down the fort at home. About two weeks after returning home from Kadena, Japan experienced a major 9.0 magnitude earthquake on March 11. Brian was at work, and I was at home. The shaking started about 2:45 and lasted for about 10 minutes. After frantically trying to call each other, I finally gave up and began the task of trying to catch things before they fell off the counters! Brian, on the other hand, went back to de-briefing his flight, almost like nothing happened! Things continued shaking off and on for the rest of the weekend, and ended up putting a damper on poor Brian's birthday on the 12th! Because of all that had just happened, Brian's squadron was working 24 hour days, and over the weekend, so poor B had to work on his birthday! We had also planned to have a party, but with the power outages, trains not running, and random shakings, we decided to hold off on the party, and just celebrate with the two of us. We had a good time, there were decorations, and Brian got a super yummy cake (if I do say so myself)-mint chocolate cake with mint chocolate chip icing! After a few more days of long hours and more shaking and threats of nuclear contamination, Brian found out he was deploying, so I was ordered to purchase a ticket, and get the heck outta dodge! Brian left on March 17th, and I left one day later. I arrived safely in Annapolis on the 18th, and will return to Japan (finally) tomorrow! Brian spent his time on the boat busy with relief efforts, dropping off supplies to areas the trucks couldn't reach, and doing some search and rescue, and scouting out debris and things floating around the coasts. He has been back on dry land now for about 2 weeks, so he has been busy working 6 days a week with the squadron and keeping things in order at the house. I will be interested to see what it looks like when I get home.... =)

I've spent the last month enjoying the comforts of America, while missing my things back home in Japan. I was able to meet up with pretty much all of my dad's side of the family, and having Easter with my mom's family. I was even able to spend about a week total with Anne in DC, enjoying the nations capital and all that it has to offer. It was great seeing so many family and friends that I haven't seen in over a year, but I can't wait to get back home!

We will definitely write more when we get back and settled into Japan. It's been a crazy couple of months for this branch of the Carnes Family, that's for sure!

HOME AT LAST!

Well, it's finally happened! The Man has returned home! After weeks of prep work and cleaning the house and primping, the ship finally brought Brian back. They were supposed to pull in the Friday before Halloween, but due to the typhoon that was hitting Japan, they were not allowed to put in, and we were notified last minute. Only a few of us were affected by this change, since most of the other pilots got to fly off ahead of time, so we banded together, and had ourselves a Typhoon Party! That, mixed with Halloween parties and prep kept our minds off of our returning husbands, for the most part, and the weekend flew by. In order to make sure I got a spot to park close, and a close up spot to see the guys walk off the boat, I drove down to Yokosuka the night before (Sunday) so I wouldn't have to get up so early the next morning.



4am came early the next day when I got up and prepared to go down to Pier 12 to await the arrival. I was so excited, I had butterflies in my stomach, almost as bad as my wedding day. Arriving at the pier 3 hours before the boat was supposed to pull in sounded good in my theory, but in actuality, I was 3 hours too early. Almost no one was at the pier to welcome the ship in! So, my friend and I got a front row seat to all of the festivities. It was cold, and a bit drizzly, but fortunately it wasn't raining like it had on other days the ship pulled in, so our carefully done signs and hair didn't get all messed up (thank goodness)! Finally, around 930, after the ship had pulled in, officially docked, and hooked up the walkways, it was time for the guys to escape their gray prisons. Everyone rushed forward closer to the ladders, while we were staring, eagle-eyed, looking for our husbands. Finally, out of the corner of my eye, I spied a bag that looked familiar, and upon closer inspection, I decided that it was Brian, and I threw up my "Welcome Home" sign and started shouting. I ran up to Brian as soon as he got down off the ladder and threw my arms around him. I was so excited to see him, and him me!! It was one of the best moments of my life, seeing him get off that boat, officially. Luckily, my friend was there, and her husband got off the boat at a different time, so she was able to take pictures of us, and us of them. Nice trade off.



Now we're home together, and after 2 lovely days off of relaxing and enjoying the fall weather, Brian is at the squadron again, working hard for his money. We have lots of things planned for when he's home, including our 2nd Anniversary next weekend. Exciting! We will post more when things happen!!

Is it fall yet?

After many, many months of heat and humidity here, fall is coming to Japan. The cold weather brings along many fun things as well, such as pumpkin carving, baking, holiday decorating, and probably the most important, HOMECOMING! Since I'm not in America, I have been fighting to get myself into the holiday spirit, decorating for Thanksgiving in the beginning of October, carving pumpkins 2 or 3 times already, and starting my holiday baking early. You could say I've been successful. After wrestling with some disgruntled butternut squash, I made some delicious soup with homemade Oreo cookies the other night. Who would have thought that butternut squash would be so tough?! Almost lost my hand twice in the process! Oh well, everything turned out well, and I have added both recipes to my repertoire.


I have also been busy preparing for the return of The Man. As I am going down to welcome in the boat, I had to have a sign to carry. Although, as I started to work, I realized he might get embarrassed by my first attempt at amusing, yet original sentiments, so I figured I would leave that one at home and make a newer, less embarrassing one for the boat showing. Check. Copious amounts of cleaning, organizing, purchasing and preparing of favorite foods, and finishing up last minute projects that I have been working on all summer commenced after the sign was made. Now, all that's left is to pick out the perfect outfit, and I'm ready to go! So excited to have him home with me again-I can't wait! =)

A Guest Author...

Brian wrote this recently while on detachment in Kadena, Okinawa:

Hello everybody,
So it has been a while. If I remember correctly, last time I sent out a mass email I had pulled out of Singapore and was starting to prep for my next step in the pilot training quals, H2P (helicopter second pilot). I am happy to to say that I blew through those boards with no problems and I am now an H2P. All this allows me to do is to walk out to an aircraft and engage the rotors, I can not even take-off unless I have a HAC (Helicopter Aircraft Commander) present. Which is my next qual I will be working on, I hope to have that wrapped up by the end of next May. Plenty of work to be done between now and then.

Since Singapore I have found my way to two other ports. Port one was Manila. We spent four days there, one day I was on duty on the boat and another I spent working on the ship to prepare for my H2P boards. Between my two days there I managed to catch up on some sleep and eat some good food (Wendy's, you do not get that in Japan) and also enjoy some of the local establishments. Not much sightseeing was done, or shopping. I hope to go back in my next two years to take in the sights. We departed Manila and went underway for about a month and found our way to Thailand. The GW pulled and bused us all about an hour down the road to Pattaya. As a New York Times article put it on Pattaya, "If Las Vegas is Sin city, then Pattaya is a bear hug away from Lucifer." So I figured this would be a great place for my wife to see. I deceived her and convinced her to buy a ticket and then we were in Pattaya together. We had a really good time there, Allison did a wonderful job at picking out a hotel that had a really nice pool that we spent a fair amount of time around. We ventured out in town and managed to purchase some "name brand" items for a more than fair price. We rode an elephant down to this Sanctuary that was huge and made complete of wood, even the joints were created by interlocking wooden pieces, it was pretty impressive. As always our time together was too short, but we knew that I had to leave if it meant me being home would happen sooner. So off I went packing. So we are five days after pulling out of port, and I am currently in Kadena, an Air Force base in Okinawa. HS-14 decided to fund a detachment to complete some training ashore. North of the base is fairly large area that is essentially a playground for helicopters. There we practice our procedures for low level flying, personnel recovery, and having an overall good time kicking up the dust. Flying over open ocean can get pretty boring so the chance to see trees blowing around and climbing up and down hillsides is always welcome. I will be here for a little bit, and then I will return to the steel prison known as the GW. Not for long though, we are set to be home shortly. Sometime after Thanksgiving we will be pulling back out for a little bit, and then returning home in time to do a little prep for Christmas. I will be taking leave while I am home from 13 Jan to 31 Jan. Allison and I are sorting our how we would like to spend our time, but most of all we are looking forward to being together.

Hope all is well for everyone. Look forward to hearing from you.