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.

Try Thai!

After spending 7 days running around Thailand like crazy, I am finally home. On October 1st, I flew into Bangkok, Thailand, only to hop in a mini-bus and head to a small beach town about 2 hours south, called Pattaya. Oh Pattaya. Left much to be desired, but needless to say, Brian and I had a blast.

We lounged by the pool, ordered frilly drinks with umbrellas on them, and even drank out of a floating coconut or two! We strolled around town, bought some "name brand" items, experienced Thai culture and food, checked out a hand-crafted wooden temple of sorts, and rode elephants! After 5 days of fun-in-the-sun, Brian had to hop back aboard the good ole' GW, bound for someplace thus unknown, and I was left to my own devices in a city worse than sin. So, not one for wasting much time, I hoped aboard another mini-bus with 3 of my friends, and high-tailed it back into Bangkok to absorb as much of the city as we could in the 8 hours before our plane left for Tokyo. We took our lives into our own hands as we rode tuk-tuks around the city, then jumped into a long boat for a canal tour of rural Bangkok, then shopped around, and took the skytrain back to the airport to jump on our red-eye back home. Boy am I glad to be back home in Japan! Kinda weird to say that. Now we're on the home stretch to the end of our first deployment, and I am eagerly awaiting the return of my Brian!