She tells me often "I'm three so I'm not shy anymore!" It's fantastic and her personality is really blossoming!

Ok, here is my new resolution: I am going to try to post an update every Saturday morning with a bunch of links that may or may not interest you from my week. I will be stealing some of these from another blog that I read called Dubious Quality and maybe some others.

Brooke and I just finished a Saturday run, which we are trying to make a weekly date while Jane watches the kiddos. It was incredibly beautiful and has allowed us to discover some fantastic trail networks near our house. Here is a picture of today's route:

Brooke did really well seeing as the first 3 miles are pretty much all a constant 5-10% grade up. Meagan is coming down next week and on April 11th we are running a half-trail marathon up north of S.F. I don't think I am ready but I can recover afterward:-) I picked up the same Forerunner as Mom and Dad and I love now having my heart rate available.

Last night Brooke and I went on a date down on Cannery Row. We went to the IMAX U23d. If you have not seeen this, you owe it to yourself. The concert is so well done, the fact that it was 3d was forgotten 30 minutes into the film.

At work, there is not much to do so I have been spending time working on prepping for this summer's barrage of Calculus, Programming, and Discrete Mathematics. (these are just the refresher courses, but since nothing is in my head left to refresh concerning these things, I have quite the uphill climb). The MOVES curriculum I am in will be painful but worth it.

Has anyone seen the trailer for "Where the Wild Things Are?" It looks amazing.

I am reading "The Graveyard Book" to the kids at bedtime. Very good read that has the kids on the edge of their seats. Sadie was even in tears the other night!

A guy I work with at NPS takes some amazing pictures in the Monterey area (check out the land and seascapes folder in his Portfolio) and there is also this link to another series of cool high-speed photos (courtesy of Dubious Quality).

Also from DQ, a poignant look at the recession in images.

I have been spending unecessary amounts of small chunks of change on some incredible deals on PC games from Steam...if anyone has a PC anymore in the Stinchfield family other than me. I say unecessary because I rarely have the time anymore. This weekend's deal is a steal; 4 great games that run on low level PCs for 10 bucks.

I have been spending any available playing time (<3 href="http://www.dawnofwar2.com/us/home">Dawn of War II

Anybody on XBOXLive, if you get Resident Evil 5, I will complete the campaign with you.

For the iPhone, I highly recommend 3 apps: Kindle, FlightControl, and Zen Bound.

Courtesy of DQ, here is what Mom and Dad can plan next with their kayaks. Don't miss the video at the bottom of that page.

I realized this week that I missed a great opportunity. Did not even know he was here.

I have seen this car way too many times this week. It causes me pain. If only. What a machine. Much meaner looking in person. I will take donations anytime:-)

Well I better get on with the day. Still need to shower. Thanks for all the blogs. Like everyone, even if I do not comment I always read your blogs several times each.

Mike

Hayden had a field trip to the zoo so the girls and I went along to help out. It was our first trip to the zoo and we had a great time. There is also a discovery museum with all sorts of hands on learning that the kids loved! I'm not exactly sure why we haven't been sooner but I have heard a lot of people complain that the exhibits and enclosures for the animals are just too small. I was impressed with the zoo being cleaner and more modern than many of the other places we have been here. I do agree that some of the animals enclosures were small but while I was driving home from the zoo and thinking about it I came to the conclusion that we are taking our western mentality to the zoo. EVERYTHING here is small, from cars, to houses, to yards and food portions- it's all small. So why would they then give the tiger a big living space? Clearly they believe that you don't need that much space to survive and be happy and the zoo is no different. They could probably have several families living in the space allotted to the tiger whereas one American family would feel cramped! This is just my observation. Even the museum is space conscious, it has one level above ground but then extends leave levels underground, so it looks really small on the outside! Anyway, we really enjoyed the zoo.

Hayden: "My favorite part were the Habu snakes!" (This is the dangerous, poisonous snake said to live all over the island including our backyard bushes. They hibernate in the winter so we let the kids in the bushes and trees right now but not in the summer!) I think Hayden should have said his favorite part was when the chimpanzee got angry and threw a fist full of dirt right at Hayden! He jumped a mile!


Danica: "My favorite was seeing the mommy kangaroo with a baby in her tummy!" She brought her kid tough digital camera and had a good time taking pictures of the animals! (Thank you Grandma and Papa!)


Alyssa: "Ahhhhh- Ehhhhhh- Oooooo-" said while pointing at the crocodiles (they really were cool looking.)

Tracey: "My favorite was the giant anteater! I didn't realize I had never seen one in real life until I came face to face with it and saw it's long pointed nose and watched in vacuum up the ants... can it come live in my kitchen to catch ants and crumbs?"

Hayden said his favorite part of the day was the discovery museum, it reminded me of all the good times we had going to the children's museum the Great Lakes Science Center in Cleveland. I think all the kids loved it there and we will definitely get a pass so we can go back often!

Just like the title states, it has been forever and a day since I last posted, and it may end up being short and sweet for the time being as Beck is in the room crying for attention and wanting to play with the keyboard.

I head out tomorrow for 4 days to Spokane with my volleyball team. Peter and the boys will be staying home in Boise and Peter's parents will be flying in to help watch the boys as Peter cannot afford to take a weekend off from studying for the test.

Speaking of the test, Peter has continued to studying day in and day out for it. He takes it on the 24th of April, which for me (and probably Peter) can't come fast enough. I am so ready for this studying to be over and done with.

We have just been celebrating birthdays and going to volleyball tournaments mostly over the last month or so. My best friend Laura and her boyfriend came to visit 2 weeks ago for the weekend. It was a fun short visit as we had not seen them since Andrew was 2 months old. It was a lot of games of Dominion and Ticket to Ride, as there really is not much to do in Boise in the Winter time.

Well that is it for now, Andrew has now joined in on the cry for attention. We love you and can't wait to see mom and dad in a couple weeks.

-Anne

So tonight Treven and I decide to go to a Pretzel place here tonight with the girls. We wanted to be able to take them out of the house and get a little snack for FHE. Well we get there and Treven gets in the back of the car to get McKenzie out of her car seat while I was getting Melia. All of a sudden I hear this scream... sounds familiar to me. He has made the same scream when he has popped his knee out of socket, but this time he wasn't able to get it back into place. We sat there for about 5-10 minutes while he continued to try and push it back into place. Melia was laughing at him the whole time because she thought he was trying to scare her. We then decide, "Okay maybe we should go to the urgent care before it closes." We show up at 7:55 PM and I can see that they are locking the door. They close at 8. So I run up to see if maybe they can just let us in and just pop it back into place real quick. She informs me that they don't take patients after 7:50 so we need to go to the hospital. Well that is just wonderful! We are moving in three weeks and Treven's last day of Pepsi was this Friday so the insurance was going to be ending this Friday. We believe all of this came from when Treven first popped his knee out when we went snowboarding back in February of 2006! In the last 3 months he has popped his knee out probably 3 to 4 times. I called our friend Linzi to see if she can come grab the girls and she met us there. All this time Treven is still in the back seat, in A LOT of pain from whatever is happening. We are trying to decide what to do because we don't want to spend a bunch of money. But I kept getting a feeling that we did need to go since he definitely was not able to pop it back into place. Well we decide we do need to go to the ER and we will be able to work out the money part later. We get to the ER and Treven cannot get out of the car so I run in and the nurse comes out with wheelchair. Three guys helped him get out of the back seat. He could not straighten his knee at all! We get him admitted and they take him straight back and give him X-rays. Doctor comes in and tells us that it is not fractured, but that he thinks it is a buckle tear in the meniscus of his right leg. He proceeds to pop Treven's knee into place then give us some pain medicine for his knee. Treven has to wear a knee immobilizer so that he is not able to bend his knee at all. We now have to go see an orthopedic surgeon by the end of the week. We will see if he will have to get the surgery soon or after we move to Washington. We don't know what will happen, we are just trusting in the Lord that everything will work out. Treven is obviously not able to work his last 4 days of work. They said we can keep our insurance, but we will just have to pay a little more. I am so stressed out already with the move and now we have this... what did Treven do when we get home? Popped in Twilight to watch with me and help me forget about the stress. I love him!

Just some photos from this weekend with Carliles. And, Brittany's visit to the Twilight Sites. Dad

So yesterday morning my friend Michelle, her family and a couple of the other friends went to learn how to trapeze for her sister Marisa's birthday. Let's just say it was quite the experience!

The place itself in out in the boonies of Escondido where you feel a little like you are driving to the shooting location for Jeepers Creepers or The Hills Have Eyes. The trapeze rig is at someone's "house" in the middle of nowhere. I put house in quotes because it is pretty much just a round of mobile homes. Then we walk up to the actual rig which is surrounded by old dirty, torn-up couches and pieces of random carpet. It was quite the scene.

The flying itself was SO fun! The scariest part was climbing the ladder up to the platform because we weren't connected to anything to prevent us from falling - hard - for that part. But the people working there were really good and it was easy to trust them...even if they were a little forceful with their commands and criticism. The leader guy was a bit like Bela Caroli (<--I don't know how to spell his name...the crazy gymnastics coach).

We learned three different tricks. The first was pretty much just to jump off the platform, swing and drop - not much to it but we certainly found out those of us who don't follow direction well very quickly! The second was to jump off the platform, lift our legs up and around the bar, hook our knees then let go with our arms and swing by our knees then grab the bar again, take our legs off the bar then do a backflip to the net. That took a go or two to get it right but I did get that one. The third trick was another story - and kinda frustrating as I was the only one that didn't complete it correctly. :( We had to do the same as trick 2 up to the point where we are swinging by our knees then we had to be caught by someone and swing on his arms. I had multiple excuses why none of my attempts succeeded but it was really fun and I did get a "Peter Pan" flying move in there!

I would definitely do it again. And I actually found out last night that one of my friend's from my MBA program knows all the people who taught us today personally and goes up there all the time. I'm there for the next trip!

Here are some pictures of my third attempt on trick 3:

Well, since I also can't remember when I last wrote, I think I am very overdue now on my resolution to write every week. I can't believe that I have do it so seldom when I should have plenty of time...compared to when I was working down in San Diego. I guess I just am not that enthusiastic a writer!! I'm sort of bombing out on Facebook because I keep forgetting about it and have a hard time remembering to put a status in etc. I also am a bit confused on all these subgroups. I guess I'm not a good social networker!!!

As you saw from the pictures we had a great time at Mt Hood last weekend. Now I'm watching Noah today and waiting for the Carliles to arrive. They expect to be in by about 4:30. They are coming up to have Dad take out Brittany's wisdom teeth at David's clinic tomorrow. We'll try to get together with D & A and B & B either Sat or Sun night. I'm not really sure when they are leaving.

I'm kind of bushed today after a rough night last night with a yukky stomach but it seems to be improving except for the tiredness. Maybe I'll take a short nap along with Noah!! Yesterday, I did my 6 mile tempo run. It seemed harder than usual...maybe I was coming down with something..good it looks like it was short-lived. I did go faster than I have before...12:15 average speed. I know that is slow for most of you but it is definitely progress for me. I did dip down into the low 10's for a while.

My big task is to get the rooms cleaned out for Kim and Treven. That has been on my list every day this week and is yet to be done....and now, not until next week since the Carlile's will be using the room. We were kind of blown away by Adam's performance on AI...very strange! Hopefully, he doesn't stay that far out. I've been doing some Family Search Indexing...and trying to avoid any work from CBC. I have several things I could be doing but they fall even below cleaning the rooms out!! Tomorrow I am helping with a funeral dinner for Richard White, a man in our ward who died last week.

Not much other news...Oh, I did just finish reading Three Cups of Tea...Mike, did you ever read that? Very interesting about Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Love you all,

Mom

Just got all of Melia's baby pictures transferred to the Mac. It is so weird to go through and see how fast everything went. Found similar picture of Melia at McKenzie's age right now. Here we go... look at the differences... Definitely Melia is showing the Stinchfield side and McKenzie is showing the Perry side! I always just thought... well she looks like Melia but with brown hair and eyes.. boy was I wrong!

I don't remember the last time I posted so I figure that means I am due. It is a cool day in San Diego where everyone, including me, is complaining that they can't believe it is March and it is "so cold"...I am spoiled and I am sure Norway will teach me just how much.

Today I had my second midterm of the semester. I did well but it is one of those classes where the teacher is only giving a test because he is forced to - he "doesn't believe in tests" <-- it is things like this that remind me I am going to school in CA. :) I have two more weeks until Spring Break and I can't wait. Just a couple more tests and presentations left to do before then.

I am hoping to catch up on sleep this weekend along with studying for my midterm next week. I am also starting to train for a half marathon again. I won't actually be in San Diego to run the race as it is in November but a couple of my friends are doing it so I am pretending that I will too because it is so much easier to stick with running if I have a training schedule.

I continue to watch American Idol and was quite proud of Adam this week for his performance and how well received it was by the judges. I am hoping I get to watch him for many more weeks.

All for now...dosing out is taking over...must nap...

Love Tracey's blog. She inspires me. And I'm not attempting sarcasm - she really does.

I ran a mildly disappointing 9 miles this morning in our prep for our half in April. Only mildly disappointing because I did it, after all. It was just not my best run. I blame two things - other than myself, of course:

1. The wind. I woke to a beautiful, clear sky - the white peaks of Mt. Hood looming in the distance. All thanks to the Gorge winds. I'm talking knock-over-your-garbage-cans, rattle-your-windows kind of wind. But since I would rather die than run 9 miles on a treadmill, I braved it. Running west is great, wind at your back - but running back east is soul-crushing. (I would run North/South - but if I ran 4.5 miles north in Washougal, not only would it be all uphill, but I would be in fairly un-chartered territory, in constant fear of encountering a hill-billie's unleashed dog.)
2. Krispy Kreme. My arch nemesis. Dave had his day off yesterday, and spent it taking endo courses - thus keeping him away from home all day and evening. Not sure, but maybe he was driven by guilt and thought it would be a grand gesture to pick us up some donuts for our active night in front of the television. I managed to only eat 2 - a huge feat - but the damage was done. SABOTEUR!

• Isaac just purchased an ipod Touch. He has a bit of savings and couldn't resist anymore. In his generosity, he gave his ipod Nano to Taylor, who then gave his shuffle to Parker. My children are all officially mac-zombies. Yesterday, Dave was watching the Mac ad for the new shuffle - all the kids eventually made their way into the room, and sat staring, mouths agape - commenting to one another on the new features. It was a proud moment for Dave - he just turned to me and smiled. I think I saw a tear in his eye.
• Taylor - 2 kids just got expelled from school from his class - for the remainder of the year. They had made some threats, apparently, to other students. Scary. I was asking Taylor about it, he shrugged and said they were a couple of "Gothic girls". I guess, in his mind, that explains it all.
  
• Parker - lego maniac. Won't do anything he is asked to do because once he gets into his room, the Lego's call to him. His bed is never made, but he has constructed some masterpieces.
• Morgan - a jumble of teeth. Playing softball and braving the over-the-top coach she has. I never feel more like we live in Washougal than when we go to baseball games...I need to get a camo jacket or cap so I fit in. She is also my shadow - follows me everywhere and won't let me go to Safeway alone because she's certain I will be sad and lonely.
• Dave - working hard and constantly improving himself - as if there is anything to improve upon. He makes us all laugh - hard. He'll just hop up and break into song and dance. And he thrives on scaring me. I've got to be the only woman who walks up her stairs with her hands clenched in fists, ready to pop him for jumping out at me, which he does, then laughs hysterically and asks, "Did I scare you?!". What's not to love?
  

Some of you have met BOB, he’s amazing. He is so helpful, I truly love him. BOB is the double jogging stroller that joined our family after Danica was born. He has been on several family vacations, trips to Cedar Point, Geauga Lake, Disneyworld and Disneyland, SeaWorld, Legoland, Knotts Berry Farm, half a dozen zoos and was key to our survival through endless customs lines on the move and the weeks of being carless upon arrival. In fact, BOB is the reason we bought the van we did, none of the other Japanese cars had a large enough trunk, we actually took BOB car shopping to make sure he would fit! Needless to say we’ve put miles on him! Currently, I have the luxury of not running with him but I use him every day to walk Hayden to school. I noticed a small tear in the seam of one of the seats and emailed the company to ask what I should do about it. Within a week they had sent me an entire new seat for FREE! That’s customer service! Now BOB looks brand new again. As Tom has been trying to teach me for years- you get what you pay for! BOB was, and is, worth every cent!

“Why do I do it?” I’ve been asked this question several times in the last few months and have decided it’s time to answer it. My current "passion" in life is running. I’ve enjoyed running before but things always seem to get in the way (like babies, snow and moving) and so the answer to the question “Why do you get up at 4:45am to go running?” is “because I CAN!” I live on a tropical island where even in January I could go at 5am and have the weather in the 60’s. Currently it is usually 70 degrees at 5am. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity, in a few short years I will give up this luxury and I can’t afford to waste it! Secondly, I do not have a have newborn, I am not nursing and I am not pregnant- it’s been a long time since I could say all of those things at the same time! Plus, I live on military base with street lights, video surveillance and heavily armed guards at all the gates! I can run alone in the dark with ever so stylish reflector belt- It doesn't get any safer! leaves for work at 5:50, so if I get up before 5 I have just enough time to get ready, eat and hit the road. I can do a quick 5 miles and be back before he leaves. Then I have about 30 minutes to cool off and read my scriptures in a quiet house before everyone gets up and we get ready to take Hayden to school at 7:00. It’s fantastic and leaves me a happy healthy person for the rest of the day.

Tom and I are training for a half marathon on a nearby island called IE. We will take a ferry over to the island and then the half marathon runs all around the coast of the island. Pretty awesome. It’s on Saturday April 11th. I’ve often been a consistent runner but never a distance runner so this is new for me. We are doing Hal Higdon’s training schedule and it’s going well. It seems to be working since we are both improving our speed (every time I get faster Tom feels the need to get faster too!) This week for our training we run 10 miles, I’ve never actually run 10 miles so I am really excited for it. We’re looking to do a marathon here on Okinawa in November, it’s a twilight marathon that starts at 3:00pm on a Saturday. Hopefully it will work out so we can do it. It would be so great to do a marathon (I think, ask me again after I do the half!)

Happy Trails!

So here is a long overdue blog from me...
Brent and I are sharing a rare moment relaxing at home watching American Idol (recorded of course) while Noah sleeps. I classify this as a good night that also included seeing Noah after work, playing and cuddling with him then putting him to bed, having dinner with Brent, cleaning up and doing some laundry, working out with the Wii and then watching Idol.
Life has been going by in a blur it seems since Noah has been born. Simple errands are such a huge ordeal now and on my days off work I am scrambling to do them between the 3 naps the little guy takes each day. Sadly, things like visiting teaching now seem really hard to fit in. So I'm totally hoping I will become a seasoned mommy very soon and get over being so overwhelmed with the day to day. That said, I am so in love with my child and am absolutely enjoying every bit of it as Brent and I grow as parents.
As an update on my injury, I am humbled by the fact that it takes so much longer than I expected to get back to "normal". I still have pain almost immediately when I do something as simple as jogging in place (Wii fit stuff). I have to constantly remind myself that this was a fracture that should have had surgery but for being prego and the surgeon and my OB being quite shy about approaching the idea of surgery to fixate it. The last xray that was taken looked good and my ankle motion is "better than could have been expected" to quote my doctor so I'll just have to hope that the pain subsides as the bone finishes completly re-calcifying, etc.
On the work front for me, I am still doing 3 days (2 11 hour days and an 8 hour day). We are such a huge clinic with around 11 physical therapists, 3 assistants, and 3 athletic trainers and we are all completely slammed with patients. And they are still looking to hire more! Let's just say that we are not feeling the economy crisis in my profession. The hard part about the full days is I hardly get a lunch with trying to dictate notes in my little break so I take 10 minutes to eat and then back to work. The good part is the days go by fast so I can get back to Noah. It will be challenging to stay current in my field with continuing ed courses and have to be away a few weekends a year... I already feel guilty for leaving Noah during the week.
A for this week, I am totally excited for our weekend trip up to Mt Hood where I will not be skiing but enjoying the company of everyone there and Noah. And I won't be able to run errands or clean since it's not my home which will be relaxing. Yah!
By the way, here is a link to a video of a Harvard LDS student answering quetions about our faith at a religion forum... incredibly eloquent... http://vimeo.com/2120177
Well, that's it from me. Love you all.
Buffy

MPC Computers is a local computer manufacturer that went under and they are having a public auction to get rid of everything. I have looked at the catalog of items and there is a huge amount of items. The items I thought some of you might be interested in are the TXTbooks. They are a small kids type size of a laptop. Check out the auction and you can see what there is for yourself. I will be looking at joining the online auction so I don't have to go all the way down there on a work day, but if any of you are interested then we can facilitate picking it up or even bidding. I have never participated in a public auction, but I thought this might be of interest to some of the technically savy Stinchfields even though it is not a Mac auction(Yes, I realize a Mac auction will probably never happen). Here is the link for the auction: http://www.greatamerican.com/GAGAuction/Auctions/AuctionDetails.aspx?Id=360

I am in charge of birthdays for Relief Society and I made these Wall hangings for the women



The picture frame I made and I will be making these frames for all the nieces this year.. Brooke! I need to know what colors you would like for Ellyn!

You are such a great sister! I love coming to visit you in Boise! I am going to miss that, but I know we will see you in Vancouver (hopefully) more. Well Happy Birthday! I hope you do something fun!

Kim (and Treven and the girls)

Hope you have a great one! I think you already celebrated it with family, but oh well! Have a good day!

The Perrys

I posted some videos on thefourofusperry.blogspot.com of the girls. I was going to post them on here, but it took more than an hour to post the three.

Kim

My New Year's Resolutions included making sure I remembered everyone's birthdays this year. I don't believe it counts, however, if I remember them but don't say anything about them. Will you just trust me when I say that you were in my thoughts? I have your birthdays on my calendar. So in no particular order here are my birthday wishes and one or two of the reasons I love you.

Tom- I love Tom's sense of humor, one of my favorite memories is listening to Tom's definitions for Balderdash. He is so clever. I love that Tom and Tracey have so much fun together and really do things that aren't completely ordinary and sometimes take a little bravery. I love that Tom is such an involved dad and has shared his interests and passions with his kids.

Kim- I love that Kim is such a fun, easy going person. I love hanging out with Kim, she is always ready to laugh. I love remembering her visit to Georgia. I don't think I have ever heard Kim say a bad thing about ANYONE. I love that she is such a good and a young mom but she has still managed to get her degree and teach.

Peter- I really love all of Peter's varied interests, he has many and they are pretty cool. I love how he has supported Anne throughout her entire volleyball career. I love how thoughtful he has been to my kids, taking Jane to the coin shop to pick out coins, sending her the quarter collector. He's just a good guy. Also, I love him because he is going to give me his eyelash enhancing samples from his eye doctor- wink, wink.

Buffy- I love Buffy. I love all the conversations Buffy, Barb, Adina and I have had sitting on the barstools in the kitchen. I love the Stinchfield girls' Twilight series obsession last year. It was too fun. I love the way Buffy will happily explain in layman's terms the reasons behind any ache or pain. I love her enthusiasm for motherhood. I also love Buffy's hair, she must see a fantastic stylist (I loved your hair before your new stylist as well).

Brent- I love the effort Brent has always made to do as much with the family as he possibly can, even during his busiest times of year. I love how good he was to my kids while Mike was in Korea. He and Dave were and are really great uncles. I love how good Brent is to his wife and I love how excited Brent is about being a dad. I love Brent's interest in boardgames.

Anne- I love teasing Anne and I love her teasing me back. Even as a busy, social teenager Anne would put everything on pause and play with us whenever we were in town. Anne was always up for a party as well- I don't think she ever missed a Bennett family trip to Disneyland. I love Anne's firm, unwavering testimony. She is always trying to do what's right and she's having fun while she's doing it. Also, I love both Anne and Kim's down to earth approach to motherhood.

So... Many Happy Birthday Wishes to all of you. I know Mike seconds everything that I just wrote, sorry it wasn't done in a timely fashion. Brent and Anne yours is on time and I think you should be pretty amazed. We love you all. The Stinchfield Clan

Happy stupid fart day. I'm an idiot. I thought it was March 9th today. Maybe I thought it was February 18? Or February 16th? Or....I'm all confused now. I'll just have to cover a few months. Happy Birthday Beck, Dad, Parker, Tom, Kim, Anne, Brent, Buffy, Peter, Treven, Ellyn, Tracey, Taylor, and me. I'm covered January through April. All clear.

Annie and Brenty, Happy Birthday! Yours and Tom/Kim's are the easiest birthdays to remember because they are back-to-back, yet I forgot. Maybe because we celebrated Brents last weekend? I don't know, but happy burpday.

Dave

I agreed to run with a girl in the ward. I say 'girl', but she is 29 and has 6 kids, so she's hardly a girl. Anyway - she asked to come on my 10K run with me this morning. She insisted that she hasn't run that far in a while and she's not fast. You know, the whole Tracey, water-skiing thing all over again ("I'm not that good. I can't do anything fancy"- then she proceeds to put the rope between her legs and ski with no hands. whatever.) So - a mile in, she's prancing next to me, leaping through the air, and I ask: Did you run in High School? She gives me this coy look and says, "Yea - I ran cross country all through high school".
Ah. Some perspective.

What have I done?

Adina

Well as they say, when in Japan do as the Japanese...or something like that. We had a branch activity at a restaurant that also does karaoke. Tom was loving it and jumped for the microphone anytime there was a break. They were loud and awesome. It wasn't until we were leaving that we realized that the room we were in was connected to the rest of the restaurant, packed with Japanese and Americans, by only a thin wall and they were all "enjoying" the singing as well! Too fun!

You might ask, "Who is Scott?" so I must start this off with a short tribute. It started with the much needed invitation "Hey, do you want to come to dinner after church?" We were still living in the little hotel room, jet lagged and confused. Scott just happened to catch us in the hall after church and offered to pick us up to bring us back to their house for dinner (we didn't have a car yet.) The chain of events to follow is nothing short of a fantastic blessing. We had great food and the start of a great friendship with Scott and his wonderful wife Joy. In addition, we loved their house and the next morning Tom went to the housing briefing and put in a request to live here instead of over on another base where we knew some people (who we fortunately still get to see often). Our request was granted and we got our "dream house." (there aren't very many so we are very blessed to be living here.) Now we live down the street from Scott and Joy and truly I don't know how we would survive without them! Joy is an amazing friend and wonderful example as a mother, she has been my guide at adjusting to military life and Japan and my much need stress relief for babysitting, chats and even dinner. (I called last night to see if they wanted to go out to eat and ended up getting us invited over for dinner at their place!!) So, in answer to the question, this is Scott, I like to think of him as Tom's only "short" brother. Seeing as how so many of you have experience in living far from family I know you can all relate to the importance of these kind of friendships.

Here are just a few of the highlights from the month of February:

Valentine’s day was fantastic this year. On Friday I surprised Tom with an hour long couples massage down at the gym, it was fantastic. On Saturday we got a babysitter and he blind folded me and put me in the car to take me on our date. After parking he led me, with my eyes closed (I took off the blind fold so people wouldn’t think we looked too crazy) to a bench. I sat down and after a minute he said I could open my eyes and I found a beautiful picnic spot on the beach! We enjoyed a nice dinner and a romantic stroll on the beach. It was awesome! He even brought the tripod to catch a picture of the the two of us but the clip was missing so we had to take pictures of each other!




On February 16th Tom turned 31!!! We had a fun birthday breakfast and opened presents. He had the day off work for Presidents day and we had planned to go to cool park but then it was too rainy. He thought that was the end of his birthday celebrations but Hayden and I had planned him a surprise party! At 4:00 he left to go TV shopping with his buddy who was pretending he didn’t even know it was Tom’s birthday. While they were gone all his friends arrived. We totally surprised Tom when he got home and we all jumped up to yell "surprise". We enjoyed a BBQ and fun night of Rock Band. I was amazed I actually pulled off the surprise!



On the 21st I went out with a bunch of my friends for a ladies night out. We went to Cocoks for an awesome foot massage and beautiful nail art! The Japanese have amazing skill in this department!


Then we went to Yoshi’s, a little sushi place that is very famous. Supposedly Yoshi is the original Iron Chef and the restaurant is plastered with pictures of him and the famous people who have come to eat there. I must admit I don’t do the sushi thing yet (I’m sure I will before we leave here) but I thoroughly enjoyed my Katsuban.