Navy Life Chapter 3!!

It has begun---Rodney has officially started our new chapter of Navy Life!! He is now safely in Okinawa! After a long, but uneventful 20 or so hours of travel, he was greeted by a group of his fellow Chaplains and wives!! He is already excited about the next three years :)

He is currently in the Bachelor Officers' Quarters (BOQ) which are basically bare bones, so one of the wives had stocked it with a few lunchables, snacks, drinks, and towels. He says their wives group is (obviously) very involved and they are anxious to meet me! His Command Chaplain has given him his initial directives-- take care of: housing, a car, and getting me there!! He is so excited that his job will be mostly out and about with the Marines, not sitting in an office all the time.

As of yet, I still don't have arrangements, but I know that will come soon. (If not, Rodney's going to be sitting on some heads :) I'll keep you posted!!

Still transitioning.....

An update of where we are in our relocation:

We had a great visit home, but of course not at all long enough to see all the people we would love to see!! We arrived back in SD Sunday evening. Yesterday, Rodney had a follow-up CT scan for his kidney stone and it would appear he is still cleared for travel TOMORROW!! Today we are sitting in our hotel in Chula Vista just hanging out and relaxing, enjoying just being together before his departure. 

We've had a little hiccup with my paperwork, so as yet, I don't have flight arrangements in hand.....welcome to government life.... :-} But, we do have an advocate on this end who's going to do what he can. Also, once Rodney is over there, he'll be able to really "sit on" the necessary individual(s) to get things taken care of on that end!

In the meantime, Truman and I are going to be hanging at a friend's house, finding ways to keep ourselves busy and tying up the final loose ends.......

Prayers for safe travels for Rodney!!

San Diego Zoo

For our next adventure, we went to the zoo!

Since it was a nice cool morning, the animals were active and entertaining!!

This little guy put on quite a show!!

Have you ever seen an active koala?!?!? WAY too cute!!

A. came face to face with a nice polar bear :)

We came around the lion's exhibit just in time to get to see a training session! The guy was really big standing up against that fence!

A. got to see his favorite animal enjoying a family dinner :)

Meanwhile, back to the summer....

As we continue through our Navy Life transition, I'll keep you posted of our progress, but in the meantime, I'm going to continue with my posts of our excitements during the summer.

One of our biggest excitements was that our nephew got to come spend a couple of weeks with us in July!! Our first outing was down to the Maritime Museum to see and tour the different vessels on display. But, we had an expected surprise upon our arrival. Docked along the pier were two New Zealand Navy vessels and they had one of them open for free tours!!

Trying his hand at the bridge

A little privacy, please?!?!?

On our walk down the pier, we stopped for a bit of popcorn chicken :)

Taking the wheel of the "Surprise" 

(which was actually used in the filming of the movie "Master and Commander")

Checking out the torpedo room of a Russian sub

Still no privacy?!?!?

"I can drive this boat anywhere.....argh!!!"

Transition Time

We are now officially in our transition between Navy Life Chapters 2 and 3! Being between chapters also means being between homes. Rodney says we now live in a mobile home: our car :) We have closed the door to our home in Chula Vista and are waiting to open the door to our new home in Okinawa. Except for the few things we have with us, our possessions are either on their way to Japan or on their way to storage.
Rodney ended our life in San Diego in a big way--- a 4mm kidney stone!! He woke up our last day in SD in big pain and ended up spending the day in the ER. Having had one before, we knew that's what it was and were comfortable to have a friend take him over so I could be at the house for the carpet cleaners to come and to finish the clean up. Pain meds and a few hours later and he was feeling much better! He had no issues on our cross-country drive, thank the Lord!! We drove to Waco, TX, to catch up with a few friends there. The best part was, Rachel was able to drive up from Houston to spend Labor Day with us! We are now in SW Missouri spending the next week with family and getting to see a few friends.
Rodney has a follow-up appointment with the urologist when we get back to SD; hoping and praying they give him the ok to go ahead and make the flight on the 22nd!! Also, hoping and praying I have my flight arrangements in hand before he leaves! I'll keep you posted :)

Moving update

Well, as you can tell, I have not had time to work on this in a few days. But, as I type this I am being serenaded by tape guns :) We successfully got our express shipment out yesterday in under an hour! Our household goods are going out today (packed and loaded in about six hours). That will just leave the storage stuff. I plan to get back to our summer posts once this jump is out of the way! So, please stay tuned :)

Okinawa Update

Before I continue with postings from our summer, I thought I would give you an update of our move. We now have our government passports in hand! Mine will only be used when I move to Japan, then when I move back to the states. Rodney will carry his when he travels for work. For any traveling we do on our own, we'll carry our civilian passports.
I have relinquished my Chick-fil-A responsibilities into capable hands and am now spending pretty much all my time sorting through "stuff"! We are sorting into a handful of areas; we have one section that will be going out the door to DAV or friends, then an area for what will go with us on our road trip back home. Then there are the sections for the move itself: what goes in the express shipment (what you'd need on an island for two weeks), what goes in the regular shipment (household goods), then the majority of our belongings will go into storage. And the packing starts NEXT MONDAY!!! Simply cannot believe its already here......
So, yes the pack out begins Monday with the express shipment. That will actually be short and sweet. We basically have the size of a closet to fill (no, not a walk-in :), so that won't take them long to pack up. Then Tuesday, they'll pack out the rest of the household goods, Wednesday will be the pack up for storage, then Thursday they'll carry it out. At that point, we'll give the house a good "wash down" then hit the road on Friday  to make a road trip to Missouri by way of Texas!! Following our visit, we'll make our way back to San Diego and put Rodney on a plane early in the morning, Sept. 22. Truman and I will follow a week or two later (having to wait for cooler weather for Truman to be in cargo.)
So, as of now, that is where we stand. I'll post updates along as I finish up our summer excitement :)