Domo Arrigatou!

This means "thank you" in Japanese.  Actually, there's a third word, Goziamu, or something, that goes with it, but I have no idea how to spell it, so I left that off.  Anyway, this will be the post of what I am THANKFUL for here as we wrap up our first week on Okinawa.  And what a week it has been!

First, I am ridiculously thankful for our friend Jen and our sponsor, Josh and his wife Kayla.  They bought stuff for us prior to arrival. They picked us up at the airport. They hauled us around in their cars.  They helped me get the cats to the kennel\ and the vet. They have made us breakfast, taken us to buy food, and gone out to dinner with us.  They've babysat our kid and wiped my tears when the housing fiasco came down (read on).

Here are some pictures of us last night with my friend Jen at a local Sushi restuarant. We even sat at the tables with the traditional Japenese-style seating with mats on the floor.  Yummy!

Second, I am thankful that today we received our Japanese driver's licenses!  We both passed the test and are now considered Professional Drivers by Japanese standards.  Ha!  If any of you know me, you know that is FAR from the truth :)  Tommy thinks I should take the 8-hour remedial driving course on Saturday....  We hope to purchase our cars this weekend sometime.

Third, I am thankful that while it was a very, very stressful proccess, I think we have finally found a place to live.  It has been a long 24 hours.  We received a call yesterday while we were at our Orientation that they had a housing offer for us (we are required to live on base right now - a subject for a later post).  After some technical difficulties getting through to them, we learned that they had offered us two places, but both were in Towers Units (something we did not want - been there, done that in college) and - the
KICKER - did not allow pets.

Yes, you read that correctly.  Neither offer was pet friendly.  So my cats, who I paid about $2,000 to get here and sweated, swore, and cried over getting them on the plane, and who have been sitting across the island in a 3x3' kennel for the past week, were not going to be able to live with us.

I immediately started bawling. It was horrible. I was so upet. And I was in the middle of this Newcomer's Orientation crying my eyes out.

Of course all this happened at the close of business, so we had to wait until this morning to do anything about it.  It was a long night. Tommy went to the housing office in person to talk to Kokomo, or whatever her name was, while I was taking my driving test.  She offered us some Tier II (read: soon-to-be-torn-down) multiplex units that were pet friendly and gave him the keys so we could go look at them.

Again, I started bawling.  I do not want to live in housing that is going to be torn down in a year!!!!

I was so upset.

We decided that Josh (sponsor) and I would go look at them while Tommy took his driving test.  I felt so bad for Josh.  Here I am sitting in his car crying with my 2-year old kid and he has to drive me around to all these places that I really do not want to go to.

Fortunately, before we ever went into the first place, we ran into a neighbor there who gave me the 411 on the cul-de-sac.  He put things in perspective for me by giving me the high and low points. Ultimately, I decided to give it a chance, and I am actually happy to report that the first place had been spruced up (I won't go so far as renovated) quite a bit.  The butt-ugly hospital-tile floors in the other two places had been replaced with hardwood floor (or laminate) that was very nice, and all the appliances had been replaced with new or near-new ones.  The yard was nice and there is a great playground very close to the place.  The only real problem is that it only has one very, very small full bath.  With the soon-to-be second addition to our family, this will be very tight given the toddler toys, the infant bath, etc. that will be crammed in there.  But, it will do.  I felt much better after that, especially since the other two units were - well, let's just say... not updated like this one :)

So, I think we've found housing.  Tommy is doing some unit check-in things right now while I stay here with Wyatt, who is napping.  Then we'll move on with that process and hopefully get to move in on Monday or thereabouts.

Wish us luck!!