Monday, July 2, 2007, 10:55 PM - Family, Nathan, Lisa, PC, Food, Japan
Well, Lisa and Nathan successfully made it back to the States yesterday/today. We got to the airport an hour and a half early (normally that's WAY too early, but we figured Nathan would like to play on the inside playground for a while). As soon as we walked in the terminal, we saw like 500 people in a line that snaked across all of the ANA counters and into the middle of the building. We looked at each other in utter disbelief...never has it been so busy in our small little airport!!
Lisa waited in line with all the stuff while Nathan and I went and changed his diaper, played on the airplane playground, watched the airplanes and airport trucks drive around the tarmac, etc. It wasn't until 11:20am that Lisa finally got up to the counter (for a 12:00pm flight)!!! After about 20 minutes, Lisa got all their tickets AND an ANA escort to take them to the plane. I couldn't go past security, so it was kind of a quick goodbye. After talking to Lisa today, she said that the airline lady walked them all the way to their seats and helped install the car seat too!!
I'll let Lisa tell the rest of the story on her blog, but that's the beginning part.
So, what did I do with my new found bachelorhood? Mowed the lawn, cleaned the house, read my book, and tried a GREAT new ramen restaurant. I'd been wanting to go there for the last year or so, but it just never worked out (they open late). Anyway, the place is basically a shack on the side of the road but their ramen is awesome! Just like the stuff we had in Sapporo. The have a set menu where you choose what type of ramen you want (soy sauce, miso, etc) and you get a drink, gyoza, japanese salad, and garlic fried rice all for about $8. Definitely a keeper.
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Wednesday, April 25, 2007, 03:17 AM - Family, Nathan
Nathan has this book that is the Airplane Alphabet. Of course, under "R" is the F-22 Raptor. Every time we get to that page, he starts pointing outside of his room because he remembers that we went to see the F-22 this last weekend. How do it know? How does he know that? Amazing.[ 1 comment ] ( 11 views ) | [ 0 trackbacks ] | permalink
Wednesday, April 18, 2007, 03:53 AM - Family, Nathan, PC
Today I had a mole removed from my neck. And now I have a band-aid on my neck. Lisa pointed it out to Nathan and said "Dadda's Hurt". Throughout the rest of the evening, Nathan would look over at me with this thoughtful look and do the sign for "hurt" (putting his hand on his head) and either point at my band-aid or say "Dadda". How cute is that?
Before he had his bath, I showed him the spot on my arm where the blood was drawn and said that Dadda was hurt there too. Then, when I was putting his PJs on after bath time, he was sitting on my lap and pointed that same spot out to me and made the sign for "hurt" again.
Amazing...and he's my little boy!
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Saturday, January 20, 2007, 08:00 PM - Family, Nathan, Lisa, PC, Japan, Pictures
I've been lazy about putting pictures up lately, but today is your lucky day! 17 pictures that we've taken around Sunset Beach (right near American Village) in the last couple of days (click the related link at the bottom to see all of them).
;)
The first four (including the one to the left) are from about a week ago when we went down there to watch the sunset from the beach. Of course we had to stop and get Lisa a Starbucks (and let Nathan stare at the bad ass ferris wheel), so just as we rolled up to the beach we saw the last 10 seconds of the sun setting. DAMMIT!!! As I said to Lisa, we were one Carmel Macchiato too late.
;)
This picture is of the sun rise the morning Lisa drove me in to work because I left my car at the airport. Let's be realistic, when I say airport I really mean the building we call the "terminal" on the flightline. It's really just a waiting area with a door onto the flightline. Aaahhh, gotta love flying Sumo Air!!!
;)
And finally, the pictures from this morning. Today we were going to look at the AN-124 on MCAS Futenma, but it turned out that it took off about 30 minutes before we left. Oh well, we'll go see the one that's flying in tomorrow!!! Afterall, it's the second largest aircraft in the world! Anyway, we decided to go get Starbucks and walk around the beach a little bit. Nathan enjoyed eating his chocolate scone, feeding the pigeons, and being fearless by trying to walk up and down all the stairs by himself. He also tried to jump down from the picnic table bench and...well, you can see what happened:
;)
Don't worry, his nose broke his fall!
And, lastly, a little bit of Engrish for all you lucky readers out there. At the snack bar, they sell Squid Arm Fries for only $5!!!
;)
You also have the option to rent beach ambrellas and ash trays. Sweet!!
;)
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Friday, January 19, 2007, 06:17 AM - Family, Nathan
I got home from work today and Nathan was SO excited to show me his new skill!! Apparently, Lisa taught him how to give Sandy a dog biscuit. Sweet! So, the first thing he wanted to do was feed her dinner, of course, but then he wanted to give her one to show me how awesome it was. I asked Lisa if he knew how to make Sandy "sit" and then "shake", but she just looked at me like I was an idiot and laughed. To prove her point that I'm an idiot, she said to Sandy in a lovingly-yet-stern voice: SIT. Without skipping a beat, Sandy continued eating her dinner as if nobody was there but Nathan plopped his butt down into the sitting position and tried to give Sandy the biscuit.
So, the moral of the story is: Nathan won't do it if we ask him to, but if we ask Sandy to do it, Nathan responds like a Marine recruit at boot camp!! Immediate obedience to orders...that's what I'm talk'n about.
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Saturday, December 2, 2006, 06:51 PM - Family, Nathan
Nathan loves all things electronic, including my cell phone. For a while, he just liked taking it in and out of the leather case that came with it. That was the BEST. In the last couple of weeks, he's started noticing that when I'm in my cammies, I wear the phone on my belt, underneath my cammie blouse. Now here comes the fun part. As soon as I walk in the door, Lisa screams "DADDY'S HOME", the dog barks hysterically, and Nathan looks at the door and starts smiling and waving his arms. When I set my cover down by the door and walk up to him in the living room, the first thing he does is points at my left hip (where the phone is) and starts moaning. If he's not in his chair eating dinner, then he'll come over to me and lift my blouse up and walk around me looking at my belt trying to find the phone. As soon as he finds it, he rips it off my belt and walks off to play with it. This is a nightly routine. If he's in the middle of eating then obviously he can't walk around me to find it. So, when he gets out of his chair, that's what he does. If I make the mistake of taking my blouse off while he's sitting in his chair, then he starts protesting loudly and pointing because he can see it on my hip.
Is he going to be like this when he's 16 and wants a cell phone? Man I hope not! I'll tell ya what (in my best King of the Hill impression): he is NOT getting a cell phone (or a car for that matter) while he lives under my roof! Wow...that was very much a fatherly thing to say...how weird!
I'm not even going to get into how Nathan likes to play with the keyboard and mouse, how he has already figured out how to use the remote to the Mac Mini in order to start and stop his Baby Einstein videos, how he MUST watch slideshows of our pictures, he lusts over the laptop, etc etc etc.
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Tuesday, November 28, 2006, 04:01 AM - Family, Nathan
This is how Nathan was on Thanksgiving and Black Friday. Sweet, huh? He wasn't getting what he wanted so he melted on to the floor and fussed constantly. Aaaahhhh, the terrible twos. More leadership challenges ahead 
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Tuesday, October 31, 2006, 04:19 AM - Family, Nathan, USMC
Well, the embassy called and they don't want us to execute an HA/DR mission here. That's good and bad in my opinion. It's GREAT because that means I get to go home to my family in a few days!!! It's bad because we have so much to offer to people, especially when they've had their homes destroyed. Here's a thought to ponder...what would you do if your whole town was ravaged by a storm? If all you had left was your family and none of your possessions? It certainly makes me think about how little "stuff" matters and how important my family is.
On that note, Lisa called me this afternoon with some news about Nathan. She took him to the doctor because he involuntarily rolls his eyes into the back of his head from time to time. It looks like he's fainting or having a seisure, but he never loses consciousness. The doctors don't know what's going on but asked Lisa to video tape it and come back in for more tests. Talk about scary...he's my perfect little boy. How could anything be wrong with him? I especially hate being away at times like this. I feel so helpless.
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Wednesday, September 20, 2006, 03:02 AM - Family, Nathan, Lisa, PC
Lately everyone has been asking me how things are going, how I'm doing, yada yada yada. The answer as of late has been "busy busy busy" followed by a big sigh, rubbing of the temples, and shaking of the head.
On my way home tonight I was gearing up for a big fight with Lisa because when I talked to her aroud 5:30pm,, I told her that I'd be late tonight and would miss dinner. This would mark the 4th dinner I've missed with the family in the last 2 weeks. So, I was all ready to come in and be like "hey, I've got a lot going on at work and I'm trying to do the best job I can being a good husband, father, and Marine so cut me some slack".
As I walked up the sidewalk, I noticed that the light in Nathan's bedroom was on which could only mean one thing at 7:15pm: the bedtime routine had started. I opened the door and wasn't greeted with the typical "DADDY'S HOME!!!!" Nope, tonight I walked upstairs and went in to Nathan's room and was greeted by a "dadduh" from Nathan and a "oh look, Daddy's home just in time to say good night to you" from Lisa. Of course I gave her the evil eye at that time...but then I just looked at Nathan and realized what a jerk I am.
My son, the one who I'm supposed to love, nurture, teach, protect, etc hasn't seen me for about 13 hours. He briefly saw me at 6:15am when I left for work, but that's it. At first I was thinking "hey, I've got a lot of things to do at work in order to prepare for this exercise". Just from looking into his eyes, staring at his face, and touching his skin, all that crap fell away and I saw myself as being a failure in the last couple of weeks. I'm going to be gone for more than 30 days for work, there's no reason why I need to extend that just because I can't get everything accomplished in one day.
If I can't get everything done during the normal 7:30 - 4:30 work day, then I need to do that work after Lisa and Nathan go bed. For most stuff, it's not worth being away from my family because THEY are the priority.
After I kissed Nathan goodnight, we went in and changed our sheets then went downstairs and cleaned the kitchen, picked up the family room, and ate dinner. Actually, I ate dinner while Lisa did all of those things. So what's the other thing I feel like a jerk about? Yup, you got it: not only is Nathan paying for my workload, but Lisa is too. She's acting like a single Mom, doing all the clean up, laundary, cooking, etc ON TOP OF taking care of Nathan. Her day never ends and yet I expect to come home after a LOOOONG day of work and relax.
See, I told you I was a jerk.
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Sunday, July 23, 2006, 03:15 AM - Family, Nathan, Food, Pictures
Lisa stole most of the wind from my sail because she posted her update first and included some pictures. Well...I'm including them ALL!!! See the related link for the pictures.
BTW, note the picture below of the three of us in front of the table where Nathan and I were picking our noses. Nathan started it!!!
;)
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