To my oldest friend:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY HILARY!!!!!!!!!!!

Today is the 25th birthday of my oldest and truest friend in the whole world, this lovely lady on the right:

Let me tell you a little story about me and Hilary:

Our parents bought houses next door to each other right around the same time, and coincidentally, our mothers both happened to be pregnant.  Hilary and I were born in the same hospital one week apart (yup, my birthday is next week!). So literally, I've known this girl since THE DAY I was born! We grew up together, and lived next door to one another for 20 years. Her home was my second home, her family my second family. We scooted around in play pens together, spent half our youth climbing her apple tree, put on "kid concerts," had countless sleepovers and Super Nintendo Donkey Kong competitions, gossiped about boys, shared classes, teachers and homework from kindergarten through senior year... I could make a list a mile long of everything I've shared with Hil.

I can say this with no reservation: Hilary is without a doubt the most fiercely loyal, caring, wonderful person anyone could ever hope to have in his or her life. She and I couldn't possibly be any more different from one another (She's loud and outgoing, I'm quiet and shy. She was Ms. Popularity through school, I spent lunches in the chem lab. She lives an exciting, high-speed kind of life, I'm usually home on my couch on Friday nights.), but that couldn't matter any less. She's at the very top of the list of people that I KNOW, without a doubt, would be there for me at the drop of a hat no matter what. I hope she knows I would do the same for her. We're lifelong friends, and nothing can ever change that.

So to the girl who I've known and loved for a whole quarter of a century now, who's been with me from my first day to my wedding day and beyond (did I mention she's a super awesome wedding coordinator at a hotel in SJ and that she planned me the most perfect wedding in the history of time?): HAPPY HAPPY BIRTHDAY!! Here's to the next 25 years of friendship!

The Tyler Ave. clan- 25 years from the beginning!

Total Jealousy

I can't believe I forgot to blog about this...

So guess where Corey is being sent for work for a week at the end of April? Monterey, CA- a mere hour and a half away from most of my friends and family. So while I'm left to my own devices all by myself in Japan for a week (all homesick and junk), Corey gets to hang out in northern CA. No fair!! =P

Utterly terrified

Tonight I was sitting here minding my own business, watching Finding Neverland on DVD and goofing around on my laptop, when I noticed an ugly big black fuzzy spider crawling ACROSS MY LAP! Corey was already asleep, so I had to chase this little bugger through the couch cushions and kill him all by myself while trying not to scream too loudly. That got me thinking...

I've never lived in an area where there was a pronounced change of seasons. I didn't see a single bug of any kind for the almost 3 months that we've been here. Those 3 months were, however, entirely frozen solid the whole time and probably prevented just about every living entity from coming out of whatever warm-ish shelter it was hiding in. Now spring is upon us, and things are warming up. There's no more snow on the ground. Does this mean that new creepy crawlies are going to be coming out of the woodwork?

I made the mistake of looking up the disgusting, giant, ugly, poisonous, pain-inducing bugs that are common in Japan. This is what I found:

The Mukade- a giant, very poisonous, wall-crawling, aggressive and hard to kill centipede:

The giant Japanese hornet with venom that dissolves human tissue:

Dozens of spider species, many of which are larger than a human hand:

I can't even deal with looking at any more of these pictures, but the rest of the list includes giant cockroaches, 2 species of poisonous snakes, and very, very large beetles. All of these are most likely to be found in rural areas around rice paddies (they might as well say, "You're screwed, Misawa"). 

I think I might have to get myself a fully sealed panic box and lock myself inside from April-October if the likes of these guys actually show up in or around our house. Now I'm off to bed- I'm sure to experience the kind of light sleep where I'll wake up every 5 minutes when a hair brushes against my neck or the blankets make any rustling sounds. 

Don't let me read about bugs anymore.

Woooh, I feel good!

Nanananananana... I knew that I would, nanananananana! I feeeeeeel nice, like sugar and spice!

Guess who doesn't have to go in for regular physical therapy any more??? Me, that's who!

So good! *uh uh* So good!

Somewhere Over the Rainbow

Every day (as far as I know) at 6am and 6pm, the city of Misawa broadcasts a bell/chime-y version of the song "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" on the speaker system that is installed throughout the town. I don't know why, but it's kind of nice! I always catch it just as I'm coming home from dropping Corey off at work in the morning.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

I love today because my favorite color is green and it's everywhere! And because it was my grandma Garland's birthday! So, basically it's a good day.

Corey and I had a good day. First of all, I had the BEST physical therapy session I've EVER had! It killed, I screamed and balled like a baby, but it was all worth it because the therapist got my arm to bend and straighten further than it's ever gone (post-break obviously)! I'm super duper ridiculously sore tonight, but I don't even care. Progress makes this whole process much more bearable! 

Before I picked Corey up from work I baked some fresh bread at home. This is the first bread I've made since I left my job at the bakery back in JUNE! My skills have deteriorated- my loaf today didn't rise quite properly, but I'll get back in the swing of things soon. I want to start baking up a storm again! (Not my picture above, randomly picked it up here.)

After Corey got off work we went on a nice long run OUTDOORS! It's finally dry and warm enough to do things outside (that's not to say that it's warm by any means, but I'll take it!). The trail on base is really cool- nice mix of hills and flats, totally open fields and super treed(?) areas, and the best part is that it follows along the runway so you can race the planes as they're taking off. The planes beat us today, but it was our first time out running in a while, so maybe next time we'll win... :) After our run we caught the end of Corey's boss' volleyball game, which was fun!

We came home, cooked a delicious and nutritious meal, and now we're pooped and ready for bed and it's just barely 8:00. 

Sorry if a play-by-play of my day wasn't what you had in mind for an entertaining blog entry, but it was just one of those all-around great happy days I felt like sharing! Hope everyone had/has a great St. Patty's Day too!

Lunch

Today we went out for some authentic Japanese sushi:

Yeah, that's totally a hot dog. Hot dog sushi. Awesome.

Totally hungover.

Ugh. 

Last night we went out drinking with some cool peeps. We had a delicious dinner (including A LOT of beer) and then went to a karaoke bar (which included all you can drink beer). I drank a lot of beer. And then I had more beer. And then I "sang" some truly awful karaoke in a drunken stupor (pssst... check out the left elbow extension towards the end!).

But I must say, it was a blast! The fun night was worth my utter discomfort today. =)

Productivity

It's just after 6:30am, and here is what I've accomplished so far today:

- Drove my husband to work

- Showered/dressed/gotten ready for the day

- Ate breakfast

- Did a load of laundry

- Did a load of dishes

- Watched an episode of Friends

Not too shabby, if I do say so myself! I wonder how much more I can get done in the 3 hours I have until physical therapy...

You've GOT to be kidding me!

This was the state of our street a few short days ago (notice how the snow had almost fully melted and the weather looks pleasant):

This is the view from our street when I woke up this morning:

I knew I was going to jinx us when I wrote my happy post about Spring being close. DARN IT!! It's times like these when I think about how nice it would have been to have gotten orders to Hawaii instead of Misawa... *sigh*

On the bright side, I made brownies!

Awesome movie!

Hilarity and intelligence- I love it! I highly recommend seeing this!

Spring is close!

Today was BEAUTIFUL! The sun was shining bright and it got up to the mid-50's! People were all over town riding bikes, kids were having fun on thawing-out playgrounds, and it was just too nice to stay inside. Corey and I took the opportunity to go for a drive. We headed north, going through a couple of small towns and enjoying the scenery. Along the way we figured out how to find the coast and had a great time walking along the ocean and looking for seashells.

There was no beach per-say, just a big cement hill lined with giant cement blocks all along the waterline- I've never seen anything like it. Corey liked them because they look like huge jacks.

It was beautiful, fun, and overall just a great happy day!!

Back to blogging

I'm back! I had a really rough past week (physically and emotionally), but I'm feeling better and decided it was time to post something! A quick update on my poor, decaying body: my elbow is either coming along very slowly or not at all (it's hard to tell). I'm convinced my physical therapist is a sadistic torturer (not really, she's actually a nice lady), but she sure knows how to induce pain! The PT process has been mentally and physically draining, but I'll continue chugging along until they tell me nothing else is going to happen. To be honest, I'll be perfectly content with my current range of motion if that's all I'm going to get- sure there's a difference, but there isn't much I can't do now that I could do before, so whatever. My new development is a wisdom tooth problem. I have to get all 4 of them taken out (although the soonest they can do it is in a MONTH, so I have to deal with the accompanying pain until then- joy). Between the many hours I spent in the dental clinic and at physical therapy, I felt like I lived at the hospital this week. Thankfully this week is over, and hopefully the next one will be better!

On the plus side, the weather this week was LOVELY!! Sunny blue skies most days (although still really cold). It's raining today, but I'll take buckets of rain over snow. Since the roads haven't been icy, I've gotten mighty good at this whole driving on the left side of the road thing (I'm too chicken to drive when it's icy out- they don't plow the roads off-base and some days it's like driving on an ice-skating rink- eek)! My favorite drive here is out to where Corey works. He works waaaay far up on on a hill about 15 minutes away from the main base (they stick all of his kind far away from every one else, poor little outcasts). The road there is really pretty; it goes through a canyon with a gorgeous lake and lots of trees.

This is the road- not the prettiest part, but the best I could do taking pictures while driving.

The hard part about driving is that the HIGHEST speed limit anywhere in Misawa is 50kph. Kilometers, not miles! We're talking 30mph. It's rough adjusting to going so slowly all the time. 

The other weird thing about driving here is that there are no street names. Directions are based on landmarks. For instance, we live off POL-gate road, past Universe (a supermarket), right near the fork in the road:

The fork

It's important to have an idea about where certain restaurants, stores, etc are located so that you have a clue as to where things are when you're told. Luckily Misawa is pretty small, so it's not that hard to figure out.

In other news, our neighborhood is pretty much finished! When we got here, only half of the houses were completed and there was crazy construction going on. Now it's all done, and people are starting to move into the new houses. We have quite the colorful little American neighborhood. If you remember, our house is bright yellow. The new houses are prettier (in my opinion) colors of peach, green and brown:

Anyway, I just took a strawberry cake out of the oven (yes, I'm 5), and I'm going to enjoy a slice while I watch my downloaded America's Next Top Model and wait for Corey to get home! Hope everyone is doing well!

P.S. Have you been watching LOST?? I'm so utterly in love with this season, especially with the last 3 episodes!!!!

Sick

I've been not so up-to-date with the blog entries lately, mostly because I haven't had much to say for the past week. I'm currently sick, and I think Corey is coming down with it too. I was in a bit of a funk last week because my physical therapy is not going very well. At this point I'm not totally sure my elbow is healed properly or that they're doing the right things with it. Time will tell I guess. 

Hopefully this coming week I'll shake this cold and have some more interesting posts and pictures to share. Sorry this entry is a bit "blah"- can't quite escape that feeling today.