Birthdays and Balls

 Drew is now 29!  His birthday filled him with a black sense of dread . . .

 

 Actually he just had his eyes dilated for an eye exam.  We celebrated his birthday by going to his favorite yakiniku-style restaurant here, Jan Jaka, and stuffing ourselves silly.  I also made a cake, which I forgot to photograph.  It was a triple fudge chocolate cake with hot fudge between the layers and chocolate buttercream/cream cheese frosting!  It was good.  

 As a birthday gift form the Earth, Drew found a little crab on the road.  He named him Sawagani, because he looked like a freshwater crab and that's what they're called in Japanese.  We found a little tank at the thrift store for $3 and brought him home.  Unfortunately he didn't do so well.  Drew found out later (after Sawagani had passed and when he went on Vivi's youchien field trip to the aquarium and saw some of Sawagani's kinsmen) that he was actually a brackish water crab.  Sorry Sawagani.  We'll be ready for the next one now.  

Vivi is enjoying youchien.  At least, she hasn't told me she doesn't want to go yet.  It is bizarre to not know what has happened to her during the day, and to have to rely on her terrible historian skills to get a picture of her life away from me.  We do have a little communication notebook with her teachers to ask the important questions.  

You can see what a problem it is to have to rely on a liar for information.

They had a big field trip to Miyajima this week.  The youngest classmembers had to be accompanied by their parents to go, so Drew took his special birthday leave day and made a daddy-daughter date of it.

 They rode the ferry across to the island and posed by the Torii gate.

 Then they had to walk a LONG way to get to the aquarium.  Vivi got tired.

 Once at the aquarium, Vivien mostly wanted to play with the fake penguins, even going so far as to forsake the opportunity to pet a real one.

That's her pink backpack exiting: stage left.

"This is my penguin family."

Afterwards they had some udon noodles for lunch.

 And for being such a good girl, some "sofuto kuriimu."

 I guess by the end of the day she was showing off for all the Japanese people--posing for their pictures, etc.  It looks to me like she's being offered on the altar of Hello Kitty, which I feel a little uncomfortable with . . .

I think they had a good time.  The general consensus was that it was a long day--quite a lot of walking for the littles.  And I guess that's why a parent was required!

Rafe went to daycare for the first time this week.  He looked very cute in his little uniform.

When I picked him up after his first day, he was hoarse and croaky.  I asked them if he had cried a lot, and they said "Honestly, yes."  I guess whenever anyone had touched his car seat (which was there because Traci dropped him off in the morning and left it for me) he flipped out, and whenever any other moms came to collect their children, he was sad.  But, they still told me he was a good little boy.  And they were amusingly shocked by how much he eats.  "He ate too much lunch!"  The teacher said she made rice balls for them, and he just kept eating and eating and eating.  "Six rice balls!" she announced to me with huge eyes.  That's my boy!

My heart melts!  I still have a soft spot for percussionists . . . 

  He is at such a fun age right now.  He is trying out all kinds of words.  Right now his favorites are: apple, light, eye, moon, shoe, hot, mine, nnnnnno!, ginky (binky), and silky.  He also really loves to be chased by Daddy Monsters, but his fleeing easily outstrips his ability to balance.  He's smashed this same spot on his head 3 times in the last 2 weeks now.

 Good thing he likes to make everything into a helmet.  This particular hat looks especially nice with his Master Rafe cape.

Drew decided it was time for a hair cut this week.

He took a crash course in hair cutting from youtube, then strapped Rafe in and clipped away!  They both did pretty well. 

Vivien did not want to be left out of the hair cutting, and, not wanting her to take it upon herself to cut her own bangs, I attempted it.  Cutting someone else's hair makes me feel like I'm smashing a snail, or someone dropped their instrument on tile.  Maybe it will get better with time . . .

So far our transition to me working has been going well.  

First day

I have not been able to do much at work yet since we are waiting on security clearance, but that's been kind of nice because I don't have to be in till 8 and none of us have to get up so early to get where we need to be.  The problem is, if I'm not IN the clinic by 8, I get stuck in morning colors.  EVERYTHING stops for colors.  Even traffic.

Here's the main entrance of our clinic.  It's named after a medical corpsman who kept trying to tend to his injured comrades even though he kept getting shot until eventually he was killed.  That's not what I would have done, but I guess that's why I don't have a clinic named after me.  I just have babies who look like me instead.  Although, if they were getting shot at, I'd take bullets for them to get them out.  So, well done Robert M. Casey.  You'd make a good mom!

 Even though I've heard a lot of frustrations about the clinic from Drew and from friends, it's still a nice place to work.  I can tell because there are living plants in people's offices, and one of my friends told me that's how you know a good work environment.

 So far though, the only thing I've been able to do is stuff like HIPAA training.  It's RIVETING.

 Since we don't have computer access yet, we've been doing our training in the building where the Japanese made the decision to bomb Pearl Harbor.  It's surreal to walk inside.

On the topic of other surreal things, the kids and I went to a birthday dinner for our new audiologist at the Chicken Shack.  The display was . . . bizarre this time.  

 But the kids really liked it.  Because dinosaurs.

It's nice to come home to my family in the evenings.  This week we got to sit on our porch and watch the lunar eclipse together, snuggled up in blankets in the dark.  Vivi keeps telling people "the moon was clipped!"

And, finally for this week, Drew and I attended the Happy Birthday Navy Ball.  I ordered my dress online and it arrived earlier this week, but it was WAY too big.  Luckily there is an awesome tailor here who worked her magic and fixed all the gapes.  I went to the Daiso and found some fake flowers, hot glued them to a big bobby pin, and wrapped one of my bracelets around it to make a hair ornament, just cause I'm so fancy.  

 The ball was at Club Iwakuni, where we have Mongolian BBQ every week.  It was more exciting than Mongolian BBQ though, because everyone was all dressed up.

I have a propeller, like Hiss in Robin Hood!  It was to help me people watch better.

 The first hour was social hour.  Much "ooohing" and "aaaahing" over everyone else's outfits and general picture taking.

 Here's some of Drew's soccer team that was there.  Left to right: Chief Ward-IDC (in between a nurse and a PA), Elias Gonzalez-dentist, Mario Bencivenga-Occupational Therapist, Matt Burgess-one of the doctors I'll be working with, Nate Oehrlien-head of the department I'll be working in, Drew Forbes-best guy in the whole d*** Navy.  Sorry, had to.

 After social hour we had dinner.  We sat next to Angie Seay, one of the other new ladies at the clinic, and her husband, the senior enlisted leader.  She's been an RN almost as long as I've been alive, is from North Carolina, and tells awesome, fiery stories.

 Since it was the Navy's birthday party, we had to have birthday cake.  The theme for the Navy Ball this year was "honoring families."

 It was paraded out very officially.  Do you like the enlisted men's dress sailor suits?  The lady in the bottom right of this picture works at the daycare where Rafe goes.  And I think the redhead next to her should've won best hair last night--it looked really cool!  

It was fun to go to a formal event, especially now that I know so many more of the people at the clinic.  If Drew drank alcohol, we probably would've stayed for the dancing portion, but as it was, we snuck out after cake to collect our babies and called it a night!