Car naps

Pretending to sleep...

....actually sleeping.

USA here we come!

I know I've been a blog slacker lately. I don't blame you if you're not even checking this under weeks after we've posted it. I'm going to blame it on pregnancy. Yeah, that's what I'll do. Can't we girls blame a lot of things on that?

Let me begin by posting about our flight to Utah. We tried to get out on the Patriot Express which goes from Okinawa to Yakota (mainland Japan) and then on to Seattle. Then I would have taken a Southwest flight from Seattle to Salt Lake City. Well, we didn't get on that flight which is rather unheard of this time of year. This is supposed to be the "slow" season, but it wasn't that week! For those of you not familiar with Space A travel, you don't actually "book" a flight and get on it. You show up to the Air Force airport and hope to get on a plane. They only release schedules 2 days in advance and those change at the last minute for every reason from the plane needing maintenance to the mission changing.

For the next two days we tried to get on about 5 flights with no success. We finally caught a flight to Hickam Air Base in Hawaii on Friday night. It was strange because we left Friday night at 7pm Japan time and arrived at 9am Friday Hawaii time. It was a LOUD plane (a C-17 I think???) and we literally had to shout into the ear of the person you were trying to communicate with. The seats were just cargo netting and pretty uncomfortable, but my kids will tell you otherwise. They slept on blow-up mattresses that I brought. AND, they slept from takeoff to landing. I couldn't ask for more! 9 hours straight. Here are some pics from our strange plane.




Back of the plane (no cargo except our checked luggage)

Front of the plane. I think we may have been transporting some donated blood.

So we got in Hawaii Friday morning and just missed a flight to Travis Air Base outside of Sacramento. I noticed there was a flight to Hill Air Base just north of Salt Lake that was leaving Sunday morning. What should I do? I decided to just chill and spend Friday and Saturday in Hawaii. We could get over some jet lag and enjoy the tropical paradise. I also happen to have some mission friends who live nearby and were willing to play host to us.

We tried to catch a shuttle to the base hotel, but they wouldn't let us on with all our luggage. So a nice man helped us walk to the hotel which was only about a 1/2 mile away. Within 100 meters another guy with a big car asked if we wanted a lift somewhere. After checking in, this same guy and his wife drove us to our gigantic room. Everyone was so helpful!

I was pretty tired at this point. Although the kids slept the whole 9 hours, I was lucky to have 1 hour worth of sleep. I took a brief nap in the hotel and then we went out to dinner with my MTC roommate, Rachel Niapali. It was so refreshing and fun to head to a food court in a mall! We ate at Panda Express...yes it was Asian food, but it was "American" Asian food. So yummy! I got to see Honolulu and just get out.

The next day I had to change hotel rooms which was a pain, but at least I had another place to stay Saturday night. Another mission friend, Mernette Cardejon, lives close by and picked me up, with all my luggage, and drove us for another fun filled day down to the PCC (Polynesian Culture Center). It's kinda like Disneyland, according to one of my kids. They have different "lands" like Epcot Center with the different islands of Polynesia represented. It was very cool and we had a great time hanging out with my friends. They were both so hospitable and made my extended stay in Hawaii extremely enjoyable. My kids keep talking about seeing the Hawaii temple. Sorry, Mernette, for Ben getting car sick on the ride down! We had a great time. She even knew the spots where they film LOST and Jurassic Park. Too cool. Rachel's kids were darling and we just had so much fun.

We got home late and ordered in pizza for dinner. I won't go into detail about how the kids had the worst night ever of going to bed for me. They were holy terrors. I think they feel asleep around 1am and we had to get up at 3:45 to make our Hill Air Base flight. Thankfully that flight went off (2 hours later than scheduled, but at least it went!) This time the plane was a C-5 which is the largest plane the Air Force has. I walked into the plane and there were 6 giant trucks INSIDE the plane. We walked upstairs where we had regular plane seats....only backwards. So we flew backwards the whole way. We had about 4 rows to ourselves and slept the first 2 hours. The remaining 5 hours or so were spent watching movies and playing with toys. We finally arrived in Utah in the early evening on Sunday. Grandma and Grandpa Kiser were there waiting for us. Not only was this whole experience more direct than I imagined, but it saved us $$$ because we didn't have to take a commercial flight from Seattle to SLC. Overall, I'd do it again. However, you certainly have to have an attitude of adventure and BE FLEXIBLE. Some pics of our time in Hawaii:





We were planning on taking the Patriot Express back to Oki, but now we're thinking we may try to hop back through Hawaii and spend another few days. Rob is meeting me out here in a week and flying back with me. What a help that will be! I mean life is always better with him around, but 2 adult sets of hands are always nicer. He also got an extension with his leave so we won't be heading back until later in the first week of April.

There you have it...my travel adventures. Next post....what I've been doing in this wonderful land of plenty and choice.

We're going to even the score!

That's right folks. The little bundle of kicks inside me is a girl. Send the pink presents coming and pray for red curls.

I know, I know...I've been blog MIA since I've been pregnant. Sorry! Here is a little update from our last month. Oh, before I start, we are moving! We'll still be in Okinawa, but we're moving from a 3 bedroom on New Lester to a 4 bedroom on Old Lester. It all happened really fast and we are soooooo gonna miss being by the Peterson's and everyone, but I just gotta keep telling myself that we are only a 1/2 mile away and we can totally walk over anytime. We find out what the sex of our baby is tomorrow. Stay tuned for an update.

Here we are at Cape Zampa. It was super windy and chilly, but we had a nice time exploring.

The kids' true personality coming out.

The one family shot we got. The water kept splashing up behind us spraying mist everywhere.

Issy and I walked to the top of the lighthouse and this is the shot we got of the boys at the bottom. It was pretty scary especially with the wind and the fact that Issy kept trying to climb the rusty railing keeping her from falling hundreds of feet to her death. We only stayed up there to take a few quick shots and come down immediately.

Even the boys hair is blowing.

Issy trying to pose like the guy in the statue. Reminded me of the "This Is The Place" monument in Utah.

Said lighthouse and wind.

A quick bonfire with marshmallows before bed one night.

I just thought Isabella looked so darling in this outfit.

I made a quilt for my sister Marianne who just had her first little baby on Ben's birthday (Dec 28th). I still haven't seen pictures (ahem!), but I'm so excited to see little Christian when I come home in less than a month. Rob's other sister (he has 6 of them), Jane, had a darling little boy, Ethan, that we are going to be able to live with while we are in UT. I can't wait to get my baby fix! Anyway, about the quilt....I have seriously slacked in the whole quilting department since moving here. This is from fabric I bought while still in the States and I tried a ragtime feel to it. The edges are supposed to fray giving it an older look. To do this you basically quilt as you go and then you don't have to send it out to a quilter to do that part. It was nice to try something different.

Ben's climbing a fun new rope pyramid we found at our weekly playground playgroup.

I think they thought they were spiderman.

I told them to "pretend that they love each other" and this is what I got.

Whoops, these are out of order. This is a lovely purchase from out tax return money. We played Rock Band 2 at a friends' house and fell in love with it. We both wanted to get it, but we didn't even have any video game system. Since Noah's been begging us for some time now to get a Wii, we caved and got one along with the RB2. It's been so fun and we've had lots of people over to play. If anyone if ever interested on putting your kids to sleep at our house and jamming into the night, just let us know. It's so fun!

Rob in some new bike clothes he got. Rob's big tax refund purchase was a Specialized Road Bike. He's super into biking and was stoked when the bike got here in a week instead of two months. He even rode to work today (normally an hour car ride). I'll post a picture of the new wheels later.

Back to the playground pics from this morning. Here's Issy climbing the rope wall to get to the gigantic cement slide. It was quiet a feat for her requiring much concentration.

A view from the top...

...a view coming down.

These fun slides are everywhere and really are a hoot (especially when you wear slippery soccer shorts).

Utah, here we come

Hello all my UT friends. We are taking a MAC flight to UT for over a month! We'll be there from Feb 26th thru April 2nd. I hope to touch bases with any and all my friends from SLC to Vegas (we are meeting my parents in Vegas for 10 days). So all you St George people...I'll be coming though. Can't wait! See you then.

Kiser's visit the Love Motel

Yes, we went to a Love Motel. For those of you not from Okinawa this is exactly what it sounds like. There are a strip of hotels that rent rooms by the hour (or 1/2 hour in some cases). There are lots of reasons that the Okinawans have these. Many people live in multi-generational houses and there isn't much privacy. Also there are GI's that meet local girls and need a place to go. They aren't sleezy or dirty. Lots of LDS couples go to them. So I decided to surprise Rob and steal him away to one of these since we've been wanting to check it out for awhile. While I'm glad we had this cultural "experience", I don't think we'll be heading back to one anytime soon since it ended up being 6100 yen (roughly $68!) for just over an hour. Granted we did get a fancy smancy room with a swimming pool in it, but it was the most expensive sex we've ever had! Here's the picture tour (don't worry they aren't "graphic").


First we went out to dinner. This is pretty typical Okinawan yumminess. I got rice with yakatori chicken on top. I also got a Nan bread pizza. Rob got shrimp sushi and some tempura stuff which included even the lettuce in the crusty coating.

Here's our destination

First there is a drive through with all the available rooms lighted up. You look at the rooms and decide with one you want. Then, you drive to the room number.

You pull into the assigned spot and pull a curtain behind your car so no one can see who is in that spot. It lists the hourly rate and hours.


The room itself was 2 floors with a spiral staircase in between. Downstairs was a bathroom, a couch and living room, a kareoke machine and even slots! We didn't sing (or gamble), but we posed for an effects picture.





Upstairs was the pool, bedroom, more kareoke machines and the shower. The shower was great with about 10 different spouts and all sorts of buttons that I don't know what they controlled.

The entire experience takes place without seeing a soul. When you're ready to check out you pick up this phone and say "check out". There is a drive though bank type clear tube that you send your money up and they send back your change. Overall, we are glad to have this experience, but it was way overrated. If you ever come to Oki, check out the lovely Mint Hotel.

Funny kid things this week

While brushing the kids' teeth we tell them we are getting all the "cavity bugs" out. Tonight Issy told me to make sure all the bees are gone. Apparently bees and bugs are the same thing.

I told Noah that I had a dream last night where I was a spy (I'm sure it has NOTHING to do with the fact that Rob and I are addicted to watching Alias the last few weeks). He told me girls can't be spies. WHAT? This is my child growing up with stereotypes. I was pretty bummed....so I showed him a scene from Alias where Sydney is kicking some spy butt.