Pictures

A Long Journey

We finally made it to Georgia! We left Japan October 18th. Our plane left at around 11 am that Sunday morning, we flew to mainland Japan which took us 3 hours if I remember right. We had a small layover in Narita and then took off for Hawaii. That flight took us 8 hours, but with a time difference of 19 hours! Needless to say, we were tired. The funny thing was we landed at 7 am on that Sunday morning...before we left Japan :) We stayed in Hawaii for almost a week, vacationing there with my parents. The weather there was awesome, the hotel was nice and the food was great! We really enjoyed our time in Hawaii...but like all vacations it ended too soon. We left Hawaii, and my parents, on Friday morning...they had a later flight than us. Next we flew to Chicago, I think that flight took us around 8 hours also. Again, we were so tired b/c of another lovely time change. At least this time it was only 5 hours. We hung out at the Chicago airport for 2 or so hours and then finally boarded a small plane for St. Louis. By the way, our dog Chloe accompanied us through this whole trip. When we were sitting on this plane we realized we hadn't confirmed our dog being loaded. While waiting for the flight attendant to make her way back to us so we could ask her to check, Josiah yells out, "There's Chloe!!!" Sure enough, there was our dog, panicking in her crate as she is going up the conveyor belt onto the plane. :) Well, she wasn't really panicking, just pacing in place. Poor dog. She was probably wondering what was going on...while in Hawaii she was in quarantine the whole week. We finally take off for St. Louis, which was a wonderful short flight and there to meet us was Jeff's parents, such a nice sight to see when all the other airports you arrive at are full of people you don't know. We arrived in MO on Saturday morning. And again...needless to say, after all this flying and time change, our family was hit with jet lag. I took a nap that afternoon and that was the wrong thing to do. It was so hard to wake up, and napping made me feel much worse. I spent the rest of the day in a fog, just drifting around the house, trying to talk and be sociable....but praying for bed time to roll around. Amazingly, Josiah and Gaber did the best, they stayed awake all day and slept great that night. Kids are amazing creatures! I haven't mentioned Tara yet, she did great the whole way from Japan! She was an amazing flier, thanks to God answering my prayers!, and she did well with the time changes too. I don't think we ever had a hard time getting her to sleep, the boys as well, we just had a hard time getting them to wake up! I had to start setting my alarm for 9 am so that we could get on central time, we were all sleeping in to noon! Eventually we made it down to 8 am. We stayed in MO for 2 weeks, there we celebrated Gaber's 5th birthday at Bonkers and then had a delicious DQ cake at the Rybold's house. A couple days later we were all hit with a nasty plague! Jeff started it, then Gaber, then Siah, then Rose, me, Tom, Megann, and the ones who got it at the end of our trip was Mark and my mom. Not sure if Alicia and her other little ones got it or not. Boy was that not fun. Lets just say nothing would stay down and for some of the sickos nothing could keep them off the toilet! LOL
Enough about that, I don't like thinking about it...the next part of our journey took us to south MO to visit Jack, Cassie and their 4 kids. We spent 2-3 days there, eating and holding their precious new baby girl. After that visit we started our drive down to Georgia which took us 3 days to accomplish. We would have made it sooner if Jeff wouldn't have to stop so many times, I think he was drinking to much soda! :) The boys loved the drive, especially Josiah. He just stared out the windows, in awe of the landscape in the states. It looks so much different than Japan. The boys loved seeing the cows, trains, wide open fields and the beautiful trees. Jeff and I really enjoyed the view too, it had been too long since we've seen our country. Its so nice to be back after spending 6 years overseas. It was a great experience, one that I'm so thankful to God for letting us do, but I'm so happy to be back.
This Saturday we are taking off, again, for MO. We will stop there for a few days and then drive up to Wisconsin for Christmas. We are hoping for snow so the boys can experience building snowmen and sledding and snowball fights!
As soon as I find my wire for the camera I will post some pictures!

Last Blog from Okinawa

Tonight our computer will get boxed up for our move so I thought I would fit in a real quick blog. Today the movers came for our unaccompanied baggage. They got here early, thankfully, and were done w/in 30 minutes! We've had the rest of the day to prepare for tomorrows pack out, the big one. We are still preparing for it actually, probably will be until I go to bed. We have to pack our suitcases and get them put away so the movers won't box them up. So I gotta figure out the last things I would like to have with us in Hawaii and Missouri.

We will be so busy for the next week. We have to junk our car, pick up another car to drive for our last week, take care of the dog for the move, clean our house for inspection, Jeff has to final out at his squadron and then the base. We found out today that the TLF, "hotel", has us leaving on Saturday instead of Sunday...yeah. *sigh* So we may not get to stay in our room for our last night here. They may make us move to a different building and be in a one room instead of a two room. We're hoping there will be an opening for us to stay in the building that we will already be in.
We are so excited to move! I can't wait to get to Hawaii and then Missouri and lastly Georgia!
See you all soon!
Bye Okinawa, our home for the past 3 years! *sniff*

Almost There

Josiah this morning was so excited when he saw on the calendar that it is October 1st. He has had a countdown going, for when we move, for a long time. We are now down to 17 days!!! Yesterday we had our preinspection for our house. We have some light cleaning to do for the final inspection. It shouldn't be too hard. A guy from the moving company came yesterday too, to see how much stuff we have, so they know how many boxes to bring. We get packed out on the 8th and 9th! Just one week away! We are almost there!
It's been a busy week here. Jeff has been working on out processing and we've had a missions conference this week. The Chappell brothers were here to preach at it. We had a great conference, I heard some decisions were made for full time service, one saved and our church promised $210,000 this year for missions! Pretty awesome! I love conferences, revivals, all that stuff...but it sure does wear ya out! We didn't get home from church until closer to 9 on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. I'm sure looking forward to hanging out at home with my family tonight. Enjoying dinner together and family time!
Please keep us in prayer for this move. We sure would love a smooth move! Also keep praying about our new house in Georgia. We haven't heard yet if there are any available on base. If there isn't any, we'll have to look off base which can be difficult with having a dog.
Lastly, Tara finally cut another tooth! So now she has 3 little teethers! :)

A Busy Saturday

Saturday I went to the Chibana yard sale with a friend of mine. This was my first time going as a seller or buyer. I had heard that it can be chaotic, I didn't realize how true that was. We got there a little before 6 a.m. When we finally got there and parked, I had someone already looking in the back of my van! As soon as I opened it a guy bought two items from me! So they have vendor set up from 5:30 am to 6:30, vendor shopping from 6:30 to 7, then they open the gates for the Japanese to come in and shop from 7 to 10. When they opened the gates at 7, I was not ready for the flood of people who would come, and not only come...but run in! Seriously! As soon as they all started running towards us, I looked at Sarah and said, "What are we doing here!!??" I think at one time we had at least 10-15 people rummaging through our stuff. They don't just sort through it and look around, they tare through it! I ended up with a mountain of clothes, nothing was organized any more! And every time that Sarah and I would try to organize the mess, it would just get all jumbled up again so we gave up! Well, it was quite a morning. I made just about 200 dollars, not bad!
After the yard sale I had to run to the BX then off to a birthday party that Gaber was invited to. It was a lot of fun for him. It was a princess party...you are now wondering how that would be fun for a boy, right?...the girls all dressed as princesses and then they gave the boys swords, shields and crowns to wear. So all the boys were knights or kings. It was so cute! They also got to play putt putt and pin the tale on the donkey. And then, Gaber's favorite party of a birthday party, is the cake. It was made to look like a castle, and it did look pretty good! :)
So, we get home from the party at 3, I take an hour nap, then we had to go down south of the island to Arin Krin, aka The Garlic House, for a going away. Jeff loves this place, so do I actually. We don't go a lot b/c it takes a long time to get there because of traffic. So we had a delicious dinner and then we finally came home and I was finally done for the day!

Today we went to church, like we always do, but then Tara ended up with a 101.7 fever at church so I had to come home early with her. Not sure what is going on with that baby. She has had a runny nose since the beginning of August. Not just runny...its pouring most of the time. We thought it was teething, then thought it was allergies. But now that she has a temp, I don't know. I guess I'll try calling the clinic, again, tomorrow and get her an appointment.

Lastly, the countdown is now to: 4 weeks until we PCS! :)

Here are a few pictures from this week:

Tara and I on Monday, preparing for the Packer game


Josiah


Jeff reading to Tara at half time

Orders!

We finally got our orders this week!!! Jeff shot Tuesday and we got our orders on Wednesday! So now, since we've gotten our orders, Jeff has scheduled almost everything. At the end of this month is our housing preinspection, on October 8th is our unaccompanied baggage (some of our stuff that will get shipped to the states quicker), on October 9th is our household goods (the rest of our stuff that may not make it so fast to Georgia), on October 15th is our housing inspection (they look all threw our house to make sure we are leaving it clean and undamaged, this part is always the stressful part. Some inspectors are so tough. In Washington the inspector pulled out a razor blade and had me scrape up a black speck out of our oven! And you can't leave, PCS, until they pass you...yeah, stressful.), and then on October 14th we can finally move into TLF which is like a hotel...military style. Yes, I say military style b/c in the past they haven't been fun to live in. Our last one we stayed in was infested with roaches. I think the hardest part though will be waiting until the 14th to move in to TLF. We have to stay in our empty house until then. I think we will try borrowing an air mattress from someone, a playpen for Tara, and luckily the boys' will still have their beds. But nothing else will be in the house, no cooking utensils, tv's, toys, nothing but what we keep back to pack in our suitcases. Yeah...not fun. Hopefully Tara and I can go hang out at someone's house during those days. All of this will be worth it though, we will soon be on our way to our Hawaiin vacation and then to Missouri to see our family/friends and then down to Georgia to start our life there!!! I can't wait!

Ummmmm....

I really don't have a main point for this blog. Just thought I would blog. Let's see...what has happened lately...
Jeff got to shoot yesterday...FINALLY. He did the best in his class, I think he's getting a ribbon or something for that. I am slowly getting the house prepared for our move. This Saturday my friend and I are going to the Chibana yard sale to hopefully sale all our not wanted nor needed stuff that has piled up threw the past 3 years. The boys are still doing good in school...well Josiah didn't score as well as we would have liked him to on some of his tests. His teacher says he is a great reader but needs to pay more attention in class. I know what she's talking about. He has such a hard time focusing. I joke around about him having ADD, but sometimes I wonder if he really does. Jeff says that Josiah gets it from him, not listening and focusing on what someone is saying. Tara, well, Tara has had a runny, snotty, yucky nose for over a month now. *sigh* I thought it was from teething, but I'm thinking its allergies now. It's really bad, I just feel bad for her too. I finally called the doctor. They are supposed to call me back...I'm still waiting. I'm afraid she's allergic to our dog, Chloe. Chloe is shedding a lot right now, more than she usually does. I have to vacuum every day to keep the dog hair cleaned up. Jeff doesn't want to go there...he wants to believe its teething. We shall see. Neither of us want to give our dog up, but I don't want Tara to have to take medicine all of the time either.

We are down to 4 weeks and 4 days until we PCS!!! I AM SO EXCITED! I can't believe its so close. It doesn't feel real, maybe it will when we have our orders and some dates for the movers and such.

That's it for now...that's all that's happening in the Rybold house. Hopefully soon I can post that we have our orders!