duty calls...

Well, I must admit that I am not a huge fan of these days that are stuck right in the middle of our weeks. What days, you might ask yourself (a good question!) -- Ben's duty days! Every 6 days he has to go and stay on the ship overnight! And for whatever reason, these days seem to go soooooo slow! Maybe it's because I know he isn't coming home for dinner, or at all that night, that it just seems to drag on til it finally becomes a reasonable time that I can go to bed! haha. BUT - I really have no right to complain, because at least he is home for 6 out of 7 nights a week... right? =)

I have been trying to keep myself busy by doing various craft projects until school starts back up in a couple of weeks.... (right now I am all lined up to be a substitute at the elementary and high schools on base). I took a watercolor painting class while Ben was out at sea for 2 months, and I really enjoyed it! I posted some pictures of my paintings on our alumni website, and one of the girls on there that I don't actually know in person, but have chatted with via the internet, asked me to paint her a set of sunflower notecards! So she sent me the supplies, and I have been working on those for the past week or so! Here is a picture of one of them for an example. =)

Other than that, I busy myself with laundry, and cooking, and cleaning. (and playing our wii! It's so fun!! haha.) It's been fun to be a stay-at-home wife for a while, being able to take care of Ben and the house, but I am looking forward to getting into the school a few days a week to work with kids, too. There is something so refreshing about being around a bunch of kids... their innocence, and way to see right through you, and accept you just the way you are. I love it! Hopefully when we get back from California I will be able to dive right in!

Well, just wanted to update on whats been going on in my days, while Ben is off painting and being stuck on the ship all day! =P I gotta say, I am just so glad to have Ben home again. It is wonderful having my best friend around to talk to and laugh with.... and I love learning new things about him, and how he thinks. Marriage is such a neat experience - unlike anything else I have ever done! It definitely has its challenges, but the rewards are so great! =) Hope you all are well and wrapping up your summer days in fun ways! Love from Japan!

Just being bums!

This week has been ridiculously long for me, especially with my ship being in it's summer maintenance period. Everything in my shop seems to be covered in dust from the Japanese contractors welding, grinding, and installing new bases for our new computer systems that are coming in. Evidently we are getting several upgrades that will improve the overall communications ability of our ship. Hooray for that, since some of this stuff is super out of date! haha...No cameras allowed in where I work or I'd show you....

I spent Thursday up at the very top of the forward mast of the ship painting with 2 of the guys I work with. That was actually a nice break from the boredom of being stuck in a windowless box all day. We got our safety harnesses on and went out early in the morning to start painting. Now the forward mast of this ship is....WAAAY up there! I took a few pictures with my cell phone's camera.

Yesterday after work our friends the Rush's came over and Shaun helped me get our bed's box spring up to our apartment on the fourth floor. We couldn't fit it up the stairs or into the elevator, and the only way the bed fit when the movers came last month was to smush the bed into the elevator. We had considered cutting the box spring in half sort of, but I wanted to try to lift it up with a rope to our balcony. Rush brought some spare rope he had and I tied the knots. We started lifting from our balcony and after about 10 feet one of the knots gave way and the rope smashed my left hand into our balcony. (It felt nice...really it did...) The other knot I tied however held and we continued to lift carefully! We finally got it to our balcony and were able to take off the sliding doors and get it into our apartment! Thank God for good friends, and the Rush's have been that to us!


=D Later we went out to town and ate some good Tex Mex at a place called Mikes. My left hand is better today a bit, still a bit sore from yesterday though.

Well that should be plenty for our first real post here!