Should I stay or should I go?

We are officially in the countdown for Samuel's departure from the USMC. Sam is so excited. He is so happy coming hoe from work. He is working on his resume all the time. Sam has been in the military since we first got married. It feels strange to see this time in his life come to an end. Now I will be the only military member in the family. My contract ends in 2011. I am trying to figure out what to do.

The Navy wants to send me to grad school to become a psychiatric nurse practitioner, and i want to go. I LOVE my job. Working with psych patients is fun. But recently Sam and i have been debating whether i should stay with the Navy or not. Our nation's leader has recently irritated some of our long standing allies and befriended some of our allies long standing enemies. This makes me and Sam uncomfortable.

Then my boss gave me this book called Rule Number Two: Lessons I learned in a combat hospital. Its a memore from a Navy psychologist who was deployed when her kids were 15 months old. Its a great book. Kinda sad though. It was suppose to inspire me, but its had the opposite effect.

Let me explain by telling you the two rules of war. "Rule number one is that young men die. Rule number two is that doctors can't change rule number one."

All of you often ask what me and Sam are going to do in regards to the military. The truth is we don't know. We are at an impasse. I love my job with the Navy, but does that mean i should stay? We are praying for wisdom. We'd love to have you guys out there praying for us to.

My baby turned 7!!!!

I feel that there is nothing harder to watch as a parent than your little kids getting bigger. My little Micayla just turned seven! This is so strange for me and Sam. Looking at her all we can think of is 'Where did all the years go?'. I think it is extra fun for us because we had Cala when we were just 21 years old, so we have grown up with her.

Well, I feel that birthdays are should be the BEST day of the year. My girls agree. They love birthdays more than Christmas - really. See, we stress that Christmas is about giving to others, but birthdays is the day that is all about you. They get to plan their perfect party. Their friends have to all be nice to them, and they can't get in trouble.

The only rule of children's birthday parties for me and Sam is the they can NEVER EVER be in our home. This year Cala wanted a sleep over, and i was so consumed with mommy sadness over my little girl growing up that i said yes. Why? What was i thinking? It was CHAOS.

There were 15 girls there, but thankfully only 12 stayed the night. We started with cupcake decorating.

After we sugared the girls up we did Disney Karaoke and dinner, a pinata, more cake and a movie.

I didn't think this whole plan through. With all the sugar in their system they didn't want to go to sleep. Sam and I were up till 2am!

Cala had a wonderful time though. She barley made it through the next day. Both her and Audrie were spent.

Looking back I guess it was totally worth it. You do only turn seven once. :)

Food in Okinawa

I was having a conversation with my dad the other day about foods here in Okinawa. When we first arrived on island everything seemed quite overwhelming. We were surprised about how different Japanese food was here on island compared to how it was in the movies. It took us awhile to get use to everything, but now we have developed quite a few favorite foods here on island.

Okinawan food is different than food on mainland Japan. Okinawa is really famous for their soba. Its a soup that is a lot like ramen noodles only made fresh and a lot better. Sam and I LOVE soba. It is made with homemade egg noodles, tofu, seaweed, green onions, pork, and this salty ginger seasoning. It tastes a lot better than it sounds.

The girls love more traditional Japanese food. The most famous kind is cutlet curry. This is a crispy fried pork cutlet served with curry and veggies over rice. I admit we have this at least once a week.

There is of course the even more traditional sushi. Sushi is more of a eat out thing here. There is this place here called sushi-go-round where the chefs make the sushi right in front of you and it goes around this wheel and you just pick the kind you want. Its kind of hit and miss, but I like it anyway. The girls usually just order fried squid, which tastes surprisingly like chicken.

Tea here is a real specialty. Its in every vending machine. You have to be really careful when you by them because 90% of them don't have sugar. The first time Sam and I tasted them they were really gross. It tasted like chalk. I really like it now. My favorite drink comes from a place called Quickly's. They make all kinds of cold teas. I wasn't sure at first, but now I am addicted. My favorite is Jasmine Pearl Milk tea. It is a Jasmine tea with milk and tapioca beans. It is surprisingly addictive. But don't worry. If any of you make it over to this side of the world there are more traditional foods here.

Overall we are really loving the food here, and are kinda worried at how well the kids will adapt when we take them back to the states. Who knows, maybe we will find someplace that makes fried squid in the U.S. too. :)