A silent month..

It's been a month since my last month. It's not that I do not have anything to say, I have a lot I would like to say but most of those thoughts are better left not being written down. If that makes any sense or not. It has been a crazy busy month with Jacob being more mobile and Jon working some long hours. Hopefully, soon I will find time to write more or find something to actually write that might not come around and get me in trouble later on...

One year ago today!

One year and 6 hours ago I had just given birth to a little baby boy! I don't even know where the last year has gone or how all of a sudden in the last few weeks Jacob has turned from looking like a baby to looking like a little boy. He is the apple of my eye and my sunshine on a cloudy day! I can't imagine my life without him and I know I am a better wife, daughter, sister and friend because of him. I love you baby boy!! You will always be my baby.

Happy First Birthday!!

Tango and Roller Skating

I've been silent for a few days. Jacob is doing much better at least I hope he is doing better. We will get his ears rechecked on Thursday. Jon has been home since Thursday on a 96 so that has been nice even though I can't really remember what we did. Probably because we didn't do anything and it was nice!!

Friday was our Okinawa wedding anniversary. We left Jacob with a babysitter for only the second time ever and off we went. We were gone for about 3 hours and thirty minutes. I was not the one timing the whole event. Jon timed it since we were on a tight schedule according to him. We ate at this delicious restaurant in American Village next to Tony Roma's but for the life of me I can't remember the name of the cute little Italian place. But, I know we will visit it again soon. We had a two person 'set' which included two drinks, a salad and spaghetti. Jon ordered me lasagna but I think we more so shared everything. After that Jon took me to a place called Round 1. I had heard of it but never did any research on it because well it didn't sound like a place to take my bouncing baby boy anytime in the near future. We went roller skating which was fun. I can't even remember the last time I went roller skating! We will definitely head back to Round 1 soon!! Then after roller skating it was off to Leon Eri Dance Studio. We had a private dance lesson of the Tango for 30 minutes. We can now Tango. We still have four more dance lessons to go to now so Jacob will for sure be left with a babysitter again.

Our date night 2009 was SUPER. I had a blast but the best part was I only got the babysitter. I didn't know about anything else. I love my husband and I am very thankful that I married someone who fits me so perfectly!!

Why I blog or more so about me..

Casey, at the Ever Changing Life of a Military Wife, has posed a question. Why do you blog? I started this blog when we first announced to everyone that we were having Baby Spencer #1 and I thought I would write each week about my pregnancy. I was wrong. I guess I figured I was to busy but now I wonder what I was to busy with considering now I have JW and still find time to blog. So, my first attempt was a failure. My second attempt at blogging was a blog that is solely dedicated to JW. (If you want to know the address let me know) I started that blog so that all the grandparents at home could keep up with him and what he was doing as well as link them to my facebook with the mulitple picture albuums I have of him on there. That blog took some time and some times takes time away from this one. But, my, more so Jon's newest discover about JW's blog is that he can view it from the "tuna can" and watch videos of Jacob. It's one site that isn't blocked!! Now, we both wish we would have known that 11 months ago! This blog is more so to keep me honest with myself sometimes but more importantly serve as a memoir of sorts of our time here in Okinawa. I wish I wrote more about Okinawa but I'm frankly not that adventurous when my husband is away and have been literally tied down to JW for the last 11 months since he is EBF so besides the beach and shopping out in town I don't sight see by myself! Plus, I think it would be cool in twenty, thirty, four years if blogspot is still around back then to read what I thought/saw/felt when I was in my twenties.

And another about me ina nut shell...I have a bachelor's degree in nursing bla bla bla. I survived my time and did 4 strict years of college. Yes, strict. I went to college here. I'm not a crazy skirt wearing lover anymore. I don't think I have actually worn a dress to church in about 11 months because it just isn't practical. But besides making me dislike pantyhose the college taught me how to be the best nurse I can possibly be. Literally. I am thankful for that. It prepared me to work at the best hospital in Pensacola. And when I say BEST it is the BEST especially now that I have experienced military health care at it's finest since it is my only option here. I have a heart for the sick and worked with oncology patients for three years before I up and quit my job and moved half way around the world. (Yes, Jon you can say thank you again but you know you don't have too) I one day want to be a nurse again. That really sounds funny. It's not that I don't think being a stay-at-home Mom is something because I really don't ever stop moving. I just miss having a separate identity outside of the home. I hope to work part time at least when we go home but most likely not in oncology. I have a wonderful husband who flies helicopters and literally never slows down. He is high speed so flying helicopters fits him well. He is the reason I am in Okinawa. Did I ever think I'd be here when I was in my twenties not a chance but I enjoy the ride for the most part. I have an exclusively breast feed 11 month old little chunk. He is the love of my life besides my other two loves...God and Jon. JW amazes me every day and wears me out every single day and that is the fact that I don't take the time to blog as much as I would like too. But, I'm always blogging something in my head! Now if I just could figure out how to blog on my iPhone while I am nursing and then I would be golden!

Victoria's Secret Exposed

Sure I know there is a mark up value on clothes, any clothes whether they are from Walmart, Macy's or Victoria's Secret but I didn't realize how big of a mark up it was until I got a customs form attached to my recent purchase from Victoria's Secret.

I finally broke down and ordered some new bathing suits. It has been five years and a baby later and I finally order new ones. I have no idea what I was thinking wearing the bathing suits I did on our honeymoon to St. Lucia!!! (I'm so sorry honey)

Here is a break down of what I paid:

• Bikini top $22.00
• Bikini bottom $21.00
• Bikini top $28.50
• Bikini bottom $14.50
• Total spent $86.00

Here is the customs form with the value of the items I was sent:

• Bikini top $5.46
• Bikini bottom $6.39
• Bikini top $3.63
• Bikini bottom $9.04
• Total value $24.52

That is a huge difference. I would do the percentage of the mark up but I have a nursing degree so I'm much better at calculating IV drip rates than doing percentages!! The huge kicker was that I was charge $14.99 for shipping and it only cost them $4.75 to send it to me per the customs form..Interesting, huh??

Learn to swim

Jacob has started his first swimming lessons this week. Lucky for me it's another Mommy and Me class we get to go too! Unfortuntaely, our mornings of cuddling and sleeping in are over since we actually have to get up! Our first lesson we had in the rain. Rain is a fact of life here on Okinawa and so we swim in the rain. I can count on my hands the number of times I have actually heard it lighting/thunder here. Jacob drank the water yesterday. I guess it was jsut way too tempting not to stick his tongue in. Today he did much better with no water tasting. He enjoyed floating on his belly, lounging on his back and doing mommy lift jumps from the side of the pool since I don't think he really understands how to jump to mommy yet. Hopefully, one day the rain will let up and we will actually get to see the sunshine appear again but according to the forecast it doesn't look like it till the weekend. But, we are thankful for the rain!

To-do list

My to-do list seems to keep growing. I always seem to have a lot of "want to do" items while Jon is deployed. This time he is heading off on the tuna can for about two months! Two months seems like a long time but really it's only 8 pizza nights which is how I count down deployments. I always think I should have plenty of time but the actuality of it is that when I start being 'daddy' in a sense to Jacob then my only free time winds up being once he is nicely tucked into bed at night since his day time nap is used for daily things I need to get done. Nevertheless (is that a word?) I have compiled a list of to-do's...

• Make a binder with all my typed out recipes in it and organize it somehow
• Actually write in my blog and Jacob's blog more frequently
• Upload photos to our new shutterfly photo site and actually send the site out to family/friends and actually print off pictures since our at home photo printer just isn't doing it for me anymore
• Figure out what to do for Jacob's 1st birthday!!!
• Find/Order a new bedspread, comforter or something for our bed. I bought curtains last time Jon was gone and this time I'm re-doing our bed.
• Plan out meals for a few weeks so I don't have to do meal planning while Jon is gone
• Think about taking a Space A flight home in the fall because I miss my Tahoe and my family
• Sort all the pictures on this computer that have been waiting in a file to be sorted for a LONG time!!!
• Update Jacob's baby book...

Layout

I have fully jumped on the bandwagon of needing an iPhone. While we were home instead of doing pre-paid for three months we went ahead and got a contract with AT&T and iPhones. I loved my iPhone but of course had to give it up when we came back. I have the best husband in the world who stood in line on base to get me an iPhone once they were introduced here but that night he couldn't get one since I was the only one who could do anything with our account. Now I have my japanese iPhone and am loving it. I get a lot accomplished or I shoudl say a lot read while Jacob nurses. I read other people's blogs, check facebook, look for recipes, and read about baby things.

With this new found abilitty to surf the web while nursing I happend across Shabby Blogs this week. I found my new lay out and header there. I added the picture using Photoshop 7.0 and text with Paint Shop Pro. I'm not sold on the picture so this weekend we will be attempting another picture but it was the best I could find that fit for the time being.

Cleaning Freak...

Today I have been a cleaning freak. I guess that is hard to do when you are not staying at your own home but none the less I have been cleaning. I have done 5 loads of our laundry and I just did our laundry on Saturday and it is now only Wednesday..I'm not sure how we accumulated all of the dirty laundry again so quickly! SHOUT has literally become my best friend since Jacob has come along. It has saved so many clothes that I thought might be stained permanently by the time I washed the outfit! Jacob posed today with the SHOUT bottle as he sat on top of the dryer (yes i know that may be deemed unsafe) while I rotated laundry.


I also bleached all of Jacob's hard plastic toys since he has been sick now for almost a week. I think this morning when he threw up, not spit up, but threw up all over me and his changing pad after his bath that made me go on the bleach fit with his toys. Most of them are dry now and have been returned to his toy box or his excersaucer. I hope that they are cleaner or at least germ free now for about 10 minutes before he slobbers all over them again!


He had the most confused look after his nap when I put him in the excersaucer and there were no toys on it but at least the holes provided some entertainment.

How do you find the time!?!

How in the world do people find the time to write in a blog daily or a few times a week? It never seems like I have a dull moment to do anything! I thought during our trip back to America I would have the time to blog about all the things we were doing and seeing but not a chance! I'm going to try this again...what who am I kiddng. I doubt I will be faithful to write in this thing ever! Time will tell.

Mom jeans...

So, my biggest goal for this trip has been to go shopping. Since I have had Jacob my body has totally changed. Changed for the better I guess but changed so much that none of my clothes fit and my jeans stretch out so quickly that it makes me look like I have depends on underneath them! I've been to the mall twice with my sister-in-law and each time walked away with nothing. I do not care for jeans that already have holes in them and I do not care for colored jeans nor do I care for jeans that are so low you can see my bottom when I bend over nor do I care for the high waisted Mom jeans. I finally found some jeans yesterday at GAP, the same place I found my last jeans at 5 years ago. I couldn't be happier! Now if they just had the same jeans in a few different shades I'd be set! Now it's onto shirts since I will venture back into pants later but shirts are proving to be more challenging than the jeans!!

Trip anxiety

I've decided that I have a little bit of trip anxiety starting. I think I have just realized that going home is not going to be as easy as it sounds. It's hard enough to get myself and Jon packed to fly home but now I have to add in all Jacob's stuff. I've sat and debated now for a month what items of Jacob's I am going to take from here. We are buying a new pack n play once we are home because the pack n play we bought here has a recall on it so we are waiting for our money to come back. I'm waffling between ordering Jake's new convertible car seat or taking an infant car seat with us since we have two car seats and two bases for them and then just ditching the car seat at my parents house when we come back to the island. I want to order a stroller bag so my new Chicco stroller doesn't get dirty but who am I kidding..I am a Mommy to a little boy. The stroller is bound to get dirty sooner or later so now I'm trying to decide between taking the stroller or buying another stroller there. I'm even planning on send some of Jake's toys home so that I not only don't have to waste suitcase space on them but so we don't have to buy any toys while we are there. We have plenty!! It probably doesn't help that Jon is gone and away and all of these choices have to be made now and not in two weeks when we leave.

Daddy is REALLY home!

We are certainly glad to have Jon home. It has just been over a week and our week has been action packed. Jacob's routine has completely changed to accommodate some Daddy time each night. My routine has totally changed because now I am getting up before Jacob to make breakfast and lunch for Jon and I'm also cooking again. It is so nice to have my extra set of hands back to help with Jacob not to mention having my best friend by my side once again!