Life in Japan

Things have been moving along here in Japan. We are still having a great time! This weekend Anton’s scheduled allowed him to have 5 days off with us!! We spent Friday at a shopping mall near the base. It is so difficult being in a different country when you really have no way of communicating.  All of the signs are in Japanese and no one really speaks English once you get out in the “wild”. So we took our time getting lost and trying to find anything. The mall was huge, as in tall. There were 6 floors of store after store. There are no walls between the different stores; it’s just a large room with sections of different stores. What’s strange is that you’ll be walking through a home store and then all of a sudden you see a case of fish. They have grocery stores just random throughout. One stop shop really. Maggie loved looking at all of the new things. Currently Japan is really into Frozen! Frozen is everywhere. Also, every few stores have a children’s section where children can hang out and play while the parents shop.  We’ve seen this almost everywhere we go in Japan. Japanese stores are not meant to have huge American strollers in them, so that was an adjustment, but we still had a great time looking at everything. After some hardcore window-shopping we stopped for some Japanese KFC. It’s not really like American KFC at all… But I knew they had chicken...and that it was cooked. So we gave it a try :) haha it was pretty good. What’s nice about the restaurants here is that outside each of them is a case of plastic food. A plate of each item on the menu (most places only have about 5 different plates to choose from…none of this 20 different option thing like in the US), the plastic food looks very appetizing to say the least haha. ;) But its good for when you can’t speak Japanese and you just point to what you want, and you know exactly what you are going to be eating. The plastic food is very popular! We heard there is a street that just sells the plastic food, and a lot of tourists make sure they grab some plastic food to take home ;). 

On Monday and Tuesday, we continued our exploring adventures. Inside of Tokyo is the Sensoji Temple. It was destroyed during WWII, but was remade for people to come and visit. There are temples around it that are still functioning and run as real temples I believe. There are many shopping vendors surrounding the temple, so many that we didn’t even see them all after walking around for 4 hours. The temple is guarded by different gates with different statues, symbolizing protection etc., and outside the temple is large pit for burning incents. There were lots of different rituals people were performing that we were not sure exactly what they were doing, but it was totally fun to observe. The inside of the temple has SO MUCH GOLD!!! There was netting up so you could only go so far, but it was pretty amazing to see. Maggie enjoyed it so much she refused to nap. We stopped and got lunch at a REAL ramen place, and it was pretty good. The flavor of soup I got was very seaweedy, so that was a little different. But I was proud of myself for “trying” something new.  It’s always so funny to me how the Japanese think that babies can sit and eat at the table. After we let Maggie try and have her own chair, bowl, spoon, and glass of water we ended up having to take turns holding her on own laps while we ate. Luckily, Maggie was all smiles to the tables around us, so no one was to sick of the thrown spoons! After attempting to eat soup with the chopsticks, the waiter noticed my struggle and searched for a fork for me! That was nice…. it’s so funny how much I miss the small things from America. It’s always hard to sightsee around Tokyo because the traffic is always a NIGHTMARE. Sometimes it will literally take you an hour to go 3 miles. It’s why so many people take the train…but when you have a small baby with a stroller, and has tough nap schedules, we always want to go with the car. Maybe we will try a train the next time.

On Tuesday we went to some more shopping centers and enjoyed being tourists. One cool thing we have noticed is they have “second hand” stores where people will donate their old “Louis Vuitton” or “Gucci” items, and the store will resale them as “used”. But they are actually fantastic condition and a way better price. I enjoyed window-shopping there the most. We went to a super awesome Italian place after. It was like someone’s home, and then they use the main floor as the restaurant, and you can watch them cooking from your table (this is how most restaurants are).  The food was fantastic even though it took forever to get it. Everything was made from scratch! Also, at every restaurant there is always an option of a side of rice! They sure do love their rice here. That night we went to a “Big Boys” restaurant, and had my first experience of a Japanese salad bar…it was terrible…haha but now I know. We aren’t sure if we ate the wrong food or what because we couldn’t understand anything they said to us…so we just kinda ate what we felt like and called it good.

It’s been fun exploring Japan more…but I always have a happy sigh once we get back on base. Even just seeing signs in English is so refreshing. :)

Anton has started school this week, its only one class for now, but its really not taking any time. We think this will be a pretty easy master’s program, which we are stoked about!

In typical Kodra fashion, change is in the air. We have been dealing with pass and paperwork issues since Maggie and I got here to Japan 4 months ago. It’s been a disaster this whole time. After trying multiple different routes, and seeking help from multiple different people, we have decided the best thing for us is to move back to the states. They really want Anton to stay out here…but me and Maggie can’t handle that. Luckily his company has the exact same job in San Diego and they are willing to move Anton there. So within the next month we will be heading to California. We are sad to leave Japan, but are so grateful for the fun adventure we have had here. California will be a fun new change!!!

Bon Odori Festival

This week in Japan we got to attend the Bon Odori (Friendship) Festival here on base. We had been looking forward to this event for weeks. They had opened the base to the public, and it was packed with both Americans that live here on base, as well as tons of Japanese from the wild. The Japanese really like the pilots here...they had pilots in uniform out by their planes in the streets, and the Japanese would get in line to take pictures with and get signatures from the pilots. They also bought a lot of the squads T-shirts. They really worship the Americans. It was neat to actually see in person. Each of the different squads here on base set up there own booths for fundraising..there was a lot of hot dogs, but my personal favorite was the cotton candy! MMMHHM, both me and the Japanese loved it! There were also some Japanese vendors selling different things....lots of sushi, noodles, and trinkets. We got some good little souvenirs, ate some yummy food, and were so tempted to buy a gold fish (not...haha Anton wasn't sure if it was for a pet, or to eat....we still don't know ha ha). We spent most of our money on a wood block painting...we think it will fit in well with our home decorating...if our stuff ever gets out of storage ;). I had hoped Maggie would nap in her stroller while we walked around..however, she was to intrigued by all of the people around base that I had to leave the festival a couple of times to get her home for naps. Everyone still loves Maggie of course....they all have to comment about her blue eyes, and she's so good at responding to them with the biggest grin. Since it was an open base, their were navy police everywhere...it felt very strange walking around the field with suited up army men carrying guns. They had tight security to say the least, but me and Magster were never questioned due to our obvious adorable American looks :)
They had turned the gym here into a large flee market, and I felt like a lot of tables just had things that they sellers didn't want in their homes anymore ;)...but luckily we found some little treasures. They had a day of activities, including the professional eaters from ESPN, a couple different DJ's, and traditional Japanese dancers. We had to call it a day at 7, so Maggie could go to bed, but we got to hear the party all night long from our hotel room ;)

The George Washington ship is in port right now, so all of the men on the ship are home with their families for about 3 weeks. Its crazy how full the base fills now...on normal days, me and Magster can go out to do our exercise and not see a single person...now with everyone home, everywhere we go we have to wait in line. The weather is still insanely hot and humid, but we can tell that our bodies are adjusting. There are bugs everywhere...they have these insanely loud rattling bugs in the trees that pretty much rattle from sun up to sun down, the drive me crazy...but least they distract Maggie for a good 3 minutes.

In the next couple of weeks, Anton will be starting school again...working on his masters in Public Health online. He's pretty great. Mags is as adorable as ever. Still napping 3 times a day, and sleeping through the night mostly. She's eating applesauce, carrots, and oatmeal right now, and will be trying green beans shortly. 

We are still enjoying Japan a lot..we miss home, especially our peeps, but so glad we are out here!

Kickin' It!

Konnichiwa! We are doing our best to beat the heat. Apparently August is the hottest month, so we are getting excited for the fall and to be done with the extreme heat and humidity. Anton's temporary boss left this weekend, so with the heat they will now be switching to an earlier schedule or even a night shift. Early on in the week, me and Maggie got to attend a "Sunflower Festival", it was my heaven on earth, just fields of sunflowers ;). I even branched out and ate some Japanese food from a street vendor. It was pretty hot, but Maggie just couldn't stop smiling at everyone. This week we also went to the branch temple trip on Friday. They try and go once a month, so we were excited to try out the Tokyo Temple. We were hesitant to leave Maggie with anyone,  however, the Branch President's wife offered to babysit Maggie when she stayed home with all of their kids. We were first time parents leaving her with a babysitter for the first time, so we made plenty of rookie mistakes and forgot a piece to the Pack n' Play. Needless to say we were a little late but finally got on the road. The temple is fairly close, but takes about an hour and a half with all the traffic. There was plenty of traffic... Tokyo has like stacked highways and at some parts there are three highways/roads stacked on top of each other and the GPS never knows which level you are on.  5 miles in Tokyo traffic is equivalent to at least 30 minutes, so needless to say we didn't make it. We didn't want to come all the way out there for nothing, so they showed us this cool luxurious hotel in downtown Tokyo that is owned by the US. It is mainly a place for active duty military guys to stay and then government workers at the embassy or contractors. It's pretty sweet, because a downtown hotel in Tokyo is easily $200+ a night and you can get a room at this hotel for $50-$75 depending on your rank. We got to the temple to check out the grounds which are the size of a tiny garden, but we had a good time! We ended up eating a nice dinner at the hotel and had our first date without Maggie since she was born (besides the one time in Hawaii) with our Branch Presidency. It was pretty fun and at least now we have a story to tell. Maggie did great and all of the kids loved her. She woke up when we picked her up and didn't fall asleep again until midnight, so it was a long night! We revamped Saturday and headed to the outdoor pool on base for a fun pizza party with our friends here! It was a perfect afternoon that was overcast and not too hot, so we enjoyed some fun time with Maggie in the pool. She did awesome and just loves being in the water with her sunglasses on! It was a fun day! We are celebrating our 3 year anniversary on Tuesday, can't believe it's already been that long! We are excited to finish out summer, there is an open base/Japanese Festival in a couple weeks that we can't wait to attend. We will also try and go to a couple fireworks shows, because we all know the Japanese love their fireworks!

Moving Along

Things are moving along here in Japan. Still living the life and enjoying ourselves

out here. Its starting to get super duper hot, plus the humidity (barff) we try not 

to leave our place very often...and only some days we feel like we are stuck in a 500

square foot, 1 bedroom apartment! ;) Maggie is just growing like crazy! She is 

waving!She can sit up pretty good, but as still had some nasty falls so I still keep

a finger on her to help her balance a little. She is taking big girl baths, and 

absolutely loves the water (we took her to the outdoor pool, and she LOVED it...also

tries to drink asmuch of the pool water as she can haha). She's ok with tummy time 

if there is something good to look at, which currently mom's phone is becoming her 

prized toy (got to keep my eyes on her!). 

She only sleeps on her side, and we do the lay her down in her crib

tired method, and I know that she wont go to sleep for a while if I lay her down and

she just lays flat...I have to keep coming back and putting the binki in her mouth, 

but as soon as she rolls to her side, she's down for the count! She still takes 3 

naps a day, which I LOVE! Honestly, is because im really strict about her nap 

schedule, and making her fall asleep on her own really is the secret, because what 

else can she do in her empty crib. :) I thought it would be harder to do the "cry" 

it out method, but honestly, she cries for 1 min sometimes and then boom she's out. 

Sometimes she doesn't even cry. She loves to smile at everyone, the cleaning ladies

are her favorite. I'm not sure what they are saying to her, but she squeals every

time they even look at her. She still does this adorable thing where she will smile

at you and hide her face like she is embarrassed. (Except she doesn't do it for mom

and dad, probably because she is tired of seeing us ;)). Also she says "mom" Anton 

confirmed it(but also says it's not her first word? Haha) Yep we have a genius baby. 

She has had some rough nights, I blame the teething process, which thank goodness 

for Tylenol. And probably the fact that she sleeps in our closet, and its such a 

small place that anything and everything wakes her up...but I have some new sound 

proofing ideas we are going to try out TONIGHT! (me and Anton are tired of being 

zombies hehe)

All in all, we are having a really fun time. We heard word for the company that the

more realistic time line, is that we should be here until about March. So not as long

as we thought, but still far to long to go without seeing family. We miss everyone, 

especially Mag-ster misses everyone. We wish everyone could see her fun moments in 

person, instead of documented. But im trying to get really good at getting it all on 

tape. 

we are making plans to venture out into the wild (aka outside the base) really soon.

stayed tuned, and if you feel like making a trip to Japan, we have a couch waiting 

for ya! (cough cough Nancy cough cough) ;) 

Disney Trip!

Well its no surprise that once the Kodra's heard there was a Tokyo Disneyland, we HAD to go! Because of July 4th, Anton got a 4 day weekend, so what better to do then hang with our homie Mickey! We stayed at Tokyo DisneySea Miracosta hotel, and it was worth every penny! We were close to the park and it was all disneyfied!! We spent one day at DisneySea, it had similar rides to California adventure, as well as some new ones. They had different "lands", and the decorations were awesome! It was super frustrating that NO ONE spoke english...even if they said they did, they really didn't. They had this "switch pass" where one person has to wait in line and ride the ride, while the other sits with the child, then the one that waited gets escorted through the "cast entrance" to get on the ride directly. It was awesome, and totally great when the wait was 5 minutes...the longest me and Maggie waited for Anton was probably only 50 minutes. Maggie did so great! She napped most of the day, and loved riding the rides that she could ride. Currently, there is a disney bear named "Duffy" which is the current fad here in Japan....oh my gosh, the line to enter the store to buy this bear was literally 240 minutes....do you know what that is? People waited 4 hours for a stuffed animal.... Needless to say we got to ride all the rides we wanted to, and our favorites 2-3 times! I enjoyed a roller coaster in adventure land while Anton's favorite was tower of terror. Maggie's was the Aladdin show...which was all in Japanese...but she never blinked through the whole show! :) They had a fantastic firework show, which worked out great because we got to see fireworks on July 4th and we weren't even in America :) The next day we attempted Disneyland...big mistake. It was a Saturday, and it was a Japanese Holiday...we road 3 rides. It's a Small World, Haunted Mansion, and Space Mountain. We were ok with that, because small world and haunted mansion were the ONLY rides Maggie could ride! (they wouldn't even let us hold her for some of the small rides like you can in California...dumb!) Disneyland was literally covered with people, one person had to walk in the front and push people away so the next person could push the stroller threw, it was miserable... So me and Maggie took advantage of the Hotel and took a good nap, and made Anton go back to see if there was anything we missed....He gave up after an hour too! Too many people for it to be fun really, but considering we had a great day Friday, we thought it was a fun trip all in all. We were both excited to come back home (to base) though...and agreed that if we go to the park again, we would only go on a weekday!

Week One!

I can't believe we have been here for over a week. Time has really flown by, and I can happily say we are having an absolute blast. I tell Anton multiple times a day, that I really enjoying living on base, and I really enjoy where we live. The apartment is working out great. The only thing I don't like are the lights. Japan is all about energy efficient stuff, so the lights take about 5 seconds to turn on and they flicker for the first 3 seconds before they glow...its like creepy grudge status (which is real because we are in Japan now haha!). Maggie seems to enjoy her bedroom in the closet, and I don't really feel like I'm going stir crazy cause we leave all the time, and the different parts of the apartment seem to break things up. The base is really empty, since school is out, most families are back in the states visiting for the summer. Also the "boats" just got shipped out and there were some air force groups deployed, so mainly just contractors, navy wife's, and security are here. I really like it that way!
Everyone adores Maggie. Almost everyone we pass or see has to comment about it. They love how alert she is. This one Navy guy with 2 daughters of his own walked by, then stopped and came back with the 2 girls trailing behind to tell me that he thought Maggie was the most beautiful baby he had ever seen! haha I thought it was cute. Its hilarious because the Japanese people always talk to Maggie in Japanese, and they are so smiley that Maggie ALWAYS responds with a big grin. She's doing this cute thing where she grins at you, and then turns and hides her eyes cause she embarrassed. Its adorable. 
On Saturday, we rented a car and went down to Yokosuka Base. It was supposed to be about an hour drive, but with traffic it took us almost 3 hours. Thats typical of getting anywhere in Japan. There roads are seriously the worst designed system ever...they would really benefit from Utah's grid system haha. Being in the car usually consists of me telling Anton that he's going to hit the car on the left...I really thought he hit a car once....we bet $20 on it, and I lost...so I guess that was a good thing. Some signs are in English, some in both English and Japanese, and some just Japanese. Its interesting, but with how many English signs there were, most Japanese people don't speak any English, and if they do its so messy that really all you can say is yes, and hope that was the answer they were looking for. Anton has mastered the art of nodding his head like he knows what they are saying, then turning to me after and saying, "Well I have no idea what he just said, but I saw a sign 20 minutes ago that might help us" haha thats what being out in the wild is like (wild=being outside the base). The Yokosuka base was huge! they have a hospital, lots more shopping, multiple schools, and they are on the water's edge so they actually have boats in port. They are huge! We just walked around and explored. Maggie was good mostly. She absolutely loves Hello Kitty....psych! :)
Since we rented the car Saturday, we also got to use it for church Sunday. So glad we didn't have to walk the first day. The church building is beautiful!! It reminds me of being in the Albuquerque Temple. Since its summer, and most people are visiting the states, the branch was so small, I think there was about 30 people, and 1/3 of that is missionaries. When we asked the branch president about that he said that most wards in Japan having about 10 missionaries. SO COOL! Anton's calculates that the church was only 1 mile away from the edge of the base (since we can drive the company car to the edge of the base then have to walk the rest). Although i'm still convinced that the mile is like 3 miles actually...whatever. Well we are going to Disneyland this weekend which we are so excited about!

All in all things are going great. Stay posted for pictures from Disney!! ;)
Love to all!

Maggie's 2 and 3 months:

 Time sure flys when you're having fun! So much has happened to our little family in just 2 months!! Lets see if I can remember it all:
The second month of Maggie's life passed in a blur. She was growing and changing every day, to all the mom's out there with rough newborns, each day gets better. I finally felt like when we hit 2 months, I knew what to do every time she cried, and I could actually get her settled down pretty easy..it was great progress. I was back to work part time, and it was always hard to leave her. I had to commute an hour to and from work, and I was working 10 hour days on top of that. So of course me and Maggie would get into a good schedule, and then I would have to go to work the next day, and not see her for 12 hours, and so the next day we kinda had to start over with a rhythm and schedule! We were able to do Maggie's blessing on Easter Sunday. It was a perfect day, and so many family and friends came to support us. She looked beautiful in my blessing dress and precious booties made by her grandma Kodra. We had a great day!
Anton was busy finishing up the semester, and we were talking about summer jobs. He was going to take a break for school for a little, and was looking to find a job full time, so that I could stay home with Maggie. He was talking to some connections we had from when he worked as an RCT (Radiological Control Tech) before he started school. Nothing was really working out, and we didn't have the time to worry about it...cause in the beginning of May we headed to Hawaii for a 2 week vacation with my family!! It was the graduation trip gift to all the men in my family, as they had all graduated with something :) It. Was. A. Blast. Lucky Maggie girl got to lay on the beach at just 3 months old. Although she wasn't the biggest fan of sandy beaches, or hot sun, and long travel days in cars, but all in all we had a great time. I always enjoy vacationing with my family. On our second day living in paradise, Anton got a random call about a 3 week RCT job in Japan, we talked it over and decided 3 weeks was doable, and a good way to give us some time, to figure out work long term....well as things worked out, we were able to figure out the long term plans pretty soon after, as we were shortly offered a more long term job after the 3 week job...but it was also in Japan. What a big move for our family, but after thinking over the pros and cons, we decided now, with one small baby was the time to take the jump. What an adventure it would be for us, that we would never be able to do again. So....boom!! Anton had to leave for Japan the day after we got back from Hawaii. While he worked away in Japan, me and Maggie and my wonderful In-Law Family packed up all our belongings into a storage unit. I was so grateful to have the help, I wouldn't have been able to do it all on my own. It was definitely hard leaving that family in Utah. There are no words to express our gratitude for their love and support as they provided us a home and a family as we welcomed baby Maggie to our little family. Having a mother in law 10 feet away to help with a tough new born was a life saver, and I wouldn't have wanted it any other way. They had created such a special relationship with Maggie, and it was obvious that Maggie loves them very much!! Ahh so yes, we miss them, thank goodness we have skype! While me and Maggie waited for our passports to arrive, we took the long drive (thanks to Jenny's help for flying out and driving home with us, shes the best sister on this planet) and spent a couple weeks in New Mexico. It was good to spend some time with my family before we headed off, and it was nice to not have any schedule to keep....AND spend some time with my home dawgs Conway and Elle! I love those two kiddos so much. We went to the pool like every day, and jammed out to music and movement at the library!:) I also had the privilege of babysitting the two for a few days while their parents were off camping. It was rough having 3 children all at once, but all in all I think we had a good time. The kids never cried when they were with me, so I say that was success, Elle only cried for grandma :) haha obviously im one of their favorites, and it makes it really easy because they LOVE Maggie. Elle even says Maggie, ( its soooo cute ahhhuhhh). But Seriously, they, as most kids are better when their parents are not around, for example: Conway did not even through a tantrum once. He was such a big help, and always did what I asked...he's the best at running to get Maggie's diapers and throwing her dirty ones away. hehe Elle was great too..she only really liked me when there wasn't any other adults around...im basically her last choice. haha BUT we survived, I think everyone had a good time, hopefully the remember that aunt nano is the total best and rocks etc. Conway told Jenny when she got back that we did nothing....so thats great! I sure do love those kids though! Then on my last day before we left, my Grandma and Grandpa Bingham, and Aunt Andrea made the trip to come see us. It was so fun to have them meet Maggie before we headed off, such a special moment and memory for me. They are the best!! Then 2 days before Maggie's 4 month mark we began our trip to JAPAN!!!!
I didn't get much sleep that night because we left the house at 3 am to head to Albuquerque!! I had put my phone in my purse on vibrate cause I was trying to get some sleep. Once we made it to the relief route I remembered that I should text Anton to tell him that I had left and all, and realized that I had like 20 missed calls from him, after frantically calling him back, I learned that my flight had been CANCELLED and rescheduled for the next day! This was not going to work as I need to catch my flight to Tokyo from LA at 3:45pm. I was freaking out...so I told Anton to call Delta and make them figure it out so that I was in LA before 3:00. He put on his angry voice and talked to pretty much every supervisor in their call center before they finally booked me on a flight with American Airlines at 6:00am. By this time we were all ready to the airport, so the plan of getting some sleep was out the window. We parked about 4:30 and figured that would be plenty of time to get everything sorted out, I got in line at American Airways, and the super duper nice ticket lady said that I needed a piece of paper from Delta saying that they had bought this flight for me....so I walk over to Delta... whos line is literally out the door due to their cancelled flight (apparently a flight attendant was sick)...so im starting to panic as I wait in line....by the time I get to the super slow workers up front its already 5:15..they hand me some old school ticket and I leave...go back to American Airlines....and what do you think...yuppp, wrong paper! haha so finally the nice helper lady was like I will go talk to them...she goes and gets the right paper work (she should have gone in the first place) and then explained that the flight they put me on was overbooked anyways, and with the time now being 5:30 I wasn't going to make it...so they next flight she could get me on was at 12:15...I figured that wasn't to bad because I would get to LA at 1:15 so plenty of time to get things sorted at the international terminal. Then she explained that the international airlines policy was that I could only check on 2 bags...I had 4 with me....so gag...in the middle of the airport, my dad and I stuffed 4 suitcases into 2....it was totally chaos, and I had to leave some stuff home. Since my flight was later, I got to grab some breakfast with my mom and dad before we said our tearful goodbyes. I was feeling tired, but excited to get this day over with! WE walked the airport multiple times, Maggie took a couple naps, and before we knew it, it was time to board the plane. We get on the plane with about 50 other passengers, its pretty packed tight. Maggie was a trouper though and all in all was pretty good. We were sitting in our chair for probably 30 min with nothing going on when the pilot gets on the intercom and explains that the engine wont start and we need to deplane. I'm on the verge of freaking out at this point. We collect our carry on items and head off the plane...they wont give me my stroller back because it is under the plane..grrrr. I called my mom in a panic and am almost sobbing since I know that it is now 1:30 and there is no way Ill catch my flight to Tokyo!! I then tried multiple times to call Anton to tell him that I wont make it and to not come pick me up.....he finally answers and is so angry at the airlines that I don't need to be haha. Then miracles of miracles the pilot comes over the speaker saying the problem has been fixed....hoooray! I gather all my belongs run to the bathroom while holding a 4 month old baby....(props to me) and get back on the plane....after getting everyone back we don't end up leaving until 2. Meaning we will get to LA at 3:00!!! I'm freaking out the whole flight, and then we land in the middle of the tarmac, we have to walk down those old wire ladders, and then I have to sit and wait for my stroller. It was literally 10 feet away from me but the worker dude wanted to have all of the suitcases down before he handed me the stroller..I was so frustrated since I knew the clock was ticking. There was this super nice lady that had heard I needed to get to the internal terminal and said she would walk me....she was seriously an angel! We had to take a bus to the terminal and then had to run to a different terminal for international flights. I never did learn her name, but she was so wonderful, she had a broken hand but helped with Maggie and holding what she could, I had no problem handing Maggie over to her when I was so desperate for help! She was awesome! She walked me to the door of the terminal, and it was 3:15. I wanted to hug her I was so grateful for her, I would have never figured out where to go in time! I frantically ran around looking for the airline that I was supposed to be taking and finally found them, with no one at the desk to help me of course...when someone finally showed up they gave me all the paper work I needed and then said they would give me an escort and that I would need to run... sure enough this little old lady takes all my bags holds her badge over her head and starts busting through security, I ran over so many people's toes as they waited in line and we hauled through security! Once we got through security she very sweetly told me that we needed to sprint haha...so we took off and I swear I ran a freakin mile in 4 mins haha.....once we made it to the gate I just lost it and started sobbing. I was so grateful that they had held the plane for me (they held it a total of 20 minutes for me)......the workers were so nice, they all hugged me and said it was fine. They adored Maggie. They walked me to my seat and I buckled up and we took off, it was that fast. I was a huge sobbing sweating mess, but I was so glad to be on my way to Anton. The 11 hour flight was so fast, and Maggie basically slept the whole time. It was like a 5 star airplane...they were awesome. When we landed customs and all of that was easy...everyone really loves Maggie cause she is so alert and responsive. We got all our bags (they all arrived which was awesome) and made it through all the check points and then we finally got to see Anton. It was such a happy moment, mostly because I knew that I was done, I didn't have to deal with the messy travel anymore, I had made it. Luckily as crazy as the whole day was, Maggie was so perfect! She was the best part of the day, I can only imagine how hard it must have been if she was cranky. We were so glad we had made it safely and all in one piece! :)

The base is pretty cool..it just looks like really really old Los Alamos... the buildings are all government old looking (if youre from Los Alamos you know what im talking about) and then there is a fence around the whole thing with guards everywhere...totally not weird cause thats what I grew up with. I always forget that we live in Japan because it looks so normal, and then I see the fence and the sky scraper Tokyo in the background. Its been fun living as a family again....except me and Maggie just want to sleep, we are so jet lagged. Im sure we will adjust soon. We are all unpacked and settled.

So thats been our past few months! so much has changed...and now we are living a crazy new adventure. Maggie is so fun, she is getting quite the personality. She can go from 0 to 60 in about 2 seconds...she always gets the hiccups when she laughs because she doesn't know how to breathe and laugh at the same time (not sure who she got that from haha cough cough haha). She loves her daddy, being apart for 5 weeks didn't skip a beat with her, she knew exactly who he was, and enjoys playing toys with him the most. She was starting to have favorites when we were living in New Mexico...she seems to only want to eat and sleep when i'm the one holding her of course. She is quick to smile and hardly blinks. All of the Japanese people enjoy talking to her, they communicate the way they can, and I'm sure they are basically saying that she is the cutest thing on this planet...cause she totally is! :) (thats the biggest thing ive notice about being in Japan compared to America....everyone notices Maggie and makes it a point to talk to her and gawk at her adorableness!) She is drinking out of a sippy cup, (her choice not mine, she loves to be in control of everything she puts in her mouth). She tries with all her might to sit up, but hasn't got the balance part down yet. Im sure she will have that mastered in a couple weeks. She is still tiny as ever, but thanks to Grandma Christensen insisting I feed her more, she kinda has a roll on her leg...haha shes just a really petite girl!! She loves all technology, so she mostly behaves while me skype our family in the states...most days haha. I can tell that she really misses her best friends Conway and Elle, she loved to just watch them (they were the best fake puppies on this planet) and now she just has me and Anton to look at so obviously she's bored. haha We are beginning the sleep training and its an adjustment, but she sleeps great when it works. :)

 Ok well I'm exhuasted....Japan is 15 hours ahead of Utah and New Mexico, in case you were wondering :)
So grateful we are together and living the life. We love and miss you all so much!! Stay posted for more about our Japanese life!!
Here's some pictures from our adventures:

Maggie's Blessing Day!

Maggie's 2 month photo!

Maggie's passport photo!! hehe

yay for dadddy!!!

all sitting up!!!

Maggie's 3 months!!

And this is Maggie...Twins right??

This is Anton

Sippy Cup Drinker!

NAF Atsugi Base...our Home!

Airport day!

Grandma And Grandpa Bingham

Best Friends!!!

"Nano take my picture"