Lucky Ducks

Last January, the Heaton's were putting together their Air Force list of possible places for their next tour, and they started asking us about the pros and cons of Okinawa. That was a pretty big deal since Stacey was one of many people who thought we were a little crazy to just pick up and move to Asia and had no desire to follow suit. Well, she warmed up to the idea and they ended up ranking Oki as #2 on their list. In April we found out they got it! And to make things even sweeter, our other dental school friends the Hurst's (who had ranked it quite a bit lower on their list) got it too! I'm pretty sure after I told Spencer they were coming here, we went out to dinner to celebrate. It was pretty awesome to find out we'd get to spend a few more years living super close some of our very best friends- in a foreign country of all places! They finally got here on August 17, and it was so surreal having them walk through our front door when we had them over for dinner for the first time.

A few days after their arrival, we had little a Case reunion at Araha beach with the Heaton's, the Jenks', the Buttars', and us. What are the odds that we'd all be here together?

 Natalie, Shawn, & Me

 Justin & Stacey!!

 Sydney and the boys. The Jenks' have three boys and the Heaton's have two boys, so Syd's the only girl in the group. 

 Jack & Sydney

 Jack & Anderson

Love her cheeser smile.

We feel so lucky to share this overseas experience with such great friends. We had a great first year here, but I think the next two are going to be even better:)

Growing, Growing

My baby is getting so big! I've been terrible about logging his growth on the blog, but I kept it written down as part of my blogging "to do" list. Well, with a recent visit to the doctor, I thought now would be a good time to finally report on how he's grown.

6 Month Check-up (since I'm so on the ball, he was really 7.5 months old at the time...):
18 lbs. 5 oz. (38th percentile)
29 in. (92nd percentile)
44.5 cm head (48th percentile)

9 Month Check-up:
19 lbs. 1 oz. (25th percentile)
29.5 in (86th percentile)
45.5 cm head (55th percentile)

12 Month Check-up:
20 lbs. 15 oz. (20th percentile)
31.5 in (90th percentile)
46.5 cm head (51st percentile)

At 12 months, he has 12 teeth! He cut his bottom molars at the end of July, and his top ones started poking through on his birthday. Needless to say, he has not been the best sleeper with all these chompers coming in.

Speaking of chompers, he literally wants to eat everything on my plate at mealtime. The other night we had corn on the cob with dinner, and I sliced a bunch of kernals onto his tray so he could shovel it in with his hands. Well, he was still growling at me for something, but I was confused since everything on his tray matched what was on my plate. Then I realized he thought himself above eating just the little kernels- he wanted to eat it straight from the cob like the rest of us.

He ate this entire thing!

This month Shawn finally started to crawl! He sometimes reverts back to the army crawl, but for the most part he moves around on his hands and knees now. He loves climbing up the stairs and heads straight for Sydney's kitchen, which we keep in her closet. He throws a screaming, flailing fit whenever I have to relocate him, which is pretty frequent since he gets into everything. His favorite pastime is opening drawers and emptying their contents all over the floor. Sydney thinks she is his mom and is ALWAYS telling him "NO!" He doesn't have any real words yet (says "mama" and "dada," but not exclusively to address me and Spencer), but he signs "airplane" and "more" pretty consistently. He's already had 2 haircuts- both hack jobs by his parents- and he's due for a third! I can't imagine life without this little boy, it's so fun to watch him grow.

This & That

After church, Sydney usually has some picture she's colored or drawn in her class that was supposed to relate to their lesson. Usually her works of art are pretty random, like a giant pink circle in the middle of the page, or a few scribbles here and there. But a few weeks ago, she came up to me after Primary and showed me this sweet picture:

They learned about brothers and sisters, so she drew a picture of her and Shawn. She pointed to it and said, "This is my big face, and this is Shawn's little face." I thought it was pretty darn cute.

That night Spencer had to go to a youth fireside, and when he was en route I got a call from him instructing me to immediately go outside and take some pictures of the sunset. He's totally obsessed, but I was happy to humor him.

It was a very clear night, and we could see the Kerama Islands really well from our hill.

 And Spencer was right, the sunset was really beautiful. 

Syd joined me on my photography errand.

Sydney would wear a fancy church dress every day of the week if I let her. It takes Spencer and I about 3.5 seconds to change from our church clothes into pj's when we get home, but Syd likes to keep her dress on the whole day. She likes fancy clothes, but still won't let me actually style that long hair :)

Centennial Birthday Ball

 On August 11, we got to go on yet another Command forced date (no complaints here!), this time to celebrate the 100th Birthday of the Navy Dental Corps. The dress code for the active duty folks was dress whites, which are totally hot. I think this was Spencer's first time wearing this particular uniform since he did his ODS training the summer after his first year of dental school.

 All dressed up at the Butler Officer's Club.

 In true form, we arrived a bit late. After a big wig in the Marines gave a speech about the Navy corps involvement in the military, the program moved on to the ceremonial cutting of the cake. 

As per tradition, they highlighted the Commanding Officer, the oldest active duty dental officer in the room (in our case it was Captain Waterman, a former Navy seal and now periodontist), and the youngest active duty dental officer in the room (this year it was Spencer's good friend Lieutenant Matt Durschlag, who works as a general dentist at Evan's Clinic). Lots of people laughed when they read that Matt was born in 1987 :) The oldest and youngest officers cut the cake with a sword, then the first piece was served to the CO, the second piece to Captain Waterman, and the third piece to Matt. 

 Captain Roncone, Captain Waterman, & Lieutenant Durschlag

When that was over, we all stood for a round of about eight scripted toasts- to the Dental Corp, the Navy, the Marines, the Air Force, the Army, deployed members of the military, fallen comrades, etc. It was all pretty cool. I have to say that it made me laugh when I imagined what this ceremony must have looked like last year when the Dental Birthday ball had a 70's theme and everyone was dressed up like hippies.

Another highlight of the evening was our friend Camron proposing to his darling girlfriend Natalie in front of everyone! I may have gotten emotional multiple time, which is silly because that's so unlike me (heavy, heavy sarcasm). 

 Me, Spencer, Camron, & Natalie

We rounded out the night with a cool, but loud performance by some Japanese drummers.

I was expecting some dancing afterward, but even with the DJ spinning tunes, people cleared out pretty quickly. It was a fun evening out!

Happy Birthday Shawn!

On the morning of Aug. 10, Sydney came into my bedroom and said, "Mom, is today Shawn's birthday?" She'd been asking me about it all week, and was so excited that he was turning one! The morning was actually a little rough on me since he's been teething and sleeping like crap. I've been up by 6:30am every day for the past few weeks, if not earlier. Despite waking up at the crack of dawn, he was seriously fighting a morning nap. But since I had a million things to do (make and decorate his cake, wrap presents, blow up balloons), I was persistent and eventually got him to sleep. It paid off- he slept for like three hours! With Sydney's help, I was able to do everything on my list. Wohoo!

After Spencer got home, we decided to let Shawn open a present before we went out to dinner. I had told Sydney while I wrapped them that Shawn didn't really know what presents were, so maybe she could help him open them. She really took that to heart and was all up in his business to "help" him open up his Lightening McQueen car. 

For dinner, we went to a Ramen place that we've been wanting to try for a while. The food ended up being mediocre, but at least the place had a good atmosphere.

Sydney really like the origami birds that decorated the window behind our booth.

Spencer gave one to Shawn, then took it back after he tried to eat it.

I don't think I've mentioned how much this boy loves water! Yet another thing for him to growl at us for when we're eating dinner...

My favorite drinking position- head all the way back, cup held vertically in the air while he chug, chug, chugs. I think it's so cute.

Once we were back at home, it was time for more presents! Sydney was VERY excited.

My big girl, making even a double chin look cute :)

Shawn, on the other hand, had no interest in presents as he was busy taking all of the diapers out of the basket by the couch. Awesome. But after a brief clean-up and a little redirection (i.e. Sydney shoving presents in his lap), it was back to birthday celebration.

Brainwashing through birthday gifts- Go Cougars!

All BYU paraphernalia was courtesy of Spencer. I teased him that buying all of this marked his official entry into the club of Dad's Who Give Their Kids Presents They Want to Play With, which may or may not have been founded by my Dad. (As a side note: For one Christmas, my sister got an electronic race car track and I got something similar to a Rock 'Em Sock 'Em but with karate guys. Total Dad purchases!) Shawn was also spoiled with packages from generous grandparents and aunts.

Happy 1st Birthday to our sweet boy! We couldn't imagine life without him!

Tropical Storm Haikui

Last week we knew that a tropical storm was heading our way, but I didn't get my hopes up that it would hit since most of the other ones projected to hit us always seemed to change direction and don't even end up coming close. But when I got home from a girl's night movie late on Saturday night we were in TCCOR-2, and Spencer had an email from our church leaders saying that if we were in TCCOR-1 by 8am on Sunday, church would be cancelled.

Well, Shawn has been waking up between 5:45 and 7am pretty much every morning for the past week and a half, so when he was up at 6:30am, Spencer ran down and saw that we were in TCCOR-1. I was especially excited because I was in charge of Sharing Time that day, so I was off the hook :) 

It was pretty much the laziest day ever. While it was windy and rainy outside, we stayed in our pj's all day relaxed. The storm couldn't have been timed any better- we finally got to watch a decent amount of the Olympics! We usually miss all the good stuff during the day, and then when we turn it on at night they're showing something lame like fencing or badminton. So we were excited to see some good stuff, like swimming and track and field.

Spencer and Sydney whipped up some brownies, then when Shawn took his afternoon nap we made a fort in the living room. I thought Syd would love making it, but she did a puzzle while Spencer designed and executed it.

Then we laid under it while watching a movie and eating treats. Talk about L-A-Z-Y!

After the movie, we redesigned the fort and played under it with the kids until dinner time. I'm pretty sure we had every toy out of the toy boxes under that thing. It was quite the mess, but we had a good time.

We thought for sure the storm would be over by Monday morning, but we lucked out again! We were in TCCOR-1C Monday morning, which meant all nonessential personnel were supposed to go home to their quarters... so Spencer didn't have to go to work. Wohoo!! The funniest thing to me about all of this is that it was pretty much a repeat of last year- a typhoon hit about a week before Shawn was born. I'm just glad that I got to be home with my family this time instead of being stuck in the hospital!

Dr. Bjarnason (Jr.)

On Friday afternoon while Shawn napped, Sydney and I decided to do some Play-doh. It's always a toss up between a breakfast kit and a dentist one cleverly called "Dr. Drill 'N Fill," and she ultimately decided on dentist. 

She assigned me to make all the teeth while she worked on the braces, so I started calling myself Dr. Bjarnason and her Miss Uehara (Spencer's assistant). That didn't last long, as she insisted that she was the dentist and I was the assistant.

I kept cracking up because she would call me Miss Uehara pretty much every single time she said anything to me, like, "Will you get me the scaler Miss Uehara?" or "Miss Uehara, please make me some more teeth," or "Could you please open this Miss Uehara?" and "Great job Miss Uehara!" 

It also made me laugh that I was the assistant but I was doing all the hard stuff! Ha ha, it was a fun morning playing with my girl.

Room Redo

When we first moved into our house, I knew I wanted to paint our gigantic living/dining room. I was about 8 months pregnant when I did it, but I knew it would be much easier to do before I had Shawn than after. Eagle Hardware on base offered free paint, but since they didn't have color cards that I could bring home and put on my wall to see what really looked best, I took in one of our couch pillows and matched it to a beige color on their color wheel.  

Our living/dining area before we moved in.

Spencer thought my color choice was silly since it wasn't that different from the original cream color throughout the house, but I liked having at least a little more color on our walls. At least I liked it until we got both of our shipments and realized that all of our stuff was pretty much the same color... the walls, the rug, the couch, the pillows, the small decorative items... it all seemed to match way too much.  

Then we had the vertical blinds that come standard in all base housing. I wasn't really a fan. Within a few months I knew I wanted to change things around, so I never really finished anything decor wise. Since I didn't really love the room, I never took many pictures of it. In fact, the best ones I have to show off how it looked before I painted were all the way from Christmas!

 London showing his sharpshooter skills near the vertical blinds.

Notice the pictures in the frames on our "gallery wall" in the dining room were from when Sydney was a baby up to around 18 months. How lazy am I?

One of the things I hated the most was how the color looked when it was dark outside and we just had our overheads lights on. I felt like it looked like vomit on my walls.

 I realize the lighting in this picture is terrible, but I actually feel like it's a pretty good representation of how I felt in the room at night. Yuck.

Much to my dismay, Eagle Hardware stopped providing free paint after some government funding cuts.  I'm not sure why they couldn't have just still provided the supplies for us and just had us pay for it, but a lot of the things they do don't make sense to me. Anyway, that meant we had to get paint off base. After seeing some cute pictures of rooms on Pinterest, I decided I wanted to paint the walls gray. I took in a poster that had the color I liked since I knew the Japanese paint store just had a color wheel that stayed in the store. I found the color I liked, and then the lady helping us at the front desk had a guy came from the back and told him our color choice. He told us it would be about 20 minutes, which I was excited for since our neighbors said they had to come back the next day when they bought theirs! I can only assume that he was hand mixing the color, then came and showed us how it came out and to see if we liked it. It looked good enough to me, but after drying it actually looked nothing like the color I was trying to match it to. Of course Spencer teased me that I would hate it because he said I've hated almost every color I've put on the walls. But I didn't want our 3,900 yen investment (about $45 for one gallon) go to waste, so I decided to just go for it. And what do you know, I really like it!

I have to mention that I went in expecting to buy 2 gallons of paint, but the cheap skate in me decided to just go for 1. Big mistake! And it's not like I could just go back into the store and have Mr. Mix-the-paint-colors-by-hand whip up the exact same color again. So I had to make do with one gallon, mainly by doing only one coat of trim and not painting behind our giant entertainment center. And let me tell you, never before has a girl gotten her money's worth on a gallon of paint like I did! The inside of that can (and even the bottom of the lid!) was dry as a bone by the time I was done with it.

To spruce things up a bit more, we also got a new rug, and I bought fabric and recovered all the pillows. I chose blue and green to be accent colors because I love the blue color of the ocean out my kitchen window on a sunny morning and how it contrasts with the green trees. That red star will be replaced with a clock, I just needed something to fill the space for the picture.

 We got white curtains to replace the brown ones, and roll up bamboo shades to take the place of the vertical blinds. I think it looks a billion times better.

 This blue piece of furniture from China was another reason for my accent color choice. I replaced the artwork in the frames on the walls with pictures of scenery we (and my former neighbor Louise) have taken in Okinawa.

 I moved our gallery wall to the wall above our other furniture purchase we made here- a red buffet, also from China- and updated the pictures to include the fact that we have another member in our family. Ha!

 View of the dining room from the living room.

We are still in the market for a cool piece of furniture to replace that short bookcase in the living room. It's government furniture they loaned to us when we first moved in. I've attempted to buy a few things that I've seen in pictures of shipment previews for the Navy Fleet Gift Shop, but they usually get single pieces of lots of different furniture rather than several of the same big item. And it's all on a first come first served basis, and I usually can't get down there fast enough to get what I want :) 

Overall, I'm really happy with the change. Some of the items (blinds, clock) have been pretty expensive to get here since we've had to pay for a service to ship them to our FPO address, plus the cost of shipping. But you do what you can in a foreign country, right? The icing on the cake will be when I can talk Spencer into replacing our couch!