WeHaveANewHome

(sorry for the title. If I put spaces then the words change to Japanese, and I can't figure out how to stop it... any suggestions?)

The day finally came, we made the decision, and now have a home. Which, we knew would happen eventually... the key was keeping in mind God's timing is perfect. Right?! For some reason it's so easy to be distracted by, pretty much everything, and not be focused on the one thing we do know, and should trust at all times. That being, God and His perfect timing.
We thought for sure, before we even got here, that we would live on base. However, not long after arriving we decided we really should live off base. After searching for a week for a place we saw three we liked. Two were a little bit more expensive, but we heard from different people that you don't use all the money you're given for utilities, so you can use that extra money for the rent. We weren't really sure if that would end up being true, but we knew we liked the places a lot. Well, when we finally decided yes, that's what will do. Spending a little more is okay... The places were already taken. Wow, that hit us hard. Hard with dissapointment, but also reassuring us God is in controll. Because we hadnt found anything else we liked in town, our only option was on base, and all we heard were negative things. The same day we received our two offers for base housing and picked up the keys to go look at them. They offered us a multiplex in a new neighborhood and an appt. on the 5th floor of a Tower. Surprisingly, we were impressed with both options. We decided against the Tower because of lugging the kids out of the car, to the building, up the elevator. And we decided to take the place in the multiplex. Our home is on the end of four town homes joined together. We have 3 bd and 2 1/2 bath. A big family room, nice eat-in kitchen, private back patio, and small grass area beyond the patio, lots of storage space, and two assigned parking spots out front. We find ourselves very blessed once again, remembering God had His plan in place the whole time would have saved us a few headaches, but we live and learn and grow in God.
We are very excited about moving into our new home on Friday. Unfortunately, we will be waiting until April 10th to receive our advanced shipment. Why it is called advanced, and taking so long is beyond me. Oh well. We do get to borrow some things free of charge, which is awesome. Things like beds, a couch, kitchen table, pots & pans, coffee maker (for Andy, of course), silverware, etc.
The biggest bummer will be not having easy access to a computer. We will try getting to one as often as we can. Please do not stop the comments, emails, and posts on Facebook, because we are loving it. Thanks so much for your love, support, and prayers. We really appreciate you!

TakingABreakFromTheMadness

Today ended up being a pretty nice day. It was the first day, since we've been on the island, we were able to relax and not worry about our mile long "to do" list. The kids have been doing better and better waking up at a decent hour in the morning. I was getting worried there for a little while when we were getting up at 4-5am and it lasted for a couple of days. But now the kids are adusting well, as well as Andy and I. We still are ready for bed an hour after the kids are down, but there's nothing wrong with that. Since Madelin has been bugging us about going to church, today we decided to start the hunt for our new church home. At the Newcomers Orientation we received a book that had different churches and things to do around Okinawa. We spotted one and decided to check it out. The church is called Koza Church. Overall, it was a pretty good experience. The pastor taught from the word of God and we had a nice worship time. The people were nice and the kids' classes were well supervised and had a good security system in place. After going to New Life for such a long time it will be hard to find our "ideal" church. I feel that anywhere we go will be different and will take some getting used to, which is why we will probably try Koza again, plus try another one out too.
After Church we got some lunch at Burger King. I'm starting to realize why we will be receiving a COLA (Cost of Living Allowance) on top of Andy's base pay. Our bill for three of us to eat was $17. Kinda of crazy I thought.
After Lunch and naps we finally made Madelin's dream come true and went to the beach. The only way we got Madelin to agree to move to Japan was telling her we were going to live by the beach, and I think she was beginning to think we were lying to her. Araha Beach & Park is only two miles away from the Commisary Gate to Camp Foster, but it took us 30 min. We ran into just a little bit of traffic, the entire way. The beach/park was pretty cool. It had a pirate ship play ground with a cool rip-line for the kids to ride on. Madelin loved it. We walked down to the water, but didnt go in the water today. Which im sure made our fathers happy and for the fact there were signs stating "No Swimming, Caution, Jellyfish". So, we took lots and lots of pictures and walked up and down the walk. We all had a really nice time.
Tomorrow is back to the "to-do lists" trying to get everything situated for Andy's work, our car we just bought (which by the way, is a 2000 Mitstubishi Dion. Pretty cool. It has lots of room to drive visitors around too. hint hint.), and narrowing down our options on where to live.