Moving West - Day 2

Our first day of the road-trip dawned bright and early ... we had a lot of ground to cover and we weren't taking the most direct route because we wanted to stop at J.'s sister's house on our first night.  We were able to see the family AND saved on a hotel ... bonus!

Here was our route:

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Addy and Lucy hanging out in the back

Welcome to Arkansas!

Are were there yet?

Lucy is bored too

Welcome to Oklahoma!

My chauffeur :)

Welcome to Kansas!

Luckily, Day #2 was extremely uneventful and perhaps even boring ... no complaints here!  I grew up in Oklahoma so I was very excited to be driving through the state and eating at Braum's as many times as possible :)  It took us about 14 hours to get to Wichita and we arrived just in time for a home-cooked meal of spaghetti and meatballs ... yum!

Moving West - Day 1

When we moved to Washington, I hadn't started blogging yet so our journey was not preserved on the blog.  I saved emails that I wrote to family members each night with our progress and pictures that we took along the way.  It's something I'd like to remember, so I thought I'd share it with you now.  I'm going to split the post up into 5 posts, one for each day that we spent traveling.  

I should probably give you some background ... our move to Washington was VERY unexpected and we had about a month to get ready for it.  During that month we had to take finals (me), graduate from law school (me) and attend survival school for two weeks (J.).  J. returned home from survival school late on a Saturday night.  We left Sunday around noon to move all my belongings from Indianapolis to Meridian, Mississippi, where J. was stationed at the time, and the Navy movers would be coming to pick up his belongings.  We figured this was the cheapest way to move across the country.  My mom and I spent Saturday picking up the U-Haul, moving all my sister's belongings home from college (about an hour south of Indianapolis), picking up things I had at my mom's house and loading up the U-Haul with all my belongings that we could lift without a man.  By the time J. came home from survival school, we had the U-Haul pretty much packed up.  He had a few things to help us put in the next morning but we felt great about our progress!  

My mom and Baby Lucy with the empty U-Haul

Sunday morning, he packed up the rest of my stuff and set off for Louisville to see his parents one last time before we made the big move.  I had one last lunch with my mom, sister, gay hubby and roommate before heading towards Louisville and Meridian in my car.  Louisville was only about an hour and a half drive from Indianapolis and then Meridian was another 6ish hours, maybe more in the U-Haul.  

J. and I left Louisville mid-afternoon and headed south.  He made a call to his roommate to let him know that we were on our way and his roommate responded with "Umm, are you planning on staying here?"  J. told him yes, we were and his roommate asked where we would be sleeping.  Remember, J. hadn't been home in 3 weeks ...  J. told his roommate we planned on sleeping in his room.  Then G.S. delivered some bad news ... the Navy movers had come on Friday and packed up all of J.'s belongings and carted them off already.  Umm ... no bueno.  They were supposed to come Monday morning to pack and Tuesday morning to load ... which was why we were hurrying down to Mississippi with all my belongings so they could be loaded up with all of J.'s belongings.

We had a slight panic attack but it was a Sunday and there wasn't anything we could do until we could speak to someone at the moving company on Monday.  We made it to Mississippi and spent the night on our air mattress ... purchased for the time we would be in Washington before our furniture arrived. 

The next morning, J. spent several hours on the phone with someone at the moving company, who felt terrible but couldn't really help us out.  We were leaving early Tuesday morning because we had to be in Washington by Friday so J. could check-in at the Navy base.  We had exactly one day to figure this mess out.  No one could come pick up my stuff until the following week, which obviously wasn't going to work, so J. ended up driving it an hour away to drop it off at the moving storage facility.  

Meanwhile, we had to register our new car, get its oil changed, drop-off the U-Haul that we drove from Indianapolis and pick-up the U-Haul trailer that we would be using to pull my car.  

And then, Addy decided to run away.  In Mississippi (and especially in the neighborhood that J. lived in which was WAY out in the country) all the dogs just run around and play together.  We had been in and out of the house, getting things off the U-Haul and packing up the car, getting ready to leave the next day so we let Addy and Lucy play outside with the neighbor dogs while we were out there.  They were having a great time :)  We went inside for 10 minutes to eat a quick lunch and when we came out, Lucy was still out there and Addy was gone.  J. had to leave to get my stuff to the movers and get the truck back to the U-Haul store before close, so I spent the afternoon looking for her.  I drove around and around the lake for 3 hours looking for her.  The longer she was gone, the more worried I got that she had fallen in the lake (she doesn't swim) or gotten out of the neighborhood (in which case we probably never would have found her).  Finally, someone called J. and said they had found her and would drop her off at his house.  She had fallen/gotten in the lake and then gotten stuck in someone's boat house and couldn't/wouldn't get out. 

I had to give her a bath (which she HATES) and then I sent her inside to hang out for the rest of the time before our departure.  I was now very pressed for time, so I had to go into town to run all my errands smelling like a wet dog.  I had the oil changed on the car and went to meet J. at the U-Haul store.  He was late getting there, but luckily, the guy working was SO nice and understanding and stayed open late so we could return our U-Haul and get the trailer hooked up.  

We finally made it home and hoped that the rest of our journey would be much less eventful ...

Happy Monday!

Happy Monday Friends! 

Hope that you had a fabulous weekend!  I have been celebrating my birthday since last Wednesday, so you know I had fun :) 

I'd write more, but I'm running off to the airport.  Check back this week for a series of posts on the cross country road trip we took back in May 2010 when we moved from the Midwest to Washington.  

I hope you enjoy it!

I'll be back next week!

Hakone

Back in June, Mrs. A., Mrs. D. and I took an MWR tour to Hakone.  

We started our morning at the red tori gate in Lake Ashinoko:  

And then we headed over to Hakone Shrine.

A beautiful tree lined path

Hakone Shrine

It was beautiful

Prayer cards

Close-up

Apparently the prayer cards are burned every so often to make room for new prayer cards - the Japanese believe that the smoke from the fire sends their prayers to the Gods.

Fortunes

You buy your fortune and if it's bad, you tie it to one of the strings pictured.  You are leaving your bad fortunes behind and moving forward with good fortune.

After we left Hakone Shrine, we headed to Owakudani Valley.  

If you look really closely at the below picture, you can see the Hakone Ropeway that we took up the mountain.  I would have taken pictures while we were on it, but I mistakenly thought we would also be riding it back down the mountain and I could take pictures on the way down.  Whoops.

These mountains overlook the Owakudani Valley (also known as Hell Valley because of the sulfur springs) which is famous for their hard boiled eggs.  They boil the eggs in the hot spring and the shells of the eggs turn black.  The inside of the egg is still white and yellow.  Legend has it that if you eat one egg, your life will be extended by 7 years.

The sulfur springs where the eggs are boiled

The hut where you buy the eggs

Close-up

The eggs come in a pack of five and were still warm!

Eating our black eggs

I had one egg and shared the leftover egg with Mrs. D., so my life has been extended by 10.5 years.

From Owakudani Valley, we headed back down the mountain to Lake Ashinoko for a boat ride across the lake.  It was beautiful and reminded me of Washington.  

Our pirate ship

The view from the lake

Reminds me of riding the ferries in Washington

Another pirate ship in the distance

If you look closely, you can see the red tori gate where we started our tour

We rode across the lake to see Hakone Sekisyo Checkpoint.  If you are thinking that they like to cram a lot of things into tours, you are correct.  We were pretty tired at this point.

Entrance to Hakone Sekisyo Checkpoint

The checkpoint was built on the Tokaido Highway in 1619, which linked Hakone to Kyoto.  The government wanted to control who passed through the mountains, so they built the checkpoint as a way to control travelers.  They were concerned about the passage of guns between the two cities, and also wanted to prevent women being held as hostages from escaping.  

Each person traveling through the checkpoint had to have a detailed passport, which contained a very detailed description of your physical appearance, including freckles, moles, birthmarks and scars.  Each person who passed was examined closely to make sure they were in fact the person described on the passport.  

The view from The Observation Deck, overlooking the checkpoint and Lake Ashinoko

Mrs. A., me, Mrs. D.

We were supposed to see one more thing after the checkpoint, but we chose to do some souvenir shopping and have a coffee and a sandwich in a local restaurant instead :)

My iced coffee with ice cream ... delicious!

Hakone was beautiful and I recommend checking it out if you have the opportunity.  I will definitely be going back with J. some day! 

Recipe Updates

When J. is gone I don't usually cook, but this deployment I've been eating well!  (thanks to Mrs. A. and Mrs. D. for having me over for dinner and giving me a reason to cook!)

Two recipes I've tried and loved lately are:

Mediterranean Orzo Salad

I didn't take any pictures ... whoops!

I did make a few alterations ...

I skipped olives and capers

and I added red bell pepper, cucumbers and feta.

I also thought the dressing was a bit zesty.  I think next time I will tone down the lemon juice.

and a sweet recipe for you ...

Salted Caramel Bars

These were to die for.  I like to call them Crack Bars because they are so addicting (not that I know what crack tastes like or how addicting it is, but you know).  I followed the recipe to a T.  And I definitely suggest adding the sea salt!

I can't get over how good they are.  Please don't get mad at me when you become addicted.

Happy Fourth of July!

Happy Fourth of July!  

(photos from Seattle's fireworks show last year)

and ... Happy Birthday to me!  

I am officially in my late twenties and inching closer to 30 as we speak.  

Yikes.  

Weekly Intentions - Week 4

It's Tuesday ... 

and you know what that means ... 

Time for an update on my Weekly Intentions.  

Here's a recap of how I did last week:

1.  Workout six times.

2.  Make it to Thursday morning Body Pump.

3.  Walk Lucy four times.

4.  Give the blog a facelift - almost done with this one already!

5.  Create a disaster kit - this is dependent on my plastic file folder coming in to the Depot.

6.  Pick up Lucy's paperwork from the Camp Zama vet.

7.  Fill a prescription I've been sitting on for weeks.

8.  Work on drinking tap water rather than bottled water when I'm at home.

9.  Send a card to J.

10.  Go to bed before 12:30 three times this week - I am determined to accomplish this goal!

I have to say ... I did pretty darn well last week.  Not only did I accomplish most of my goals, but I actually exceeded my expectations.  I didn't workout six times, I worked out seven times.  I didn't walk Lucy four times, I walked her seven times.  I didn't just send a card to J., I sent him a card and a package!  The only thing I didn't do, was create my disaster kit and that's because my plastic file folder didn't come in.  I did, however, update my Japan binder which is where I keep all my important documents.  

Now, on to this week's intentions:

1.  Workout six times. 

2.  Walk Lucy four times. 

3.  Keep drinking water from the Brita instead of bottled water. 

4.  Start taking reusable totes to the commissary instead of using their plastic bags. 

5.  Get Mrs. S.'s house ready for her arrival (yay!)

6.  Write all my thank you's before we leave on our upcoming vacation.

7.  Write blog posts for next week!
8.  Vacuum out Mr. Bag-O's car.

9.  Do some research for our upcoming vacation. 

10.  Create my July calendar!

Are you making weekly intentions?  If so, how are you doing?

What are your intentions for this week?