We are still doing well here at Yokota. Life has returned to a parallel universe kind of normal. We have occasional earthquakes, but they aren't as frequent as they use to be. Those that volunteered to evacuate are still gone, which makes it kind of lonely, but traffic and parking has been much better. We still have a lot of visiting military personnel on base. I love seeing all the different uniforms and guessing where they are from. We occasionally hear bad news from the nuclear power plants or random rumors, but it usually turns out to be nothing. Our air and water are clean and are being monitored multiple times a day. To be honest, I have stopped following the news. First of all, most of the attention has turned to Libya, and second, it was just too stressful for me. I couldn't deal with the drama any longer. We decided that the best thing for our family was to stay here together and it was just too much to remake that decision everyday. Now I check the official postings from the base on their website, facebook or our emergency channel. If there is something that concerns me, then I do the research to see what the full story is. I prefer to focus instead on helping where we can with the relief efforts for those that are really suffering in Japan. Everyone here is so willing to help and there are many opportunities to serve. With Ellen, it is hard for me to volunteer with the Red Cross or other organizations, but we have been helping with donations and cooking meals for the people at the squadron who were working 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Our church has started a program this week to make quilts and put comfort backpacks (for kids) together. I will write more about those experiences in my next post.
One benefit to this whole situation is that Jon has been in town more. Although his schedule has been irregular, he has been home during the day sometimes, which has been nice. Here are some pictures from the last couple of weeks.
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| The weather has been so beautiful so we took a walk down by the river. |
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| A Japanese cemetery we found on our walk. |
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| In the cemetery |
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| Now that Ellen has decided to walk, she loves to practice... |
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| ...and now she is getting ready to run! |
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| Ellen and her friend Matthew bowling :) |
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| We had a fun playgroup at our house with friends who are still here. |
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| Napoleon and Ellen at the library |
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| After bath time with Daddy |
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| This is a bubble blowing toy that Jon brought Ellen back from Thailand. It had loud music and flashing lights. It worked for about 10 minutes, but then it started to short circuit. I am a little surprised it didn't start on fire! The kids loved it though! (Ignore my messy kitchen, it was my birthday!) |
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| Ellen is ready to evacuate if there is ever a need! |
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