New Kitchen

Ellie was pretty excited to wake up from her nap to find that we had put her kitchen together!

Yokota celebrates cherry blossoms, hope with community

We did some more exploring of springtime in Japan this weekend. It was breathtaking. I fall more in love with this country every day! I will post some photos as soon as I download them from the camera. My favorite part was seeing Showa Park in full bloom! It was so nice to see so many people out, happy, relaxed, and just enjoying each others company! We continue to pray for those working so hard to fix the nuclear plant and those struggling to rebuild their lives. I am feeling so grateful for all the little things today!

This Sunday, the base opened up one of its gates to invite our Japanese neighbors to walk with us beneath the beautiful cherry blossoms. 1300+ Japanese nationals attended. It was a nice break and it felt good to feel like part of the community. Here is a link to a story about it:

Yokota celebrates cherry blossoms, hope with community 

http://www.yokota.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123250980

A Quick Update

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.

The weather has been so beautiful so we took a walk down by the river.

A Japanese cemetery we found on our walk.

In the cemetery

Now that Ellen has decided to walk, she loves to practice...

...and now she is getting ready to run!

Ellen and her friend Matthew bowling :)

We had a fun playgroup at our house with friends who are still here.

Napoleon and Ellen at the library

After bath time with Daddy

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!)

Ellen is ready to evacuate if there is ever a need!

Jon's Thailand Trip

Jon was suppose to spend most of this month in Thailand. He got one day off to see the country before they got called back to Yokota to help with the rescue and relief efforts. Here are a few pics from his trip. Next time I am going with him!

Thai Thanksgiving!?

The view from Jon's hotel room

So proud of Jon!

I took a much needed break from how much time I was spending on the computer and TV monitoring, processing and reporting this whole situation. I just needed some time to regroup and do "normal" things for a while. I will post an update from the last week soon, but for tonight I just wanted to share a link to a short new story where Jon and his crew were highlighted. I am so proud of all the hard work that he and all the 36th Airlift Squadron are doing to help the relief and recovery efforts in Japan. They are all so excited to have the opportunity to help out. This is exactly the type of thing they train for.

Yokota's Hometown Heroes 29 March 2011 

3/29/2011 - 1st Lt. Jon Parks, a C-130 navigator from the 36th Airlift Squadron, reviews a flight manual during a mission to Matsushima Air Base, Japan, March 29. Lieutenant Parks, a native of Sacramento, Calif., was part of a team from Yokota that delivered more than 11,000 pounds of relief supplies to support the Government of Japan's request for humanitarian assistance. (U.S. Air Force photo/Staff Sgt. Robin Stanchak)

You can find this and other news/photos about Operation Tomodachi (which means "friendship" in Japanese) at http://newpreview.afnews.af.mil/yokota/