*UPDATE*

Im Alive! I often use that phrase when I havent blogged in a while but it seems a little more meaningful since there was a massive earthquake and Tsunami in Japan this past weekend.

Hubs and I were walking around an Ikea type store looking for furniture when we saw a bunch of locals gathered around a TV watching with their eyes wide open. Hubs even said "maybe there was a natural disaster or something". Sure enough we are on our drive home a few minutes later and the sirens were sounding all throughout the city. School kids were running home and EVERYONE on the entire island was on a cell phone. We heard exactly what happened on AFN radio. Of course we went right back to the hotel to watch the news. Sure enough Okinawa was scheduled to be hit by a Tsunami at 6:12 that same evening. They evacuated all low lying areas of on and off base housing. There is always those moron who sit on the seawall and watch though. We just headed out to dinner with friends. We remained on Tsunami warning until the next morning.

Marines have already been dispatched from Okinawa to help. Since my hubs works in the III MEF, Im not sure how this will effect him. But I know III MEF do a ton of humanitarian assistance so I wouldnt be surprised is he was sent up to mainland Japan to help. They have set up a lot of fundraising and donation centers around the bases here to help too. I read a story about a 4 months old baby girl pulled from a collapsed house this morning. She is starving, but alive and crying.

We spent all of last week house hunting (even before we had our clearances, but I was done waiting). We looked at some teenie places, some dirty places, some places with a million stairs to climb. Its tough to get what you want off base. And I have a large wish list! I knew I would have to give up some things I wanted. Until we found The House. Yaka Beach House to be more specific. We got SUPER lucky with this one. The houses here get snatched up literally the second they go on the market because of all the incoming people going off base and the renovations on base are forcing people off. Back to the house. Its sits RIGHT on the water so it has amazing views and a gorgeous beach. Im so happy its not in one of those super congested, American filled areas like the seawall. Yuck. It has a garage (very rare here) with an opener too! My kitchen has storage, which is also hard to find. The girls have huge jacuzzi tub to swim in. Beautiful hardwood floors, a large backyard, a huge patio on the second floor. I LOVE this place, if you cant tell. The locations isnt ideal, but Im willing to drive since the house is so great. Its very close to hubs work but will be far for me to drive to work. And since everything in Tampa was 5 minutes away, driving 15 minutes makes me cringe. Ive been spoiled with the convenience of the states, I know this.

We cant move in until all the paperwork is complete which takes forever. We've now lived in TLF for 6 weeks, including 3 fires and a giant natural disaster. Im done complaining about TLF, I know we are lucky to even have a roof over our heads right now consider the poor people on mainland.

Here is a picture of our house and our beach.