Moving Out!

Friends & Family!
We're moving out! Today we have a laundry list of items to do, one of them being huge... cleaning our house for inspection (eek!)
I didn't realize how dusty some corners got or how dirty some windows get... until all our stuff was gone. Oh and the walls... have you taken a photo off the wall only to see a nice square space where the photo used to be? It's weird!
This is our last weekend on Okinawa, and we'll be spending it cleaning our house up. I'm excited, scared, nervous, and anxious all rolled into one!
We're low on sleep, staying at a friends house who has a Black Lab along with our Atreus has proven a bit of a challenge. Atreus whines, then the Lab whines, and they do that all night long, not to mention that anytime something out of the front door moves the auto light comes on and Atreus like to bark at it, in the middle of the night. We're keeping her on their balcony and him in their kitchen for now. And from monday to friday we're checking into TLF.
Oh yeah, and whoever said a blow up bed was comfortable was wrong. LOL!

Other than those seemingly negative things, everything is going great. The stars are aligning and we are feeling so blessed. Everything is working out... we've been able to sell the things we don't need and pack away the things we do, we found someone amazing who is going to take Atreus to LAX, and we have our tickets to fly from seattle to Nevada all lined up, as well as my ticket from vegas to lax to pick up Atreus. Woo! It's all so exciting. OH yes, and we've begun to close on our new HOUSE! WOO HOO!

*We no longer have our vonage phones. If you are on island and need to reach us, please call 080-3588-6971 (Vanessa) Or 080-3356-9786 (Daniel)

We will miss....

The beaches...
The sunsets...
The Sky...
The Ocean...

FINALLY! We went to explore! sort of.

After a long, hot, humid summer rather spent indoors, we finally got out of the house and did some driving around. I wanted to get some photos of the beach before we left, and Danny wanted to eat at this burger place on island. We also headed to the 100 yen store to get some japanese stuff before leaving island. We got some funny chop sticks... and not much else. Then we ran around the scuba shops on island looking for a wet suit that would actually *fit* danny, and we found one! HOORAY! We didn't buy it yet though, Danny wants to see if it'll go on sale after thanksgiving.
Anyway here are some of the photos from the day. It was a good Saturday. :)

Fertility Update!

Dear Family! (And friends),


As you all know, Danny and I have been trying for what seems to us like forever to have a child. After months of trying to get in to see a doctor about fertility treatments, reasons why we haven't been able to conceive, and options we might have, I finally got an appointment. On Ocotber 6th, Danny and I went in for a consultation. This basically was an appointment for the doctors to ask us how long we have been trying, how long during that time Danny has been deployed, and whether or not we 'know how to time intercourse.' After they clearly realized we knew what we were doing, they put in for a referral to see a specialist. One catch, I needed to get blood work done before my appointment with my specialist. When you get blood work done for fertility testing, you have to wait for certain days of your cycle, and mine are crazy, so I never knew when that day would come, where was the light at the end of the tunnel!

On the 19th (our anniversary, go figure!) I got a phone call from the specialist, saying "You have a referral, make an appointment with us!" I told them how my Primary Care Manager (pcm) had told me to wait for my blood work to be done before making the appointment, and they told me nonsense!! and made the appointment. So at 10:20 today, I had my appointment.

I go in, and play 20 questions with the doctor. After 30 minutes of q&a, he decides I'm the most well informed patient he has ever had, and starts me on clomid. He also checked my ovaries for swelling, and booked me for an ultrasound to make sure that I don't have any abnormalities on my ovaries and to make sure that the huge cyst that family practice ignored 10 months ago has resolved itself. He told me my right ovary still feels a little swollen, but not huge, so that's a good thing.

For those who don't know, or aren't sure what clomid is, let me explain. In the beginning of the month, a woman's body produces FSH (Follicle stimulating hormone) to produce a follicle or cyst where the egg will be released from the ovary. If you estrogen levels aren't high enough, there won't be very much FSH in your system, and you won't ovulate, and you won't produce a lot of progesterone at the end of your cycle either, so even if my some holy miracle sperm swam all the way to the ovary and fertilized an egg, your body wouldn't be prepared for pregnancy and wouldn't keep it. Clomid blocks estrogen receptors, and kicks your estrogen production into over drive, causing extra estrogen to produce and basically kick starting the ovaries to ovulate, and produce all these hormones that are necessary.

I hope that all makes sense to everyone. Any questions feel free to email and ask!! Thank you guys all for your prayers and positive energy you have put into the universe for us. We are thankful to all of you. Keep praying, though, we're not pregnant yet!! :) Thank you!!!!

Just to keep you guys posted, fertility drugs have a reputation for producing multiples. So watch out! :)


Love,
Nessie & Danny

4 Years

I LOVE YOU DANNY!

Our New Home... well maybe.

This is a home iN Kentucky that we've been looking at buying. I love it, I love that it's so close to base, and it's clean and only 3 years old! The owners say there are no houses across the street, just dense forest, and that the neighbors all keep pretty much to themselves. With amazing views of the sunset and a back and front porch, finished basement, 3 bedrooms and 2 baths, I'm in love. We're working on buying it as soon as possible, so we have a home to live in when we move. I can't wait!

Wisdom Teeth

Last Friday, I had my wisdom teeth taken out. This is what I looked like immediately following the surgery! Not bad, though i don't remember Danny taking this photo NOR do I remember how I got home and in bed!
Immediately following surgery, I felt great! I had no pain, I was happy, and sleepy. We watched FRIENDS for a while, while I zoned in and out of consciousness. Every few hours, Danny would give me another percocet or motrin, and I would take a sip of whatever (can't even remember now) and slip back into a sleep.

At around 3:30 am I woke up feeling horribly nauseated. After three bouts of nausea and "sickness" Danny took me to the ER to get some fluids. The doctor for some reason didn't want to put an IV in, so he made me drink horrible tasting hospital tap water which made me run for the bathroom but I didn't throw up, they gave me some sort of evil anti-vommiting meds which make me feel like I will but prevent it from happening, which I think is probably a worse feeling.
Come to find they think I have an allergic reaction to percocet, so they prescribe Vicodin (stupid, it's the same family as percocet). after returning home and taking the vicodin, i vomit even more! Oh dear. I stopped taking the pain killers they gave me and stuck to Tylenol, which only helps so much. The sickness continued for several more days! Luckily, Thursday rolled around and since then (which is only yesterday) I haven't been sick, just in mouth pain. I miss solid foods.
Anyway here is a photo of two of the teeth that came out. i am guessing they were the top teeth, since the bottom ones were impacted, and the other "teeth" I got were just broken pieces of tooth. Check out how big these suckers are! No wonder I'm in pain.

For all Eternity...

While we were in the states, Danny and I made our way to the temple in Bountiful, Utah, to be sealed to each other for time and all eternity. This means that when we die, we will still be married to each other and will find one another again once in Heaven.

It was an amazing journey, and I feel so blessed to be sealed to my loving husband. I'm so grateful that families are together forever.

After being sealed in the temple, we spent some time at the Buckner's house. We ate a fantastic meal, talked, laughed, and enjoyed each other's company. They have a beautiful home in Utah and have amazing neighbors! While we were there, a deer (wish I had a picture!) came up and just started eating apples in the back yard, like it was no big deal that it was in someone's back yard! It was so cool!

it started to get late, and we had to head home since it was a long drive back (this didn't bother me, of course, because I passed out in the back seat).

more posts to come of our trip to the USA when Danny finally uploads his pictures.... erglegurgle.

A trip to MeXiCo!!

waY BACK in July (lol) Vanessa took the long flight(s) back to the USA. After 22 hours of travel time, she finally arrived in Los Angeles where she was greeted by and stayed with her sister Jenny. They had a blast taking a few shopping trips to Ross and eating junk food you can only find in America (In'n'out, Papa Johns, Islands..) and watching SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE. A day and a half later, Jenny and Vanessa headed off to LAX to take a wonderful 7 hour trip to Cozumel, Mexico where their other sister Heather would be getting married.

Upon arrival in Mexico, Vanessa and Jenny rapidly changed clothes and got dolled up for a wonderful evening with many peeps in Heather's life eating Mexican food and chatting around the bar. (I actually didn't stay up for that, thank you Jet Lag for putting me to bed early...) The food was OK, something Danny and I refer to as "FANCY Mexican" food. It was presented beautifully though as you can see in the photos of the drinks and dessert. 1. Margarita 2. my virgin strawberry daiquiri 3. dessert

The next day, Jenny and Vanessa got up in the morning (or something like that :D) to put swim suits on and head to the pool. We ate Tatopos and guacamole, drank (virgin) pina coladas, and played pool volley ball where Jenny whacked me in the head with a volley ball in front of about 20 other people. i went under... but i survived! We are TERRIBLE at playing volleyball. We lost by a million and a half points. There was this cutie cute pool activities coordinator who looked like Danny. His name was Daniel. hA! Something to make me miss my husband I guess. Although, this Mexican Daniel actually spoke Spanish, unlike my witty and charming husband. :D

At 3 or 4... I don't remember... we got ready for the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner. That night we ate Italian I think. My Mom, Dad, and sister Christina finally arrived, and I spent most of dinner time getting my mom ready for bed but it was amazing to see her. The fish (or whatever it was ) that I ate tasted great, even cold (because that's how I ate it). For dessert, we had this amazing fried ice cream. YUM. For drinks, they brought out these fruity melon cocktails, i couldn't tell you what they were because I didn't taste them.. I drank water with lime, and it was fantastic. Yum!

Then I'm pretty sure I went to bed.

The next day, we woke up once again during a time of day that should have been morning, but I'm pretty sure it was not. We laid by the pool for an hour or two, then ran upstairs to get ready for Heather's wedding. It was beautiful, and I was glad i brought my own camera because I didn't like the way the wedding photographer was. I don't know, something about his style, everything had to be posed... and as we all know I do not shoot like that. I followed him around when he did outdoor photos of the couple, because otherwise there was no time for me to take photos of them. So if they look like they aren't looking at my camera, it's because they're not! Ten minutes into the reception, right after taking photos of the 100 cakes that they had, my camera's battery died. And was suffering from my kidney infection so i didn't run upstairs to charge it... so I now regret not doing that because I wish i could give Heather and Jason more photos :(

The next morning we got up, ate Brunch and ran off to the airport. What an amazing and hectic adventure. Beautiful wedding, we all cried our makeup off. Even J. ;-P

More posts to come of our trip to the USA. Stay tuned.

YYY Resort - IE island

YAY! Finally a blog update. I have lots to back update on but for now I'll keep it current.

For my birthday, Danny and I went up to the YYY resort on IE island. It was amazing. We got in the car, drove north about 45 minutes, took a 30 minute ferry ride, and landed at Ie Island. We had two days and one night at this beautiful resort, where breakfast and dinner are included.

We arrived about lunch time, so we dumped our stuff in our room and headed down to the lobby to get a map of local restaurants. We were headed down the beach, looking for one of the listed restaurants, when we decided to take a small detour. We were attacked by barking cicadas, and nearly ran into this HUGE spider. There were many of those big banana spiders along the path. We decided to turn back and never found the restaurant we were looking for. Starving, we decided to eat at the restaurant in the resort. Everything on the menu was uber-expensive, so I ordered the cheapest thing, and also - the safest thing, a hot dog. YUCK it was so nasty I didn't even finish it. Danny ordered a Soba set, and I got to eat his rice.

After lunch, we decided to head to the beach. Snorkels in hand, we found a great spot to start. We drenched ourselves in sunscreen and jumped in! The water was so warm and so clear, it was a great place to swim. We saw two puffer fish and a weird, very colorful fish that chased me, along with some other interesting looking things.

After getting a little sea sick, I decided to just play in the waves. Danny continued to snorkel and chase fish around while I collected coral and swam around the blue green water. We stayed in the ocean until well after 5 pm, and were pruney when we went back to our room to shower and get ready for our dinner.

Our dinner was pretty good. We had some sort of risotto wrapped in bacon topped with shrimp, a salad, steak, potatoes, broccoli, an interesting deep fried carrot mush, and for dessert, a tiny piece of cheese cake with fresh fruit.

After that, we decided to go for a walk on the beach. it was pitch black, so we found a sandy spot and lay down to watch the stars. Danny pointed out about 20 satellites, and we saw a shooting star! I nearly fell asleep on the sand, so we decided to head up to go to sleep. Quite a long day!

The next day was not quite as amazing. We got up, went to play in the water for a little while, and checked out of the resort. We rented a little car so we could drive around the island. We made it to a cave where people would hide during the war. In the cave is this "special rock" and it is said that if a woman picks it up, she will have a baby soon. So of course, Danny made me pick it up. HAHA.

My eyes had been sun burnt the day before, and after little exploring, were burning so badly that we had to head back to the ferry to go home. They were watering and stinging so much that I could hardly see and barely keep my eyes open at all.

In case you were wondering...

Just in case you were wondering where we've been and why the blog hasn't been updated....

Afternoon at the Beach

Danny came home from Thailand on Thursday night, and Friday I had to work. But after work, Danny and I decided to take advantage of the beautiful afternoon and go to the beach. Danny had his heart set on swimming in the water, so we got in our swim suits and headed down to Teguchi Beach. It's really beautiful there and we swam by ourselves in a secluded part of the beach. It was such a beautiful day and we took some pretty cool photos, so we wanted to share them with you. After we were done on the beach, we went to the restaurant by the Kadena Marina and ate some snacks. It was amazing, we got to sit over the water and watch the sun go down. What a lovely way to spend our first afternoon together after a TDY.

Something to love

I must say, I love photography.

For several years (maybe longer) Danny has been telling me to "get a hobby." Not in a mean way, but he's been bugging me to find something that I love to do that I can do on my own. He's constantly on the computer or TV playing games with his brothers and friends back home, and this is what he considers his hobby. I don't mind, as long as it doesn't consume every waking moment of his life (the way it used to ... aherm...)

Well as most of you know, a year and something ago Danny got me a nice digital camera. Nothing super special, just a point and shoot camera that puts out much better quality images than the one I had previously, that I hated. It took like ten minutes to click out one photo, and hardly ever focused right! Anywho pretty soon he showed me how to use it, how to change the settings, macro, and so on. I started taking that little thing with me everywhere, to work, to the commissary, shopping at the 100yen store (see previous post). . . and soon I was buying and reading photography magazines. I kept asking, "What do they mean set the shutter speed, I can't find that setting on my camera!" and so on (I know, seriously I didn't know anything about cameras, so call me blonde...). Soon to discover that I didn't have the right kind of camera at all!

Well this past Valentines Day Danny got me a new camera. A CANON Digital Rebel XSI 12.2 mp. It didn't get here until March, but it was worth the wait. 3,000 photographs later, I might be getting a handle on my camera, and am already discovering the limitations of my lens. *hint hint*

I can't believe how quickly and unconditionally I've fallen in love with photography. Even when I come back from shooting somewhere or something or someone and have no good photos to show for it, I still love the experience I had trying to capture that something special about my subject. It's good that I come back with horrible shots sometimes, it just means there is more to learn and I can't wait to uncover the beauty of photography I've yet to discover.

So the meaning of this post, I've decided through much encouragement of my friends around Kadena to start offering my services to friends and families around Okinawa. I won't promise any wonderful shots, but I will promise to put my heart into all my work.

So here's to it - Charming Memories (or Memorias Encantadoras) photography by Vanessa Sanoja

http://charmingmemoriesphotography.blogspot.com/

April Fools

I hate April Fools Day. Let me tell you why.

Danny is a funny guy. He really is, probably, one of the funniest guys I know. He loves a good joke, to make himself and other people laugh. And I love that about him. But sometimes... he takes it too far and makes me cry in the meantime.

Well usually he forgets about April Fools Day until later in the month. One year, in April, he told me he wanted a divorce, followed quickly (but not quick enough) by an "APRIL FOOLS!" and starts busting up laughing. I'm sorry, but divorce is not a joke, and not something that I believe in anyway. You get married, you're stuck! So marry the right person the FIRST time!

One year had something to do with one of our friends cars breaking down, which it did, but they exaggerated big time. Danny calls me and tells me our friend's car broke down on the 23 fwy right near the bridge. It started making a funny noise, and Danny, stopped in his car several hundred feet away, saw Chris RUNING away from his car and towards Danny's, and soon the car erupted in a firey blaze, sending Chris flying. He says he's on his way to see Chris at the hospital... and as I'm trying to get details and directions to this "hospital" (which doesn't exist, by the way, he made a hospital name up... but me being in frantics didn't realize this) his phone "loses service" and cuts out. I panic, and start looking for a phone book to find this hospital, when I get a phone call back filled with laughter and an "APRIL FOOLS!" I tell him countless times over countless years that April Fools Day is on the 1st of April, not the entire month.

Anyway this year may have been the worst yet.

It's 5pm on Wednesday. I'm expecting Danny home any minute, so I take the dog out side, sit on the stairs, and wait for him to arrive. Here comes his car, YAY! Leaving his engine running, he hops out of the car, bolts up the stairs, and the door is closed before I even have a chance to stand up. (either he's really fast or I'm really slow, or possibly a combination of the two)

I go inside, find him in the office and I ask, "what the heck are you doing?"

"I'm leaving" he says as he pulls out his pelican cases, throws them open, and pulls out his deployment bags.

"WHAT? You're leaving? Now? Right now? Where? when? how long?"

Meanwhile he's throwing things into his backpack like crazy. Shirts, bdus, the works.

He tells me he has no answers, as he doesn't know yet. He says, "when it's real world stuff going on baby, we just don't know until we get there."

and he hugged and kissed me and said good bye, ran downstairs and threw his bags into his car.

Needless to say I was in hysterics. Laying on the floor crying, my dog lay by my side. I picked myself off and took some deep breaths, to calm down. Well about 20 minutes or so later, the door swings open, and here he comes, laughing and smiling as usual, yelling "APRIL FOOLS!"

Of course still being in panic from before, I sob my eyes out some more and tell him how angry I am, he brought me icecream to "fix it" but I wasn't in the mood for sweet treats. Grrrrrrrr. What a mean joke.

At least he did it on April Fools Day this year.

On a lighter note....

I cut my own hair today. After dropping nearly $3000 on plane tickets to be able to make it to my sister's and Danny's sister's weddings, we are striving to save money, so I decided to save myself $20 and trim my own hair. I figured if I messed it up too badly I'd just go in and spend the $20 anyway. Turned out pretty well. Now I just need my hair to grow super fast so I can cut out the artificial blonde that is in there from when I covered up my artificial brunette from last summer...

Oh and I took my own head shots after trimming my hair. Hooray for self sufficiency!

Pregnancy Photo - Jen

My friend Jen got pregnant with her first in December between her husband's deployments. Soon after finding out that she was pregnant, her husband Max left again for an 8 month deployment. He returns just a few days before her due date. By a twist of fate, Max was able to come back to the island for a few days this month and she asked me to snap just a few photos of them with her tiny baby belly in case they don't get another chance. Here's hoping he comes home again when baby bump is a little bigger so we can get more shots. My first attempt at maternity photography. I wish I could have done a better job for them!

March - Photoshoot with Alexis

The other day I had the opportunity to do a photoshoot with my friend's little girl - Alexis. She is so sweet. She was grumpy most of the day but I managed to get some wonderful smile pictures from her. What a cutie, huh?

February 27 - Shooting with a Photographer

On Friday afternoon the sun was out and I didn't have to work. My friend Amanda Webb (of Footsetps Photography) had offered to help me learn my camera and teach me about the different functions of it. She taught me about shutter speed, apeture, color balance, and more. She brought her daughter to the park with us and we practiced shooting. I actually came out with a few good shots! I was so impressed with myself. :) Thank you so much Amanda for teaching me about my camera!!