Happy Birthday to Troy

Welcome to our blog! We decided to create this blog for our family and friends. We will do our best to write about our experiences living in Japan and share personal stories of our lives.

Today is my birthday. I am now 44 years old today so I figured it would be a good time to reflect on our recent move to Japan.

It all started with Vanessa posting her resume on the DoDDs website. We thought we would see what happened. Our first (and only) call came from Camp Zama, Japan. They were looking for an Assessor, which was what Vanessa wanted. She got the job and we were scheduled to make our international move in 4 weeks. We actually got real busy and were ready to go but some passport issues (and Fedex issues) caused some delays and we were finally on our way about 5 weeks later.

We put our house on the market and left for Japan. Our dog, Jelly Bean was put in a kennel cage and we all flew to Tokyo via San Francisco. We were met by the principal of the school and were loaded in a van to go to Camp Zama. We tried to get Jelly Bean to take a bathroom break before we loaded in the van but he was too excited and couldn't go. It took us about 2 or 3 hours to drive to the base so it had been 27 and a half hours since he last went to the bathroom. When we got there, Jelly Bean hopped out and headed to the first tree. He went for about 5 minutes straight!

Our first 10 days were spent in billeting. It was basically a hotel room. It was a pretty good place to get over the jet lag. Maddie did great and tried to stay up at night so she could sleep until morning. Maddie was great for the entire move. She really amazed us with her positive attitude and enthusiasm for this move. It was hard on all of us but she never, not once, complained or expressed regret. Jelly Bean had to stay in a dog kennel with all of the other dogs while we were in billeting. The kennel was about a mile or so away from us and was up a very big hill. The employees at the kennel were not allowed to walk the dogs due to an incident where someone was bitten by a dog that turned out to have an ear infection. As a result, we had to walk him ourselves so he could go to the bathroom. It was tough but we all got through it.

After 10 days, we moved into our on base housing. It is a two bedroom, one bath house. It is small but we are a cozy family and we will get used to it. We are waiting on our furniture to be shipped to us from the US. The Army provides any furniture we need in the meantime. We have been settling into the home and getting used to the surroundings. We will be glad when our furniture arrives!

Madeleine started Japanese school this week, on Sept. 1st. She has to walk to school and back because they do not allow the kids to ride bikes or be driven by car. This keeps things simple at the school in the mornings and after school. Maddie meets a group of kids at the base gate every morning and they all walk together. She likes the school and has a Japanese language teacher that works with her 4 hours a week. We also hired a personal tutor once a week to help her with her school work and the language. We decided we would learn Japanese as a family but Maddie will be immersed so we hope she will pick it up quickly. We are very proud of her!

Vanessa is enjoying her new job. She is fitting right in and the other teachers and assessors are good to work with. She gets to go to Okinawa for a week (next week) and meet with all of the new assessors and get some training. I hope she also has some time to relax on the beach. She has worked so hard for so long. She has been absolutely amazing during this whole international move. She has stayed positive the entire time. (I wish the same could be said for me!) I'm so thankful I have her in my life.

Well, I'm ready to end it here for now. There is more to tell but I will pick it back up later. We have met with our Japanese friends and have done some exploring in the area. We have a trip planned for Madeleine's birthday that I'll let you know about. I want to thank our wonderful family and friends. Everyone was so supportive of our decision to move half way around the world. You were all great and we really appreciate it. --Troy