It's been a while.....

Well, it's been a while...and I don't have any good excuses for why it has been so long! We're keeping busy, having fun with friends and getting into a nice routine! We did have to say good-bye to Dan for a bit as he left on deployment at the end of May. He was only away for 2 weeks when the boat came back for a port call. The port call was 4 days long, which was great, but made saying good-bye again hard! He's currently on the boat, so we keep him updated with emails and photos as much as possible! We did make a family trip to the carrier before he left so he could drop off some of his stuff...and I realized once again how tough it must be to live like that! Thankfully his deployments out here are a bit shorter then the average cruises, but still long enough! (and a bit more frequent, I think!?) While he was home we also made a trip to the Enoshima Aquarium and stumbled upon a nice garden/park area a few minutes from base.

Here's the carrier...

This was a quick photo before getting in the car to drop daddy off for deployment. Andrew doesn't exactly understand that he's gone for an extended amount of time, which I guess is a good thing! While he was home for the port call I let him sleep in a couple times and one morning had Andrew wake him up by pounding on the door saying 'wake up daddy...eat...wake up daddy' and so now when Andrew is missing him he looks at me and says 'wake up daddy' with a look of confusion!? It's heartbreaking, as he usually proceeds to check the bedroom to see if he is still sleeping, at which point I let him know that daddy is working, or daddy went bye bye for a bit. It'll be harder the older he gets and more he understands, so I'll take this for now!!

This is the train ride to the aquarium...Andrew seems to be a natural on the train!! He is in a train obsession phase right now, so the choo choo is a thrill!! He later was doing acrobats and hanging from the rings...who knew the train was so much fun!!?

The aquarium was great! It was about a 45 minute car/train ride away and just enough to see without having any meltdowns!! They had a huge fish tank, with all sorts of fish. Andrew is below, I believe he's counting the fish, which goes like this...one, two, three, four, three...and then he gets preoccupied!! At least we get to four, right?!  

Here's a smaller tank...finding Nemo!!

These even smaller aquariums were at the perfect level. Andrew went from tank to tank peaking in...he seemed most fascinated by the seahorses!!

We ended the day with the Dolphin/Seal/Whale show! Andrew was getting tired, but seemed completely mesmerized!! We couldn't understand a word that the trainers were saying, and couldn't join in on the crowd interaction because of it, but it was still fun and amazing to see what the animals can be trained to do!

The last day of Dan's port call was spent having lots of fun! Dan had rented a bike with a child seat on back the day before and Andrew woke up at 6:15a, that morning saying 'Momma, bike!' He loved it!! They were on the bike by 8:30am! We had also heard about a small fishing pond nearby, so Dan thought it would be fun to take Andrew fishing. He rented a pole and got directions and we made an attempt to find this pond based on those not-so-good directions!! We ended up stumbling upon a neat garden area, with a small pond, a waterfall, a temple, and various paths to walk on! It was really pretty, very relaxing and a nice way to spend the afternoon! This is a picture of some of the flowers...

There was a nice man fishing for crawfish that called us over so that he could show Andrew his latest catch!! Andrew thought it was great, but as you can see by the picture he was still a little unsure!! The man was great and it was fun to try to communicate with him. We think he was recommending we take a crawfish home as a pet for Andrew, but we're not real sure!! :)

Here's the waterfall...Andrew enjoyed putting his hands in the water.

This is outside the temple we saw. This is where you place your bad fortune. If you get a good fortune you keep it, but if it's a bad one you tie it on one of these and the Gods will take that bad fortune away! I think it'd be nice if we all had one of these!!  :)

Well, those are some of our most recent adventures. I do hope to get better about getting off base and also about posting to the blog!! A few friends and I have vowed to take a trip a month, whether it be to a children's fun place, a zoo, or anywhere else, but hopefully we follow through and I have great stories to share!!