Objects in mirror are not what they appear

Holy cow, what a summer. And what a glorious life I'm living. Yes, I'm going to brag just a little. It's healthy to be happy, dammit!

We've all made it to Okinawa after a July from hell where I nearly die from a diseased gallbladder and abscesses, where the Major flies back on emergency leave to literally save my life by helping me stabilize enough to get out of ICU, and then help me hobble around with a stomach stent in my chest to drain out the infection. (Bleargh). After we survive August with a horrendous flight from Seattle to Okinawa in a cramped and screaming-baby-filled airplane for 18 cruel hours. Though the boys liked Seattle and we spent some amazing time with friends Ken and Kelly and Heather! (Thanks for the hospitality, lovelies!) I showed the boys all my favorite places and they still talk about it.

We are here and loving it! The boys are able to talk to their family back in Oklahoma almost every day and I'm glad of it. (Thank you, Facetime and Vonage!) They are doing well here though there are adjustments. The oldest is in a more challenging school and though a middle schooler, is taking two high school level classes. He puts a lot of stress on himself, unfortunately, and is too much like his mama in being the perfectionist. Being with friends is helping him though. SOOO much better than last year when he struggled to fit in and couldn't make friends.

The youngest has taken to the place like he's never lived anywhere else. It's amazing to me. He's grown two inches and gained at least five pounds on his skinny frame. He's now reading books like the Harry Potter series and I can barely get him inside until it's dark outside. A group of boys his age keeps him busy.

The house is nearly unpacked after three weeks. I can't believe how well it's coming along! I'm so OCD about it and want it done two weeks ago but it's not realistic. I'll be lucky to get pictures up in three weeks and I'm almost okay with that.

I just want it to feel like home. For me, for the Major, for the boys. And we've almost succeeded.

For me, I'm keeping a positive attitude. There are those who criticize, who've called me selfish, mean and can't understand "why I would take the boys away from their family and friends." Sorry, but it's an opportunity for them to grow outside that small-town mentality. To see the world and the people in it. To have their eyes opened but still have roots. Because they deserve to see the beauty of the world and LIVE it, not just visit it.

I'm keeping it positive for myself as well. There are too many horror stories of spouses who never leave base in their egocentricity. Who mock and demean everything different about their host country, simply because it isn't like home. Isn't like America. Isn't like their rose-colored vision of small town USA. I've found amazing people here.

This is an actual sunset I saw on Sunday at Araha Beach, Okinawa. ©

Seen the most gorgeous sunsets I could imagine. Learned to drive on the opposite (NOT the wrong-) side of the street in a tiny car down streets I can't pronounce much less read the letters to which make up their names. I've felt a sense of accomplishment, of growth, of expansion into a greater self. And I was scared shitless the whole time. No, really. I got a stomach-ache later that day from venturing out into unknown traffic, buying produce in a store where no one spoke English using strange currency, and still managed to make it home.

Only once have I broken down, sobbing, missing my friends and family more than I could bare. Watching my nieces and nephew grow from so far away is hard. I can't just go to my mom or my best friends and have a hug because I need it. And I'm not good enough friends with folks here to do that. I've been so busy setting up house and running around with the family, I've lost more weight. I don't recognize myself as the chubby bunny anymore and it's weird. I have a bit of homesickness but it isn't something to dwell on. It's natural and I get melancholy sometimes. (Meg knows what I mean.) I have the most amazing friends and I just remember that I'm adding to that bunch. The spouses group here is so fun and I'm learning the lingo. The Air Force Ball, which I FINALLY get to go to!, is this Saturday. And I'm going to have a grand time with my love. I'm keeping this face because the mask is off.

I'm happy and nothing can break me down. 

We now interrupt your regularly scheduled summer

I wouldn't have given up the last weeks of May, first of June for anyone. Including Mother Nature. And she tried really hard.
May 20, the day before we left for Italy, I had a panicked call from the Oldest who was using someone else's phone, about 45 minutes before the end of school.

"Are you coming to get us?!"
"Not until after schools, why?"
"Have you checked the weather? There's a tornado in Newcastle and it's headed this way!" 10 miles away.

Superhero Mom mode, engage! Checking the weather, which by myphone app said it was only a thunderstorm, I then turned on the local news and the weather guys were going nuts. Just a few days prior, a tornado ripped thru a tiny town south of us. Living in "Tornado Alley" during the spring and summer is always eventful. But this year, we lived in a city that had been hit time after time, with devastating results. To make matters worse, we were without a storm shelter. Just the little area under the stairs we affectionately called the Harry Potter Closet.

Throwing the dog into the garage howling, just as the sirens started, I drove like a maniac to my children a mile away. It was the slowest mile EVER. I could see the storm building just southwest of us and the hail had already started. Rushing into the school, there were other parents and teachers hovering in the hallways, closets and tiny bathrooms with kids as this was the only safe place for them. Don't get me started on how asinine it is that Oklahoma schools don't have mandatory storm shelters! Demanding my kids come out, we covered our heads and ran for the car which was getting beat all to hell with hail.

On the drive back to the house, the kids were watching the tornado increasing in size. The stuff of nightmares. Stuffing them, the dog and every available pillow and blanket under the stairs, we waited with our bicycle helmets on. I'd been texting the Major who was trying his hardest to get home to us but didn't end up home until 5 hours later, when the power went out.

The E-F5 tornado that struck our town that day, a mile and a half passed our home, has been recorded as the worst in history. 20 people died, most of them children who were huddled in their school, like my boys had been, while the twister literally ground their school to a pulp around them. We heard the roar of it from our house, sounding very much like a freight train and could see it from our front windows after it had passed far enough east for us to get outside of the closet.

My last text from the Major was that he was along a road heading south as fast as possible. A road the tornado was headed straight toward. Thank God for social media as a FB notice later showed him safely to the south of the damaged area but streets and highways were now impassable. What a way to begin a honeymoon!!

We felt guilty leaving the next day as friends were trying to clean up the disaster. We donated everything we could from water and baby goods to money. It will take years before things are back to normal. Of course, we would be moving to the home of typhoons.