I forgot

I forgot how wonderful spring can be. It's been a long time since I've experienced the season of spring. Since 2002. Almost a decade. Without a spring.

I returned to the States in the winter and found the Midwest to be cold and covered in snow.

Olivia's minature snowman

No sleds, only swimsuits,  for sale in the stores in March.

I arrived in Maryland to find no buds on the trees and a chill in the air. Then suddenly without warning, the wind shifted and soon birds were singing in the mornings, tulips had popped through and opened on Easter Sunday in front of my new home and yellow and white daffodils bordered every farm house in our county.

In front of our house, April 2011

In front of our neighbor's house

Spring had arrived. Olivia's new hobby was picking dandelions and handing them to me for safe keeping.

Picking at the Washington Monument

Picking at the local library's lawn

My new hobby was photographing the beauty of spring.

Random tulips in D.C.

This weekend, the temperatures reached the 90s and the humidity pushed down on us. It left me thinking about how much I missed spring and how could I ever forget about it.

Hit the Restart Button

On Saturday, February 25, we left Okinawa, Japan. We said goodbye to our friends the days prior to our flight. Many of these friends are in the Navy, Marine Corps or Army, so it wasn't hard to say goodbye to them-- in all likelihood we will see them again.

It's the friends who are Okinawans, like Benny's co-workers, my co-workers, and Olivia's daycare providers. These men and women taught us (with patience) about Japan for the past three years. Ask what I miss about Okinawa and without a doubt, it's the people.

Olivia received this Hello Kitty pillow as a farewell gift from her daycare.

After checking in for a military flight at 7 a.m., boarding at 9:30 a.m., stopping at two military bases in mainland Japan and surviving another (and hopefully last) Pacific flight, we landed at around noon in Seattle. We caught our flight to Minnesota and gathered up our six bags of luggage (!), two backpacks, one diaper bag, one purse and one toddler without losing anything or anyone.

I planned to take a photo of us with our avalanche of suitcases, but I was too tired, confused by the time change and plain dirty to orchestrate the documentation. Take my word for it: six suitcases. Picture it. It wasn't pretty.

I don't remember what was my first reaction to moving back to America. Mostly I felt like I was on vacation. In some ways I still feel that way. I keep thinking that I'm going back to Japan. I wonder how long until I realize that we aren't going back.

The first week back meant a lot of running around reestablishing our American lives. The restart button on our lives was pushed. The first thing we did was buy a brand new car, that was made in Japan.

Olivia's sweet 16 birthday gift.

Yup, our 2011 Subaru Forester was built in Japan and sold to us in Burnsville, Minnesota. No, the irony is not lost on us.