USS Bonhomme Richard

So if you have been reading this blog you may know my husband was gone for a while. Deployed. I've learned some non-military folks seem to think deployed means they are at war or in Afghanistan. It basically means he's not at home for a while. His squadron was assigned to the MEU (Marine Expeditionary Unit) aka "the boat" for the last year. They deploy twice-- once for fall patrol and once for spring patrol. We were really lucky Duke's CO let him stay back as a the remain behind officer for fall so he could be here for Lucy's birth. But Spring came and he was off. He was gone for 2 months, February-April. Then he was back for 2 weeks before he left for another 2 weeks to a training exercise in the Philippines. The good news is he should be back for a while!

The first weekend he was back from the boat we drove up to where the boat was ported and toured around. This big ol' boat is the USS Bonhomme Richard (which you pronounce in French and is way more fun to say that way). If you ask me boat life seems pretty awful. I'm just glad I'm not the Marine. But thanks for doing your time Duke :)

I went home for a month of it and so many people said "oh, i don't know how you do that!" or "I could never do that". Well I'm here to tell you it sucks, but you just DO it. And so could you if you had to :). It really helps to have awesome friends and wives in the same squadron when your husbands are gone. You just have to look at the silver lining. There is way less laundry to do, less errands to run, no one waiting on dinner. I can eat cereal for dinner and call it good. I can watch whatever I want on TV without compromising etc etc! I'm always surprised that I don't hear any of the wives complain about it. And I try not to because I know if could always be worse! Not looking forward to when we are back in the states and the deployments are more like 6-8 months. Aye yi yi! 

Seriously..how depressed would you be living on something like this for 2 months?^ blech.

I love Lucy's face in this pic. She's just along for the ride :)

Duke's room he shared with 4 other guys. His was the bottom. Looks cozy! ;)

The flight deck. One Osprey left behind bc it broke down.

That Okinawa water tho.

This picture isn't mine^. Its from the 3rd MEF Facebook page I believe. But Duke is in one of those Ospreys waiting to take off!

Then we played on the beach. I LOVE my Lucy girl. 

 There she is..the USS Bonhomme Richard in all her glory!

Dragon Boat Races

During Golden Week Okinawa has Dragon Boat races. I went down this morning to cheer on a couple friends who were on the Navy women's team. And they won!! It was really fun to watch and kind of made me want to try out for it next year! They only do one race and there's lots of practice beforehand. But when else would I be in a dragon boat race, right??! Most of my pictures are of the Navy gals, since I knew people on the team. They were up against Air Force and the Crazy Girls.

 There's my friend Jessie^ 

 Hi J!^

And the first girl you ca see in the boat is my friend Lisa!

 There goes Navy in the middle boat!

They kicked trash on the way back!

some of the Japanese racers we saw

enjoyed a bit of the festival...aka ate food and went home.

charming Okinawa

Seragaki Exploring

As of today I have only gotten ONE real weekend with my husband not working on Saturday or Sunday since January. I didn't really realize that until I sat down to write this post! Oh military life...curse you sometimes!! Anyways, it was a glorious weekend, however, it decided to rain everyday. Of course, right?! One of the days we decided we at least had to get out of the house and see SOMETHING. And it ended up being pretty fun. We visited a little "island" called Seragaki Island that is up near Onna. Apparently it used to be a pretty cool place that had a salt water pool right against the ocean and a nice snack bar. It looked like it must have been pretty cool in its prime. I'm not sure what happened. It's still there, but not in use. But it looks like it would be a nice snorkel/dive spot, so on a nice day we'll have to go back!

iejima

This past Friday I finallllly made my way to Ie Island. It's a really small island by Okinawa that is a 30 min ferry ride away. A group of friends decided to go over for the lily festival and although it turned out the lilies hadn't quite bloomed, I had a really fun day trip with them. The island was pretty adorable. It's mostly farmland with a random mountain in the middle and pretty coastlines. Since it's such a small island most people rent bikes and bike around, and so that is exactly what we did! I strapped lucy onto me and we rode around for probably 5 hours and she didn't complain about it one bit. The rest of my friends were staying the night, but I didn't want to do that with Lucy this time, so I only made it halfway around the island before it was time for us to go. But that means I'm just gonna have to go back! Oh and if you haven't been there, mapitokinawa has really great info about everything you need to know.

Ferry ride over

 I have to say one of the best parts of living in okinawa is all the great and fun friends I have made. These girls love to explore and have fun and I can def appreciate that. What else are we supposed to do while our husbands are away?

lunch at Family Mart. 

the lily field...not in bloom. so sad.

 I love the ocean so much

found a great place for a dip in the ocean and some cliff jumping. However, i stayed out bc of lucy..dang baby ;)

the lonely wives club :)

and a special thanks to lucy for being a good baby so I can have fun.