If Carrie can't go to Thailand...the elephants will come to Carrie...

Today was a beautiful day...and not just because it was in the mid seventies with a light ocean breeze...it was beautiful for 4 reasons:

(1) My husband called and surprised me with a lunch invitation...with about 20 minutes notice. That will teach me to spend all morning cleaning, taking care of business, etc. in my PJs. Next time, I'll be ready. So, anyway, we had lunch later than he probably would have liked, but he waited for me. We went to the Globe and Anchor and each had a salad, split some BBQ and shared Snickers cheesecake for dessert. It was perfect...for the most part. There was that one part where we were comparing notes like:

Me: Oh, I got our online acct. set up with Gov Billpay and paid the phone bill, called USAA and made all the changes with our insurance, yadda yadda...

Cliff: I got all my NBC gear, they finished my skeleton record (an abbreviated medical record) and I got my other set of cammies in for name tapes. I got my new govt. travel card, they got my plane ticket....blah blah...

Me: (Blindsided...out of nowhere...numbness evidently worn off, it's finally hitting me, eyes welling up...can't control it, can't swallow, can't chew...choking on food, squirting tears now, feeling terrible for ruining a nice lunch.)

Cliff: (looking helpless) I'm so sorry...

Other than that, it was great!


(2) We decided to peek into the Marine Gift Shop furniture annex to see what was shakin'.(FYI...the Marine Officers' Spouses club and the Navy Officers' Spouses club each have their own gift shop here. Volunteers get to travel around to different locations to shop for cool stuff to bring back to Okinawa so that we can all shop for cool, exotic stuff and not actually have to wait until we can travel to those places. The proceeds go to charity, so it's an all around win. The Air Force has a gift shop here as well, and I assume it's the same deal, but I know less about theirs.) Anyway, the MOSC Gift Shop just had their Thailand opening today...so we were JUST in time to snag this baby:

(Don't mind Brownie...she follows me around like this, and must have thought I wanted another picture of her.)

Was this meant to be, or was this meant to be? It was a TOTAL bargain, they had only bought ONE, it's LOADED (as you can see) with my elephants from Thailand AND it's a hand-made original. I thought we'd have to bring back the van to pick it up, but Cliff was confident it would fit into O'Malley. I thought no way. He was right...fit perfectly. O'Malley is so handy with his collapsing seat.

(3) I stopped by the post office on my way home...and found this little number waiting for me:


It's a Praise Card from Coree's school. You probably can't read it, so I'll tell you what it says:

"To the parents of: Corenne. Your daughter is receiving this praise card because: It's refreshing to see a student with so much dedication and energy in Japanese Culture class. I really appreciate her effort for doing a splendid job in class during difficult and challenging circumstances."

I have never met this teacher, and I don't know if maybe Coree mentioned her dad's deployment, or if she's just talking about the challenges of being the new kid. At any rate, Coree's been having such a rough time with some of the dregs of society troubled children of God at school...but she's been hanging tough and I was SO proud of her that after only two weeks she stood out in this way. Coree loves Japanese class...but the teacher is very strict...she doesn't put up with any shenanigans! Anyway, we HAD to celebrate with ice cream (our fave, Swiss Orange Sherbet)...and a trip to the 100 Yen store.

(4) It was such a beautiful evening, we decided to have dinner out on the back patio.

I love our little neighborhood of scattered cement bunkers. It's gorgeously green, crawling with kids, and has a gym, pool, tennis courts, the O'Club, a Shopette, Habu Hill (with ocean view AND cardboard-sledding readiness) AND play street (a loop that has been blocked off to auto traffic, complete with trampoline and an assortment of riding toys that still lie scattered about after dark).

So that was my day....with various homework assignments, Activity Days, and Karate thrown in for good measure. I need to remember and be grateful for days like this. Even amidst the sad things...life is very, very good!