The New Way of the Blog: BURSTS

Here we go again - catching up on lost time by adding a couple adventures at once via BURST!

Let's start with Joel's birthday: it's always a tradition to be at a baseball game on the day; however, sadly, this year didn't accommodate. But, at least in March we were able to see our Hiroshima Carp play a spring training game in Oki against the Tokyo Giants! So, Joel got a baseball game in close to his birthday.

Picture Proof:

Anyways, we decided that simply being ON a baseball field on his birthday would fall within the boundaries of Joel's tradition, so we had a super fun game of kickball with our amazing friends!

Can you tell who was on the winning team? ;-)

What better way to follow up on the drilling game of kickball than by root beer floats at A&W!?! He is so easy to please ;-)

Toward the end of April, we participated in the "World Famous Camp Hansen Mud Run" where Joel won a United Airlines drawing for a free ticket to the States, WOOT! And we already used it! That blog post will be forthcoming... eventually, LOL!

Before and...

After! Not too terribly muddy - running through a fire hose at the end helped, LOL

Next burst in line: we had a grand time with our pals, the Grygowski's, during a quick visit they made to Okinawa - we were able to go diving off the Sunabe Sea Wall!

Next, we took a wonderful vacation to the States in June so we could see Joel's sister, Annie, get hitched!

But first, we spent a couple days in DC with these fine folks, starting it off right at a Nationals game!

This is what girls do instead of watching the game...

In between innings, the boys cooperated by letting me snag a quick photo.

THEN, we got to spend a night with our dear friends from Iwakuni who are now Stateside!!

The timing worked out perfectly for me to hit up a Headquarters Marine Corps training while we were in the vicinity, so I spent a few days in Quantico. I was finally able to go to the Marine Corps Museum and it was AWESOME. I definitely need to go back and spend more time there! If anyone is in the area, it's FREE and truly inspirational/educational!

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So.... my phone and I had a falling out and long story short, I lost ALL of my photos from Annie's wedding! I could not be more bummed!! All I have are the two pictures Joel took on his phone and one I stole from Annie's facebook page, LOL. Obviously, Joel captured this pic - Settlers is a MUST during family gatherings!

Let me just tell you - this guy. THIS guy is the CUTEST, happiest, most adorable red-headed nephew we have! :) We absolutely LOVED getting to know little Andrew and look forward to hanging with him for an entire week next Summer!

Joel's family is so lovely! We had a marvelous time hanging out in the cabin in the mountains of Harrisonburg.  (The crazy spider scare and epic stack the chairs game with Pete will go down in the history books for sure!) Annie, you were GORGEOUS and your wedding was so beautiful and fun! You and Josh are off to a grand start and we are so happy to add him to the Diller fold!!!

Last in this mash up of bursts, we MOVED! We loved our house in Ishikawa for so many reasons, but there were a couple things we were unable to get past, so move we did to Onna. East coast to West coast - sun rise to sun set. Oki's a smallish island, so we only moved a few miles away, but it's a world of difference! We LOVE our new house and are so happy with the change! Most of the moving was done by our four hands in more car loads than I care to count, but thousands of calories later under the rays of the beating, hot summer sun, we made it in to the new place and it feels like we are starting a new chapter in our lives. It was definitely time to face the sun set in Oki. :)

The new digs:

The garage is Joel's favorite new perk... not gonna lie. It's pretty handy. More pics to come of the new place later...