For Brittany and Randy

Some people have really missed my blogs and I admit, I've kinda missed writing them. How long has it been now?? I am sorry and will try to update this thing as much as I can now thanks to my sister's blog. I don't really have a choice since she claims she will kill me dead if I don't start writing again.

I kinda fell off the blog bandwagon for some reason. Once you start getting lazy it just turns into procrastination which only gets worse with time. I haven't written in my journal either which is a shocker to me since I love that even more and have had an abundant amount of wasted time to do so. *shrug* I don't know. I've been in an anti-writing funk the last few months, I guess.

A lot has happened since the last time I wrote. I feel like that was years ago. Dustin and I went on our honeymoon to Tokyo in February and it was everything and more than I could ever dream of. It was, by far, the best trip we've ever taken in our lives. We spent a lot of time in Disneyland (duh) and got the most out of our money by me graciously injuring my knee. If you follow me on facebook or talk to me at all, you know how we pulled that off. I did really injure myself...at first. haha

Dustin is away right now on his first (and hopefully last for at least awhile) deployment. It's been really hard on me since we've never been apart for this long. The first 3 weeks I cried pretty much every day. Now I'm kinda numb from it and even though I still get into my moods from time to time, I have no more tears left to cry. I'm all friggin' cried out.

We're halfway done with this loneliness and then my baby will come back to me in September. And oh, the joy that will be brought into the Santillan household once again! This has definitely turned out to be a hard journey. I've learned some things about myself though. I've learned that I don't enjoy being in the house by myself at all anymore. Any free time is spent watching movies on the computer and sleeping...a lot. I've learned that I cannot handle walking two dogs at the same time but somehow I'm managed it with limited pain to myself. I've also learned what amazing friends I've made here. They really have my back and without them I would be suffering a whole lot more.

So I've grown closer to the friends I have in the last 2 months, but I have also made some new life long pals. I met my new BFF, Michael, the weekend after Dustin left. He's friends with my good friend, Ivan, who I know from him coming to my job so often and because he's the tallest person on the island. He's kinda hard to forget. These two guys have been my weekend buddies every weekend since Dustin left. These are probably the first guys here I've felt really close to since leaving Idaho. It makes me miss all of those guys too. But when the 3 of us get together we just laugh forever and even if we end up at The Banyan Tree for the night we still have a blast.

Michael came into my life just at the right time. He really is my best friend here and it's been so much fun hanging out with him. He always makes sure I'm having fun when we go out and makes me laugh to the point of tears. He's also very protective of me which is pretty cute. If he sees a guy he doesn't know talking to me he'll come over and pull me away. He feels like its his job or something to make sure I'm looked after while Dustin is away. It's funny but it also makes me feel special in a way. The only issue I have is that he's moving back to the states in September and Dustin won't be able to meet him. It's very upsetting and I'm gunna bawl my eyes out when he leaves. I won't know what to do with myself after he's gone. I just thank God that he brought Michael into my life at such a tough time.

That's basically all that I've been doing. I'll post more when I get out and have some adventures. I have a few things coming up that I may write about. I'll also get back to posting pictures of everything. I feel accomplished having written this. Thanks Britt!

And now for the Fall Update post

I'd like to sum up the last few months in a few choice words to explain why I haven't been blogging as much.

Honeymoon planning. Working on getting Ariel here. Too many hours at work. Too few hours at work. Stress. Anxiety. Sleeping 3-4 hours a night. Panic attack in the shower. Emergency room visit. Xanax doesn't do shit. Mental Health appointment. Diagnosis: Depression, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, and Social Anxiety Disorder. My reaction: "Duh". Celexa, Trazadone, Klonopin. Getting worse before I get better. Drugs making me zombie tired.

So, that aside...I'm feeling a lot better. I've been on the Celexa for about 3 weeks now and I'm starting to feel some changes. I don't get anxious as much. I can sleep. I'm actually doing things now. That's the worst part about depression. I lost interest in EVERYTHING. I felt completely hopeless. I wanted the house to be clean because it was stressing me out but I was too depressed to bring myself to even load the dishwasher. Dustin has helped me a lot and bless him for it. I couldn't have done this alone. But the dear, sweet boy can't sweep the floor as well as I can.

I'm still working on things and am trying to get through this the best I can. I've been through it before as a teen so I know everything will be back to normal eventually.

Here's some non-serious things that have been happening as well:

-We're almost done Christmas shopping! We're only doing parents and siblings this year and that's still 13 people. And we're only doing stockings for each other so we can save money and buy a lot of Disney crap in February.

-Last week I was running around and dancing with Apollo when I slipped sideways on Dustin's old PT sweat pants that I was wearing, and smashed a lot of body parts on our hard linoleum floor. My hand quickly puffed up and eventually bruised. I also bruised my right knee, hip and arm. But, the thing that broke my fall the most was my face. I fell right on my cheek bone and temple and my head literally bounced off the floor! I was a crying mess and was most scared about ruining my face and no longer being pretty. But have no fear! My face didn't even bruise! I'm still pretty.

-We've been buying a crapton of Christmas decorations at the BX almost every time we go that I have no idea what we even have.

-Gingerbread pancakes. Enough said.

-Our fabulous friend Matthew Frye got orders to Kadena!! He's probably the number one person Dustin would want here because they're basically in love with each other. We're beyond excited and can't wait until March of 2011!

-We're planning a Thanksgiving feast at our house this year with people from our jobs. It's our first time ever planning a party together and it's my first time ever having Thanksgiving at my place. We have a lot on our plates and we hope everyone else will too. Hahahaha.

-Dustin's on bowling league here which makes me happy because he loves it and I won't go with him because I'm not naturally amazing at it and I don't like to be bad at things. Especially in front of people.

-My mom and younger sibs get to see Mickey Rooney in some play in England in January and I am so jealous, I want to cry. Hopefully they can get me an autograph or something.

-My Mickey Rooney mania is getting worse thanks to TCM and their showing a Mickey Rooney film nearly every day.

I'm sure I'll think of more later but I will also try to update more because I do love blogging and I really hate when there's such a large gap in between posts.

Tara gets excited!

Fall is here! I don't know about officially or anything, but to me it's already fall. And it has been since September first. I get a little excited at the idea of fall. Fall means that Christmas is right around the corner. And Christmas is the most exciting time of the year for us. And lucky for us, it happens every single year! I love consistency.

Last Christmas was lame. We spent it in a hotel, watching season 2 of 30 Rock and eating Cup of Noodles. Oh, and I had a random allergy attack where I would completely exhaust myself by sneezing 57 times in a row. It totally sucked. We essentially didn't even have a Christmas. We were too busy planning to move here. No time for baking or decorating. Nothing fun.

So this year we plan on having a super duper Christmas extravaganza! Operation BEST CHRISTMAS EVER! That's probably why I'm extra amped this year for the holidays. We already started inviting people over for Thanksgiving at our place. We decided to have a big bad potluck which should be delightful. A friend of ours is gunna deep fry a turkey for us since I don't make turkey. We prefer ham so I normally just wouldn't bother.

For Halloween we'll be signing up to take some local Japanese kids trick-or-treating on base. I'm super excited for that, of course. People don't really celebrate Halloween too much here. You would think they would since they jump at the chance to dress up for everything else. Dustin and I are going as Mickey and Minnie. We already ordered our over priced costumes. Hopefully, they'll come in on time. We wanted a Pluto costume for Apollo but apparently none exist. What's the deal with that?? They have Goofy costumes for dogs but Goofy wasn't Mickey and Minnie's pet. I suppose we'll just have him be himself since he's super cute anyways.

Work has been busy for both of us. We don't like it but it makes our days off and time spent together that much more special. Or whatever.

Here's a few shots of what the fall season means to me.

Baking! Because I don't bake the rest of the year.

Pumpkin bread. I cannot tell you how good this recipe is. When I was a kid, my mom made this in cute little mini loaf pans and would wrap them up all pretty and give them to friends and family. Now that I'm an adult, I make them normal size and keep them all to myself.

It's actually more like pumpkin pound cake but it says bread on the paper I have so I get away with eating it for breakfast. With apple butter. That's pretty much the best fall treat ever. OR, cut a slice and drizzle caramel sauce on it and sprinkle some pecans over that. Hot damn, I love fall!

If you have seen the Martha Stewart Cookies book then you may recognize this cookie from the cover. Dustin got the book for me for my birthday and this is the first thing I made. I needed to relieve some stress and this recipe totally did the trick.

Ready for this? Chewy Chocolate Chunk Gingerbread. Are you dying inside yet? They taste like Christmas and happy.

I fed some to people at my job and (reluctantly) made Dustin take the rest to his job where they were quickly devoured in a matter of minutes. These cookies are trouble. They made me wanna not leave the house so I could just sit in bed and eat them all day. I debated calling in sick so I could do just that.

Acorn squash, apples, oranges, sweet potatoes and a giant pear without the flash on my camera.

Acorn squash, apples, oranges, sweet potatoes, and a giant pear with the flash. I think I like the first one better. It looked more Autumn-y.

This is the only kind of pear I can find at the commissary. It's Asian and huge.

Asian Twilight book cover? They should change the cover to this. With my face and everything.

It's so fat.

This has nothing to do with fall or the holidays. I just decided to post this so you could all feel sorry for me and send me presents. I would like some MAC makeup brushes please.

Fall also means typhoon season. From August to November I believe. Mostly lots of rain for us. Apollo loves this because it means that after his walks he gets to be rubbed down with a fluffy towel and I honestly don't think there's anything he loves more.

Fall also means Franken Berry cereal. But I don't have a picture of that.

Labor Day Weekend Part 2

Are you ready for the second part of our Santillan Labor Day weekend? My slow computer finally is. It took far too long to load up all these delightful pictures.

So. Day two! Even though we were super duper tired from the eventful day uno, we still dragged our tiny hineys outta bed pretty early. And we started the day off right with a trip to the NCO club for a breakfast buffet. The words "breakfast" and "buffet" in the the same sentence together is one of the most beautiful things I've ever heard. Just add the word "dessert" in there and I'll be the happiest Tara in the land. And the fattest.

But the buffet was pretty impressive for club food and we even went back the following weekend because it was just that good. Plus, they have one of those pianos that play on their own, playing Beatles tunes the entire time.

The drive to Ocean Expo Park was pretty dang long. We'd been wanting to check out the aquarium foreverrrrr so we were pretty psyched. It's the second biggest aquarium in the WORLD, folks! On our own tiny island of all places! And they couldn't have picked a more gorgeous location for it. I'm still shocked and overwhelmed sometimes by how beautiful it is here and how lucky we are to actually get to live here for 4 years.

Ocean Expo Park is a large area way way way up at the northern most part of Okinawa. It includes the aquarium, a lovely beach area, an oceanic museum, an old style Okinawan village, the Tropical Dream Center, and a giant garden. We didn't see as much as we would've liked because it was still super hot and we were already tired when we got there. Above is what you shouldn't use to cool you off when it's super humid. It would've been perfect in dry heat though.

The pathway to the aquarium!

Have you met Dustin? He really loves sea turtle and tortoises. I mean LOVES them. No lie.

Oh my goodness. Just look at that! I can hardly believe it and I was there! You can see one of the resort islands out there with it's big mountain...of love.

That's the dolphin tank and the beautiful East China Sea.

Hello other island. We will visit you one day. Maybe for an anniversary. The hubby and I have been talking about it and we know we can get a pretty rad discount on base for your resort.

Our tickets and map! Dustin let me be the girl whale shark. But I had to fight him on it.

The amazing touch pool.

There was some weird tropical creatures at this aquarium that I'd never seen before.

"Let's make out. Num num num."

Jelly fish look harmless to me. What's the big deal with them anyways?

That's a fish! Do you see his eye??

Weird starfish.

GIANT lobsters! Literally bigger than my Jack Russell, Ariel. They probably could've eaten her.

Sea cucumbers.

I love these guys.

I thought this one looked like Slimy from Sesame Street.

The only aquarium in the WORLD to have a whale shark. And this is the biggest aquarium tank in the world as well.

It was pretty crazy. And there was a restaurant in there where you could sit right next to the tank and eat your soba!

I like this guy.

Soon we had to venture outside to get to the turtles, manatees and dolphin show. I just about melted from the humidity.

Hey little turtles! Dustin and Tara would like to snuggle you guys.

"OK, whatever Sea Pig."

Here's part of Emerald Beach.

The dolphin tank. They had normal bottle nose dolphins but also some kind of much bigger dolphin that looked like whales. It was pretty weird.

See the whale-like dolphin? He was very smart.

They like topiaries here.

We did shortly visit the Oceanic Museum but it was small and I wasn't allowed to take pictures. I think when it gets cooler out we'll head back up to Ocean Expo Park and see everything.

After we ate lunch we went to Fruitsland that was actually right next to Pineapple Park. I had no idea. Basically you walk through a kind of forest of fruits. Had it been spring, we probably would've seen a lot more than we did. But it was still pretty nice.

There were some bananas still growing.

And some crazy dragon fruit.

At the end of the tour there's a little cafe with fresh juices, smoothies and crazy huge desserts like this one. A huge bowl of shaved ice with fresh mango and dragon fruit in some kind of syrup. It was soooo good and perfect for how hot it was that day. Also, it was the cheapest dessert on the menu at about $10! Totally worth it though.

The perfect way to end our day, I think.