Ready for Guests

Hello Everyone!

We have been busy putting our house together and mostly getting our "guest suite" ready.

Since we only introduced our house from the outside on our last blog, let us show you around our house from the inside.

Please keep in mind that we still have tons of rearranging and decorating to do.

As soon as you walk into the front door, this is your view.

To the right, we set up a study. As you can see, we did put away everything towards the wall, but nothing is organized yet. We are hoping to make a really nice study soon. Since this side of the house gets most of the sun, our kiddies spend more time in the study than us.

To the left, is supposed to be our formal dining room. However, since we don't own a dining room table yet, we thought it would be a GREAT idea to make it into a gym. :) It is so convenient to have all the equipment here at the house and yes we do use them on a regular basis.

Follow me down the hall and to the right, there are the stairs to the upstairs bedrooms. And the door on the right of the stairs leads down to the basement, but it isn't finished yet. Anything that we brought from Okinawa that doesn't fit into any of the rooms were sent down to the basement for now.

To the left, there is a powder room and a closet.

Now, our main area is at the end of this hall way. We have our living room to the right and my favorite part of the house, our kitchen to the left. We probably spend most of our time in this area, especially since we bought a 61" TV that has the Direct TV connection with Sunday NFL ticket. (Phil is very happy) You have to realize that we only had 9 AFN channels to choose from in Okinawa for three years, and we are so fascinated with this HDDVR that can record your shows and stop and play whenever you want. Can you tell that we've been far far away from real life for a long time???

Sometimes we'll find the kiddies basking in front of the fireplace and it is really really cute.

The empty space near the kitchen is where a casual dining is suppose to be, and as I told you earlier, since we don't own a dining room table at this moment, we decided to make this area a home for our kiddies, Gator and Ali. Opposite to this is a sliding glass door to our back yard.

Well, it is a small backyard, but perfect for our lifestyle. Do you know what I mean? There is no grass to mow!!! We are so glad that our kiddies are not too picky about where they go do their business, because they seem to do fine on these rocks. :) Don't worry, they get to go on grass too when we take them for walks. It is hard to see in this picture, but there is a mini waterfall in the middle of the yard.

And then one last thing left on this main floor is the laundry room and the door that leads to the garage. This is where Gator and Ali eat their meals, so they get really excited when we walk into this room.

Let's go upstairs and this is where you will see what we've done so far to the "guest suite". There is still more that needs to be done, but we couldn't wait any longer to show you.

You walk up the steps, and to the right is the master suite and to the left there are two rooms that are connected by a jack and jill bathroom. All the way to the end is our linen closet.

The first room to the left is the guest lounge room. There is only one frame up right now of Chris Leak when the Gators beat the Buckeyes to win the National Championship, but slowly more will go up on the wall as we find cool stuff. Our next thing on the list is the actual helmets for both the Gators and the Sun Devils.

The second room to the left is the guest bedroom. We just got the furniture set up, but this room needs lots of decoration. At least it is ready for guests to sleep comfortably. There also is a air mattress that can be blown up if a family of more than two are visiting us.

Finally, let us introduce you our master suite. This bedroom set was purchased in Okinawa and was delivered safely with no nicks or cracks. (Thank Goodness) Between the bedroom and the master bath, there are his and her walk in closets. This was one of my favorite parts about this house.

And... Here is the bathroom.

Did you notice the double shower heads in the shower? Phil really likes that one. He loves high strong water pressure or he doesn't feel clean or something. :)

The tub is jetted and we've only used it once. Now that the weather is cold, I'm sure we'll use it more often.

Before we leave you, here is a picture from back of our house. You can check out our new cars too.

The family who lives left of us has a dog named Cassie and Ali and Cassie play in the grass area in the front of the house and they are so cute to watch. Gator thinks he is too good to be playing with the youngsters and does his own thing.

So, I hope this was a good tour of our house for you. There will be many more updates before you visit. Our first guests are going to be my mom and dad on the 7th of November. We are very excited about it. And Aggie's family is thinking of making the trip out sometime soon as well. Please let us know when you would like to come see the real sunshine state. (Florida is apparently partly cloudy most days of the year.)

We hope everyone is doing well. We'll be cheering for another big win by the Gators this weekend as they go against Kentucky.

We love you all.

We are back!!

Hello everyone, sorry it's been so long since our last post.

Well, lots has happened since we left Okinawa and we will share our journey with you here with lots of pictures.

We had our household goods packed up and shipped from Okinawa on the 23rd of July.
We left ourselves with an aerobed, one lawnchair, the laptop, and two suitcases.

Here is Gator wondering "Where in the world is my comfy couch?" (That's a little cleaning rag that he found)

We moved into our temporary housing called "Eagle Lodge". It is located out in town near the Airforce base. Unfortunately, we don't have any pictures of the lodge, but the funniest thing was that the shower was so small and the ceiling was so low that Phil had a very hard time taking a shower there.

We left Okinawa on the 3rd of August bound for Seattle, WA.
Here is us on a ferry that connects Seattle to Bainbridge Island. We are so close to returning to the civilian life!!! We stayed in Seattle until the 11th. Lots of different dramas occurred during the separation process, but we still had fun while staying in Seattle.
Of course, we had to visit Pike's Market.
We also went to a scenic state park. These kiddies are so lucky to have parents like us.
And.... We also made it to a Mariner's game. It was my first visit to a Major league baseball field. Even though, the Mariners got wasted by the Rays, we had so much fun eating hotdogs and cheering for Ichiro.

We flew to Denver, CO on the 11th of August. It was really late and we had to rent a car before heading for our home sweet home (Extended Stay America) for the next month or so.
Can We go home now??? These kids had to stay in this kennel ever since we left Okinawa. They did so well though.

Before we both started our new jobs, we took a road trip to Salt Lake City to visit Phil's family and Aggie's family.

It was a little over 8 hour drive and the kids slept about 7 hours of it.
We finally got to meet Joshua.
Phil and Paul took a nap together. How sweet...
It was a short trip but we played two rounds of golf with mom and dad Johnson and Mark (Phil's brother). Sorry, I forgot to bring my camera with us, so I do not have any pictures of our golf outings.

One last thing we did before going to work was "Taste of Colorado". All sorts of different restaurants set up booths with several of their delicious dishes to sample.
We took a light rail there so we didn't have to fight for a parking spot. The light rail was conveniently located right next to our hotel.

This garlic-butter grilled corn was probably our favorite thing we tried.

As long as there is food, we are happy go lucky!
This ESPN Zone is so awesome and it is right here in Denver!!!
This was delivered from an orthodontic office. A great welcome on my first day at work.

On the 6th of September, we participated in an event called "Pooches in Pink" for the breast cancer walk at the Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs.
"Man, this dog really smells bad." Gator would not leave this dog's bum alone, so we had to speed up to another spot.
They were so tired after the walk. They slept the whole way home.

Well, that was a long post but hopefully it painted a good quick picture of our journey back home from Okinawa. Our home is still not organized yet, but here is a picture of our house from outside. We'll be ready for visitors soon.

Back in the USA

Hello Everyone!!!
Sorry for the late update on the blog.
We are finally here in Denver, CO. Gator and Ali are so happy to be back on land.
We are still living out of our suitcases though and it looks like it will be this way at least until the end of August.
Unfortunately my camera usb cord got packed with the rest of the shipment, so I can't share any pictures right now.
We spent 8 days in Seattle for the separation process and we also got a chance to make it to a Mariners game. We cheered really hard for the Mariners, but they ended up getting wasted by the Rays.
We are currently looking for a cute little home for us and our kiddies. Hopefully we will find one soon, so we can be done with hotel living.
Here are our cell phone numbers: Maria - 720-884-6365, Phil - 720-884-6371.
If you have any home buying tips, please share with us.

Another Fun Week

This past week started with our 1 month anniversary on the 6th. Our plan was to eat our wedding cake, but we had left that at the Ritz Carlton in Maui. :(
Phil got us a cake that said "Happy 1 month" on it and it was delicious. Coincidentally, our wedding guest book that Leslie made with all our guest's photos and their comments arrived on the 5th. We loved looking through the photos and reading everyone's words. Thanks Leslie and everyone!!!


Thank you all for giving us ideas to help Ali potty train, because she has improved tremendously. She has also become more sweet and less bitey with Gator. Gator really has been so patient with her. Here are some pictures of our kiddies.
This is how they spend most of their time. laying around. Don't they look like they both had such a rough day?

Ali loves to snuggle with Gator, but Gator doesn't seem to love it all the time.

And.... Ali started to stick her tongue out like this lately. I think it is so cute like a stuffed dog animal and Phil thinks it is nerdy. We agree to disagree on this subject. :)

Finally, we cannot not mention about our golf game. We played twice this week and I think the heat is affecting our game a little. (just an excuse) :)
Of course, Phil beat me again, but only by few strokes. The last whole was the best moment of it all, when both of our second shots landed inches from each other. In 10 days, our clubs are going to be packed up, so we are going to get as much golfing as we can until then.

I tried the new Sumo Nike Driver that Phil won at the last tournament, and I am in love with it.

This chip shot landed right next to the pin and Phil got a birdie on the hole.
Is this crazy or what? Golf is just so much fun.