PCS or How Many Times Can We Move the Suitcases Around?

How many times do we keep moving the same old suitcases around?  I decided to keep track, just for kicks and giggles.

Move 1- We started moving in May by sorting our Misawa house into the household good shipment, the unaccompanied baggage shipment, and the luggage that we would live out of for months. The household goods left first.

Move 2- In June, our unaccompanied baggage left and we moved into the TLF (temporary living facility) in Misawa.

Move 3- We flew to SLC with 11 pieces of luggage and a dog kennel.

Somehow I coaxed smiles out of these tired kids

Move 4- We had a wonderful time staying with Josh's parents.  We celebrated Josh's birthday and made up for three years of missed family and friend time.

Lots of Turner Cousin time!

Best Skyline High Friends 

Josh joins me by turning 40!

Birthday fun at Red Butte Gardens.  Josh has loved gardens since we lived in Japan

Bonneville Shoreline trail above Josh's parents house

Move 5- Josh takes Mochi and a full car to Enid Oklahoma to start the house hunting process.  He moves into a pet friendly TFL room. The kids and I go to my mom's house in SLC for more adventures.

We enjoy the Shakespearean Festival in Cedar City

We enjoy lots of awesome hiking in Southern Utah

Bear made a goal to do baptisms for the dead in as many Utah temples as we could.  This is Cedar City

Mount Timpanogos Temple with a good friend from Springville Utah

Payson Temple

Bountiful Temple

Provo City Center Temple

Salt Lake Temple 

Oquirrh Mountain Temple.  What a blessing to have so many temples close by after being eight hours from a temple in Japan!

Move 6- Josh is forced to move out of the pet TLF due to other PSCing families and into a dorm style room.  Poor Mochi has to go to a puppy boarder. Poor Josh only has a microwave for weeks!

Move 7- Josh's length of stay on base expires so he moved into an extended stay hotel where he has a real kitchen finally.  We continue our adventures in Utah.  We visited Lava Hot Springs in Idaho and then had some fun at Snowbird.  Unfortunately though....

I ran up the sloped side of this wall in an obstacle course, and now...

I am going to OK in his boot.  I have a 90% tear in my Achilles tendon

Move 8- Due to the injury on my right foot, Josh will need to drive us all to OK.  Josh moves into a bigger room in the hotel, one that will sleep all five of us, and catches a one way flight to SLC.

Move 9- After seven lovely, family filled weeks in Utah (we won't mention my very unfortunate accident that is going to make moving and teaching yoga nearly impossible), we leave SLC and take a road trip to Oklahoma.  We used the app Road Trippers https://maps.roadtrippers.com/about/app to help us find fun things to see along the way.  Our first night was spent in Laramie, WY.

Wyoming Territorial Prison State Park in Laramie, WY

Bear River State Park in Evanston, WY

Fort Bridger State Historic Site in Fort Bridger, WY

Move 10- Our second day on the road takes us to Colby, KS.

The Swetsville Zoo in Fort Colling, CO was one of the coolest stops on our journey.  The artist was being interviewed by a local new station and we got to meet him as well as explore his interesting collection.

We were so excited to see best friends from Nellis AFB!  The Bloom Family in Westminster, CO

Giant Van Gogh painting in Goodland, KS

Move 11- Our last day on the road takes us to Enid, OK, to reunite with Josh in the extended stay hotel.

Sternberg Museum of Natural History in Hays, KS

Great Bend, KS

B-29's All Veteran Memorial in Pratt, KS

Move 12- Do we finally have a home after three months of living in suitcases???  We closed on our home in Enid with a week to live in it before our shipment from Japan arrived.  One last week of suitcase!  It gave us time to clean, touch up paint, and redo some flooring in the mostly empty house.  Now to make the house a new home for us in Enid, OK!

Signing the floor that we will cover over.  Then a touch of the Turner's will always be here!

Mata ne Misawa

It is finally time for us to say goodbye to our beloved Misawa.  I had a hard time saying goodbye so I prefer to think, "Mata ne" which is a less formal goodbye in Japan and is used like "see you later."  We spent the month of May doing our lasts; eating at our favorite restaurants and enjoying some outings together as a family.

Goodbye for Bear at the terminal from a sweet friend

Saying goodbye to our house- 43 C Freedom Circle

Last day at the 35th Med Group

Josh's work goodbye

Sea glass hunting

looking for tide pools in the beautiful ocean

Children's Land in Iwate- Japanese sense of humor

Onsen play areas! I love Japan!

Water play at Children's Land in Iwate

We love roller slides and parks in Japan

Dinner at Phada's Thai with Bear's Cello Sensei

Misawa Air and Space Museum

We love conveyor belt sushi!

Yakisoba will never match up to Cheese Roll House

Towada Art Gallery

This felt like Space Mountain and Star Trek combined

We got all our favorite treats at the Hachinohe fish market

We have always loved Japanese cemeteries and the shrines that often accompany them.

I hope I never forget this beautiful green, mossy, corner of the world that we were privileged to live in for three years!

Josh will miss the Adzuki Bean (sweet red bean) ice cream at the Japanese Baskin Robbins

YTT 200 in Misawa

In 2017 I achieved my 1000 hour mark of teaching yoga so I earned the E-RYT (Experienced Registered Yoga Teacher) with Yoga Alliance.  I also applied for YACEP (Yoga Continuing Education Provider) so that I can conduct yoga trainings.  I had the opportunity to teach a Yoga Teacher Training 200-hour course here in Misawa.  My friend, Barry Grossman, owns a studio in Hachinohe, 45 min from Misawa.  He asked me to help teach his curriculum to try to pull some students from the base area.  The course began in January and concluded in May.  It has been such a great opportunity to teach others how to be effective teachers.  I cannot believe how much I learned for myself which benefited my own teaching and practice.  It was a time consuming but wonderful experience.  I enjoyed prepping for my sessions and even though my teaching weekends were long, I found them stimulating.  I am constantly grateful for yoga- that it has the ability to meet my physical needs now and can be adapted for all stages of life, that it allows me a creative outlet, that through yoga, I can benefit a community, and that I can find daily peace among the whirlwind of life.  Namaste!

Learning about Pregnancy Yoga

Learning the benefits of Chair Yoga

Enjoying some down time together

Graduation Day

A beautiful memento from my students