Do I still live in Japan? Oh yeah, I guess I do...

Cliff and I went to a bazaar in Yokosuka last weekend and finally bought the step tansu we wanted! I am sooooo excited about this piece of furniture!! If you have never seen one before you can google "step tansu" or "Kaidan dansu" and that will give you and idea of how versatile and beautiful this particular type of furniture can be!
We have ours set up more in the "Buffet" style but if you look very closely to the left you can see where the pieces fit together if we wanted to set it up like a stair case. We hope to have the room to do that eventually, but for now it is going to be a TV stand.
That's rice paper behind the glass and we have our DVD player inside. We can use the remote through the glass so that everything stays hidden!
So... I was bored the other day driving home from Sagamihara housing with Cliff and I started taking pictures... Typical day driving around Japan.
Watch out for people on bikes - they WILL NOT watch for you.
It was pretty grey and dreary on this particular Saturday, but we did spot some wisteria!! Anyone who knows me at all knows that I LOVE wisteria. LOVE IT!
More wisteria :)
So pretty!! They have white wisteria here in Japan as well. I know everyone gets all crazy about the cherry blossoms but this is more my thing. And below you can see an older Japanese woman that took the wisteria thing a little too far.... j/k I really have no idea why she has such a violent shade of purple for her hair color. I just had to get a picture, though...

Cliff's Birthday and a pregnancy update!

Cliff's 27th birthday was yesterday! What an old man!! His favorite sweet combination is peanut butter and chocolate, so for his birthday I went all out....
I made a triple layer chocolate cake with peanut butter/ cream cheese frosting with a chocolate and peanut butter ganache icing. My friend sent me the recipe from Smitten Kitchen although she had never tried the ganache with it. This was my second attempt at baking cakes and I have to say - it was SPECTACULAR! Maybe baking isn't so bad after all! Especially when the results are like this! It didn't look as pretty as the pictures on the website, but who really cares?? It was soooo yummy. I think that Cliff enjoyed it too :) Here is the link if you are interested: http://smittenkitchen.com/2008/08/chocolate-peanut-butter-cake/
The birthday fairy came to visit Cliff! This is my friend Ashley's little girl Natalie. Natalie is fascinated with baby Lilia in my belly. :)
Here is Cliff inhaling the scent of yummy chocolatey goodness. There is a chunk of ganache missing.... I guess someone couldn't wait for me to cut it...
We ate the whole thing in one sitting!! Ha! Just kidding... but we did polish off our very large pieces with a glass of milk. Like I said before... so yummy.
Speaking of baby Lilia, I am now over 35 weeks! My doctor told me on Tuesday that if I went into labor now they probably wouldn't stop it. I guess that's nice to know. We also talked about the upcoming ultrasound and what the plan with my placenta was. He said that we will reevaluate next week when we get the results and possibly set up a consultation with the OBs at Yokosuka if my placenta still has not moved. He didn't seem too concerned but he did hand off my prenatal record to me just in case :)
There's the belly! All out in front as everyone says... Cliff says he wants his basketball back, but I'm thinking we may have graduated to beach ball at this point. I'm definitely ready to have my body back, though. Cliff and I have issued a 30 day eviction notice. It's getting increasingly difficult to tie my shoes and shave my legs. I have trouble getting my socks on and getting out of bed too. It really hurts to be on my feet for too long. I have to give a shout out to my mother for working on her feet all day when she was pregnant with me. Really just in general I have become more aware and more grateful for what my mother has done for me. I'm also so thankful that I have a caring husband who rubs my feet and back at night and cleans the house and puts all of our baby furniture together. He has really been a wonderful partner through all of this. His favorite thing to do right now is play "tummy tag" with Lilia. Whenever she sticks out a foot or elbow he chases it around as she moves across my belly :) It's really very sweet how excited he gets about it.

Well I guess that is it for now!

Flight suit photos

It's a tradition among the Lady Warlords to dress up in their husbands flight suits once a year and take pictures! We decided to wear their red flight suits this year rather than their usual green. I think we look great! So there ya have it - this is what my husband gets to wear to work, (red is just for Fridays, but either way they are practically pajamas!) That is the fancy painted up "show bird" in the background. The glorious SH60 Bravo... er... something like that :)
To change things up a little we also wore our husbands leather bomber jackets. I could barely zip up Cliff's flight suit over my preggo belly but I had better luck with the jacket. Can you even tell I am pregnant?
It was soooo cold on this particular morning. Windy too. We didn't mind huddling up at ALL.
Good looking group, don't ya think?

Badman Ball

Here are the Lady Warlords... and Aaron our MOUSE!
Some of the girls!
I really thought we had more pictures... :( I'm kind of bummed that we don't have a full length one of us that turned out... the only one that was taken was without a flash and really dark. I might see if I can get it lightened up. Otherwise, we will have to wait on the professionals.

So the Badman Ball is a formal event that takes place once a year here at N.A.F. Atsugi to honor the Carrier Air Wing. Badman is a call sign for CAG or the commander or something... Anywho, there is a week of sports and themed parties (Luau, margarita night, etc.) that lead up to the main event - the ball! This is one of the perks of the military. I loved dressing up and going to dances in high school, but not very many people get to continue to do that as adults. With Cliff in the military we are guaraunteed at least a couple of formal events every year. We had a lot of fun. Even without my mom here to do my hair... Cliff and Chrissy really helped a lot with getting me put together and it was fun to show off the tummy in the "fairy princess" dress my mom made me!