Happy Easter!

Hello, all..... wishing you a wonderful Easter Sunday! I am so glad to not be spending it alone or working, as I have the past 4 years of my life.

Mom and I had a good, but exhausting day. We got up for a "sunrise Protestant service" atop Mt. Yumihari, which is located right in the middle of Sasebo. We had a spectacular view of sunrise and of the city and the base. We came home for breakfast and then headed out to Fukuoka (where she flew into last week) to the monthly "shrine sale" at the Hakozaki Shrine. It is an antique/flea market that always proves to have wonderful, unique treasures. The drive is about 2.5 hours each way on narrow mountain roads. This was definitely the last I will drive that far while still being pregnant, as it was sooo hard to get comfortable. The weather was sunny and HOT in my opinion, I saw temp at 77 degrees at one point and despite my SPF 15 moisturizer, I still managed to come home with a face full of freckles!

Today we found some vintage kimono and obi along with a glass fishing buoy (which Greg and I have been collecting since living in the Northern Marianas Islands). We also drooled over some furniture, but stopped at looking as neither our car nor house have room for any additional non-baby furniture! On our way home we stopped at a lovely farmer's market for our weekly veggies and also Finn and Bonny's favorite Japanese treat -- dried fishes.

I've heard from Greg, who is currently "somewhere extremely HOT" and only 25% of the ship's air conditioning is functioning, which does NOT include his stateroom. It's another work day with nothing special or significant for Easter. I did send him with an Easter basket and his favorite Cadbury eggs and Reeses PB eggs... When asked if we need to worry about his ship being overtaken by pirates, he answered: "No worries about the pirates… they only board vessels that might be good prizes… I think this one has enough bad press that they’d probably turn and run before getting caught in a “Ransom of Red Chief” scenario…"

The bottom picture shows the basin where the USS Tortuga is typically docked here in Sasebo.

Mom and I have a busy week planned ahead of us and will likely post some of our adventures here.