Some pics of Logan -- he especially loves his bike and I walk with him while he rides it every day.





Thought I'd share some pictures of our base apartment, too. Even get a gander at Logan's messy room-- Logan is actually sleeping in the bed, you can make out his arm.














So Xmas was nice. We gave our daughter an iTouch, a running holder for it, a special speaker system for iPods, a Family Guy season 1&2 dvd, and a hoodie she wanted at the Exchange. Logan received a shitload of Thomas the Tank Engine trains, a VTech educational game thing, a Wii Circus game (it sucks! Don't buy it!), and various books and clothes from his grandparents. For the family we bought a Wii system (purchased through our oldest) with the Wii Sports games. Logan and I really like to do the bowling and baseball. Golf is fun too. We also purchased a new recliner to replace the oversized chair we had in the livingroom (the chair is in the photos above-- its been moved into my daughter's room for her use now).

Hubby just got home and told me how he had to arrest our new neighbors for vandalism... seems someone thought it'd be funny to shove a xmas tree through a stranger's (partially open)car window. Oh, the wonders of alcohol.

I'm looking forward to a nice, fresh year.

Well, I am still sick, but getting better a little day by day.

We are on base and I am LOVING it. Logan and I have gone for walks every day together. The past two days I've walked alongside him while he rode his bike. I took the bike lock so we could go into stores or McD's. He knows he has to wear a helmet when he rides the bike and he looks awfully cute. I'm going to try to get some pictures up tomorrow. I have driven my car twice and bot times it was due to the rain and having to pick up more items than I could carry home with my backpack.

Tonight I restarted my track routine. I even attempted to run a little...I could only do half a lap though. I really do not see how the Biggest Loser contestants run so much. Honestly. Anyhoo, today I walked almost 3 miles.

I am catching up on my school work, thank God.

Logan wears undies all day and went today with no accidents. We had just one accident each day previously, which I think is pretty damned good!

We had another meeting about Logan's speech impairment. He tested in the 1-5% and is considered severely impaired. We are opting to place him into a class situation -- and the therapist called it 'the handicapped class' but maybe that's just part of the name.... I don't know but hearing my son referred to as handicapped really got to me. I guess since he can run and play and move I have a hard time seeing him as handicapped, but I guess technically he is.

Logan has been really trying to communicate more-- he even tries to his sister's name now " awa " He can't say Rs or Ss. He has picked up a few more signs he's made up to tell us what he wants to do... he mimics typing for using the computer and he holds out both arms with his hands in fists and runs in place to show bike... even though he can say "bike." And a mimicking sleep gesture when he wants to go to bed or is asking if his Dad is sleeping. Sleeping sounds like "eeping?" He says 'sorry' a lot now, but it comes out "owwy Mommy"

Maybe I can try to get him on tape and share what he sounds like. I understand most of what he says, but I have a lot of time to figure it out. But I hate the moments I can't tell...and he gets so frustrated and cries and screams because we can't understand him. I say "Show me." a lot around here.

Well, I'd better crawl into bed. I've been instructed to wake hubby up when I come to bed (its his night off), so I'm on a mission. Besides, its great exercise.

Logan starts wearing underwear instead of pull-ups on Saturday. Today we start our move-in and Friday will be bit frantic, so I picked Saturday to start the full-time undies. Logan no longer poops in his pull-ups, but he still gets lazy and uses them like diapers if we don't stay on him. We'll have a normal sized washer and dryer on base (and a dishwasher!!!) so doing extra laundry won't be a problem. Here it was, with a tiny washer and a tiny gas dryer that took three full cycles to actually dry a load.

I pick up our key at 10am and I'll start moving our clothing and linens in. Logan has his little Spiderman suitcase packed with his toys and I'll have him take that to 'help.' He's going to get sick of the car today, I'm sure, but he'll also be excited by the new place and setting up his new room, so he may put up with it without complaint. Its a nice day today, so I'm also going to swing him by the park in between trips. I can read my history homework whil he plays.

We bought him a bicycle and we hope to keep it hidden until Festivus. He rode it at the store, rode it to the car, but he promptly forgot about it so we're hoping to hide it in the van and put it under the tree. Then again, we are so excited about him having a bike, I bet you we pull that sucker out before then.

We have our Wii, but its still boxed up and we're putting it under the tree, too. Our daughter is getting an iPod Touch (8g) and that's it. She didn't ask for anything else, she knew exactly what she wanted. Since its about what I was going to spend on her, that's cool.

I've read the Twilight series and well...its ok but I don't get why people are so over the moon about it. The last book was the best of the lot, but I didn't think it was the best thing ever. I now see why some people think Harry Potter readers are a bit touched.

I'm so excited about this move I can barely think. I have a lot to do still, so I'd better go.

Its funny, but it seems like a lot of the blogs I read have been also relatively sparse on the writing lately. We are all getting too busy to write. I've noticed that I do tend to write less when I'm happy and wrote tons when I was miserable.

Right now the only thing making me miserable is this cold that I can't seem to shake. I need to up my vitamins again, I guess. Logan has it now, too and I've never seen him so lethargic like he was on the first day. If he feels better today I am going to take him to the play place at the Ayase Hills mall it will cost me about 900 yen ($10) for 40 minutes of playtime, but its worth it to get him out of the house a little bit. I usually sit and watch him play and do my homework.

We are beginning our pack out for our move to Atsugi naval base housing on Friday. I am so excited I can barely stand it. Today I'm shampooing the Turkish rugs so they'll be nice and spiffy for Thursday when we move them ourselves into out new unit. We receive the keys on Theursday morning, which allows us to move our small items in (clothes, computers, toiletries,etc) and the movers will move the rest on Friday morning. The cable, internet, and phone will be all connected Friday afternoon.

Friday evening we'll return here to the townhouse and clean it for the turnover on Saturday at 3pm. Then we are alll done. The materials the Japanese builders used are extremely easy to clean. Much of it is stain and mold resistant, so there isn't a lot of scrubbing. We were also extremely careful while living here so our clean up should take less than a couple of hours.

This will probably morph back into a fitness and mommy blog soon after we move on base. I really can't wait to get back to the workouts I was doing last year and when we arrived here.

We think we found a buyer for my car. I'm going to use the money from the car to pay off our last furniture bill, which is what we originally intended to do when we moved here. If Housing hadn't screwed up and properly placed us on base in the first place, we wouldn't have bought the little car and the bill would have been gone (without interest tacked on, too!).

I've lost a pound this week, which is good. I've cut way back on the items that have cost problems for me while living here and results were immediate. Which is also why I'm so thrilled to get back on track.

I picked up the Newsweek Special Commemorative Issue of Obama's American Dream. I still get all teary eyed when I see him on tv giving speeches. This issue is fantastic- great photographic journal. There are some photos in there I'd really love to frame.

That's it for now I'm hacking up ungodly stuff and my nose is actually bleeding and I'm SO OVER BEING SICK.