Well it's certainly been a long time since I posted. Apparently Blogger decided it didn't like my background template anymore and changed it. So I've got this one up for now until I feel like taking the time to change it.
Some people (aka: my mom) have asked if I'm going to keep updating this blog now that we've moved back from Japan. The answer is, of course! I planned well when I started it a few years back and didn't put anything about Japan in the title, so I can keep going with it.
The past month has been a crazy one. Yesterday was the one month mark of being back in America, and things have been crazy to say the least. When we got back we spent about 5 days in the Houston area seeing my family and our friends down there. Then we headed up to Abilene for a week. It took me a little over a week to recover from jet lag and get back into this time schedule. While in Abilene we bought a car, a white Pontiac Vibe, and got our new iPhones. We are loving the iPhone 4. We also ate at a lot of the places we had been missing, most notably Taco Bueno. More on the food and what it's done to us later.
After our time in Abilene, we went to Dallas for a few days to spend time with Kelly's grandparents. We had a nice visit. While we were in Dallas we also got to see Joe and Andrea and their baby, and we had dinner with Beau and Alex. This was the first time I had seen those guys since Beau's wedding back in July of '04, so that was a great visit.
After Dallas we drove back to my parents house, dropped off Caspian, and then got back in the car and drove down to Corpus Christi for the weekend to see James' place down there and hang out for mine and James' birthdays. We did some swimming and some grilling and had a lot of fun.
We then went back to Houston where we stayed for the rest of that week. We caught an Astros game, saw some more friends, and spent some more time with my family. My 30th birthday was on the 12th. I spent the entire day loading up our Budget truck for the move. Not the most enjoyable birthday ever, but I was turning 30 after all. We did however, go out to Pappadeaux for some cajun food that night where I sufficiently stuffed myself. Very nice.
Now back to the food. With all of the restaurants that we missed for so long coupled with the southern hospitality and everyone constantly feeding us, our bodies have been in a bit of disarray. I've already put on some of those pounds I worked so hard to burn off. But it was a good few weeks of food. Now, it's time to get back to business.
Anyway, we left on the 13th and started our trek to Orlando. We took our time, not wanting to drive for long, long hours or drive at night on unfamiliar roads in unfamiliar states. We stayed a night in Baton Rouge and a night in Tallahassee. The drive was my first time to ever be in Mississippi or Alabama. Of course, we were only in Mississippi for a little over an hour and Alabama for about two (only because we stopped and ate lunch there.) But I'd say that counts. Finally we got to Orlando around 1pm on Sunday, checked in with the apartment complex and started unloading. Unloading was quite an adventure. Our apartment is on the 3rd floor, so needless to say, my legs were feeling it. But we got it done.
You can see some pictures of the drive, the apartment, and the last month on our Flickr.
So now we're here. Still a little light on furniture and desire to unpack boxes, but we're here. Caspian's having trouble getting used to the noises that come with living in an apartment complex. After all, in Japan we only ever had one other person living in our building and he was hardly ever there. He barks at the neighbors, dogs outside, cars doors, the air conditioner, the ice maker, etc. But hopefully he'll get used to it. Kelly starts school tomorrow after a crazy weekend of auditioning for the season. I'm starting to get a feel for what it's like to be married to an MFA student. I start my next class tomorrow which will give me a little more to do besides applying for jobs all day. It's slowly all getting rolling again.
We've been so busy the past month that we haven't had a lot of time to sit back and reflect on our time in Japan. That's maybe a good thing considering how sad we were before leaving. It really all seems like it was a big dream now that we're back. Like a completely different life. But I've been in contact with some of my students, and they've been telling me about their study abroad trips and English camps so that's been a nice reminder.
Finally, while we were driving last weekend, I passed the time in the truck by seeing how many different states' license plates I saw. I had only AM/FM radio in the Budget truck, so there wasn't much else to do. I was driving pretty slow and it was a bit difficult to read the plates as they sped past me. I'm sure there were more, but here is what I got:
Texas
Louisiana
Florida
Mississippi
Alabama
Colorado
Arizona
California
Arkansas
Georgia
Delaware
New York
West Virginia
Virginia
North Carolina
South Carolina
Pennsylvania
Nebraska
Tennessee
Wisconsin
Michigan
Illinois
Ottowa
