New Post for a New Year! Happy 2008!

Okay- so if any of you really check back to read the Nowak blog, you've found yourself looking at the same old blog that I composed way before Christmas. Yes, sometimes we get into a rut, and just can't get out of it. We had a rough start to 2008. However, there has been no excuse for not writing. Since I wrote last, we've traveled to and from the states, Brian has flown to Guam and back, and we've flown to Sapporo and back for the annual snow and ice festival.

As I sit here trying to write a new blog entry, the boys are playing with their new Wii that they got for Christmas. Seriously, why didn't they make these things when I was a kid? Brian is going to the exchange to buy a saw- we need a home project so we decided we would lay a wood floor in our kitchen. I am constantly trying to come up with projects around the house to keep us busy. However, in a base house, it is very difficult to find many. Our home in Virginia always needed a project whenever Brian was home, so here we find it difficult on a cold winter day.

Speaking of cold winters- for those of you in the midwest, I hate to complain. I know we are not experiencing anything like you have been having over the last few weeks. Sapporo was cold, but still not as cold as the midwest. Yokosuka, Japan has a hard time functioning in the snow and ice. Last weekend, about an inch of wet snow fell over the base and surrounding areas, and it paralyzed everything. By 2:00 on Sunday afternoon, they had already closed school on Monday. Monday happened to be the day that we were scheduled to fly to Sapporo for our trip. We got on our tour bus at 8 am and headed to the Haneda airport. Unfortunately, the Yoko Yoko and the "B" (the two highways to the airport) were closed still. I am not sure why. By Monday, it was 40 degrees, and the sun was shining. We had to take the back roads- highway 16. What a mess. We went maybe 20 miles in 4 hours. Finally, we were let off at a train station and took 3 trains to the airport. We missed our 10:15 am flight and got rebooked to the 3:30 flight. We finally ended up in Sapporo by 5:15 that evening. We took every form of transportation to get there except by boat! We had a great time, even though the trip got cut short and we lost a whole half day.

I am sharing some of our favorite photos from the past month and a half. Some are from Chrismtas and some are from Sapporo. I am going to try my hardest to keep this blog going and post regularly. Maybe I am now out of the rut and back on track. Happy 2008 to you all.