Merry Christmas

Yes we are at least 12 hours ahead of most of you who read this post, but even so, it's not really Christmas.  And yet I have pictures from our 'Christmas morning'.  For reasons I can not elaborate on (but you can probably guess -open your news browser and the answer will be right there), Daddy had to leave two days before Christmas.  Not sure when he will be back, so we decided to open our presents together early.  And there are a few other random pictures from the past few weeks thrown in for fun.

We had two of Leyton's classmates and their Mommies over for brunch one day.  They brought us some gifts, one of which was 6 Japanese eggs.  They told me (these two moms speak English) that the Japanese eat raw eggs on rice with just a little soy sauce.  I promised I would try it.  I did.  Not a fan.  You can see their yolks are much darker than traditional American eggs.  Probably due to the chicken's diet.  Anyway, I tried it.  It wasn't awful but it wasn't good either.  I microwaved it a bit to cook the egg and I was able to finish it.  It was interesting having them visit.  They showed me how to use my fish oven and they thought it was funny that each of my girls sleep in their own room.  Japanese families traditionally sleep all in one room on futons on the floor.  We were also invited to a Christmas party at another of her classmates house.  I got to try 'fish sausage'.  Also not a fan, but Leyton liked it.  And shrimp-flavored jello-type-stuff.  I couldn't even politely eat that.    

After literally months of trying to get a picture of them two, I finally gave up and ordered Christmas cards with sub-par photos.  The next day, they sit and smile and smile for a beautiful shot.  Sigh.  Oh well.  And those 'Christmas' cards still haven't arrived here in Japan for us to send back to America.  But they will get there.  Eventually.

Ellis decided to decorate our walls.  Leyton wanted to wash them off.  I firmly believe that Magic Erasers really are magic.

Our Christmas was Tuesday.  It was an actual Japanese holiday -the Emperors birthday.  So Leyton didn't have school.

Not sure who is more excited

Leyton told Daddy over and over what his 'surprise' was.

It's a Japanese tanooki.  Google it.

We were super excited to get a Virginia Tech helicopter, complete with dangling Santa.

And a Doodle Kitty.  So far they have kept  the doodles only on the kitty, but I can see future confusion as to why we can't draw on all our toys.  Thank you to everyone for the wonderful Christmas gifts.  They have been fighting over all their cool new things.  And I know there are even more boxes on the way.  Woohoo!!

And that's it for now.  I will set out a few more gifts from 'Santa' in the morning, on Christmas actual.  And some friends have very kindly invited us over for Christmas dinner.  So we are hanging in there.  Having Daddy in and out is unfortunately becoming second-nature to us now.  Praying he is home soon and that everyone has a very Merry Christmas!  We love you and miss you!!

Deployment 2014

I suppose I should post some photos of my Sep-Nov deployment. Overall, it was a good time. It was my first time at sea as "the boss" so as you can imagine it was a bit stressful at times. Luckily I had five good pilots, three aircrewmen and 17 maintainers. They had been established for a while so this was old hat for them.  We got to see some interesting places and we flew quite a bit. This was a nice warm-up as we continue prepare to go back out soon for a longer duration, on a bigger and better ship, and with the aircraft carrier strike group. 

This was a few days leading up to our departure. This was all our stuff that we bring from home and load on the ship in Yokosuka. The ships are all stationed near the water at the naval base down there and when we are ready to go we load up to semi trucks worth of stuff, drive it down to the ship and crane it on. 

All of our stuff and our trusty helicopter "WARLORD 00".

I mentioned this before but this was kind of a weird deployment for us. Typically my squadron supports 4 ships out of Yokosuka and 4 ships only. The ship my DET was on broke so they big navy bosses thought it would be a good idea to have a ship from WA that deployed in June swing by and load us up for the rest of the deployment. It created some challenges since this ship hasn't had an embarked air DET since 2010. We had to train them up and get them up to speed since this was something new. The ship was on its last deployment before it is decommissioned. So as you can imagine the little Frigate was old and small. Myself and another pilot met them at the pier as they pulled in to say hello and check it out a few days before our onload. 

USS RODNEY M DAVIS (FFG 60) arrives in Yoko. 

The onload begins. It was like playing tetris on a navy ship. All my guys are pros and loading and unloading but they are pros at doing this on our usually ship. This was the first time most of them have been on a Frigate so we had to learn how to pack it all in and still make it accessible. 

This was the first night on the boat after I landed. We had to slowly bring her in the hangar because we didn't know if she would fit with the way we packed everything in. It was a long night. 

Our first stop was Okinawa. It was unexpected but we were diverting to the west to avoid a typhoon as it made it way north. Of note, while i was gone, Shannon had two typhoons go by, one decent earthquake, and a volcano erupt all in Japan. 

As I have always said, there are no prettier sunsets then the ones you see while at sea.  

WARLORD 00 on the flight deck before a flight. 

Our next stop was Singapore. This was the RMD pulling into port. We ended up staying there a little longer then intended because the ship was getting something fixed. I think we were ether a total of 7 days. 

We were able to get off the ship and get some overnight liberty. We all chipped in and got a hotel at the Marina Bay Sands Hotel. It was totally awesome. Great view and an awesome pool on the roof. The F1 series was in town so the town was packed with people. 

The view during the day time. Not too shabby. 

The view from the top of the roof looking towards the Singapore Straits. Singapore is right next to the Straits of Malacca which are the most heavily traffic (shipping) sea lanes in the world. 

This was the hotel roof pool. Absolutely stunning. We spent a couple days just lounging by the pool. 

Group shot in the infinity pool overlooking the city. 

China Town. Someone told us to go there and it actually was cool. Good food! 

Since we had a few extra days, we spent a lot of the time hanging out and relaxing. This was at the market in China town. 

A lot of the guys bought custom made suits. 

Singpore is known for their wealth. Everything was super gaudy and extremely clean. Everything was in English and most people spoke English so it was super easy to get around. 

We went to the Night Safari Park. It was basically a zoo at night and they had a lot of nocturnal animals. 

Downtown Singapore. 

The hotel in the distance with the three towers is the place we stayed at for 2 nights. 

 

One of the highlights of my port visits were to find some wifi to be able to talk to the girls. It was always great to see and talk to them and see them go crazy. 

Back onboard RMD. We headed west through the Straits of Malacca and into the Indian Ocean. 

RMD from the air. The ship was really good and we had a good working relationship. The Captain (who graduated from UVa) was awesome as well as the XO. This made my life much easier. 

 

The next stop was the Maldives. A tiny island chain in the middle of the Indian Ocean. The ship wasn't able to pull into port so we had to take water taxis. The only place we were allowed to go was to an island resort that was a 45 min boat ride away. 

Without doubt, this place had the nieces beaches I will probably ever see. The water was so warm and super super clean. We enjoyed snorkeling, good food and relaxing at the beach. 

Back to sea and headed east. This was us VERTREPing some pallets over to the RMD. 

Taking off from RMD. 

Coming in to land on RMD. 

The next stop was Phuket, Thailand. We all chipped in and rented a villa out in town. 

The villa was amazing. Private pool, a 10 min walk from the town, A/C and wifi! 

The buses would dump us off at Patong beach. It was the touristy place in Phuket. 

Beaches were also really nice. 

We decided to go on a boat trip to some islands off the coast of Phuket. 

The first stop was the best stop and it was to Phi Phi Islands. It was absolutely breathtaking. This was the island where the movie "The Island" was filmed. I haven't seen it but it apparently has Leo in it. The boats would take you over to a bunch of different islands and let you get off to snorkel, relax and do whatever before moving on to the next island. It was super touristy but again, awesome water and beaches. 

They kicked us off here for lunch. 

The final island stop. A storm moved in super fast so it was a kick in and out. 

The ride home was absolutely miserable. Down pouring rain and a boat traveling 45 knots was not fun. 

FaceTime with E and Shannon! 

The next stop was Medan, Indonesia. I pulled out some money that equalled over 8 million local currencies. 

Again, the RMD anchored off the coast so we had to take a liberty boat to the port of Belewan. 

One of the main reasons the ship stopped there was to host the Secretary of the Navy. He was in town to talk to the government about future US Navy operations and plans. We all got to meet him and take photos. 

These are all my pilots and myself with SECNAV. 

Halloween Costume on 31 Oct. I think the ship had a steel beach picnic on the flight deck and BBQ ribs and burgers. 

The final stop was Brunei. We were doing some exercises with the Royal Brunei Navy so we pulled in for a few days, planned the events, pulled out for one day to execute the events and then pulled back in for 1 day to debrief. Brunei was pretty nice.

FaceTime with E and watching her get in trouble by jumping on the bed naked! 

The ship hosted a reception on the flight deck with the Ambassador and a lot of Brunei big wigs. These are some of my pilots having a good time. 

FaceTime with LC before bed.  

Inport Brunei. I think we pulled the helo out to wash it. 

Back in Yokosuka and deployment complete. Overall, we ere gone for a total of 72 days. We flew 217 flight hours and came back with everyone that we left with. Shannon and the girls met me at the pier as we pulled in. It was so good to see them! LC made cookies for me and I think she was more excited to come onboard with me and pass out cookies to all my friends. 

As soon as the ship pulled in we had to offload all our stuff and load everything back on to take it back to the squadron. 

Someone took this sweet photo of the helo returning to the squadron. You can see MT Fuji in the background. It was nice to be back home and nice to get back to cooler temps. The entire cruise was around the equator so everyday it was hot and humid. Also, because the ship was super old, the A/C's didn't work well. So there were a lot of hot nights. 

The signage was up around base welcoming us back.

And they even had two cakes! My DET patch is the patch on the left. We are the DET 1 RONIN. Ronin are Japanese Samurai before they have a master. We got back one day before DET 2 returned from their 4 month deployment so the squadron had a joint homecoming celebration. 

This is most of my crew the night before left. It was an honor to be their boss for this deployment and we will be forming up soon to hit it again!