The Carmel Haven : Our House

I'll start by saying we didn't have the highest standards on where we would be living, and were very pleasantly surprised! On base would have been pretty similar to what we had in California only with no yard and pretty cheap floor. If there's room on base you have to live there for at least a year. Base housing was full in the areas around Camp Courtney, where Steve works, so we were told we needed to look off base. I was sort of in shock at first because I just assumed we'd be living on base. After doing some research we discovered that living on base can be quite a lot of work initially, but you can usually find a nicer place and get a feel for the culture more. After exploring around Camp Courtney we knew it wouldn't be hard to find a nice place because it's such a nice part of the island. It's up North, away from the congestion and crowds. But everything we need on a day to day basis we can find in this area. I have to give Steve the props for finding the place and doing most of the work that is pretty involved. Lots and lots of meetings and paperwork and going back and forth from the agency to many offices on base. From dealing with Japanese housing agencies to internet companies (it's mainly the language barrier that can be confusion) the experience has really immersed us into the culture. We LOVE our house. It's right next to the water with a HUGE patio on the 2nd floor with an ocean view. It's only about 5 minutes from Camp Courtney which has a PX, commissary, post office, gym, library for the kids, restaurants, and so on....Also, we are within walking distance to two nice beaches, a bird watching park, and a "River walk" Path. Avery's new school is just up the road. I think my favorite discovery is the cute little cafe in the house directly next to us. It's not cheap but it's delicious. Best cup of coffee I think I've ever had! The two ladies that own it have been so nice as have our other neighbors. The houses right next to us are Japanese while the two houses after that are Americans. It's a pretty good mix around here. The kids love going outside to and looking at the (rushing if it's after or during a storm) water. They like sitting on the steps right on the water in front of our house, all the people fishing (it seems to be a popular place to fish) as well as all the boats (there's a boat dealership two houses down from us as well as a dock at the end of our street towards the main ocean body) We got our government furniture after I took the pictures today, but we are still waiting on all of our household goods. Hopefully not too much longer! We decided that the kids will share the big room downstairs, and the upstairs room will be the Play/Office/Craft Room. We'll see how it works.

I've been spending a lot of time researching things to do and my list keeps growing and growing. I was happy to find many things in our area (a farmer's market, a nail salon - I guess nail art on toes is huge here). Tomorrow I think we're going to check out Jusco, which is like a Japanese Walmart and Nitori, which is like a Japanese IKEA. We are on the hunt for a futon for the upstairs room and curtains to help keep the house cool so we can limit the AC (which we haven't had to turn on....yet=).

View from our front yard looking down the street.

Our House!

Front patio

We love how open it is.=)

The "Bamboo Room" - This will be me and Steve's room

Bathroom

Backyard - off to the back left is the laundry room

The kiddos room - laundry room is the door you see in the background

Very nice sized closet space under the stairs

Can't wait to put some furniture out on this huge deck!

The upstairs room with the sweet wrap around patio - we will use it as a play/craft room - we chose the downstairs for our bedroom because we didn't want to be that far away from the kids!