It's Almost Over...

The END of my insane 2 months with a newborn and an 18 month old is quickly approaching! Mike will be back in a few days after basically being gone for the past 7 months. In the mean time, we had our second little boy on September 5th. I was almost 2 weeks overdue and had to be induced..but of course, he was worth the wait. Kellen Michael Kinter was born at 9:02 pm, weighed 9lbs 1oz and was 22" long. He is a very sweet baby and loves to smile. Tyson is adjusting pretty well and is always concerned about "Brother". Although he sometimes hits his brother or throws balls at him as if he is going to throw it back...and sometimes he bites him or tries to feed him his big boy food... but then he also gives him kisses and loves to play with his feet. So needless to say the past two months alone with the two of them has been interesting and at times I wanted to crawl into the closet and hide for about 4 hours, but in the end, we survived. My mommy brain is now double forgetful and I don't normally have time to even sit at my computer so this is really a novelty to have the time to update our blog but I felt that I needed to get some pictures up of Kellen and show his adorable face off to our friends.

First Blog

I wasn't sure about blogging but it's been really nice to read about our friends ever-changing lives and so I thought since we are on the other side of the world to most, I would try to keep up and start our own Kinter Family Blog. We are currently stationed in Japan. Mike is flying F-18 Superhornets and has been gone A LOT since we got here almost a year ago. So we like to say that Tyson and I live in Japan and he lives on the Kittyhawk. Ty turned 1 May 3rd and is an active and funny little guy. He has endless amounts of energy and is absolutely fearless. He has been walking since 9 1/2 months and says a few words here and there but babbles in his own language constantly. He is so friendly and waves and smiles at everyone. He loves being outside and going to the park. He has no idea that his world is about shocked when his little brother arrives in late August. He doesn't have a name yet... Mike is gone right now but we are hoping he will be able to fly back to Japan in time for the arrival of the new baby. We were supposed to join him in Hawaii for 11 days in June but a fire on board the USS George Washington delayed plans for deck swapping with the USS Kittyhawk and the entire summer deployment has been changed and extended. Now it looks like Mike will be in Hawaii for the first week of July and then they will head to San Diego for a while and will finally make it back to Japan on the GW sometime in September. I am teaching English to small groups or private lessons in my home and that keeps me busy along with keeping up with Tyson. My pregnancy has gone very smooth and it's definitely been easier the second time around. I can't wait to see the similarities or differences between these two boys.

As for life in Asia..In many ways Japan is very westernized but at the same time it's just a whole different way of life... we live on base in small townhouse and drive a 1995 purple Honda van - on the other side of the road! Mike went from an Acura TL to a purple Honda Stepwagon.. it's a great site to see him driving that thing around. We don't really eat much sushi like most people ask, we don't really see the Japanese walking around in kimonos and rice patties are no wherein sight as our town is more like a concrete jungle with massive amounts of people about 25 miles from Tokyo. The people are very nice for the most part and I have been fortunate to travel through parts of Japan and see some really amazing places. Tyson and I just got back from seeing Mike in Guam for a short port call instead of Hawaii. It was great to get a tan and the hotel and beach were nice but the rest of Guam is less than desirable... It was still nice to see Mike and we had a lot of fun taking Ty to the pool for the first time and playing at the beach. Now we are just waiting on boy #2 and for Mike to hopefully return to Japan soon. All in all, I guess that is an update on life in the Kinter Family - hope all are doing well.