the harding's: we have arrived!

Just a quick post to let everyone know that we have arrived in Okinawa, safe and sound! After lots of waiting, and flying, and getting off the plane, and reboarding the plane-- we are here! Charlotte to Salt Lake City to Seattle to Yokota to Iwakuni to Okinawa. Bam.

Our sponsor (person from Brian's unit assigned to help with getting us settled in) has been so kind and helpful. She picked us up last night at the airport and is coming today to take us around the island. We are so thankful to be here and we are ready to get out and explore. We are staying in temporary lodging right now, but should be getting a permanent place by the end of this week. We are also going out today to look for phones and cars.

We don't feel super jet-lagged yet and got really good sleep last night, so we are praying that we can keep our eyes open today and fight off the sleepiness. From what we have seen so far, this island is beautiful. We have a view of the East China Sea from our hotel room and palm trees right outside our window. We thought it would be super muggy and humid and I'm sure it will be at some point, but the weather right now is really mild and comfortable. Thankful for that.

We will keep you all posted as we settle in and make this place home. Also, can't wait to write about our day in Seattle, it was perfect. Love you all. Thank you for the prayers, love, support, etc. etc. We feel so unbelievably blessed by the people in our lives.

Charlotte Airport-- definitely felt like people were judging us (like the guy in the background, for instance) for the amount of luggage we had. I felt the need to apologize to everyone about how much we had and to justify myself every chance I had like, "we really usually are simple, light packers.. it's just that we are moving to japan..."