Zack has been transferred to Security for his temporary duty...his rate(job) is over manned and so when coming to a new command just about everyone has to go do a temporary job for a while before going into the shop to preform their actual job. Going to Security beats pealing potatoes in the ship galley! We were very blessed for him to be put on days as the man that he was replacing was on nights. His working schedule has also changed. Zack works 14ish hour days two days a week and then works the following weekend. The next week he will work three days a week and have the weekend off. That's the simplified version. He used to get home from the ship around 4:30 in the evenings and now on working days he gets home around 6:30...essentially being home two or so hours later than the normal ship working schedule. We haven't quite figured out the duty schedule but I believe that he only has duty(meaning sleeping on the boat as well) on the Saturday that he has to work. So for now...we are enjoying this new schedule. It allows him to have more hours at home...quality hours with us than the normal schedule allows. We haven't figured out the evening schedule when he has to work because he comes home now at bath time or quite time(cool down time before Noah goes up to his room to sleep). Zack wants to come home and eat right away because he often hasn't eaten all day...and then Noah is calming down and Zack coming home right in the middle winds him back up again. So Zack has to wait until Noah is asleep before eating each night.
On Saturday we celebrated our first Thanksgiving as a family at our own home. Before Zack left the ship in October he had invited a few shipmates to celebrate with us at our home. They are all single sailors...male and female. I was nervous about preparing all the food...first because we've never done it before...and second because I admit I'm not much of a cook! The entire process involved me calling my mom more than a few times and asking, "How do I....?" And a lot of muttering under my breath! But we got it done! We enjoyed a great afternoon chatting and having fun. They all enjoyed playing with the kids and I think watching Zack being in a family situation. And watching Zack take zingers from his amazing wife...just saying! Noah especially enjoyed the extra attention and hijacked one of Zack's friends to his bedroom. They played for quite a while and left us wondering if he knew that he could come down and didn't have to sit upstairs with Noah. I went upstairs to check on them...and found them both sitting on the rug surrounded by toys grinning ear to ear! The night ended with a viewing of The Lion King...an early present from Santa...as Santa forgot to put away the present after being wrapped the night before. Which has caused another problem in the Gogel house...Noah has seen wrapped packages under our bed...and already unwrapped one of Zack's Christmas present. Zack gave me a hard time about "starting something" but he sure as heck didn't ask me to re wrap his gift! And he's been playing with it on and off ever since!
The following day I was able to go see the new Twilight movie with a few friends in the evening. Zack gave Caraline a bottle and did the bedtime routine with both kids. Very grateful for a few hours out of the house without a kid tagging along. Now that Zack will be home for a while I think that I'm going to take this luxury more often...very refreshing to get out. Two of Zack's shipmates volunteered to babysit for us as well. And I believe that we will take them up on the offer. Zack and I haven't been out in town on our own yet and would love to go eat at a nice restaurant just the two of us.
This coming week on one of Zack's days off we hope to go to Chinatown in Yokohoma...we are anxious to get off base and go somewhere. And hopefully the weather will allow the trip! We are also planning and organizing our trip to Tokyo during Zack's holiday leave. We have to take Caraline to the U.S. Embassy to get her U.S. birth certificate, social security number, and passport. We were issued a hospital proof of birth certificate and must take that with a ton of other paperwork to the embassy. Noah is going to spend the day with a friend and we will go up and back in one day. We would like to spend more time in Tokyo...but doing so in late December just isn't practical with baby Caraline.
