Rigdon Review: Our Adventures Abroad

 So here we are, in the "small", "rural", "country" town of Iwakuni, in the Yamaguchi prefecture (like a small state?), on the southern part of mainland Japan (it's about 45 minutes from Hiroshima). 1. This town has a "downtown" area. 2. The population is around 150,000 So..."small" is relative.  Everyone keeps telling us it's tiny, but..ya know...we came from Spanish Fork, Utah, so...... We spent the first two weeks out of ROM on foot.  We walked everywhere we had to go.  It was the start of the Japanese holiday called Obon, which we know very little about because we had just arrived, but from what I understand it is where people celebrate their families, heritage, ancestors who have passed away.  So for 10 days everything was closed, meaning we couldn't look for a house or buy a car. So. Much. Walking.  Also, 95 degrees and 93% humidity.  Multiple showers every day, yall. Wooooof! But since buying a car, we've been cru...

When COVID really got real, we had already accepted the job in Iwakuni, Japan to work as a therapist on a U.S Marine base.  We were told that the process would be "delayed indefinitely". We didn't know exactly what that meant, but felt good about the fact that it wasn't "cancelled permanently".  So we waited.  We did what everyone else did: school at home, stay home, do nothing, try not to spread "the virus".  FINALLLLYYYY in the end of May we were told that we were to be in Japan (we being Andrew....) July 1.  AGH! Stress!  We had a house to sell, cars to sell, a house to pack up, people we wanted to visit, passports for the children to apply for.  Let's go there: PASSPORTS: guys, as soon as we had OFFICIAL orders from the government of Andrew's employment we went to apply for passports.  We KNEW the process was delayed but were confident that because we were supposed to be moving across the world, they would somehow have a magical excepti...

 The story of how we arrived it is many years in the making.   I grew up on Guam. Many people know this.  Many people do not.  My dad worked for the U.S Government and his job gave us the opportunity to move there.  We moved there when I was in elementary school, and they moved back to the mainland United States when I was in college.  So...Guam was home.  Living there afforded me and my family many opportunities we never would have had otherwise.  I have always wanted to be able to give my children some similar experiences, as I feel my childhood changed how I view the world. Andrew has always had an extreme wanderlust.  Ever since I met him he has wanted to spend as much time in as many countries experiencing as many cultures as possible.  Pre-Japan he had been to 25 countries and Japan was a huge bucket list destination for him. After we got married, we decided that eventually we wanted to be able to live with our little (though ...