Earthquake!!!

July 23rd, my birthday, the day started out great. I woke up at 5am, went to the gym, took a shower and got ready for work, ate breakfast, and then left the house to go to work. I was greeted and told "Happy Birthday" from plenty of my family,co-workers, and friends. At lunch, my work had a little celebration with some food(we like to call it a POT-LUCK). Josh came to join in, and it was a lot of fun. My boss(we call him Senior), gave me some pretty flowers...the day was going great. After leaving work, Josh and I went to eat dinner at New Miyaki, a chinese restaurant, and the food was delicious. When we got home, I decided to paint, and as you look above at the painting, this was the portrait I decided to do. It is a portrait of Mt. Fuji and the waves. Josh loved it and we hung it up on the wall. About 11pm, I went to bed....I thought it was going to be a peaceful night's sleep, but I was oh so wrong.

At exactly 12:10am on July 24th, Hoosier started running circles on the bed, I woke up, and was alarmed because the whole house was shaking, rattling, vibrating, making the most terrifying noise I have ever heard. I grabbed Josh and he woke up and flung himself over Hoosier and I. It was an EARTHQUAKE!!! Not just a little earthquake(since living in Japan, we have felt at least 20 or more earthquakes, but all were so small as nothing to worry about, but not that night). This earthquakes epi-center was 50 miles away from us, and we were hit with a level 6.8 out of 9 on the Richter scale. While praying and hoping for the horrfying earthquake to subside, we could hear furniture rattling, items falling off shelves and walls, complete caos. After thinking it would never end, it finally did. We walked around the house picking up all that fell. Josh's military coins rolled off the holding case, glass items fell over, items fell off dressers and shelves, the george foreman grill flew out of the kitchen cabinet across the floor, a lot of the glass items in my curio cabinet slid and fell forward, but fortunately and almost unbelievably, nothing, not one single thing, broke. Okay, I take that back, Josh's collectible "Optimus Prime" arms broke off, but that was an easy fix, as they just snap back in. A friend of our's said, Optimus Prime was trying to transform to come save us, but didn't have enough time, I thought that was pretty funny and thought I would share it. I was terrified completely and walked around in a "zombie-like" mode for a long time and even the next day. I have never experienced anything so frightening in my life. I was glad to hear that all my friends here were okay and glad to let all of you know that we are doing fine and we are still continuing to make unforgettable memories, hopefully they will be happy ones from now on!