Easy Valentines Chocolates @ Gourmet Mom on the Go

These look amazing and actually not very difficult to make! They remind me of all the wonderful chocolates my brother, Matthew, and his girlfriend, Adria, made all his family for Christmas. Yum! I don’t think I’ll get to try these in time for this Valentine’s Day, but maybe I will next year, or this Christmas, or just one day I’m craving chocolate!

Rainbow Pancakes @ i am mommy

This poor gal has gotten a ton of criticism via blog comments for something as silly as making these crazy colorful pancakes for her little ones as a treat. I definitely don’t want to pack the boys full of food dye, sugar, etc daily but I don’t see any harm in pumping up the fun factor in foods occasionally. These awesome pancakes remind me of the wonderful colorful cakes (like my 4th of July cupcakes) and I definitely will make some colorful breakfasts for the boys in the future!

Total Eclipse of the Heart: Literal Video Version @ YouTube

My friend Liz linked this on Facebook and I cannot get enough of it! I’d never watched a “literal version” of a music video but considering how Matt and I adore MST3K, it’s not surprising that we enjoyed this sort of humor. This particular video was done by dascottjr, and there are some other wonderful literal versions of videos on his site. My favorites, not including the awesome Total Eclipse of the Heart, are definitely Jingle Bell Rock, Separate Ways, and the choreography part of Love is a Battlefield!

NZ Book Council – Going West @ YouTube

This is a short animated film narrating part of the book Going West. It’s a stop-motion of papercutting, which is absolutely stunning. I highly admire papercutting and hope to do some of my own someday, but I cannot imagine the time and skill required to produce a project such as this. Amazing!

Bunny Hop Slippers @ Craft

The cutest! I’ve always wanted a pair of bunny slippers, and these are the most adorable I’ve seen. I can’t wait to knit them up! I’ve never made thrums before, so that should be fun, too.

“So Easy, A Toddler Can Do It” Snowflakes @ Frugal Family Fun Blog

We made these in our Wednesday night King’s Kids class (Flyers; 4 &5 year-olds) a few weeks ago. It really was easy and the results were wonderful! I let the kids place their masking tape however they wanted, so some of the snowflakes were a little creative and free-form, but that was sort of the point! It’ll be fun to make these one winter when the boys are a little older.

9 Ways To Encourage Your Kids to Live Simply @ Simple Mom

This is my goal. I fail at it often, though. I really do want to instill simplicity in the boys as they grow. Simple Mom has many great articles like this to steer us in that direction. By the way, I’d love to make the boys’ toys! I have knit, sewn, and crocheted a handful for them, but I’d love to pick up some woodworking to make them some terrific, sturdy toys, too!

How to Get Back in the Groove of Reading @ Mom Advice

This term I’ve had to do so much reading for my literature class, as well as the half a dozen textbooks for my other class, that I feel so burnt-out on reading that I don’t want to do. I am trying to put these points into practice in order to read for pleasure. Oh, it’s hard and I feel like I don’t have the time to read, but I’m going to start taking advantage of those reading windows now.

Prayer: Why We Struggle (and how not to) @ holy experience

This really spoke to me. I don’t have much more to say about it. Just read it.

Inspiration: “Tips for Capturing Newborns” @ i heart faces

Now that Heron’s getting so big, I feel like I wasted time that I could have been photographing his tiny newborn bottom and wrinkly little fingers! I wish I had played around more with my camera like this. I am still enjoying photographing the boys as they are, but hope to have another bitty baby someday to capture in this way!

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I’m not sure Aime really knew what was happening. She just enjoyed her juice and the attention. It seemed like Josh was looking forward to the trip, though!

Josh is such a sweetie. He was holding Aden’s hand for quite a while before they left.

There was a pretty good turn-out from our church to say goodbye. Here are some of us ladies from Faith Baptist Church.

The Armstrongs have been our closest friends this past year. I love hanging out with Liz and feel like long-lost sisters! Their kids are wonderful and such fun and Drew is a great guy! They’ve made our settling into Japan, the base, and the church really comfortable and I appreciate all their family has done for us. Drew has separated from the Air Force and they’ve gone to live in Fort Worth. We visit Dallas every now and then to see my dad and family, so I’m hoping when we return to visit family that we’ll have the opportunity to meet up with the Armstrongs, too. The internet is a wonderful thing and I’m so glad we’ll be able to get in touch, but I sure hope that we’ll get to spend time together again in the future. I’m happy that they’re moving on to new things, though they will certainly be missed a lot here.

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Matt wasn’t planning on going with me to find out the gender. He doesn’t really care whether we find out in advance or wait for the birth. Well, I didn’t want to go alone so he took me to the clinic yesterday. Really, it wasn’t very hard to find (for him!) They don’t take appointments; it’s all done on a walk-in basis. So there were a whole lot of pregnant Japanese ladies waiting around. The clinic got through us all pretty quickly, though. I went into the exam room after about 30 minutes of waiting — without Matt and Rhino (it’s too crowded and Rhino was happier playing in the kid’s playroom across the hall.)

They did a 2D scan with a doctor first, who pointed out all sorts of “landmarks”, telling me “head”, “spine”, “foot”, etc. I have the whole thing on video that I will upload soon. It’s nice to see our sweet little baby again and it was moving around all over the place. The doctor abruptly stood up, congratulated me, and left. I was just told “six” repeatedly and wasn’t really sure what that meant. They shooed me out of the room and I stood around, confused for a little bit. I took a guess and sat myself down outside of exam room #6. I waited for a bit longer before someone brought me a some photos from the scan. I wasn’t sure if that was it and I should leave, but I sat back down. They called me into the room eventually and that’s when we did the 3D ultrasound. The technician spent a lot of time trying to see the baby’s face, but I guess the little bean is shy and kept hiding its face. I got a great view of the back of its head and some very cute ears! The technician started wrapping things up and I figured if I didn’t ask, they wouldn’t tell me a gender. She told me that the doctor had said …

So we took a little tour of “down there”, but really I’m not sure I recognized much, haha! It’s obvious now that my ultrasound-reading skills are not very honed, as I was sure from our 20-week scan that it was a girl! They do warn me that they are never 100% positive, but the tech kept pointing out his little boy parts, so I think it’s a good bet.

I know Matt has been saying “she” and “her” during this whole pregnancy and it would have been neat to have a little girl, but I am so excited to have another sweet baby boy! Rhino has been such a blessing and I really enjoy being Mommy to a boy. It will be such a blast raising brothers. And cheaper! I’m glad we can reuse these tons of little boy clothes that Rhino outgrew so quickly (and other “boy things” that we have.) I’m a little nervous about being outnumbered, the wrestling and running, the testosterone … but I’m ready for it! And we can now cut our name list in half and only worry about little boy names!

I know this is a complete switch from how I felt before. We were definitely opposed to finding out Rhino’s gender. The curiosity was really eating me. Especially after the Level II ultrasound where we thought we knew what we saw (or didn’t see) but couldn’t get any confirmation. I’m glad we had someone tell us so I didn’t still think we were going to have a girl, knit up a bunch of pink or flowery things, accept our friends’ girly hand-me-downs, and make any girl-specific purchases. For the first baby, finding out didn’t matter at all. If we had a boy and a girl all ready, finding out any future babies wouldn’t matter. For this one, though, I decided I wanted to know. And I’m so glad!

Want to know how to get to the ultrasound clinic in Hachinohe? Here are some directions!

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Nicole called me up that afternoon to say that she and Mike were taking us out to dinner, my choice! That was super-nice so we didn’t worry about cooking dinner or anything. One of my favorite places to go in town is The Global Kitchen. It’s a cute little place that has a little bit of everything: some Japanese, Chinese, Thai, Italian, “American”, etc. It’s not all amazing, but it’s a nice selection and we like to go on Sunday afternoons because you order all-you-can-eat of about 20 different little plates. They have a whole big room devoted to families with children, which is really nice for Rhino. They have high chairs and a fenced-in play area with a small slide, lots of books, stuffed animals, blocks, etc. Rhino used to not care so much about all the toys, but now whenever we go it is such a blast for him! Mike and Nicole hadn’t been in a long time, so it was nice to bring them back there too. We had never been for dinner, which isn’t all-you-can-eat but they offer larger portions and a much wider variety. I had cheese rolls (they make the best cheese rolls I’ve found and I crave them pretty much every day now!), a big bowl of corn soup (Nicole and I love finding places with corn soup!), and some spicy pineapple pork curry. Delicious! There’s always something for Rhino, too. He loves the little panko-breaded chicken pieces, cheese rolls, some of Matt’s yakisoba, and some of my Thai coconut curry (he eats my cute little mushrooms and eggplant pieces, but mostly loves the bamboo!) It was very nice to go out with Mike and Nicole and was quite a scrumptious dinner!

On Saturday we had Mike & Nicole and Liz + kids over for dinner. We did a strawberry and kiwi appetizer (which Josh and Aime inhaled!) then meatloaf, potatoes and green beans. I can’t find my favorite meat loaf recipe, so I sort of winged it this time. It was very tasty, but really fell apart. The whole thing was finished off, at least! And Rhino probably ate twice as much as I did — he kept demanding more meat loaf! It may be one of his favorite foods (the only other thing we’ve seen him act like this towards is lasagna.) Matt wanted to bake me a birthday cake on Friday (he says he’s never baked a cake before!) but because we went out, I suggested he wait until Saturday. He made my favorite boxed cake: strawberry with white whip frosting. And he added cute little flower sprinkles! It turned out very well and was so sweet of him! When the Armstrongs and the Kisers come over we usually entertain with a Mystery Science Theater 3000. This time we watched Space Mutiny, one of our favorites! Josh and Aime kept Rhino amused most of the night. It’s so much fun having kids over and seeing how he reacts these days. He likes to chase them around and do whatever they’re doing. It was a nice night hanging out with friends and a very pleasant birthday!

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We ordered room service for breakfast with Liz and Nicole. There is a Japanese restaurant in the New Sanno that serves a traditional Japanese breakfast, so we thought we should try that out. There was salmon (delicious!), white rice (Rhino always loves rice), a bunch of different pickled vegetables (which still haven’t grown on me so much), some omelets (which were cold and sweet?), miso soup, an orange, and some hot tea. I think Rhino and I enjoyed the breakfast more than Matt, but at least he got a good portion of fish. The rest of our breakfasts were pretty American, which I love (I’m always in the mood for french toast, eggs, and fruit!)

Ghibli Museum, part 2! We actually made it this time! And I didn’t take a train by myself. It was obvious the museum was open, as there were tons of other people there. Oh, real quick, this is the museum created by Hayao Miyazaki, also the creator of many movies that Matt and I (and Liz and Nicole) enjoy very much: Princess Mononoke, Castle in the Sky, Spirited Away, My Neighbor Totoro, Howl’s Moving Castle, etc! These are all animated films by Studio Ghibli.

There is no photography allowed in the museum, so I don’t have any photos of the wonders we saw within. You’ll just have to come visit! Totoro greeted us at the ticket booth when we first entered the grounds. The building is beautiful and has a lot of idyllic elements, like most of Miyazaki’s movies do (old water pump, wood burning stoves, beautifully overgrown, etc.) Once inside, you just get to roam free and explore. There is an old elevator to take you up to different floor, or a pretty spiral staircase. There are tiny doorways all over the place that lead to other halls or have tiny rooms with small mirrors and stools (Rhino sat on a stool in a tiny room that pretty much just fit him!) None of these films are done with computers, but are all drawn by hand. We saw lots of exhibits about different aspects of animation, from flip books to small models and strobe lights. It was very neat! We could browse through books of storyboards and view sketches all over the walls. There is a “mini Louvre” museum with lots of famous paintings, miniaturized. They also have an amazing movie theater in which they play six different unreleased short films. The day we went they were showing The Day I Bought a Star / Hoshi wo Katta Hi. It was all in Japanese (and subtitled in Japanese, too!) so we didn’t really understand everything, but it was a wonderful 15 minute short about a boy who plants a small gem in a pot, waters it, gives it light, and it grows into a planet. Rhino loved staring at the pretty ceiling and then the movie’s calm music soothed him right to sleep.

In My Neighbor Totoro, there is a cat bus. The Ghibli Museum has a large, fluffy cat bus for kids to play on, so we threw Rhino in there! He didn’t want to climb on the cat, but enjoyed watching the other kids do so. The best part was the soot sprites, though! In Spirited Away there are these enchanted balls of soot that bring coal to a furnace. In the room with the cat bus there were small pits filled with large plushies of these soot sprites (that they sell in the gift shop, so we bought one for him!) Kids would play with them and leave them outside of the pits, so Rhino mostly enjoyed just crawling around and retrieving the soot ball dolls and putting them back in the pit. He did take a nice belly-flop into one of the soot-filled pits, too! It was a great break for him to get out of the carrier and stretch his legs and play around other kids.

From there we took a spiral staircase outside to the roof top. There is a guardian robot (from the movie Castle in the Sky) overlooking the rooftop garden. Then we went to the Straw Hat cafe for some lunch. It was such a cute little place and they served us drinks (I had the “Sunset Cream Soda” and Matt had the “Looking up at a Clear Blue Sky While Standing in a Field Cream Soda”, both served with actual straw straws, not plastic straws.) Everything on the menu looked so delicious, but Matt chose a cassoulet with chicken and I had a steak and salad. Liz ordered the “Cream Sandwich of Your Dreams” and “Cream Soup From the Farm”, both of which looked really yummy. I loved all the names they gave to most of their foods. Liz shared some of her fruit and cream sandwich with Rhino and he devoured it!

After lunch we left the museum and got back on the train. I had figured that if we’re in Tokyo, the Imperial Palace would be a key thing to see! Well, it was quite a trip and even more walking to get there. We wound up on the wrong side of a large park from where we wanted to be and it took us a while to figure out where we were. We made our way to the palace gate, which is closed to the public right now. It was pretty to look at the surrounding area, the gardens (although things aren’t really in bloom at this time of year, so I’m sure it’s much prettier in a few months), and the guard houses. I was a little bit cranky because I was starting to get tired again, but I think I was a trooper for all the walking, standing, travel, and long days I endured while 5 months pregnant!

We made our way back to the hotel, I got a little chance to rest and then we all had dinner together. Matt and Rhino stayed back at the hotel while Liz, Nicole and I ventured back out on the town. Drew had tasked Liz with finding a certain Gundam model kit and Nicole wanted to pick up a Yamcha figurine for Mike’s shrine-to-Yamcha. So we headed to Akihabara, the district packed full of anime, manga, electronics, dolls, robots, video games, all that kind of stuff. It was interesting to see, but I was fine with not spending too much time there. It’s one place I thought Matt would have been more interested in seeing, but apparently it would have just been depressing to him (seeing as what he’s most interested in is anime and video games, both of which he cannot use on our US systems and most of which will not be released in the US.) So Liz and Nicole both found what they were looking for and made their husbands very happy!

We’ve all been to onsen (hot spring bath houses) up here in Misawa, but they are pretty basic. You bring a towel and bath supplies, show up in a locker room, go get showered at a little squatty shower with a stool, then get in a tub. The ones we go to are usually about Â¥250-Â¥350 and just aren’t anything fancy. I saw some Tokyo onsen online that looked gorgeous, so I thought it would be fun to check one out on our trip. We took the elevated train to Odaiba, an island in the middle of Tokyo. We passed some gorgeously lit ferris wheels that reminded me of moving, colorful Spirographs. We passed over Rainbow Bridge and saw lots of boats. We got a little bit lost in Odaiba (even though the onsen is right next to the train station. We walked the wrong way!) but finally found it.

What a different experience than we are used to! The Oedo Onsen is so large and traditional; it’s very pretty! We paid Â¥2000 and got to choose a yukata (like a light weight kimono). We went to the locker room, undressed, and put on the yukata. Nicole and I took off our glasses because we’re used to them steaming up as soon as we enter the bath. Well, we walked out the door and were faced with all sorts of people in yukatas walking around, looking at shops, and having dinner in little restaurants. And men! (Men and women are separated in onsen, so we were surprised and feeling kind of exposed walking around all sorts of people when we expected to just go shower and hop in a tub!) Well, we were looking everywhere for a restroom or the baths or something, but Nicole and I are blind and none of us reads much Japanese. I felt like a silly, giggly American girl running through the onsen — but it felt a little awkward! Apparently we weren’t supposed to get completely undressed under the yukatas (I was wondering about all these people walking around, having dinner, in nothing but this flimsy robe?) Well, we found the baths and everything made sense eventually! It was very nice and we didn’t need to bring anything at all. They had a towel service, massage chairs, hair dryers, all sorts of soaps, shampoos, conditioners, other hair products for afterward, etc. There was a large room with the small showers and some tubs. There were lots of mineral baths of different temperatures, a jacuzzi tub, a milk bath, and some other nice baths. We wanted to try everything, so we’d sit down in one for a few minutes, hop up and try another one! Then we went outside to the outdoor baths. I wish we had been there when it was light out because I’m sure it was gorgeous! We tried the outdoor bath amongst the rocks, but it was way too hot. Then we found some large barrel baths (they each fit two people, but there weren’t many people there so we each grabbed our own) which was fun! A little while ago I was worried that I can’t go to onsen while pregnant, but I just can’t stay in very hot water or hot water for too long. This isn’t a problem because Liz and Nicole don’t like to sit around in the heat for too long either! It was all extremely relaxing, a wonderful time, and a perfect end to a Tokyo trip full of lots of walking and sore legs and feet! I’ll definitely try to get anyone else who visits Tokyo with us to try this place out!

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We had gone to a Lawson’s on our way to lunch to pick up tickets to see the Studio Ghibli museum. We had to use a machine to purchase the tickets and of course, everything was in Japanese. A lot of it wasn’t too hard to understand, but we needed to get some help from a clerk. When it came to the screen to pick what day to attend the museum, a calendar came up but we couldn’t read anything on it. We selected the square that would correspond with Tuesday on any calendar I’ve seen before and we had our tickets!

Tuesday:

Bright and early Tuesday morning we were on our way to check out the museum. We needed to take a couple of subways, a few trains, and then a bus to get way out to Mitaka. All the mass transit is very crowded and high-paced, so we were definitely moving. We got up one of the hundreds of stairwells we climbed to see a train sitting at the platform. “Is this our train?” I asked. I got a yes, so I kept moving toward the open door, only to have it close on me. I wound up on the train by myself with Matt, Liz and Nicole waving goodbye from the platform! Hey, I don’t dawdle! This was the longest leg of our trip, a 20 minute train ride to the Mitaka station. I sat alone, silent and not making eye contact just like every other passenger (usually we are the only ones talking and laughing! I feel awkward, but it’s strange to just have train or subway full or perfectly silent people, mashing away at their cell phones or listening to their iPods!) Matt, sitting on the next train with Rhino and the girls, was a little bit stressed that I wouldn’t get off at the right stop and we would be separated in Japan. No worries, though! I waited for them at our destination and it was all fine, of course. We had a quick snack while waiting for the Studio Ghibli bus outside the station. The bus makes other stops, so we weren’t the only passengers, but the driver was trying to tell Liz that the museum is closed on Tuesdays. There’s a large language barrier and she didn’t understand why he was telling her this. Of course the museum’s not closed, we have tickets for today! Just take us there! So yup, we got off at the museum to a closed gate while we tried to figure out what happened. Well, we bought tickets for Wednesday, not Tuesday (the calendar starts on Monday, not Sunday, so we chose the block that was in the position we thought Tuesday would be in.) It was quite a long trip to get out there, but it was our practice run! Oh well!

So we decided to head towards Ueno, another Tokyo district where there is a large park with lots to do. We watched a some street performers do some silly things. We found a pizza place that looked surprisingly delicious! (All the pizzas we’ve run across in Japan — with the exception of Pizza Hut on base — are just wrong. There are tons of wonderful foods here, but as far as I can tell, the Japanese just don’t know how to do pizza!) Matt, Rhino and I shared a margarita pizza (tomato and basil) and some stick pan (cheese bread) and it definitely hit the spot! We looked around the park some, then headed to the zoo.

It was such a beautiful day and the zoo was really nice! We only saw a little more than half of it; it’s pretty big! We saw tons of really pretty bird, a bunch of super-cute red pandas (Ueno used to be home to Ling Ling, a giant panda that died last year), and a lot more of the normal zoo animals. I was excited that we got to see some polar bears (yay!) Rhino got to hear them roaring, would point, and do his own version of the roar! This was his first time imitating an animal. He also enjoyed looking at the penguins, but his favorite I guess was the cockatoos! We let him out of the carrier to give Matt a break and let Rhino stretch his legs, and he toddled up to the bars and would point and watch the birds then keep looking at us and squealing!

We walked around for a while, looking at the gorillas, tigers, lions, bats, peacocks, other strange birds, elephants, deer, etc. They have a five-story pagoda there that is really pretty. I was getting tired again and it was getting late, so we decided to head out. On the way out, we got some delicious crêpes (I have to have these whenever I see them!) Matt and I took the subway back to the New Sanno and Rhino and I napped until dinner!

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Sunday:

We left by 7 in the morning, had to pick up Liz & Nicole and a few things on our way out of town, got a little lost finding the right toll road in Hachinohe, and then were finally on our way by around 9! The four of us took turns driving, so it wasn’t all that tiring. We made a handful of rest stops along the way to stretch, do diaper changes, and get lunch. Getting into Tokyo was a little confusing with all the different highways, but we made it to the New Sanno (military hotel in downtown Tokyo) by 6 without too many problems! We had dinner at the American restaurant in the hotel and promptly fell asleep.

Monday morning we had a nice breakfast in the hotel restaurant before heading out. We decided to do Tokyo Tower, which is in Roppongi and very close to the New Sanno. We took the subway a couple of blocks and then had a nice walk up to the Tower.

We got some great views of the whole city from the observation deck. It’s not at the top of the tower, just a little ways up. Rhino enjoyed looking out (and down) the windows and got some practice walking around. Liz and Nicole went up to the next deck to see what was up there. Liz got brought one of her Blythe dolls to take photos of around Tokyo and got some shots of her on the tower.

There are other attractions in Tokyo Tower, including a wax museum, trick art gallery, and “space wax” museum (which was sort of just a small gallery of old anime.) We had fun taking photos in the trick art gallery, and the wax museum was full of rock and roll musicians, Alice in Wonderland, Jesus, historical Japanese figures, etc. There was plenty more to do in Tokyo tower: an aquarium, a playground, lots of little shops and restaurants, but the museums and view had taken up most of our morning and this pregnant lady was hungry and tired!

We went for a walk to find the Outback Steakhouse (I know, American food in Japan, but it will be a while until I have it and I can have Japanese food any time!) Matt carried Rhino around and he really seemed to enjoy the trip, then got comfy for a short nap.

Lunch was good and Rhino had a blast playing with everything at the table! It was only about 1, but I was pretty exhausted from lots of walking and Matt was ready to go back to the hotel. Liz and Nicole had doll-related shopping planned in Akihabara and Nokono, which neither of us were really too interested in anyway. They got back after dinner, so Matt and I went for a walk around Shibuya to check out the district and find something to eat. I feel like we didn’t get a whole lot accomplished on Monday, but it sure felt like a very full day!!

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Rhino received a gift certificate and cute card from the Kisers, a bunch of wonderful books in a pretty bag (Rhino loved the bag, hahah!) and an animal memory game from us. He was a little more interested in tearing the wrapping paper than he was for his little birthday celebration, but he was mostly interested in the ribbons and bag!

I wanted to make cupcakes again because it just seemed to make sense for Rhino to have his own little cupcake rather than a piece of cake or a mini cake just for him. I wanted everything to be colorful for him, so I wanted to make the cupcakes as colorful as possible, too. A few months ago I found a tutorial online for making pretty swirled cupcakes and had been waiting for an occasion to try it out. Thankfully the BX had a great assortment of paste food coloring! The technique is really very easy and turned out wonderfully! Our home just gets so warm that often the frosting would be too runny when it came out of the bag to make pretty, firm stars. Most of them looked pretty good, though! Rhino didn’t care either way, he just gobbled his little cake up!

It was a nice, small first birthday party and Rhino seemed to really enjoy himself the whole time. He didn’t get crabby at all and really likes being around Josh and Aimé. The Armstrongs and Kisers are our best friends here at Misawa right now, so of course it’s always nice for us to spend time with them, too!

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I’m really not remembering much about November! A few things stick out, though. Rhino started crawling around, we got our first Misawa snow (and Rhino’s first snow ever!), we had two nice Thanksgivings (one with the church, then a second in our home with our friends), and we discovered we’re going to have another baby in July ’09! This of course is very exciting and just the age spacing we were hoping for. Thanksgiving was nice, too, and not very hectic at all. Liz, Nicole, and I split up the responsibilities. Really, all I had to do was make up some cranberry sauce and veggies and provide a clean home. The food was all wonderful and we had a terrific first Thanksgiving in Japan!

December will take a while to describe. I had my first prenatal appointment and we saw the ultrasound of our 8 week-old little bean! Heart’s beating, there’s only one in there, everything’s looks fine, that was about it! Two days later we began our trip back to the States to visit with family for Christmas. This was wonderful, but tiring! I’m so glad we got to see all our family (though not as many friends as I had initially hoped. Everything was getting too hectic!) and have Rhino meet the rest of the folks that didn’t get to come out when he was born.

Matt wrote up a big post about the horrible details of the travel itself. He pretty much covered it all, though he didn’t mention how uncomfortable a 9 or 12 hour flight is for a pregnant woman with morning sickness. Airplanes definitely were not my friends. I won’t take this space to complain further about travel and how we never want to step foot on an airplane again (we can stick out Matt’s career here and retire in Japan!) All our destinations made the flights more than worthwhile.

We flew into LA, so we decided to rent a car and drive up to Lompoc to see our friends and recuperate for the weekend. We left at 10pm on a Friday evening and it’s an overnight flight across the international dateline to California. When I booked this flight, I just assumed: leave Friday evening, overnight flight, land Saturday morning. I know, now that I think about it, it doesn’t make any sense. When we landed in CA and the captain said that it was 2pm on Friday, I was so confused! I hadn’t planned to arrive on Friday! So, it was my first time going back in time! We picked up our car and, 3 seconds off the lot, Matt almost gets into an accident! We’ve gotten quite used to driving on the left side and very slowly in Japan. When we got on the freeway, Matt felt all nervous that he was going so fast! Well, “so fast” is 45mph and he definitely needed to kick it up a bit, as everyone else was going 80! It was scary interesting watching him get used to driving in the US again. We arrived in Lompoc, called everyone we knew, didn’t get through to anyone, so we stayed in a hotel. It was nice to just relax and decompress from the long trip by ourselves. On Saturday (the real Saturday, not the Saturday in my confused head) we met up with Wayne and Rena, the wonderful couple from church that took us in as their “kids” (theirs had all moved out) and led the Bible study we attended for 2 years. It was nice to spend the weekend with them, have a little group reunion with some other church people, and show Rhino off. We also met up with our friends Denna, Adam & Ty. We went out to for an Italian dinner to catch up and gab. They ordered a plate of pasta for Tyler (2), but we discovered Rhino is nuts for pasta, and pretty much ate Ty’s whole plate! That was the first we saw of Rhino vehemently demanding table food and it was quite amusing, though slightly embarrassing to be out in a restaurant with a baby who yelled for food as if we hadn’t given him any for months! After church on Sunday we went over to Jody and Roy‘s to see their sweet baby girls, have some lunch, and catch up. The weekend was so short and we were fighting to stay awake during the day, so we didn’t end up doing all that I had planned. I couldn’t get a hold of Danielle and would have loved to stop by work (it was drill weekend), but it just didn’t happen. We drove back down to LA on Sunday night, got another hotel (oh my, another whole big terrible story, too!) and caught a flight to Dallas the next morning.

These descriptions will probably get shorter, now, as there’s still plenty more. Texas was nice. Papa was the only one to have met Rhino, back in March, so it was wonderful that all my uncles, aunt, grandparents, etc. got to meet him! Unfortunately, Rhino hadn’t gotten used to the time zones yet and had just started teething again, so he was pretty grumpy a lot of the week. We kept busy, though. We had a nice Mexican lunch out at the Tupinamba, a restaurant that my family always goes to when I come to visit! We got to see my brother, Matthew, who also lives in Dallas and finally meet his girlfriend, Adria. The five of us went to Ripley’s Believe it or Not, had lunch at Chili’s, and went over to their apartment for dinner and board games. Over the week we got plenty of gaming in — Sequence, Clue, Phase 10, Scattergories — and watched a couple of movies (Eagle Eye, The Other Boleyn Girl, As Good As It Gets). I also went with Grandmother and Aunt Pattie to a quarterly ladies’ luncheon at their church, which was really great! We had a delicious lunch, browsed through second-hand goodies to buy to support their Friendship House, and listened to a wonderful pianist and singer perform Christmas songs. Then on Friday, Papa took us out to the Granada, sort of his second home, with Matthew and Adria to see Bruce Robison & Kelly Willis. It wasn’t exactly our style of music, but it was nice to get out and see the theater and hang out with my dad and brother. We couldn’t bring Rhino, so it was his first time with a babysitter, Papa’s friend Kay. I was really worried that I’d get him to sleep at her house, leave, then he’d wake up and cry and never go back down for her. He did wake up a couple hours after we had left, and he cried for a little bit, then fell back asleep — I was quite impressed! Rhino got a few cute gifts from the Texas family. Papa got him some clothes, including a cute Dallas Cowboys onesie. Rhino also got a Bible stories book and a 2008 coin set. It was a nice time visiting with all the family and I’m glad they finally got to meet Rhino! We left Sunday morning for the next leg of our trip: New York!

Okay, so these aren’t getting much shorter! Well, not to New York. We flew into Buffalo and Matt’s parent’s were there to take us down to Obi. Matt’s sister, Jen, was waiting at home for us and everyone was so excited to see Rhino (and us, I guess!) We got in pretty late, so we pretty much went straight to bed. The rest of the week was filled with a lot of family (Matt has a lot of family close by!) visiting and staring at, taking pictures of Rhino! We went over to Mom-mom and Pop-pop’s one night to meet up with lots of aunts, uncles, cousins, etc.! Rhino got to meet Mitchell, a little boy just 3 weeks older than him. They were so cute together! Another night the church pastor and his family came over one night for dinner and games. Jen and I got a “sisters only” afternoon one day to go get lunch and tea and browse Jo-Ann’s. Jen, Mom and I had a cookie-decorating day! Matt’s brother Jason and his fiancée came over so they could meet Rhino and we could meet her! Later that week, they were married!! I got really sick the night before and couldn’t go to their wedding, though! It was tough, I spent about 36 hours curled up on the sofa or huddled in the bathroom. Rhino pretty much had a full day without Mommy, but he did really well with Grandma and Aunt substitutes! I was bummed to not be able to attend the wedding, but at least I recovered before our flight out. We also watched some movies (The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, Wall-E, and lots of MST3K.) We also had an early Christmas on the 17th. Matt got more MST3K, some anime, books, cross-stitching stuff; I got some great knitting books and some others; and Rhino received so many cute clothes and toys! They’re all wonderful, but the thing he definitely loved the most was Jen’s gift: a very cute little baby piano! Rhino had recently started really enjoying music and dancing anytime any song started: a commercial jingle, someone singing, 3 notes on a piano, someone whistling, etc.! So he would stand up at the piano, bang out a few notes, dance to his music, play a few more, dance, and on and on! Everyone loved watching him play! It was a fun early Christmas! We did it again a few days later at Aunt Ginny’s with Aunt Connie & Grandpa, too. Rhino got more wonderful outfits, toys, and books. Thankfully, Mom and Dad shipped everything to our home so we didn’t have to pack all the gifts out! We left for the airport Saturday afternoon, but our flight out of Buffalo had been canceled. We made the long drive back home to sleep, and got on an early flight Sunday morning for Colorado.

Originally we had planned to arrive in Colorado two days early, rent a car, stay in Mama’s condo in Denver, and visit with friends in Fort Collins and Denver. By the time we got to Colorado, we were running out of money, car rentals were really high, I was lazy and hadn’t recently been in touch with any friends, we’d lost a day due to our canceled flight, and we were feeling pretty run down. Mama and Ron just picked us up from the airport and took us down to the Springs. I feel like a terrible friend, but it was nice to just relax at “home.” Plus, my sister, her husband and daughter were flying in just a few hours later so I’m glad that we were around to spend more time with them. We had planned to spend time with our friends Carol and Derik, who live in Omaha (and we used to work together. Matt went to tech school with both of them.) They drove down to the Springs for the weekend to see us, but it only turned into an hour that they came over and chatted after dinner on Monday. It was so nice to see them and of course I would have liked more time, things just didn’t quite work out. I’m so glad we at least got to visit for a little bit. Hopefully we’ll have another opportunity before too long! So with my sister in town, I finally got to meet my niece, Amelia! She’s 8 days younger than Rhino and I was so excited to see the two of them together. It was so interesting, they are such different babies! Rhino is a lot more vocal, interested in music and crazy about food. Amelia is all ready running around!! She likes to do her own thing a lot. They both play so differently, sleep differently, eat differently, cry differently — it was quite an experience! She is so beautiful and such a sweetheart. At 10 months, the babies weren’t really interested in playing with each other, but they did play next to each other! We joke that Amelia is sort of a “bully” — they would both be playing with toys, but she would always want to take whatever Rhino had instead! Rhino was very laid back about the whole thing and never really seemed to mind, haha! I wish we could have spent more time with Andrea and her family, but hopefully we will get to see them next year (when the babies won’t be babies anymore — waah!) Aside from watching babies in Colorado, we did actually spend time with Mama and Ron, too! Their dogs, Jack and Tilley, are very high-strung little wild dogs (but so sweet!) and we were nervous about how they’d act around the babies. We were all very surprised though, they were SO good! Whenever a dog would come up to Rhino, we’d say “dog” a lot and eventually Rhino would look at the dog and say “dauh” — he just wouldn’t say the ‘g’. I’m not counting it as a first word, but it was really close and he would do it everytime he’d see a dog! One night we were there, we went out to the Golden Bee, an English pub at the Broadmoor hotel. It’s sort of a Christmastime tradition that my Grandpa started years ago. The babies were really well behaved and loved eating crackers. We drove around afterward and looked at the light displays. We spent a lot of time at home, just relaxing, chatting, hanging out in the kitchen, watching TV, etc. Mama made some great meals that Andrea and I tried to help out with! Andrea made a delicious spinach tofu lasagna one night and Mama and I made a copy of the Olive Garden’s Zuppa Tuscana soup (my favorite!) Andrea and I made multiple visits to the Whole Foods — it was like Grocery Heaven for us! I wish we had more than our crummy commissary selection and expensive Japanese produce out here. Andrea found a Buddha’s Hand and was so excited, she bought it as decoration (I thought it was more appropriate as a Halloween decoration!) We never did use it for anything, but in the future she wants to make candied peels out of one. I found a kiwano that I had wanted to try since I found this sorbet recipe on one of my favorite foodie blogs. Well, we didn’t make a sorbet, just ate spoonfuls from it — and it was less than enjoyable! Matthew and Adria flew in on the 23rd, so now all us siblings were together with our significant others! It was quite a full house, but tons of fun. We had a great, salmon Christmas Eve dinner and filled up on Christmas cookies (Mama went overboard with the date rolls, oatmeal chocolate chip, pinwheels, hazelnut cookies, ricotta cheese sugar cookies, etc, etc.!!) before heading off to the candlelight service at First Pres. It was a beautiful service and I was so glad Matthew and Adria joined us as well. When we got home we opened all of the “grown-up presents”. Mama and Ron got each couple an awesome digital frame, which I love! We did stockings and “baby presents” Christmas morning, which was lots of fun! The babies got some adorable clothes, wonderful books, and some very cute Little People toys! Andrea, Michael and Amelia flew out the next day, so we got some time with Matthew and Adria. We all went to Cave of the Winds, which was amazing! With all the time we lived in Colorado, none of us had ever been and it’s just a few minutes from home. We left from Denver early Sunday morning for our long flight back to Japan.

The whole month was filled with such nice visits with family. I’m still getting all the photos from each location together, then I will post them to the gallery and include links in this post. I didn’t really take many pictures at all, though! I guess I was too busy with Rhino and visiting that I just didn’t think much about photos. Thankfully, other people got a few! The whole trip was very tiring and expensive (see Matt’s post!), but was definitely worthwhile! Unfortunately, it very well may be our only trip back to the States while we’re stationed in Japan. Mama and Ron, Jen, and Matt’s parents are all planning trips out to see us within the next 18 months, though!! I can’t wait to show them all the wonderful things out here!

Edit: Here are links to the vacation photos from California, Texas, New York, and Colorado!

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Rhino and I went to the apple orchard, so I packed myself a lunch. It was so windy and dusty at the orchard that Liz and I went back to her kitchen to eat our bentos! I didn’t have anything too fancy. Stuffed onigiri, some peppers, more of the banana mess, carrots and tomatoes. Yum!

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