Visiting Our E. Washington Kin

Perhaps it's because we're on vacation and don't have any particular schedule to keep, but the confluence of arctic air and moisture-laden storms off the Pacific that have kept Washington State swaddled in a blanket of white since we arrived have been a real treat for us. On Monday it warmed up to around 20, so I took Robbie to Randal Park. He had a great time in the snow, but he still did not want to wear his mittens!



On Tuesday we travelled from Yakima down to Pasco to visit my father's family. We had a very nice visit, and a tasty dinner at Cousins, but I did not take enough pictures! Here is one I did take; Robert with his great-grandmother Ardery:



There was around 6" of snow in Pasco. Not quite as much as many other parts of the state, but quite a lot for Pasco. On Wednesday, we headed North to Omak to spend Christmas with Sarah's mother's family. The drive was uneventful, but Omak brought a return to frigid temperatures.

Here are a couple pictures I took of Robert shortly after our arrival:





We all enjoyed our stay in Omak. Our activities could easily be broken down into three categories: over-eating, napping/sleeping, and reading/playing board games. Robbie's aunt Abi and uncle Seth arrived shortly after we did; Robbie likes most people, but he really took a shining to his aunt. He spent most of his time either in her arms, on her lap, or hanging on her leg. I think Sarah rather enjoyed the break. ;-)

This morning we woke up to a temperature of -5 (that's -21 Celsius if you're keeping track). After it warmed up a bit, Earl and I took Robbie out to see the farm. He found the tractor:





Please note that Robbie finally decided that it was OK to wear his mittens. Yeah! And to close out the post, here's a short clip of our drive South of Leahy, WA:



I could have edited the clip down from 59 seconds, but I wanted to you a nice sense of what the drive back to Yakima was like. All 3+ hours of it. Really though, it was a good time, especially once Robert woke up from his nap and went "Uh oh ... ngh, ngh ... Stuck!" while straining in his car-seat. Shortly thereafter we had our first family sing-along, and it proved quite entertaining. Robbie's repertoire is a bit limited at the moment, but we'll soon flesh it out. We're heading to Lacey on Sunday, probably via White pass, so we should have plenty of time to practice.

Chilling in Yakima

This morning it was 3 degrees out:



For those of you who are Fahrenheit challenged, that's -16 degrees celsius. Why did we leave Japan again? Actually we've been having a fabulous time here in Yakima.

We landed in Seattle at 8:30 on Saturday morning:



and Sarah's brother Seth picked us up. Thanks Seth! We ate lunch with him, then high-tailed it across the pass just ahead of the storm. It was 10 degrees as we arrived Yakima and the snow began falling in fine dry flakes. By morning, we had several inches of powder.

We were all a bit jetlagged on Sunday:



but today everyone seems to be more-or-less adjusted.

Tomorrow we are going to head down to Pasco to visit my relatives down there, then we head up to Omak on Wednesday for Christmas with Sarah's grandparents. They've got a bit more than a foot of snow up there, but it's a bit closer to freezing there too, so maybe Robbie will be more interested in playing outside.

We'll head back to Yakima on Saturday, then it's over to Lacey on Sunday.

... そして私達は東京に戻った(... and then we returned to Tokyo)

So I promised an e-mail from nice relaxing Honolulu. Sorry to dissapoint... it seems I overestimated blogging's appeal compared to sleeping, playing on the beach, swimming in the ocean, and just generally goofing around in the fantastic weather we had last week. We did not spend much time indoors.

We started off the week by taking in the Honolulu zoo on Monday morning. The facilities are a bit old, but the animals seemed to be well cared for. Here is Robert showing off his new Crocs in front of the Sloth. The Sloth is what looks more-or-less like a shaggy branch almost directly above Robert's head:



The next day we did the Honolulu Aquarium. This was not a particularly large aquarium, but it was very good; lots of large salt-water tanks, colorful reef fish and live coral. I don't have any pictures, but it was a pleasant way to spend a couple of hours.

Here is the obligatory beach picture. This is the interior of the sand castle I built for Robert. There were turrets, but Robert played Godzilla, smashing them down just about as quickly as I could put them up! The little boy on our the right in the picture was building a sand-castle near us, but it kept getting swept away. After a while he asked me if he could help with ours.

Who am I to say no?



My folks arrived mid-week and we shared a Thanksgiving buffet:



I purchased a ukulele while Robert played with some other traditional Hawaiian musical instruments:



Then it was off to the WSU vs. University of Hawaii football game. The Cougs did not put in a good performance, and it rained off an on for the whole game, so I don't have any pictures. But in closing, here we are, goofing off at the airport waiting for our flight back: