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:

Sea Paradise: The Yokohama Aquarium

Last weekend we headed down to Yokohama to go visit Sea Paradise with a friend of mine from work and his family. The little digital camera I packed was woefully inadequate for taking pictures of the jumping dolphins, porpoises, and beluga whales during the Marine Mammal show, however I did catch a good picture of a Walrus doing its Macauly Culkin impression:



Sarah and Robert preparing to enjoy the show:



A 3-story tank:



And what aquarium would be complete without a snack stand in the form of a San Francisco cable-car? Interestingly, the poster you can see in the window at the end of the car informed me that the F-line train running from Fisherman's Wharf, up Market Street to Castro has only been in service since 1995. Who knew?



Anyhow, I know this is kind of a short post, but we're heading to Waikiki tomorrow for a week's vacation so there are a few last-minute details to finish up. The itinerary we've got planned looks something like this:

Sunday: lay on the beach & play in the water.
Monday: lay on the beach & play in the water.
Tuesday: lay on the beach & play in the water.
Wednesday: lay on the beach & play in the water.
Thursday: lay on the beach, play in the water, and eat Turkey.
Friday: lay on the beach & play in the water.
Saturday: lay on the beach, play in the water, and watch the Cougs lose.
Sunday: lay on the beach, play in the water, and head back home.

My folks are flying in on Wednesday and staying at the hotel next-door. We're staying at the Sheraton Princess Kaiulani across the street from the beach -- much more economical than staying on the beach.

I'll post again once we've arrived and gotten ourselves situated.

More Language Fun!

Ok, so I know I just posted, but this really couldn't wait. The Japanese language is rife with onomatopoeic phrases, one of which is 'Shyua', 'Shyua', for the sound you make while brushing your teeth. Robert is very familiar with this phrase; one of his morning cartoons features the "Shyua Shyua" song.

Robert also attends pre-school several days each week. One of his closest friends at the school is another boy named Kenzo. Kenzo is Belgian by heritage, his folks are from the French speaking part of Belgium (not to be confused with the Flemish speaking part of Belgium -- they aren't really on speaking terms), so Kenzo gets mostly French at home. Kenzo is also just learning to talk, and the reports we get from Robert's teachers basically say that Kenzo and Robert spend all day talking in a language that only they can understand.

While "Shyua Shyua" is the Japanese sound for toothbrushing, "Amagake" is the official term for brushing your teeth (or so I've gathered from Robert's show). So the other night I gave Robert his bath, got him dressed for bed, turned to him and said "Amagake?", and he looked at me and responded "Le Shyua!" before running into the bathroom for his toothbrush.

Robert's First Sentance

First things first; it's been rainy here, so we did not get up to much mischief this weekend. Sarah and Robbie slept in 'till well past 9:00 this (Sunday) morning, so I decided to make a good old-fashioned brunch of fruit, waffles, & bacon. Robert came upstairs while I was cooking the bacon and as soon as he smelled it began excitedly jumping up and down in the kitchen next to me shouting "Bacon! Bacon!" and as he ran into the living room to make sure mama knew what we were getting for breakfast, he exclaimed "I Love Bacon!" -- his first complete sentence. I have never been so sure he was my son, nor so proud. :-D

Although we stuck pretty close to home, we did make it to Shibuya to purchase a fake(!) Christmas tree. I never thought I'd see the day when we didn't have a real tree, but as we have yet to see a true Christmas tree, we figured a false tree is better than no tree at all.

While shopping, I came across a couple of things that I thought were worth sharing. It's taken me 3 days to get these pictures off of my mobile phone, but at long last, I have finally managed it. Here they are. Enjoy:

First, spray-bottle covers:



If you get one of these babies for Christmas, well, you saw it here first.

Next up, if you've ever been out to the coast to dig razor clams, then you know what a fashion parade it can be. While cold weather gear is nice to have, and waterproofing is de rigueur, the perfect pair of high-heeled galoshes can really take your outfit to the next level:



Last but not least, here is a picture from this summer that's been living on my camera for far too long. This gigantic octopus is located between Ebisu station and my office at Prime Square Tower. There are some other playgrounds closer to home, but none of them attempt to tackle the oversized sea creature meme quite like this one:

Tokyo Disneyland

Sarah, Robbie and I were supposed to head to Thailand last week, but work and expensive airline tickets conspired to keep us a bit closer to home. Instead of Thailand, we visited Tokyo Disneyland last Thursday.



Disneyland was celebrating Halloween, and the whole park was done up in theme: cobwebs, ghosts, and pumpkins abounded, not even the resident marching band was spared:



The band was really excellent. They (of course) played mostly themes from various Disney movies but the arragements were excellent, and the sound was tight. Robert had a great time watching and listsening to them -- so much so that he did not want to leave until they were through with their performance. We even caught them again in the afternoon on our way out because he seemed to enjoy it so much. I think we've got a future band nerd in the making -- not that he ever had much choice in the matter.

We rode a couple of rides, watched a halloween-themed parade, rode another couple of rides, ate some tasty food and rode a few more rides. Even on a Thursday the threat of rain in the forecast, the lines for the major attractions were 2+ hours long. Luckily for us, Robert didn't care about riding the "big" rides, (and probably was not tall enough for them anyhow) so we enjoyed riding some of the smaller attactions -- besides, the lines for those were only between 1/2 hour and 45 minutes long.

Right about the time Robert was winding down and heading toward a nap, the clouds opened up and it started pouring down rain. At this point we decided to take our leave of Disneyland, so we hopped the train back home. Door to door, the trip to Disneyland was not quite an hour, so it's definitely something we will do again. The world's only Disney Sea is also here in Tokyo. We will check it out before long too.

On Saturday we headed to the Ueno Zoo and visited the animals. On the way there, we ran into George Clooney -- or rather we ran into a billboard of George parking his Honda. Only in Japan. I can't decide whether the item in his hand is a remote ignition for the vehicle, or whether the car is a prop in some elaborate casino heist and he's got a hand-held detinator, ready to blow it to smithereens.



In either case, he appears to be trying to get some distance between himself and the vehicle in a big hurry.