Rhianna, Shinachan and John's Blog

Sunday, February 17, 2008

February Update

It has been a cold past several weeks for us here in Tokyo. Luckily, we've enjoyed staying indoors (and running up a huge electricity bill) while watching Rhianna grow and enjoy standing. She loves to pull herself up and stand next to us for long periods of time. Another of her favorite activities is pulling herself up next to the table and walking around it while knocking things onto the floor. She has a tremendous reach, so in our small apartment virtually nothing can be put too far away for her to get her hands on. It's pretty funny to watch her do this, but we definitely have to keep an eye on her at all times. She's a fast crawler now, but just on the verge of walking. Maybe by the next blog, she will be walking around our apartment!
She also has 8 teeth (four on top, four on the bottom), which aids in her eating (at least i think so--she still eats mostly soft foods). Her favorite foods are tofu, fruit (especially mandarin oranges, but also apples and bananas), and a few other items, but she does not like raw tomatos (just like her dad). She also enjoys drinking tea out of a non-spill bottle with a straw.
Shinako's online business has been doing well. She started out fairly well in January, but has done very well in February, surpassing her sales for January before the first week of the month was over. Maybe that has something to do with her models, Rhianna (Baby Purple) and Carson Richards.
I'm attaching several pictures taken over the past month.
Pictures
Rhianna in her pink coat

Rhianna in her pink coat (pt 2)

Sleeping on dad's lap

More sleeping on dad

Standing tea bar

Enjoying tea

Hanging out at the standing tea bar

More tea drinking

Am I spilling something? How funny I am!!

Rhianna-chan relaxed

Rhianna modelling for mom

More modelling

Out shopping with mom and dad

Out shopping with mom and dad (pt. 2)

More soon!!

Monday, January 14, 2008

Rhianna's First Colorado Christmas, or There and Back Again

After a long delay, I'm back to good health and ready to update the blog. We've had a very busy past month, but I'll try to fill in the highlights as much as possible. We went to my home in Colorado on the 22nd of December, but for the preceding week, I was terribly sick with a cold. Unfortunately, both Shinako and Rhianna caught my terrible cold just in time for the flight back. Luckily, Rhianna had no problems on the flight. She's a very good little girl, sleeps well, and rarely cries, but we didnt know what to expect for a round-trip of two long flights from Tokyo to Seattle, and then Seattle to Denver. As always, though, Rhianna was just fine. In fact, she was her usual Miss Popularity self, and the stewardesses on the flight even asked to carry her around the plane.

We arrived in Colorado completely exhausted and sick, but it was a wonderful reunion with my parents. We spent the first week of our trip to Colorado basically reccuperating, recovering from jet-lag, and watching various reality television show marathons on tv. Unfortunately, not long after we began our trip, my parents both caught the cold, so the entire family was sick for a period of time. Luckily, however, during the second week of our trip everyone started to come back to normal, and we were able to go out for a bit of shopping and go to a few restaurants. My good friend, Eric Richards, and his wife, Erica, and son, Carson, also came over for a fun visit. It was really neat watching Carson and Rhianna interact. Carson is about 2 months older than Rhianna, and really crawling well. Im sure he'll be walking soon!!! You may notice Carson and Rhianna wearing the same clothes in a few pictures--those just happen to be from Shinako's online store, Baby Purple, and their pictures can be seen again at this link: ( http://item.rakuten.co.jp/babypurple/c/0000000101/).
By the way, Shinako's store, which opened last month, is doing very well!

This week, my good friend, Jason Latorre, is visiting from Vietnam. Jason is a diplomat with the Canadian Foreign Service who I met and became friends with when I lived in Yamagata. Jason and I travelled together on separate trips to both Vietnam and Cambodia in the late 90's, and share an interest in the languages, cultures, and histories of Asian countries, not to mention an interest in making trouble. Jason is here for a meeting at the Canadian embassy in Tokyo, and we all spent a pleasant evening out on Saturday. Jason and I also spent the evening out with his friends from the Canadian embassy in Tokyo on Tuesday night.

One piece of big news from me is that I resigned from Johnson & Johnson, and will be starting work with a new company in February. I'll let you know which company that is in a later blog...

Rhianna is just about to really crawl, and has been rolling from side to side all across the room recently. She has just started to figure out going foward very slowly. I think in the next few days, it will become a full crawl. Time to baby-proof the apartment!

I'll post several pictures and videos from the past month.

More soon!!!

Flight Video Pt. 1

Flight Video Pt. 2

Arrival at Denver Airport