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

Rhianna

Rhianna again

More Rhianna

Rhianna and Dad look in the mirror

Feeding Rhianna

Rhianna looks up to Frodo

Folded in half, ready for sleep

Rhianna with Eric, Erica, and new friend Carson

Playing with new toys

Eric, Erica, Carson, John, Shinako, Rhianna

More playing on the couch

Playing on the couch pt. 2

John with Rhianna and Carson

Getting ready to go out

Rhianna and Great-Grandma

Getting sleepy

Crawling on the counter

Sleeping dog

Klumpp Christmas Tree

Family stockings

Santa Rhianna 1

Santa Rhianna 2

Santa Rhianna 3

Santa Rhianna 4

Santa Rhianna with Christmas Presents

Santa Rhianna with the family on the couch

Christmas turkey

Rhianna and Grandpa

Sleepy-time

Rhianna and Great-Grandma

John, Rhianna, Great-Grandma

More sleepy-time

Funny Rhianna

Even more sleepy-time

Back in Tokyo....

John and Jason

Sunday in Tokyo

It was a nice day in Tokyo today. Tokyo is actually very sunny during the wintertime, and as the air becomes colder and more crisp, the usual haze seems to dissipate, and you can see from Tokyo to Mt. Fuji on some days.

Today, we went out to eat with Shinako's parents to celebrate her father's retirement from his job. We ate at our usual (or at least I wish it were! The New York Grill at the Park Hyatt), and the view was beautiful as usual.

The big news for us this week was that Shinako's new business venture finally opened. It's an online store called Baby Purple, and it focuses on the sale of European and American clothing for babies. The site is in Japanese, but please check it out when you have a chance ( http://www.rakuten.co.jp/babypurple/). You may recognize the baby picture at the top of the site!

Rhianna has been doing fine and is very happy and healthy. She has another health checkup coming up soon, and I'm sure she will receive a good report. I'll include a few pictures from the past several weeks.

Pictures:
With Grandfather Hiroshi

Smiling

Modelling new jean jacket



Smiling

Rhianna likes to sit!

Modelling dad's hat

More Soon!

Outsitting!!! Rhianna makes her debut

It's getting noticeably colder here in Tokyo recently. We actually had to get our warm coats out and get in the mood for Christmas. Ginza and much of the area near where we live in Nihonbashi is already clearly getting decorated for Christmas, and it's pretty to see the lights and decorations when driving through the area.

Rhianna has made a major development over the past few days, and that is... sitting up by herself! She has really been trying to become more mobile over the past few weeks (see Rhianna's prison break video), but over the past few days she has actually become able to sit on her own without any support. Her balance is still a bit shaky, but she seems to like having the higher perspective from which to drop things for us to pick up, have them handed back to her, only to drop them again. She can pick up things for herself, but she likes them handed to her.

I'm including a bunch of pictures and a short movie of her in the act of sitting. Unfortunately, Rhianna has developed a cold over the past few days, but she seems to be feeling better, and hopefully by tomorrow she'll be back to normal (and we won't catch her cold!).

More soon!






Video

Rockies go down in defeat on Shinachan's Birthday

Unfortunately, the Rockies lost the World Series today. They were efficient, though, losing in four straight games. It's amazing to think that the 2007 Rockies season was actually about two months older than Rhianna is currently (the season started in early April). We all had a great time watching the games--thank goodness for Slingbox and Tivo!! As an added bonus to this blog, I'm including this photo my mom clipped from the local Reporter Herald Newspaper back in 1995 at the very first Rockies game ever played at Coors Field. As I mentioned in the last blog, a reporter from Loveland noticed us, took our picture, and put us in the paper. This is me (left) and my friend, Eric Richards.

On a lighter note, today was Shinako's birthday! We celebrated by going out to dinner at our new favorite Italian restaurant located nearby (picture included). Im also including a picture of Shinachan and Rhianna posing by Shinachan's birthday flowers!
Pictures
Flower Girls

Going out to Dinner

Restaurant

More soon!