Fourth of July

Our fourth of July wasn't all that fun, but we tried to celebrate nonetheless. We wanted to do fireworks with the Yaguchis and have flag cake, but nothing really worked out. First we couldn't find the right things for the cake, and then the Yaguchis couldn't do the fireworks with us on the fourth, so we did them on the third. Kaiya was pretty fussy, so we went down to do them when it was halfway over already. We were going to try again just with our family on the fourth, but then it was raining. So, all in all it wasn't that great, but I guess we shouldn't expect much when we aren't even in the US. Here are some pictures anyway.

Cute Kaiya

Here are some of the most recent pictures of our little princess. Some of her latest tricks include rolling from her back to her side, making clicking sounds with her mouth, and our favorite, sniffing! She loves to sniff new things and when she finds a scent she really likes she smiles so big!

Exciting New Things

A few days ago we went to the liquor store where we buy our American food and we came across this "Ice Cucumber" Pepsi. Feeling adventurous, we purchased said Pepsi. It is an interesting flavor, and I'm not sure that I would normally associate the two together, but overall it wasn't too bad. We also saw this mini watermelon and decided to give it a try. As a gift for shopping there, the store clerks gave us some mini beer on our way out. It's kind of a funny gift to give for shopping at their store, but I guess it is a liquor store. Don't worry though, we gave it to the neighbors.

An Adventure in Shopping Mall Lunch

So here's a funny story from last Saturday's shopping trip. We went to the mall to look for a dress with sleeves (a rare find in the US), and got there around lunch time. We made our way to the McDonalds and avoided all the Japanese eateries. We got our food and sat down at the nearest table next to a cute little Japanese girl. We noticed this girl was eating Takoyaki (fried Octopus) and sitting seiza style in a wooden high chair like thing for kids. Sitting seiza style is pretty uncomfortable (for a westerner) anyway, but on a wooden chair it looked pretty painful. However she had a perfectly content look on her face and was thouroughly enjoying her octupus lunch. I was thinking that this girl must be from a pretty traditional family, when all of the sudden her father (or possibly grandfather, not really sure) sat down with her and proceeded to scarf down his KFC meal. It was pretty funny, needless to say. I only wish I had taken a picture!

(The pictures are of Takoyaki and a Japanese child sitting seiza style)

A Sparrow's Nest

Kaiya isn't the only baby in the Taylor house these days. We have a nest in our garage that is home to five baby birds. They are just learning to fly now, so they may be gone soon. They do make a mess, but it has been fun having them.

Kaiya is Two Months Old!

Monday was Kaiya's two month mark, so I took a few (okay, a few dozen) pictures to celebrate. She's getting so big already and smiles a ton when she's happy. She's weighing in at about 12 pounds now too and she's growing a pretty good set of eyelashes to bat at all of her admirers. She still gives us a good dose of crying each day, but now the smiles make us forget about it when she's finished.

Leaving So Soon...

So, since we are soon leaving Japan, I thought I would post a few pics of interesting things you can only see here. Okay, you probably can see them elsewhere, just not in the US. And I have to thank Ginger for taking most of these pictures, since these things have all become just normal for us. This first one is of a school that Patrick works at. No, it's not abandoned or condemned, kids actually go to school here. All of the schools look kind of scary like this. They aren't so bad on the inside at least...

This is a picture of our bathroom. Yep, it's just a little room with a toilet. The sink is on the top of the tank. It's a pretty interesting way to do it, but the water always comes out cold, which is not so great in the winter, since the room isn't heated.

This is a picture of our house, which isn't that weird i guess, except that it's located in a parking lot.

This is a great photo. Most of the old women around here are permanently bent over from working in the rice fields all their lives, so they push around these little carts to help them balance. This lady decided to use a baby high chair instead. They all still work outside every day, so she has her hoe stashed in the baby cart in case she needs it. All the Grandmas dress like that too, even though it's like 85 degrees out.

Actually, this one isn't weird, but I though it was a really beautiful picture of the sunset over some traditional rooftops by our house.

This is a picture from the bonsai show at the train station. They had dozens of bonsai and most of them were flowering like this. It was really interesting.

That's it for now, but there may be more installments of interesting things in Japan later.

What a Cutie!!

Here's one of the first smiles caught on camera!

A Family Hike

I rarely have two free hands to type now, so it's going to be mostly pictures for a while. But those are more fun anyway, right? So... this is the same hike we did in the fall, only now it's spring and we have a new little addition. Her first hiking experience!

More pics

No real big stories to report on lately, but she did turn one month and weighed in at 9lbs at that time. The top two pictures were taken about 2 seconds apart so you can see how fast things change. The bottom is mid yawn. Probably one of those pictures that only the immediate family enjoys, but since its our blog we decided to put it on anyway.

Bath Time!

Kaiya loves her bath time, except for the getting in and getting out part. It's so cute to see her relax in it. Sometimes we even style her hair:)

Kaiya's Blessing Day

Kaiya was blessed on May 6th. She was so cute in her little blessing dress! You can see all the people in our branch admiring her and taking pictures of her with their phones. She's pretty popular here!

Kaiya's First Big Adventure

Well, it really isn't that big, but we did venture out this afternoon to see the Sakura (cherry blossoms). They are only in bloom for one week a year, and Kaiya was born in time to see them this year. It was nice for all of us to get out, and we think Kaiya liked it even though she slept the whole time. She even dressed up in her cherry outfit for it. We took a ton of pictures, but here are a few of the really cute ones:)

Hospital Photos

We're home now, but these are some pictures of Kaiya in the hospital. The pictures are a little deceiving though because she isn't much of a sleeper really. But we are beginning to figure each other out. I want to write more, but the little one isn't in the mood, so hopefully more later.

Kaiya Elizabeth Taylor

The little angel we've all been waiting for finally arrived on the 18th at 10:28pm. She weighed 7lbs 2oz and was 19 inches long. I will give the brief story now and put some photos up, and Im sure Crystal will fill in a lot of holes once she gets home. Contractions started at 2am on the 18th, we went the hopsital at 1pm and contractions were at 3 minutes, but she was only dialated cm. By 8pm the contractions were on top of each other so there was no rest but she was still only at 5cm. The pain was so bad we asked if there was anything they could do and the nurse said. "you could always do and epideral," which went against everything we'd been told for the last 9 months. So 30 minutes later Crystal was Crystal again and because she could relax she dialated a lot faster. By 10 she was at 9cm, but her water stil hadnt broken. The nurse said push at about 10:10 and about four contractions later she was out. The doctors and nurses were all amazed someone who was making as much noise as Crystal from pain could push her out so fast. So thats the birth story. I'm sure well add a lot more side stories, but I'm pretty sure you all just want pictures anyway, so heres a few more. Bear in mind all these photos were taken within an hour of birth so we was still in the alien/grandpa phase. Lastly, sorry if this message sounded funny but I havet slept in 2 days and Crystal usually proofreads my blog entries anyway. Thanks for all the support everyone gave us.

Sorry the formating was weird, couldnt get the text before the pictures.

Beautiful Baby

This is from our 35 week ultrasound. Since we changed to a new doctor, we haven't gotten printouts of the ultrasounds because he videotapes them instead. So we took this picture off of the TV when we were watching the tape yesterday. The pictures aren't very good becuase of that, but we thought it was better than nothing. We think this little one is pretty cute though:)

Patrick's Ski Day

Last week Patrick got to go skiing with one of the schools he teaches at. It was pretty small, and in fact they only had two ski slopes: kind of steep not very steep at all. But he had fun and enjoyed getting to spend time with his students outside of class. And the largest boots they had barely fit him!