Year in Review: 2004

Top 10 Happenings of 2004...


10. Blog: I love the venue to let those who care about us read about us

9. Experiencing Japan: cherry blossoms in Hirosaki, camping at Tanesashi Beach, hiking and snowboarding Mt. Hakkoda, Disneyland and Disney Sea in Tokyo, and the Snow Festival in Sapporo

8. Hawaii: celebrating our first year of marriage

7. Stateside: exploring Seattle and spending time with family

6. New job: no deployments (since January), feeling more productive, and wearing workout clothes to work

5. Trip to China: mystery revealed, history, and culture

4. Friends: leaving and coming in to our life in Misawa

3. Webers’ leaving Japan: we love ‘em

2. Sheila getting pregnant: Trish’s sister due around the same time

1. Our pregnancy: life will never be the same

Snowboarding Mt. Hakkoda

Today I went snowboarding with Curtis, Jeni, and Mike Alvarez at Hakkoda. The snow was so deep and powdery. That is good and bad. It doesn't hurt as much when you fall, but sometimes it is so difficult to get up. Curtis and I took the "Forest Trail" on our last run of the day. It was the best and worst part of the rip. You can see Curtis in the picture on part of that run. However, at the end, we had to traverse through five feet of snow for about 300 frustrating, exhausting yards.

What we did for Christmas

We went to the traditional Candlelight Christmas Eve service at the Chapel. Then we went to the Hospitality House where we (Me and Trish) stayed up till about 3 am (others stayed up till 5 am) playing games, watching movies, eating sweets, chatting, and just having an all around festive time. So we all spent the night there and then opened presents mostly that family had sent, or in our case, from one another. I made four grain pancakes for breakfast and then we did more of the same as last night for most of the rest of the day. Also, me and Curtis also went to the onsen (hot spring). And, me and Trish went with Curtis to Hachinohe (neighboring town) to deliver a package to a missionary family where we got a tour of their church and garden and ate dinner at a favorite restaurant.

I missed seeing my family for the second year in a row, but I am blessed to have so many close friends here to share this special time.

The Big 3-0

Today marks 30 weeks. I can't believe it! The books say she should be about 3 pounds and about 16 inches now. This morning I spent a couple of minutes feeling her hiccuping. What an awesome feeling! Believe it or not, it hasn't sunk in yet that I am 10 weeks away from being a father, a daddy. Actaully I guess I already am, but you know what I mean. Yesterday we bought a changing table (59% off) and a couple of days ago some one gave us a box of used clothes so our house is filling up. We'll be ready.

Orphan Yuuka

I can't believe I forgot to bring our camera when we visited the Akebono Orphanage for a Christmas party with people from our command and their families. Seven or eight-year-old Yuuka, who sat with us for lunch and performed in an adorable dance in her Santaesque costume, was a memory I regret not capturing on film. The children performed a few dances and songs and we “performed” by singing Silent Night and Jingle Bells.
We spent most of the day at the orphanage and had a smorgasbord of food that we brought and the orphanage provided. We brought PBJs. We sponsored kids and Santa gave them their presents. We had a nineteen-year-old girl, Aikiko, who opened her present at our table without knowing it was us who got it for her. Trish did a great job in picking out a watch, among some other things, that we saw her awe over.
Japan is a wealthy country and so your typical mental pictures of overseas orphanages in developing nations are probably not what it is like here. The children are well taken care of and seemed to be very loved and happy. So that is good to know.
I do not know how much they understand about Christmas. I think perhaps here it is purely a marketing strategy as it has in so many ways in the States. We even saw Christmas sales in communist China. I wish I knew Japanese so that I could tell them about “the reason for the season.” I will have to be content in my prayer that they and unknowing people all over the world will seek out and find the answer to why we truly celebrate Christmas and embrace Him when they do.

What???

It is a strange phenomenon in Japan how they use English. This sign is perhaps my favorite, glaring example. They are actually trying to say "Japanese people only." You would think that if they are going to spend money on making a sign that they would have it proofread. But, no, this is the norm. Another thing they have are shirts with English writing that make no sense or are just awkward sentences. One of mine reads, "I love the banana its cheap but its not free." Even American companies like Nike sometimes have weird sayings in their advertising. I don't get it... do you?

We probably do the same thing with Chinese characters in the States. They may look neat, but the may just say, "vital core fact funk," like one of Trish's sweatshirts.

Hiccups

Early this morning Trish had me fill her tummy for what we believe to be hiccups. It was too rythmic to be kicks and we've heard that babies do hiccup in the womb. Then I rolled over and went back to sleep for another two hours.

Holiday Party and Prizes

It's that time of year... holiday parties. Besides hanging out with friends, the best part of our command party was all of the rafle prizes. I won a treadmill valued at $99 that I took back to the BX for store credit. We also invited our friend Curtis and paid for his ticket and so when he won a HP PDA valued at $269 we split the store credit. So we made out with $235! YES!

So the next two weeks we get two four-day weekends and the other days we only have to work half-days. We are looking forward to the down time. I plan on reading up some more on childbirth and the first year.

Changes at Work

So our Commanding Officer doesn't want my job as Fitness Leader to exist because he wants to put more control in the hands of supervisors. So starting at the beginning of the year I will have a new job. In the meantime, I have been tasked to come up with and implement a plan for this reorganization. So that is what I have been doing at work.

I don't want to go back to my old job since I would have to deploy, and of course, I don't want to deploy since the baby is on the way. I think I will be able to do a job in our training department though. Let's hope and pray.

4D

Trish is in her 28th week now and of course showing a bit more. I love rubbing her belly. It seems that the time is flying by. We went to the Japanese clinic today with high hopes of getting a good 4-D ultrasound picture. As you can see it didn't turn out very clear, but hopefully next time. It is still awesome to ponder the miracle of birth as you look at the picture.

We had an ultrasound at the base hospital on Monday and everything is looking good. She was 2 pounds 6 ounces.

Our Trip to China

I actually wrote ten pages in my journal, but I don't want to bore you with all of that so I will try to hit the highlights. The first full two days of the trip were spent with a tour group of about 30 people. We woke up around 0600 and got back around 2100 so it was exhausting yet very rewarding. In that time period we climbed the Great Wall; wondered around the Tomb grounds of the 3rd Emperor of the Ming Dynasty; strolled through the Summer Palace grounds; crossed Tiananmen Square; passed through the Forbidden City; toured the Temple of Heaven park; rode on a rickshaw around a Hutong (traditional Chinese neighborhood); visited jade, silk, cholosine, rug, and tea factory/shops; of course, shopped; and ate who knows what and you don’t want to know (actually I ate four fried scorpions). We are glad that we did the tour because it made it so easy to do so much in such a little time. However, it was nice to get on our own.

So the next day we took a 1.5-hour train ride ($4) to Tianjin where we met up with Lonnie, an American professor teaching in China, who we got in contact with through Mark Lanker’s friend. We went to the International Fellowship and then ate lunch at Subway with Lonnie and another couple. Our two-hour conversation there is perhaps the best part of the trip because of the insight and perspective into China we gained (we were and are interested in living their someday). Lonnie showed us typical China and we spent a while talking at Starbucks.

We took a train back to Beijing and spent two days with Tania, a British friend we know from when she taught English in Japan (she teaches English there now). We shopped, explored, drank tea at a fancy Tea House, and ate lots of American food.

After that we decided to go back to Tianjin for a day and a half because it was familiar and a great city to live in if we decide to go to China. So we explored the city (7 million people), shopped at Wal-Mart, and ate dinner with Lonnie ($0.80 for all three of us). The last two nights we stayed at a five-star hotel in Beijing and tried to relax a little which involved shopping and eating at Outback.

This is an extremely abridged version of our trip. I love talking or writing about it so if you want to know any more about it, just ask.

If you want to see a slideshow of some of our pictures in China go to http://share.shutterfly.com/osi.jsp?i=EeAOXDdm5ctWzpw…