Happy New Year!

It is 2010!

And we actually stayed up past midnight this year. Last year we went over to our friends house and came home and went to bed around 11:30. Hey, we had a newborn that we knew we need to be changed and fed.

This year we had friends from our small group Bible study over. We played a couple of games and ate some delicious food! We were hoping to see fireworks from our balcony (the Japanese randomly light fireworks and we have seen them a couple of times from our house) but that didn't happen.

It looks like 2010 might hold more travelling for us than 2009. We leave for Australia and New Zealand in about 2 1/2 weeks. We will be gone 20 days!!! After we get back I am going to allow a couple of weeks to forget about the long plane ride before I hop on an even longer one and space-a back to Oklahoma for a couple of weeks. Our only plane rides in 2009 involved going back to the states in March for 3 weeks. I think this has been the longest period where I haven't flown anywhere since 2005 (before that I had only flown twice in my life!)

Coupon Adventures

As I mentioned in the previous post, Dustin brought a huge box full of coupons home. There are places where you can go and just get a bag full or even a box full. Since I recently lost my coupon organizer (I think I must have left it at the store when I was shopping for Grace's birthday party) I was excited to get a good start on my new coupon organizer. Needless to say, with this many coupons we have had some good laughs!

- A ziploc bag dated 1/14/02 and contents marked as "1lb. cube steak." It contained several coupons with no expiration date. One was for 12 cents off of flour!

- An envelope of coupons with a note enclosed that had the lady's name along with "Faith church" on the envelope she had written "Hope church" under her return address. Hmmm...

- We found a coupon that expired in 1999. Yes, over 10 years ago!

- Several of the envelopes contained coupons sorted into small ziplocs ("food" and "non-food") and had a note with how many coupons in that bag, how much they are worth, and how long it took to cut/sort/add them.

We still have more to sort through!!!

Getting into things

This is one of Grace's FAVORITE things to do:

If it isn't one thing she is into it is another. After this incident with our DVD's (which were already crammed into our DVD cabinet) we decided that all of the DVD's other than Grace's would be put in a binder and the cases are boxed up.

It is almost useless to even put books on the bookshelf anymore. She will pull them all off and then find the one she is looking for and sit down to read it.

Today, Dustin brought home a huge box coupons (a mail carriers box full of big envelopes that are stuffed full) that people (or groups) have sent from the states. We can use coupons 6 months past the expiration date so units here receive quite a few boxes full of coupons. We were sorting through it and pulling out the ones that are past the 6 months expiration and then putting the ones we will use aside. The rest we will pass on for others to go through and use. Well, Grace wanted to help! She was pulling coupons out of the trash can faster than I could put them in. Then she started to put them on my face. I think she was trying to tickle me because she recently learned to "tickle." It is a fun game she likes to play and she never really tickles anyone but she sure does try hard.

Playing with her feet!

Today Grace got to be picked up by her Daddy from the gym on Foster since he gets off at noon. She had a good time in Daddy's new $700 clunker, which holds her old car seat for Father/Daughter adventures. After her lunch of mac and cheese and veggies, she took a short nap. Mommy got home and suggested we use our Macaroni Grill gift certificate that we got for Christmas from Grandma Phyllis to go out to eat dinner with. The ride to and from the restaurant was hilarious! Grace entertained herself by taking off her shoes and socks (her favorite pastime) and laughing at her feet. She kept grabbing her bare feet and then letting them go while giggling at them and playing her own little game. Even after dinner, when it was almost her bedtime, she couldn't stop laughing at those cute little feet. Once home, we decided it was time to practice using the pink potty. To get her to go, we try everything from turning the bathroom faucets on to shaking a bottle of water. Tonight, Heather had the BRILLIANT idea of getting a bowl of warm water to put her feet in. Putting her feet in turned into putting her hands in, and putting her hands in turned into splashing water all over herself and Mommy. Let's just say that we used about 4 towels to clean up the mess!

The very last week of the year

Today is the last Monday in 2009!

It is also the last few days of half-days for Dustin. We had planned on doing the JCI on my van this week. JCI is the Japanese insurance we have to have and an inspection. First you have to go pay for the insurance, then you go to another office and pay some sort of fee, then you go pay the inspection fee and then have the vehicle inspected. Well, we found out that the place that does the inspection is taking a 2 week break for Christmas/New Year's so we will have to wait until next week to do the JCI. Hopefully they won't find anything wrong with my van because all of the fees alone are a lot.

We are going to be hosting all of our friends from our small group Bible study for New Year's Eve. There will be finger foods and desserts and games!! It should be a fun night. Maybe some of us will actually stay up to ring in the new year with a glass of sparkling grape juice!

And just a tip for anyone sending musical/talking toys in the mail: if you don't turn them off you may just freak out the people at the post office!! My mom found a talking Elmo on her way to send us a package so she put it in with what she was sending. Well, when I picked it up today the guy at the post office brought me a box saying "Elmo loves you sooooo much!." As he handed to me he just stared at it and said "that is kind of freaky." I am sure heads were turning as I walked out of the post office this afternoon!!

More room to play!

We put away all of our Christmas decorations today. While unraveling the lights from the tree I realized that we may only have this tree for one more Christmas. Once we are back stateside we are going to buy a real tree every year.

Grace found it rather funny that we were messing with the Christmas lights. We had left our front door open (it goes out to our foyer which is totally enclosed with another door that leads to the stairway and an elevator) and Grace was wondering back and forth. She shut herself outside a couple of times. When she came back in and saw us taking the lights off the tree she put her hand over her mouth and started laughing!

After the inside decorations were packed up she got to help with the outside lights. Her job was to play peek-a-boo with us! We opened up both of our balcony doors and let her run in and out. She had quite a good time!

We put the furniture back where it belongs and made room for all of Grace's new toys. Now she has her playroom back. She ran back and forth across the room throwing a ball and laughing. She has so much more room to play now that the sofa is back where it belongs!

Christmas Fantasy at the Zoo

The rain finally stopped so we were able to go see the snow, lights, and fireworks at the zoo! It was a really fun experience and we all had a good time.

{ready to go!}

{bundled up and waiting in line to see SNOW!}

{We are in an Igloo!}

{and there was a snowman}

We saw that you could pay 500 Yen to ride down a slide and we decided it wasn't worth it. But when we saw it we thought it might be fun after all. They let Grace go free too!

{Weeeee!!}

After we saw the snow it was time to eat so we went up to the pavilion we used for Grace's birthday party. We had packed a meal for Grace since most of the food at this type of thing is either noodles or fried and we are not fans of either. We ended up getting some french fries for us and hot chocolate from the vending machine! While we were eating we spotted a big inflatable Elmo and thought Dustin could win it for Grace. I am confident he would have won if we had more clear of instructions. We thought you had to throw the ball and hit the numbers and get 3 in a row. Turns out you had to throw the ball hard enough to knock the number out of the frame they were in. We didn't find this out until after he had hit a number and didn't have enough balls left for a bingo. Oh, well. Grace ended up with an inflatable wand instead!

When it got dark they lit up the entire park in Christmas lights. It was so pretty!! The pictures are not very good but you can somewhat tell what we saw.

Then we started making our way back to the entrance so we could watch the laser light show from there and then make a quick exit. Grace thoroughly enjoyed the laser lights! She was clapping and dancing to the music!

{watching the light show}

{on Daddy's shoulders}

We have taken several videos the last few days and I finally moved them to the computer so I am going to share a few.

The first 4 are from the zoo!

{checking out the snow}

{the little sled ride}

{still the King of Pop in Japan}

{this is very bad quality but I think you can get a little idea of what it like here!}

Grace had a wonderful Christmas morning! She got a new kitchen from Santa Claus and food, pots & pans, and a baking set from Mommy and Daddy. She got a lot of other things too - way too many to name them all!

{Grace playing with her new kitchen from Santa on Christmas morning}

Christmas Eve was a gorgeous day! Dustin fixed the wagon (a screw had came out) and took Grace for a ride on our balcony.

{going for a ride}