More of the cuteness...

Slowly but surely we are getting our new routine down with Miss Sophie. So far we feel super lucky with the fact that she is a pretty good sleeper at night, so just hoping that doesn't change.

Here are some more pictures of our sweet baby girl.

Until next time...Jenn

Miss Sophie Jane

Just thought that I would give you guys a few pictures of what's been going on in our lives these days. We are over the moon about the newest addition to our family.....Miss Sophie Jane!

Until next time...Jenn

Baby Stanley's Pad

So, by popular demand I've finally gotten around to taking some pictures of Baby Stanley's nursery and bathroom. They aren't the best pics, but it's hard to capture everything. We finally got all our baby loot to Tokyo from the US and got it all set up. Now we're officially ready for this precious blessing to get here! Thanks so much to all our friends and family that so generously gave us so many wonderful gifts to use for our sweet baby. A extra big shout out to my wonderful parents that gave us the fab crib AND helped me ship all this fantastic stuff to Tokyo. It was quite the adventure! Can't wait for him or her to get here and use all the great stuff!

Until next time...Jenn

What's Been Happenin'

So, as you all know we have had a roller coaster month. I'm happy to report that things in Tokyo seem to be slowly getting back to normal and our friends have slowly trickled back into town, which is comforting. We were able to go home for a few weeks right after the earthquake and it was so nice to be with family. I was especially thankful that I was able to see family and friends while I was pregnant so they could be apart of our blessing.

I'm attaching some pictures of what we were up to. First we were able to celebrate the gorgeous wedding of some of our Tokyo friends Rob and Andrea in Chicago. Congratulations you guys, we're so happy for you.

And next I have a few pics from my time home with my mom, dad, and Josh. We spent lots of time hanging out on the porch and just enjoying our time together. I miss them so much! And FYI, this is me around 34 weeks. I'll try and take a few more pictures soon now that we're at 37 as I keep getting bigger!!!

Until next time...Jenn

Babymoon

So as I mentioned in the prior post, John and I decided to take one last trip as a family of two (and one puppy of course). Since I'm large and in charge these days we decided to go to the beach in Thailand to just rest and relax and enjoy the sunshine. We had the best time and I just thought we'd share some of the fun pictures.

You'll see the police boat in the pictures that was deposited really far inland by the huge tsunami. It's hard to imagine something like that happening. We stayed in Khao Lak, which was the hardest hit in Thailand. So sad to think about, but the town has really bounced back, which was a good thing to see.

We got back yesterday to Tokyo and it snowed this morning.....I want to go back to the sunshine!

Hong Kong Shower of Love

John and I took one more vacation or more commonly known as our babymoon. But we decided to stop in Hong Kong on our way to visit with some very dear friends of ours. And they threw me a very special shower to celebrate Baby Stanley. Here are some pictures of the fun and a few of our outing to Macau while we were in the area.

Thank you so much Allie and Annemarie....love you both so much!

Until next time...Jenn

Happy Day - O - Luv

I just wanted to send out a little love to you all for Valentine's Day. My true love sadly is leaving for New York tomorrow, so I'll be flying solo with the puppy for the big day. BUT, he planned a super great dinner out last night to celebrate early and today I got some gorgeous flowers. He's such a sweetie!

We decided to go with no gifts or anything this year, but while we were out and about yesterday we broke down and got ourselves a joint present.....a white strawberry. I have been in a massive strawberry craving phase at the moment, so these were too tempting to pass up despite the fact that in order to try this tempting fruit we had to hand over an equivalent of $15 for the one berry. If you're saying that is ridiculous, I will totally agree, but hey....it's Tokyo. It was very tasty, but I have to say I'm just as happy with the slightly cheaper variety that we get in the grocery store. But it was fun.

Oh, and I'm throwing in one more belly pic...Baby Stanley's way of saying Happy Valentine's too.

Until next time...Jenn

Budda Belly progress

So, just to provide you a little update on the increasing belly here are a few pictures of the progress...

The one on the left was my birthday, so early January and the one on the right was at the end of January. The little peanut is getting bigger and bigger.

Until next time...Jenn

London Times

Right before we came home for Christmas we got to go to London again. While it was absolutely freezing, we had the best time. I love seeing big cities right before Christmas....all the lights and Christmas cheer.

Since we had been there before and hit most of the tourist spots, we got to check out some cool new things that we hadn't seen before. We managed to check off another item on our "sports to do list" by going to see a Chelsea football game. Despite my complete ambivalence toward soccer, I absolutely loved it. We sat in the home team fan section and it was wild. We also took a tour outside of London to Windsor Castle, Stonehenge, and Bath. Stonehenge was absolutely incredible and such a mystery.

The only crazy thing was the riot over rising tuition fees. If you remember, when Prince Charles' car was attacked.....we were in London for that. Good times.

We had the best time and I hope you enjoy the photos that we took.

Until next time...Jenn

Welcome to Chinatown

So after talking and talking about how we just had to make it to China, we finally took a trip to Beijing. I was so interested to see the differences between Japan and China and there are just so many. We so loved seeing all the cool historical sites.

We had a really great tour guide who helped us out with understanding what we were seeing and getting us around the city. First we went to Tienanmen Square. It's just so strange being in different places where you know so much violence has occurred. Just makes you sad and thankful for all the freedoms that we have experienced in our lifetime. We got to see Chairman Mao. He basically looks like a wax figure...rumors are that it is a wax figure. Sadly, no pictures are allowed in the mausoleum, so no seeing him. Then we moved onto the Forbidden City which was massive.

The next day we went to see the Temple of Heaven where all these cute old people go early each morning to do their morning exercises, which in most cases was Tai Chi. We saw some dancing and other sports going on to though. After that we headed out to my favorite spot, the Great Wall of China. There really just aren't words to describe how amazing it is to see. It just goes on and on as far as you can see. It was fantastic.

We also got to see the terracotta warriors, which we both loved seeing. To even think about how much effort went into creating them. They said there were estimated to be like 7,000 warriors and the sole purpose was for these statues to surround the emperors tomb and protect him in the afterlife. Each warrior was made individually and had it's own features. Wild, right?

All in all, we had the best time. It was a nice little pick me up after our first trimester and a great way to announce to our family and friends that we were going to be increasing our family.

Enjoy the pictures!

Until next time...Jenn

Jill's Experience

So, pre-dating the F1 race and Oktoberfest my friend Jill came to visit us. We had the best time and got to see some very cool stuff that I hadn't seen before. We went to Hakone, which is near Mt. Fuji. Sadly, the weather left much to be desired, so we didn't get to see the great mountain, but we had fun regardless.

Is always so nice to have friends come and see you....like a little bit of home.

Until next time...Jenn

Oktoberfest 2010

While our friends were here we also made our 3rd appearance at Oktoberfest in Yokohama. Hard to believe that we've already been in Japan that long....man how the time flies. It was an interesting experience. This very "over served" Japanese man sat next to me and wanted to chat despite the fact that he clearly didn't really know much English and we all know I don't have the Japanese language mastered, so it was pretty funny.

Hope you enjoy the pics.

Until next time...Jenn

F1 Racing Away

So, my blog is basically been defunct for so long it's hard to get back into it these days, but I figured I needed to catch you all up on what's been going on with us. I'm going to start with our first (and most likely only) F1 racing experience.

We had some visitors come into town this past October and they are huge F1 fans. So, we decided to go to the big Japan race. It was really cool, however, the first day which is the qualifying round was completely rained out, but that wasn't decided until after we had all set in the rain for basically the entire day. Needless to say, no fun. The next day however, were perfect skies and made for a great race.

Not a whole lot else to report on that, but wanted to share a few pics so you can see our experience.

Until next time...Jenn

Monkeyin' Around in Bali

Hey guys, once again it's been awhile. We have been enduring one of the hottest summers ever in Tokyo, which I know most of you Texans can relate to. But to beat the heat a bit or at least experience it from a more scenic venue we decided to take a little trip to Bali.

We started our trip in Ubud, which is the more mountainous area filled with the most amazing rice fields. John outdid himself picking our resorts as they were all amazing. The one in Ubud looked out onto a beautiful river and an amazing rice terrace. We went on a bike ride through the rice fields and fed bananas to the monkeys in the monkey park.

From Ubud, we took a flight then a car then a motor boat to get to the Gili Islands. They were amazing. There are three tiny little islands off of Lombuck. We stayed on Gili Trawan, which has more places to stay and more restaurants, but is considered to be more of the "party" island. It was quite the experience...like hippy-ville. There were many young backpackers with dreadlocks and a lot of magic mushrooms for sale...quite the interesting place. We went snorkeling, which was awesome and just lazed around by the beach.

From there we went back to Bali, to Seminyak. John really outdid himself with our villa there with this amazing pool and outdoor kitchen and living room. It was like a slice of heaven.

Here are some pics of our time in Bali, I'm ready to go back already.

Until next time...Jenn

More Japan Highlights....

So, one of my dear friends is leaving in two weeks and she had the great idea that we go and check out some of Japan. We went to this amazing area outside of Tokyo. First we hit Shirakawa-go, which is a UNESCO heritage site that houses traditional old thatched roof farm houses. They were lovely.

Next we went to Takayama, which is considered little Kyoto. It's full of temples and quaint tea houses and sake distilleries. We got to see these cool floats that they use for their big festivals. Sounds like a great time when those are happening. To give you an idea of how crazy they are, the town usually houses 50,000 people, but during festival time there are 300,000 or so people participating.

We had the best time. It was a great way to say goodbye to a great friend!

Until next time...Jenn