Still Alive and Writing

Once again, I feel the need to apologize for my tardiness in writing. Well, I suppose tardiness would imply that I have actually written, so perhaps I need to be apologizing for the absence of my writing, rather than just the tardiness of it. Although I am writing now.... I had a concerned friend e-mail me wanting to make sure that we were alright, since she hadn't seen anything on the blog in so long. So, I thank you for your concern. We are all fine, and have been back in Japan now for 2 weeks, after a very long time away from home. As it would be nearly impossible for me to relate all of the details of our trip (by impossible, I mean that it would at least take more time than I am willing to spend at this computer at the moment), I will simply give a summary of our travels, and post a few pictures (which is really what you want to see anyways, I'm sure).

I believe that the last time I wrote, Kaiya and I were still in Okinawa with Hyatt. Since then, Kaiya and I flew on a military flight with our friends Ellie and Sadie, across the ocean to Whidbey Island (via Atsugi and Alaska), spent 3.5 weeks in Langley, Canada with my family (with a few days down in Seattle with Hyatt's family and a couple of days in Kamloops with Lisa and Jeremy in that time) followed up by 2.5 weeks in Hawaii (a week on Kauai with my parents and a week and a half on Oahu with the Salvadors), and completed with a couple of days in Yokota, Japan, for good measure. Hyatt was able to meet up with us in Hawaii, and we had a fun flight back from Hawaii to Yokota on a big miliary plane where we sat in jump seats along the side of the plane and were able to take naps on the floor.

The update on Kaiya is that she turned 4 months on Sept.22, and on her birthday she rolled over from her tummy to her back! She followed up that amazing feat with a belly laugh the very next day, and now we are just working on getting her to crawl:) She almost rolled over from her back to her tummy, but she did not move her arm out of the way, so it does not count yet. Kaiya is reaching for things like crazy, and loves her playtime mat that Lori and Virgil got for her when we were in Hawaii. She's also a big fan of her baby bjorn carrier now that she can face outwards and watch everything going on around her. The comment we hear about her most often (besides that she has long eyelashes that usually only boys get) is that hse is very alert. As long as she's in a place where she can see what is going on, she's a pretty happy little girl! We got her one of those baby einstein play centers the other day, and were amused to find out that she is not tall enough to touch the bottom of it yet, so her legs just hang in space... yet she did figure out how to spin herself around in it using her hands instead. What can I say? She's a genius:)

Also new is that Hyatt is now 29 years old! For his birthday we had a campfire by the lake, with a little frisbee tossing, followed up by hot dogs and s'mores galore, and some guitar playing by Hyatt and Chris. As you can tell by the pictures, it was a little cold.

Now for some pictures...

The Tip of the Island

I won't write very much today, as I mostly just wanted to share some new pictures with all of you. These pictures include some tummy time with Kaiya, some castle ruins with a view, as well as a little slice of paradise/Utopia/Heaven that Hyatt and I found on a tiny fishing village island called Hamahiga (accessible by bridge from Okinawa). Also, we went on a hike the other day (a LOT of stairs, and some very sore calves later...) to Hiji waterfall and drove the rest of the way to Hedo point, which is the northern most point of Okinawa. Wow, God is good - the ultimate Artist!

Baby's First Bikini

A week and a half ago, Mom went home, and since then I have been waiting to hop on the next military flight to be with Hyatt. It was a LONG week of waiting and calling the terminal every morning - I had wonderful friends helping me survive, but it just is not the same as having a live-in grandma, or a live-in dad... One typhoon and one earthquake later, Kaiya and I took a commercial flight down to Okinawa on Tuesday afternoon. We did not have any major mishaps, just minor reminders that traveling with a baby is not like traveling without one. Thank goodness for my Baby Bjorn Active Carrier (I know, I sound like a commercial, but it truly was a lifesaver!), as I was not allowed to bring the carseat on the plane. On the second leg of my flight, Kaiya decided it was prime time to go to the washroom - right after I had just changed her diaper on my lap, in my seat. Thankfully, I had already put another diaper on her. There was some major leakage, but we were able to deal with it. The humourous part of the situation (besides the fact that I was sitting on an airplane, buckled in, with a major runny diaper, poopy baby clothes, and poopy baby carrier) was that I had an elderly Japanese woman sitting beside me, who did not speak any english. So, using the flight attendant as a translator, she wanted to express her concern to me that my baby had an upset stomach. And I, using the handy flight attendant once more, explained that that was what her poopy diapers always look like! Suffice it to say, we made it to Okinawa in one piece (one of us in a different outfit than we started the trip in, but none the worse for the wear), and Hyatt was very excited to see both of us (although I think his daughter who he hadn't seen in almost 3 weeks kind of stole the show).

We are currently all staying in Hyatt's room on base, with Kaiya's sleeping quarters in her Pack n' Play in the kitchen. Due to the typhoon last week, our door lock only works intermittently, due to the moisture locked inside the door that keeps getting into the electronic lock. And yesterday we went on an outing with Hyatt's work crew to cleanup one of the area's beaches. Upon our arrival at the beach, Hyatt's first comment was that I not let Kaiya in the water there:) I was just excited for a chance to put Kaiya in her bikini for the first time:) While we were at the beach, the men who owned or ran the beach (I wasn't quite clear what their roles were), requested that the group fix the tree that had been blown over in the typhoon. To an untrained eye, it seemed that putting a rope around it and yanking could perhaps do more damage to that tree than good - however, these men apparently knew what they were talking about (perhaps they have had to deal with this same problem in typhoons past?

I have also posted a picture of Kaiya in a bonnet. During my lonely week, I had to find things to do with Kaiya's waketimes, and playing dressup was one of the fun activites (for me, anyways). The discovery that I made was that bonnets just are not Kaiya's style. I have yet to figure out why exactly, though. It may be because she has a round face, or because the bonnet makes her look like a little Amish baby... or perhaps it is because she is a mini Hyatt, and so it is as "off" as it would be to put a bonnet on him:)

A Visit From Nana

Nana arrived two weeks ago into the Hachinohe station where she caught her first "real live" view of her granddaughter! Since her arrival, we have had quite a few adventures, including everything from another trip to the Oriase Gorge and Lake Towada, to cherry picking, to a church picnic, to jam making. Regarding the jam, we did learn that the jars need to be heated in order for the jars to seal properly... unfortunately, we did not learn this until after the fact. However, some of the jars did still seal, and time will tell with the rest of the jars. I informed Hyatt that he can now tell his friends that his wife makes jam (I thought it made me sound very domestic), but Hyatt (being the wonderful husband that he is) reminded me that he did not marry me for my jam making skills (which is good, since I don't know how often I will attempt to make jam, now that I've done it once, besides the fact that this jam making venture was not 100% successful, although it was 100% tasty!).

Another "happening" of the past couple of weeks was Kaiya's checkup, where she weighed in at a whopping 9 lbs 3 oz (not that that is heavy, per se, for those of you who actually birthed babies of this size, but this is a lot of weight for Kaiya personally, because that means that she has gained almost 2.5 lbs in the last 4 weeks). My hope had been that she would at least weigh in at 8 lbs so that I could start toting her around in my Baby Bjorn active carrier... but once again I did not set my hopes high enough. She skipped 8 lbs entirely and went right to 9 lbs! She is also much more alert these days, and graces us with many smiles (one of which we actually managed to capture on film - well, not film exactly since this is the digital age...).

Now that Nana has headed back home, our hope (I speak for Kaiya as well as myself, until she can speak for herself) is to head down to Okinawa to visit Hyatt as soon as we can. Kaiya's passport just arrived in the mail today (a HUGE answer to prayer), which means that we can also try to catch a plane over to Seattle to visit friends and family there in August. We shall see!