New Camera for Christmas

Credit goes to Luke for this one.

Just loves to get on his feet now.

Would not hold still

Look at those teeth!

The Bron Monster

Bronson has been crawling for about a month now.  He's quick, quiet, and inquisitive.  In other words, he's into EVERYTHING!  Don't get me wrong.  It's great.  I'm having a ton of fun with him.  He loves to play and interact.  I could spend all day watching him figure things out and playing with him.  It's amazing to watch each little development.  He changes before my very eyes.  But it's so much work!  Buying, wrapping, and packing Christmas presents has been quite a feat.  He just loves the brightly colored paper.  Today, I was making some phone calls, and Bronson escaped from the living room while I was occupied.  I got off the phone and thought it was eerily quiet.  I went searching for him and found him sitting in front of the dog's food bowl with handfuls of food.  He had crumbs all over his face, and after further inspection, found that he had a piece of dog food in his mouth.  Yuck!  I guess he's all boy.

Here are some pictures long overdue.

This isn't a great pic, but I found him behind the furniture.

Thankful

We have gone through a lot of changes and challenges this past year.  There are too many to list, and I wouldn't want to bore you anyway.  But I have been reminded of 1 Samuel 12:24 which says, "But be sure to fear the Lord and faithfully serve him.  Think of all the wonderful things he has done for you."  And with the theme of thankfulness going on right now, it has gotten me thinking about "all the wonderful things he has done" for Luke and I.  I am very thankful even though Luke and I have to spend this holiday apart (and poor Luke will probably not get any kind of Thanksgiving dinner).

God made a way for us before we moved by putting friends in Japan to receive us when we arrived.  We were taken care of by everyone here by driving us around to get all of our things done.  They made appointments for us and gave advice on car buying and house searching and where to go to buy certain items.

God provided us a house within walking distance of the base, the train station, and the grocery store.  We moved in within just a few weeks of getting here.  That was such a blessing to be in a home in such a short amount of time.

He kept Bronson healthy.  We have avoided so many complications and sickness that could have happened during all of our transition and traveling.  He was without any kind of sickness until just a couple weeks ago.  What a blessing!

God has thoroughly provided for us financially through all the bumps in the road throughout our entire marriage, but especially during the last few months of adjustment to different financial demands.  We have not been in want during this entire process, and I am so grateful for that provision.  It is something I have always struggled to not worry about.

He has been our companion through the times of separation.  God has been there during moments of loneliness and sadness.  What an awesome thing to always have someone there to talk to.

God provided us with wonderful parents to set examples and guide us through our growing years.  This has become more and more apparent to me of how important this is as Bronson gets older, and seeing the impact every one of our actions make on him.  It is such a blessing to have parents who have been great examples of what a good parent looks like.

He has not given us anything we cannot handle.  There are not even words to describe this.  In everything, I have had resources put in front of me when I was in need (a Bible study, a friend, a book, a verse).

I am so thankful!

A Parents' Night Out

The last weekend before Luke went out to sea we decided to get a babysitter one night and go out and do something fun.  We ended up meeting up with a group of friends for a concert in Tokyo.  It just happened to be our friend, James' birthday, and it was super fun to celebrate with him.  We saw Owl City in concert.  Neither of us had really heard of him except for his song, "Fireflies".  But we enjoyed the concert immensely and decided to do some more research on this guy.  It turns out that many of his songs have Christian undertones, and he is a neat guy.  We could not get over how much he sounded like Ben Gibbard from Death Cab for Cutie.

 

 Big  fast moving sea creature carousel that we could not resist

 

 

We actually became quite a spectacle on the carousel.  The Japanese who were around crowded around the carousel to watch and wave at the big American adults riding.

 

It was a very fun night.  I had a hard time knowing what to do with myself because I've gotten so used to being attached to a baby.  It was very nice to give Luke my full attention for a full night before he left again.  I'm looking forward to another date night in the future.

Why Wish You Become Jedi?

Oh, my goodness.  So much has happened since my last post.  I'm probably going to have to split this into a couple posts.  I guess I'll start with the newest pictures and information. 

Bronson is 6 months old!  I can't believe how quickly those 6 months went by.  He went from a cute little blob of baby to a little person who can get around on his own and is having a great time exploring the world around him.  I'm trying to keep that world on the rug, but he wants to see everything and put it all in his mouth. 

It was very difficult to get him to sit still for the photo op.

Home Owners

We live in a house off of the base here in Japan.  It's actually less than a 5 minute drive to the front gate depending on the traffic lights.  We only looked at 3 houses in town before snatching this one up.  Originally, the house was listed as not allowing any pets, but we talked to the realtor about how gentle our dog is, and she convinced the owner to allow us to live here.  Now, this is a different situation than most who rent in that it's the owner's actual house.  He lived here and loves this house.  It's kind of a lot a pressure. 

He's come over on occasion to check things out.  He refuses to come inside.  Usually he comes when there is some kind of work being done on the house or lawn.  He had hired someone to trim the bushes and someone to fix our driveway gate,, etc.  Every time he came, he would bring us a gift.  Japan is very much a gift-giving country.  People give gifts for everything!  Well, he would stop by the local patisserie and bring us some custard-type desserts that are very popular among the Japanese.  Very yummy!  And he has also grown very fond of Laika.

Today, I pulled up to the house after my Bible study on base, and he was there.  He, of course handed me a box of more custards as soon as I got out of the car and motioned at the work he was doing (He speaks zero English, by the way.).  The previous time he had visited he saw a chair in the yard that was blocking a hole in the bushes.  Luke and I had put it there, so that we could let Laika out of the house, and not have to worry about her getting out of the yard.  I showed him the hole and tried to explain this to him in the very few Japanese words I knew, and he tried to talk back to me in Japanese.  I had no idea what he said, but got the sense that he understood what I was saying.

Well, today he put up a mesh plastic chicken-wire sort of thing against the bushes to block that hole.  I thought it was super nice of him to do that because originally he didn't want pets in his house.  He must really be impressed with Laika....or maybe he's bribing us to take care of his house.  Anyway...he seems very nice, and I wish that I could communicate with him.  The only thing I could do was bring him some banana bread.  Hopefully that was enough of a thank you.

 

Big Little Boy

holding hands with Kimber

Don't ever leave again, Dad!

First spoon-fed meal of cereal