Ashley--A Six Month Retrospective

I called my parents on Christmas so the children could thank them for the gifts and share a little Christmas cheer and was berated by my mother for not posting enough pictures of Ashley. The fact that there were no picture of me, her own flesh and blood, did not seem to concern her at all, but the grandchild--that was a problem, so here are a few photos of her cuteness. Last week she went in for her six month appointment and weighed in at 14lbs 11oz. She has fallen to the 25% for weight and maintained her height, but I can't remember what that was because I wasn't there. I was sledding in the new fallen snow with Jonathan and Aubrey.



JUNE

Ashley at 4 days old and getting pictures taken for her passport.











JULY

Ashley at 1 month old. The laundry basket kept her from getting trampled in the very close quarters at the Misawa Inn until we got our house.














AUGUST

Ashley at 2 months old. Aubrey can't imagine why anyone would want to take picture without her cheesy grin in it.










SEPTEMBER

Three months old. Is there any reason not to chew on both fists at the same time?










OCTOBER

Diane and Ashley at a family trip to the Oirase Gorge to see the leaves. We were about a week too early, but it was beautiful anyway.











The kids at Halloween. You should have seen the lines. The Japanese are invited to come on base and go trick-or-treating. We bought 12 bags of candy and after the kids came home they went through their candy and we gave out anything they didn't want to eat. When all of that was given out we just had to quit answering the door.







NOVEMBER

Ashely is 5 months old and had become a force to be reckoned with. She can roll where she wants to go and can shred a newspaper in 14 seconds flat. Of course Mom is not a fan of the newsprint on the maw and paws.









DECEMBER

With her increased mobility she has already started to unload the drawers. Maybe the new coffee table wasn't such a good idea.













She is also sitting...

and eating her squash, but her favorite thing to do is...

bounce in the jumper Santa brought her for Chritsmas.

Where's the Snow?

When we got to Misawa everyone told us how much snow they get and how cold it is here. As December came I have to admit we were a little dissappointed. We had one light snowfall, but nothing to write home about and then it melted right away. As for cold, it's not. I have been wearing a jacket to work in the mornings, but most of the time it isn't even below freezing.

Sunday it started to snow. We had friends coming for dinner and the roads were getting slick. After they left I went out and shoveled three inches of snow. It was that very wet sticky snow that is perfect for snowmen, snowballs, and forts, and miserable for shoveling.

Monday morning we had our answer. Jonathan woke us at 0600 as is his custom. He promptly informed us that it had snowed and the branches had fallen from the trees. He went out to shovel the walks while Mom and Dad slept in.

When we got out of bed this is what we saw:

No, those are not shrubs at the base of all of the trees. They are the branches that fell off in the night. I had always wondered why the pine trees here didn't have branches except at the top. Now I know.

When I went out to shovel the snow that the plows had piled behind our cars I measured a places in the middle of the yard--12 1/2 inches. I guess it really does snow in Misawa.

Three Months in Japan

Today my friend Jason pointed out that it has been three months since we got to Misawa. Mostly I think he just wanted to make sure we liked it here since he talked it up so much that we volunteered to come here. It got me thinking that I really haven't posted about any of the things that we have done here in the last three months. So I thought I would post about some of our adventures here.

Our first weekend here in Misawa was the Lantern Festival. I have no idea what they were celbrating, but the streets outside the base were lined with paper lanterns and booths selling food, so we went to take a look and get some dinner. We all decided that the yakisoba was pretty good, some of the other things weren't such a hit with the kids though.

The next week we went on the mandated tour to Hachinohe. We went to the fish market, an Shinto shrine, and a mall. At the fish market they let us try all sorts of things. I ate my first salmon eggs (very salty), jelly fish salmon jerky and lots of vegetable I couldn't name if I had to. I have come to the conclusion there is almost nothing that the Japanese won't eat.

Well, I am out of time for the night. I will try to post some pictures and stories of adventure to Ajigasawa and the Sea of Japan soon.

Playing Doctor

I suppose most of us have pretended to be a doctor at one time or another. I, for one, still am. As I recall, it usually goes something like this: The doctor takes a temperature, listens to your heart and lungs, and maybe bangs on your knee with a toy reflex hammer. The doctor then pronounces you sick and gives you a shot or tells you to go home and take some medicine. I never realized how my profession would change that for my children.

A couple of weeks ago Di overheard Aubrey and her friend Natalie playing. Natalie was the doctor and Aubrey the nurse. One of the dolls was going to have a baby. Jonathan overheard this and decided that he wanted to be the doctor, which Aubrey protested because Natalie was the doctor. Trying to keep the peace Di reminded them that in a C-section there are two doctors in the room. That seemed to placate everyone.

A little while later Di overheard Jonathan announce, "This isn't a C-section, it's a breech. This is very dangerous--the head could get stuck." Apparently, he has been listening to my talk about work.

Scribble Scrabble

Thursday night I helped Aubrey with her homework. Yes, she has has homework in Kindergarten. Afterward I had to sign her homework sheet to take back to Miss DuBois to prove that she really did her homework. I signed my name and gave it to Aubrey to put in her backpack.

She looked at it and whined, "Why did you sign it like that? Now my teacher's going to think that I gave it to you and you just went scribble scrabble on it. She doesn't like scribble scrabble." So, I had to take it back and print my name unerneath it to make her happy. Apparently after some 15 years of higher education I wouldn't be able to pass kindergarten. My, how times have changed.

Family Scripture Study--With Horses

The other night we were reading scriptures as a family. As Aubrey can't read yet, I usually will read her a phrase that she then repeats. Usually she is very adamant that she have her scriptures open to the right place. That night as we read 1 Nephi 17:33, her verse went like this:

Dad: And now, do ye suppose
Aubrey: And now, do ye suppose
Dad: that the children of this land,
Aubrey: that the children of this land,
Dad: who were in the land of promise,
Aubrey: who were in the land of promise,
Dad: who were driven out by our fathers,
Aubrey: who were driven out by our fathers,
Dad: do ye suppose that they were righteous?
Aubrey: do ye suppose that they were righteous?
Dad: I say unto you, Nay.
Aubrey: I say unto you, neigh, like a horse.

Sports Day

The hospital here host a Sports Day every year. They have games for people to play and a picnic. The base news came out and did a feature on it. That shows you how little is really happening here in Misawa. Here is a copy of the feature they did. If you watch closely you can see Di twice in the video. Jonathan is next to her once and the kids are in another section.

Smiling and Wiggling

Well, it's official. Squirt has learned to smile. She is just starting to get the hang of it, so capturing the grin on "film" is not so easy, but I did manage to get one to share with you. She has also started to wiggle a lot. She flails those little arms and legs all the time. At night we have to wrap her tightly, so she doesn't wake herself up. I got a video of it but it is too large to put on the blog, so I will have to see if I can find a way to cut it down and post it for all of you.

This week Ashley also had her first experience in the pool. She only fussed for a second when I first put her in the water, but she calmed down after only a couple of seconds. She swam for about 45 minutes and seemed to enjoy it, but when I let go of her for a second and the water covered her face she had a very stunned look.

Where We Live

I thought that you all might like to see where we live, so I found it on Wikimapia. Here the the link to our house: http://www.wikimapia.org/#lat=40.6882653&lon=141.3594264&z=17&l=0&m=a&v=2

You can scroll around and look at the school, hospital, flight line, etc. I can walk to my office in 5 minutes, and the kids school is even closer. Shopping is done at the commisary and BX which again are about a 5 minute walk. We have a car, but on base things are so close that we could walk almost anywhere we needed to go. Walking back with all of the groceries would be a little trickier though.

The cross hairs are right over the top of our apartment. Each of these buildings has four apartments in them. In our builing there are three member families, and there are now three other member families in the circle with us. The back is one open area where the kids can (and do) run around with the other kids in the area. To get a four bedroom apartment you have to have at least 3 children, so you can imagine how many of them there are around.

The apartment is a 1545 sq ft town house with four bedrooms. The living room is a little smaller than our old house, but we will make do. I think what we will miss the most is the lack of a playroom. We do have an area that we will use, but it is about 1/5th the size and just off the kitchen instead of on a different floor.

Jet Lag in the Land of the Rising Sun

Jet lag was worse than I was expecting. When I came home from Europe I found that switching back to the local time was much easier than it had been going to Europe. I, incorrectly, assumed that since I was traveling east it would be relatively easy now.

The first night we got the children to bed about 8:00 and then they woke up at about 1:30 a.m. About 3:00 we got them back to sleep for another couple of hours and then had to get up and get ready to catch our flight from Tokyo to Misawa. The next night we went to bed about the same time, arose briefly for our earthquake adventure, went back to sleep, and they woke up about 3:00 and then, under duress, went back to sleep. The next night they went to bed at about 8:30 and slept through the night—until 4:30. At that point they came into our room. Jonathan, in all seriousness, asked, “Can we get up now—it’s 4:30?” Aubrey, in the meek voice she so artfully uses, (she really can be meek when she wants to) added, “It’s weally light outside.” Yes, indeed, it is light at 4:30 a.m., and I don’t mean the crack of dawn. Now I know why it is called the land of the rising sun.

This photo was taken our first morning in our new house at about 4:30. Di made me get up to record the beautiful sunrose. She was busy (don't be surprised now) feeding Ashley.

Of course half of the battle was getting the kids to stay awake all day long. See what I mean?

The Earthquake

Our first night we were awakened to our first earthquake here in Japan. After our long journey, it wasn’t actually the earthquake that woke us, but Di, who was already awake nursing Ashley. She said that at first it felt like a little tremor. Being an earthquake veteran she wasn’t worried until it got stronger and the closet doors started shaking and the building started to sway (we were staying on the third floor). At that point she cried out, “Ryan, we’re having an earthquake.” I awoke to find everything shaking. We woke the children and got into the door frame just in time for it to stop. There wasn’t any damage in our hotel room, but a cereal box fell off of the refrigerator into the sink.

The base initiated a recall, so Jason called to make sure we were OK. He said that they had several things fall and break and his TV would have fallen off of the armoire if he hadn’t jumped out of bed and held it in place.

Everyone I have talked to said that this is the worst earthquake they have had here in several years—probably because it was so close. It was centered about 60 miles south of Misawa, but fortunately it was very deep in the earth, so the damage was much less than it otherwise would have been.

A Trip to Japan--How Exciting

Our trip started at 6:00 driving to the SLC airport. Half way there we realized that the stroller (the new one that goes with the car seat) was still in the garage. No time to go back. Hopefully, we can get it shipped.

At SLC we tried to check in at Skycap, but they wouldn’t let us do it because we were international travelers. Fortunately, the skycap man wheeled our 10 pieces of luggage (There’s nothing better than traveling light) right up to the counter and got us checked in.

Our flight ended up leaving late and we only had a 1 hour layover in San Francisco. As we were arriving in San Francisco the flight attendant came over the intercom an announced that those of us catching the flight to Tokyo should meet the agent at the gate to be escorted to the next gate.

The agent was a short little Asian woman, but let me tell you she could move. Di was a trooper—remember the forgotten stroller? Yes, she ran across the airport with the Ashley in her car seat in her arms. I was trying to keep track of the agent and get the other kids to hurry faster than their little legs could carry them. Don’t you think that if the connection was tight they would have one of those handy little carts to move everyone? I was really hoping I had found my chance to finally get a ride. We finally made it to the gate after everyone else was on the plane.

At SLC they were unable to give us our boarding passes for the flight to Tokyo, so we had to get them there when we were already late. Wouldn’t you know it that we didn’t have two seats together? Two were on one side of the plane in adjacent rows and the other three were on the other side of the plane in three adjacent rows. Di took Ashley to one side of the plane and I took the other kids. A flight attendant helped Di get someone to move so she and Ashley could sit together. I was a little more direct. I told the people in our rows that my children and I had the three middle seats of their rows, so I needed two people from one row to move to the other rows or my kids would have to sit next to them alone. No one really seemed to mind. I guess they didn’t relish the opportunity of spending 10 hr 45 min of quality time with my children the same way I did.

In all fairness the kids were actually fairly well behaved on the flight. They each only had to have the person sitting in front of them ask them to stop kicking their chair back once, but after that I was constantly on their case to leave their feet off of the chair back. The most aggravating thing was the every half hour bathroom trips.

When Jonathan arrived in Tokyo, what was the first thing he wanted to visit?—the bathroom. We sent him in alone; after all he is 8 and can go to the bathroom by himself. When he came back out he announced, “Japanese toilets are so weird.” Apparently, the Japanese style toilet is a hole in the ground that you squat over to do your business.

Immigration was a snap, when they saw we had a baby we were ushered over to the short line reserved for the elderly, handicapped, pregnant women, and babes in arms. We then proceeded to baggage claim to get our luggage and clear customs. The luggage was already off of the conveyor, but circling the conveyor was a sign that read, “Mr. Bruce Ball, please see a United agent.” Remember our rush to our connecting flight? Two of our pieces of luggage apparently couldn’t keep up with the rest. I filled out the necessary paperwork so they could ship them to us in Misawa. The United agent then escorted us through customs.

Now with Ashley and her car seat stacked on top of the two full luggage carts we made our way to find a shuttle to the hotel. On arrival at the Holiday Inn they would not let us get our luggage to take in; they did it for us. When I checked in they asked us which of our bags we needed in the room. They brought those up and stored the others for us until we checked out in the morning.

The next morning we got up and went to get breakfast in the hospital restaurant. They had a buffet with some American style food and some Japanese food. I have never seen salad or soup on the breakfast buffet before, but I guess they do in Japan.

After breakfast we caught the shuttle bus back to Narita airport where we bought bus tickets to Haneda airport so we could catch our flight to Misawa. At Haneda we checked in with Japan Air Lines (JAL). The agents were so helpful. One of them pushed some of the luggage from the check in counter to the baggage check area. Once we got to the gate the gate agent saw Ashley and came over and told us that we would be able to board early with the baby. When it was time to board she came and got Di, Aubrey, and Ashley to board. Once on the plane one of the flight attendants brought Aubrey and Ashley little stuffed elephants to play with. After Jonathan and I got on the plane she came around again with a basket of toys for him to choose from—he chose a small Lego set.

After and hour and a half flight we arrived at Misawa. The airport and the base share a runway, so after landing the plane taxied to the airport and a very large gate closed behind the plane. When we got off of the plane Jason was waiting for us with almost the entire clinic staff there to greet us. We got our luggage loaded into about three cars and came to the base hotel. “Home” at last, at least for the next week or so.

Internet--finally

We finally got internet in our house today. It is amazing how much we have come to depend on it. I am sorry that we never got any blog entries posted, but it was too much of a hassle to take the laptop to the computer labs that they had with everything else we had going on. The good news is that I wrote a few blog entries on Word, so I will get them posted soon.

Ashley—1 month old

At our arrival in Japan Ashley turned 1 month old. When we reflect on all that she has done in her little life it is quite remarkable. Here are the highlights:

• Moved into her home (2 days old)


• Moved out of her home and into hotel #1 (4 days old)


• Applied for her passport (4 days old)


• Went to visit Devan, Cassie, and her new cousin Drostan in Laurel, MD; checked into hotel #2 (11 days old)


• Huddled under Mommy’s rain poncho at the Washington Monument (12 days old)


• Watched the fireworks on the National Mall (12 days old)


• Visited the National Zoo and saw the panda bears (13 days old)


• Went back to Dayton, OH; checked into hotel #3 and then #4 (2 weeks old)


• Got her passport (2 weeks old)


• Drove to Lincoln, NE and stayed in hotel #5 (2 weeks old)


• Drove to Idaho Falls, ID to see Grandma and Grandpa Ball (2 weeks old)


• Drove to Garland, UT to see Grandma and Grandpa Ashby, and experience the Ashby reunion (3 weeks old)


• Flew to Japan (4 weeks old)


• Spent the night in hotel #6 in Tokyo, Japan (1 month old)

Happy 1 month birthday Ashley. Life will settle down soon (we hope).

Masters of Delayed Gratification

I don't remember who it was, but during medical school one of my friends said that at graduation in addition to our M.D. degrees we should also get a Masters of Delayed Gratification for having to put off so many things while we completed our training. As my wife put it last year when I told her I had been asked to speak in church about the benefits of education, "We don't know yet, you haven't graduated."

With graduation finally nearing we decided to make a few purchases to take to Japan with us. Last month we decided to buy some new living room furniture and a computer armoire. We made multiple trips to multiple stores trying decide what to buy. I had to convince my thrifty wife that it really was OK to buy the furniture she wanted even though it cost more than some other furniture that she liked. Finally, she decided to buy the
furniture she liked (seen here). While we were shopping with Aubrey in tow, she fell in love with a little oak rocking chair just her size. After spending a lot of money there, Di suggested that I ask the salesman if he would throw in the rocking chair for free. You should have seen Aubrey's eyes light up when she saw me walk out of the store and pick up the rocking chair.

















For those of you who have been to our home please remember the messy desk in the study. Now you will note the very nicely contained mess in the armoire. Di wanted one as soon as we moved in, but Scrooge that I am I made her wait until now to get it. As usual she was right. It really is nice to be able to close a door on the mess.


















Well I have other things to go do now (read that as go to the outlet mall and spend even more money). One nice thing about moving to Japan is there won't be nearly so much shopping to be had--I hope. Maybe later I will blog about or trip to Ikea last weekend--Eat your heart out Mel.

Yellow Belt for Jonathan

Well it has been five months since I posted last, so I thought I would give it another try.

Last week Jonathan took his test for his Yellow Belt in Tae Kwon Do. He spent a lot of time practicing his Korean vocabulary and his basic forms and step sparring. I just thought you might like to see some of the pictures. (Isn't he cute?) During the test they were asking the group of white belts about the vocabulary. Jonathan's was usually the first hand in the air. To pass he had to break a board with a side kick. He did it his first try. Some of the older students, e.g. adults, had to kick it several times to break the board.

It was also fun to watch Aubrey during Jonthan's test. As he was on the floor doing his forms, she was there by us doing her version of the same thing. She really is his number one fan.