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.