How did we get here? (an overdue catch-up)

The last thing I remember is it being November... and now we're nearly 2 weeks into December. How the heck did that happen? Ack! There's so much to do and so little time to do it!

This past month has been very busy. In November, we went and visited my mother-in-law in Shimonoseki. The trip was really nice and Touma got to be spoiled a lot! He also got to try a lot of new foods including udon (noodles) and shirasu (little tiny fish!). They are both long and skinny so he enjoyed slurping them down. We also went to a hot spring with Grandma and Auntie Chikako. It was right on the ocean, so we took Touma down to the beach to feel the sand. Not sure what he thought of that...

Looking unsure of the sand.

A little while after taking this picture, Touma decided that two feet in the sand was just too much. SO he changed it up!

One baby foot in the sand was plenty!

After getting back, it started getting pretty cold here in Yokohama and it definitely started to feel like the holidays were upon us. We got our tree... it is a total Charlie Brown tree, but it's still our first REAL tree in Japan.

Touma and our tree - pre-decorating!

Everyone knows that a tree always improves with lights and decorations! And luckily that was totally true of our little tree.

The finished product. Even though it's not nearly as full as trees back home, it's our tree and I love it!

Last week I got to meet up with a friend that I haven't seen in over 5 years. We were both studying Japanese at Waseda when I first came back to Japan in 2006. After that one year program finished, she went back to Taiwan and I stayed on in Japan. It was really nice to see her and meet her husband. I have a feeling that we'll have to take a family trip to Taiwan one of these days...

In front of the Christmas tree at Akarenga. It is huge, but we couldn't get the whole thing in!

That catches us up to this week. We are officially in winter. Overnight lows hover around or just below 0C and it's too cold to really have play group outside. Since that is the case, it's actually nice to do a bit of shopping. We met up with Lauren and her little girl Gwen on Tuesday and did a bit of shopping. And at one point we let the kids run around near the big Christmas tree. But did I get a picture of the tree? No! Just the kids. :-)

Touma is working on his standing, while Gwen lurks in the background!

So, no promises about many more posts before we ring in the new year. Here's to a great 2013 and maybe even more blogging!