Oka Family

Lunch

2011-08-12T22:48:00.000-07:00

Here is a typical lunch for our little food-lover Lisee.

Before...

During...

After...

Now if I could only get her sister to eat half the things that she does, we would be in business. ;)

Two Little Girls...

2011-08-10T14:09:00.000-07:00

Here's a quick update for those who don't know - a few months ago Shane got a new job with a firm called Cornerstone Research. It's an Economic Litigation Consulting firm. He basically does specific economic research all day, and that research is used in lawsuits (usually between big companies) by expert witnesses. It's a bit more in depth than that, but I'm not really sure how else to describe it. This new job has changed our day to day lives quite a bit. Instead of his old 8-5 schedule, Shane often works 12+ hours a day, and commutes an extra 3, making for long days for all of us. Whereas he used to work about 4 minutes away by car, he now works in downtown LA and takes the train to work (1 1/2 hours each way). Despite the long hours, Shane really loves his job, and the girls and I have been adjusting well. We have family breakfast every morning, and it kind of makes up for not having family dinners during the week. We don't know if/when we'll be moving closer - for now we're just staying here. We did, however, move! A couple of weeks ago we moved into a little house in the same ward. We're renting, but loving the extra space and the garage! These two little girls can be found all over the house getting into some kind of trouble or other.

Look What I Can Do...

2011-04-06T16:15:00.001-07:00

Just kidding. I can't do this. Not even a little bit. But my husband can! Shane worked tirelessly on this rocking horse for a few months leading up to Christmas. He drew out the prototype, traced it onto some wood, and bada-bing, bada-boom, there you have it. No, really, it took quite a bit of planning and work, some help from a friend's toolshop, and of course help and support from Grandpa Oka, but dude...it seriously rocks (pun intended). It is completely made of wood with no screws or nails and the saddle and bit are inlaid. We plan on passing this one down to the grandkids.

And one of the bug...just for fun.

First (Good) Laugh

2011-03-21T10:41:00.000-07:00

Brookie likes to try to make Lisee laugh. Lisee has giggled before, but this was her first good laugh. They sure do love each other! We love having a fun and rascally almost three year old, and a gummy, chubby, vocal four month old. More to come on the happenings of our family...if I ever get my act together.

Happy Valentines Day...

2011-02-14T08:23:00.000-08:00

...with LOTS of love!

A Day at The Park

2011-01-31T21:32:00.000-08:00

This little angel is growing up way too fast. She had a blast in the swing at the park last week (thanks to Asuka for bringing a camera!). She is 2 1/2 months old and loves to smile, coo, and just be a part of the action. We love this little girl!

Her sister is pretty awesome too.

Pictures!

2010-12-17T14:20:00.000-08:00

It was brought to my attention that although Elise turned one month old today, I had not posted any pictures since her first week home. That made me realize that I haven't actually TAKEN any pictures since her first week home. Bad mom. So I took some. I love this precious bundle.

And the World Welcomes...

2010-11-23T18:28:00.000-08:00

Elise Jane Oka. She was born last Wednesday, November 17th, 2010 (the day before her due date) at 6:45 pm after a day of contractions and only about 4-5 hours in the hospital. She is absolutely perfect and we can't get enough of those adorable cheeks! I feel great - we left the hospital as soon as we could (exactly 24 hours after delivery) and have been keeping busy ever since, but still taking plenty of time to hold, kiss, and nap with little Elise. Much thanks to Shane's mom, and my dad for helping us out in turns, and thanks to Shane's family who is coming back this week to cook Thanksgiving dinner and spend some time with our two girls. Without further ado, here she is!

Elephants

2010-10-31T21:50:00.000-07:00

Brookie was an elephant for Halloween...

...and I just felt like one.

Only two and a half more weeks to go!

Corduroy

2010-10-13T13:45:00.001-07:00

Brookie LOVES to read. She memorizes as many books as she can. We've checked this particular book out of the library a couple of times and it's one of her favorites. Enjoy!

Sleeping Beauty

2010-10-05T20:26:00.000-07:00

There's nothing better than cuddling with a sleeping baby. With an active two-year-old this doesn't happen very often.

Persons

2010-10-05T20:12:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago Brooklyn and I were drawing together on her white board. She wanted me to draw a person so that she could draw one too. I definitely think that her's turned out the better of the two. At least hopefully by the time she's my age, her drawing skills will have FAR surpassed mine.

San Fran

2010-09-28T19:19:00.001-07:00

Thanks to a great deal on Southwest flights, Shane and I spent a few days in San Francisco last week. Neither of us had ever been before and we thought we should take advantage of this LAST CHANCE before baby #2 comes along to take a little trip together. So on Wednesday night we loaded up the car and drove to Las Vegas where we deposited our Brookie Bean (along with most of the contents of our car) with her grandparents. (How is it that a person who only weighs 23 pounds can need about 50 pounds worth of luggage for a 3-day stay at grandma and grandpa's? We, on the other hand, only took one small suitcase, Shane's backpack, and my purse for our trip.) On Thursday morning we flew out to San Fran. From what we hear, Brooklyn didn't miss us at all, she was way too busy being spoiled I guess. Here are just a couple of highlights of our trip.

The Bridge - We couldn't see the bridge from Golden Gate Park due to the fog, but we had a blast walking along it - we really couldn't see the arches until we got pretty close, but from what I understand, that is more often the case than not. My favorite part of that walk, though I couldn't capture a picture of it, was when we looked down and saw two sea lions way down in the water. I couldn't tell what they were until they started swimming away in a very sea lion-ish fashion.

Ghiradelli Square - One of my favorite stops was the Ghirardelli Ice Cream Shop (for obvious reasons). We had a way-too-sweet but delicious ice cream cookie sundae - thankfully we had the foresight to only order one. It's hard to tell, but in this picture I'm standing in front of one of the chocolate-making machines. At this point in the process I think it was called "liquid chocolate" - I was ready to pull out my water bottle and fill it up. Shane was saved from that spectacle by the glass wall blocking people such as myself from doing just that.

Fisherman's Wharf - Unfortunately, we didn't get to spend much time here because I was feeling pretty sick at this point in the day. We did love walking around Pier 39 and getting a glimpse of the lounging sea lions.

Golden Gate Park - We went to the science museum and saw some amazing things, including this ginormous blue whale skeleton. Our other favorite stop at the park was the Sam's Chowder Truck for some clam chowder and a shrimp Po Boy. Good stuff.

The Trolley- Enough Said.

Japan Town - The best part of being in the Japanese district was definitely the food. We had some great okonomiyaki and this delicious stuffed crepe for dessert - one of the many foods I miss from Japan.

China Town- We got to hang out with an old friend in the Chinese district during the Autumn Moon festival. We tried some fun foods, watched a parade, and, perhaps, most notably, went to the fortune cookie factory and watched the amazing process for a few minutes before sampling some fresh fortune cookies.

We had so much fun together, but we did miss Brookie a little more than we thought we would. All in all it was a great trip - hopefully enough to hold us over for another couple of years.

Getting Crafty

2010-08-31T12:28:00.000-07:00

For those who know me well at all, you know that I am not the most creative or crafty person... That being said, I would like to be. Shane got me a sewing machine for a Valentine's gift this year and, sadly, it has not been used much. That is beginning to change. Thanks to my amazing friend Natalie, I recently learned how to sew a nursing cover! (I know, how hard could it be? It's just a rectangle, right? It's actually a lot harder than it looks - at least it was for me...) So with Natalie's help, I made the pink and brown one for myself. I was so excited that I went home and sewed the blue and green one for my sister Diana who is living in New York, and I'm sure will have plenty of opportunities to use a nursing cover. She's having a boy and is due only 8 days before I am. This makes it a little awkward for my mom, who wants to be in both places at once...she compromised by booking a flight to NY, and promising to send my dad out here when my baby comes.

Also thanks to Natalie who did a craft night, I made this family tree. (Okay, this one was pretty easy, it came in a kit and it mostly just required cutting and gluing...and a little family research of course). I love the result, and I learned some pretty cool stories along the way. You may not be able to tell, but there are actually names written on all the leaves.

And last, just for your viewing pleasure of course, a picture of moi modeling the new nursing cover. Alas, I didn't think Brooklyn would be able to snap a shot without cutting off my head, so instead you get my head...with most of the nursing cover cut off. Here's to many more projects and many more hours on my sewing machine!

Baby # 2

2010-08-20T20:53:00.000-07:00

Baby #2 (for lack of a better name...since we haven't picked one yet) at around 26 weeks.

And another new post below...

New Bed

2010-08-20T20:32:00.000-07:00

Brookie has a new bed!

She does a lot of this...

And a little bit of this...

The transition to a toddler bed hasn't been nearly as bad as I expected. The first night it took a while for her to fall asleep and she came into our room at 4:45 because she "bonked her head" by falling out of the bed. The second night she went to sleep quickly and came in at 7:00 in the morning saying that she woke up "under" her crib. When I asked her to show me where she woke up, she went and laid on the floor next to her crib (across the room from the bed) - I'm not sure exactly when she fell out of bed and rolled across the floor, but apparently she slept through it this time. In the week and a half since then she has been doing well, other than waking up at 5:30 or so for the past four mornings...I'm not sure if that's due to the bed, or something else, but either way I'm hoping it changes! This is one of the big milestones of the toddler years, and an important one considering we'll have another baby in the house in three months! Time is definitely going by too fast, and every day I am amazed by the things that Brooklyn can do. Sometimes I can't believe that she has only been with us for two years, and other times I sit back and wonder where on earth she came from. All I know is that I'm a pretty lucky girl, and we can't wait to go through all the changes and milestones again with baby #2.

That Girl

2010-08-09T08:50:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I finally decided to give in to my guilt and go to ward choir. Our church is normally at 11:00 and choir starts at 10:15 (which is about when the other ward should be out of the chapel). Brookie and I arrived a little bit late, and as we were heading in to the chapel to practice, I got stopped in the hall by someone I needed to talk to. Brookie ran right past me and into the chapel (which I thought was empty since that's where we were going to practice). I figured I would let her run around in the pews for a minute while I finished my conversation, and then go and reclaim her. A moment or two later, I realized that the reason that everyone was still standing in the hall was because the earlier ward had gone WAY over and the last speaker was still pontificating. Mortified, I ran to the door of the chapel to see where on earth Brookie would have gone in the chapel when it was still FULL of people. I saw one of my friends from BYU who happens to be in that ward (what are the chances?) carrying her down the aisle to where I was standing in the door of the chapel. When she reached me she whispered, "Brookie walked in and walked right up to the stand and sat down. I figured since I knew who she was, I should probably go claim her." After the meeting when I went to thank her for saving me the embarrassment of having to run up to the front of someone else's Sacrament Meeting, her husband said, "Everyone watched her just walk right up to the front - it was pretty entertaining, we were just sad that she didn't get us out of that long meeting by yelling "fire" or something". Well, needless to say, I think I'll be a little more careful to watch Brookie even when I think I know where she is and what she's doing. How could someone this cute be such a rascal?

A New Age

2010-07-29T08:00:00.001-07:00

Well, I think it's safe to say that our children are growing up in a different age than we did. An age where cell phones are not only small, colorful, and diverse (as opposed to the awesome huge car phones of our childhood), but they have the INTERNET. And not just any internet...3G, 4G maybe? (Can you tell I don't have the INTERNET on my phone?) An age where most research is done online, where you can read books on a little screen. An age where you can have tea parties with your cousin on skype, and enjoy it almost as much as if it were in person...

Catching Up

2010-07-25T07:12:00.000-07:00

Our summer has been filled with so many things. Shane fixed my phone so that I can finally upload pictures. And now you're getting more than you've bargained for because I haven't posted any in months! Here are a few of my favorites (including pictures from our recent trip to Utah and Vegas) in random order (sorry).

Our summer/pre-summer fun includes tired trips home from Disneyland, digging holes at the beach, a Japanese Obon festival, a trip to Temple Square, learning to bowl for the first time, bowling for the second time with new friend Taylor, picking out and showing off undies, dancing in the car with aunt Megan, learning to ice skate with aunts Christy and Rachel, and an awesome picture of Brooklyn in a coat that Shane's great-grandma made for Shane's mom. Isn't it amazing? It's still in near perfect condition and we got lots of compliments on it when we went out to play. Sorry about the random conglomeration of pictures, but hopefully this catches you up a little on what we've been doing for the past few months.

The Verdict is In

2010-06-29T14:48:00.000-07:00

After 3 ultrasounds trying to determine the gender (two of them were at a school out here where you can get free ultrasounds), and an uncooperative baby with an umbilical cord in the way, we think we finally know what we're having. Due to the lack of "boy parts" (as my doctor says) it looks like we are having another little girl! We are thrilled and can't wait for Brookie to have her new little sister and a new playmate.

Sushi Sunday

2010-06-20T18:05:00.000-07:00

For Father's Day we decided to do something a little different - we decided to make daddy cook! Well, we all helped, but we definitely gave him the worst part -peeling the raw shrimp (anyone who has done this can appreciate how gross that is). After wanting to do it for a long time, we finally made sushi rolls! We used shrimp tempura, crab, avocado, cream cheese, and cucumber and made a few different rolls. Brookie loved helping us and even ate some. We'd love some company next time we make it, so come on over!

p.s. Don't mind the picture where Brookie is picking her nose, but check her out using her new trainer chopsticks! (She doesn't like being left out).

"Undie Bum"

2010-05-22T13:14:00.000-07:00

So, it's official. I can't upload any photos from my cell phone. I thought it might be our laptop, but we just got a new one, and it still doesn't work. Until someone much more tech savvy than I fixes it, or I start using our real camera, it looks like my posts will either be really boring, or non-existent.

But I couldn't ignore the ginormous news in our family right now. Brooklyn is potty trained!!! She has been for about a month, but I was really holding out for some cute pictures of her in her undies...maybe later. Can I just say that I always loved her diaper bum (especially with her little stretchy pants), but I CANNOT get enough of her undie bum!! It is ridiculously cute. I just want to pinch it all day. And maybe I do. Well, I feel very lucky that Brooklyn has so many potty trained friends to look up to, because that's what really made her want to use the toilet. After 3 days at home, she was pretty much trained. Maybe 1 or 2 accidents a week. But none at all in the last week or two. We're pretty thrilled. Now if she could only learn how to pull down her pants, climb up, and then wipe herself... but we'll get there. (Actually, one day she decided that she wanted to run around naked, and when I went into the bathroom where she was playing, I saw that she had pooped in the toilet without telling me. Now we just need to let her be naked all day and teach her how to wipe. Was that more information than you needed? Sorry.)

Anyhow, life is going well around here. I haven't been nearly as sick with this pregnancy as I was with Brooklyn, which has been a tremendous blessing. I'm 14 1/2 weeks - "well" into the second trimester. =) Shane is taking the first part of the CFA certification test in two weeks which is a pretty big deal. He's been studying in every spare moment that he isn't at work, with the Young Men, or spending some time with us. Shane and Brooklyn both have birthdays coming up in a few weeks - Shane will be 25 and Brookie will be the big 2. Oh boy.

Signing off for now.

A Happy Beginning

2010-04-13T19:37:00.000-07:00

After a miscarriage last fall, a too-early ultrasound with no heartbeat a few weeks ago, and now two more ultrasounds showing a strong heartbeat and a wiggly little baby, we are happy to announce that we are pregnant! (well, actually just me, even though Brookie is a little confused and now thinks that everyone has a baby in their tummy). I'm 9 weeks along and due in mid-November. We couldn't be more excited!

Hard Days

2010-03-30T19:27:00.000-07:00

Brooklyn has been a little sick lately. Well, a lot sick. She seemed to be doing better today, but for one reason or another things really went downhill from nap time on. She refused to sleep more than 30 minutes, but cried about every little thing after I got her out of her crib. One of the cutest things she does in the middle of a sob session is to cry, "I need a tissue, I need a tissue" (sounds more like, "I nee na tooshoo"). She loves to pat her eyes dry, wipe her nose, and throw her tissue away. One of her favorite things to do that is not so cute, however, is to ask for "food" - then, when I suggest everything I can think of that she might possibly eat, she turns each option down one by one saying, "No, food", to which I always respond, "Brooklyn, applesauce IS food" and so on. I know I've probably been too soft on her and given her too many choices, which is probably why she has refused to eat much of anything for the past two days. I almost cried at dinner when I put a variety of foods that she normally eats on her plate and she poo-poo'd them all. After attempting another meal and some more snacks, I ended up putting her to bed early with hardly anything in her stomach. I felt like such a terrible mother, but short of feeding her chocolate chips and ice cream, I knew there was nothing else she would be willing to put in her mouth. Is it because she's sick, or because she's turning two in a couple of months? It must be one of those - please don't let it be that I've just been too lenient with her - unfortunately I have no time machine to go back and fix those kinds of mistakes. Here's hoping that tomorrow brings better things...and that tomorrow doesn't start at 3:00 am with a hungry baby crying for the ever-impossible "food".

And here is a visual reminder of how adorable my baby really is - even on the hardest of days. Her baby kisses really fix pretty much anything.

Twinkle, Twinkle

2010-03-11T13:46:00.000-08:00

For the grandparents, aunts and uncles, and anyone else who cares to watch Brooklyn sing her favorite songs (and no, I'm not expecting there to be very many of you). By the way, we're doing well over here and have a lot to blog about, but my camera hasn't been letting me upload any pictures, so this is all for now.

Then and Now

2010-01-24T21:20:00.000-08:00

Have you noticed the general theme of our blog? I guess it's not too hard to tell what occupies most of my breathing moments...Here she is only 2 days old, and then at 18 months old.

p.s. Two new posts below.

Baby Hair

2010-01-24T21:15:00.000-08:00

I've been told that Brooklyn and I have the same hair color. Of course when I was her age mine was about 10 shades lighter than it is now, but it's fun to share at least one physical trait with my baby...Shane pretty much took all the rest.

Potato Head and DL

2010-01-24T12:48:00.000-08:00

We have recently started including Brooklyn in our Family Home Evenings. It's been fun teaching her about temples, families, and Jesus...in two to three sentences at a time. Last week we even busted out a "Family Home Evening Blanket" where we sit, have our lesson, look at pictures, do our activity, and of course, have a treat. Hopefully Brooklyn will realize that when we pull out the blanket we're doing something special. Here was our activity from last week. Some pretty awesome looking Mr. and Mrs. Potato Heads. She was trying to look at the camera, but she just couldn't keep her eyes off of them.

Below are some pictures from our latest trip to Disneyland (it has affectionately been dubbed DL in our house, you know, because "Disneyland" just takes too much time to say). Our season passes are up this week, and I'm really debating about whether or not I should renew them... Due to the heavy heavy rain in California this past week, we haven't been able to go, so we'll probably only get one more run in, unless of course we decide to renew. We'll let you know when the verdict is in. That's all for now.

Pasta Mama: The First Attempt

2010-01-20T20:50:00.000-08:00

So, for those of you who have noticed the new link on the side of my blog (because why wouldn't you spend all day checking out the intricacies of my blog?) for the cooking blog "Challengers of the Unknown", let me explain what it is. I was recently invited by my sister in law to join a group blog. The point of this is to have a goal you're accomplishing and to blog about it over the next year (similar to Julie and Julia). Everyone who is participating in it blogs about something different. I, for example, am making a new type of homemade pasta every week. My sister in law Megan is cooking her way through the Martha Stewart cupcake cookbook, my brother in law George is baking his way through "All Cakes Considered", my sister in law Melanee is posting a new recipe that she will be trying on her family each week, and my sister Sarah is trying out new slow-cooker recipes weekly. Now lest you think that it's all family, it's not. There are plenty of other people blogging - some about food, and some about exercise or other goals. This is an open blog (up to 100 people can join a blog, did you know?), so if ANY of you want to join, leave me a comment with your e-mail address and I'll invite you. This should be really fun, and something to look forward to. Here's the only rule, you have to create a name for yourself that you use at the beginning of every post (ex. pasta mama), and you have to pick a celebrity who would play you should the blog be turned into a movie one day (which of course it will be) and post their picture next to yours in your first post. Check out the blog if you want to see examples (you may have to check the older posts to see them all). Here is my blog post from today, but from now on, I'll only post these to the "Challengers of the Unknown" blog, so that those of you who tire of reading pasta recipes won't be completely turned off to our little family blog.

*Also, if you want to go there and just read my posts, just type "pasta mama" in the search bar and it will show all of my posts.*

Here she is!

I am currently waiting for my pasta maker to get here from Utah (my family will be bringing it in a couple of weeks). So I was going to wait on the homemade pasta until then...makes sense right? But then I thought, if I don't start blogging now, what will all my fans do, where will they turn? Not wanting to deprive my fans of a good blog (or my husband of a good dinner), I decided to have a go at it - rolling pin style. After much mixing, kneading, rolling, slicing, boiling, tossing and eating, I am proud to say that I made (and we actually consumed) my first homemade pasta dish. I decided on using a familiar recipe for the topping so that I could focus on the pasta part. So here is the pasta recipe (courtesy of Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook). *Note - This will be the main pasta recipe that I use in most of my dishes, so I won't post it again. Also, if you get bored easily, I would only reccommend reading this recipe if you're planning to make the pasta.*

Homemade Pasta (page 414)
Prep - 1 hour (ahem, 2 if you're me)
Makes - 5 servings

Ingredients-
2 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon dried basil or sage, crushed
2 eggs
1/3 cup water
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cooking oil or olive oil

Steps -
1) In a large bowl stir together 2 cups of flour, basil, and 1/2 teaspoon salt. Make a well in the center of the flour mixture. In a small bowl beat eggs; add water and oil. Add egg mixture to flour mixture; stir to combine.
2) Sprinkle a clean kneading surface with the remaining 1/3 cup flour. Turn dough out onto floured surface. Knead until dough is smooth and elastic (8 to 10 min). Cover and let the dough rest for 10 min.
3) Divide the dough into four equal portions. On a lightly floured surface, roll each portion into a 12-ince square (about 1/16 inch thick). Let stand, uncovered, about 20 min. Cut as desired. OR If using a pasta machine, pass each portion through machine according to manufacturer's directions until dough is 1/16 inch thick. Let stand, uncovered, about 20 min; cut as desired. (ex. cut into linguine or fettuccine strips, or cut into squares or circles for ravioli etc. Be creative).
4) To serve pasta immediately, cook according to chart in book. (for fettuccine or linguine, cook for 90 seconds to 2 min. Stuffed ravioli, 7-9 min. Lasagna noodles 2-3 min). p.s. when they say 90 seconds to 2 min they mean it!! DO NOT OVERCOOK, or you will have mushy-ish noodles. Just ask my husband.
5) To store cut pasta, hang it from a pasta-drying rack or spread it on a wire cooling rack. Let pasta dry about 1 hour or until completely dry. Place it in an airtight container and chill for up to 3 days, or in a freezer bag and freeze for up to 8 months. (really? that sounds like a long time)

While I was waiting for the pasta to set/dry a bit, I worked on the rest of the dish.
ZUCCHINI ALFREDO. And don't be scared by the Alfredo - it's really not as fattening as it sounds. (This Recipe courtesy of "Terry" and allrecipes.com). * my own additions*

Ingredients

1 (12 ounce) package uncooked egg noodles
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
4 cups shredded zucchini
1/2 cup milk
4 ounces cream cheese, cubed *I used low-fat - still delicious*
1/2 cup chopped fresh basil *must be fresh!!*
salt and pepper to taste
grated Parmesan cheese (optional) *not optional* =)

Directions

Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Add egg noodles and cook for 8 to 10 minutes or until al dente; drain.*or go through much more trouble to make homemade noodles, also, you can really use any kind of noodles here - I like using bowtie*
Heat the oil in a skillet over medium heat. Stir in garlic, and cook 2 minutes. Mix in zucchini, and cook 10 minutes, until some of the moisture has evaporated.
Pour the milk into the skillet, and stir in cream cheese until melted. Mix in basil. Season with salt and pepper, and sprinkle with Parmesan cheese. Serve over the cooked pasta.*I like it tossed*

And voila! The finished (and only slightly mushy) product! Really though, if my first attempt had turned out perfectly, what would I blog about for the rest of the year? (I really do love the zucchini alfredo recipe, it's just the noodles I need a bit of work on). All in all, I would say a success. And with fresh papaya on the side, you really can't go wrong with any meal. Also, I've decided that it doesn't necessarily make sense to make the same pasta recipe over and over with different toppings, so I will be trying different things every now and again with store-bought pasta. For example I just came across a recipe for some delicious looking pad-thai...more on that next week?

*Note the adorable little sioux chef above helping me make (eat) pasta dough*
*I understand that I may have to improve the quality of my photos to keep any readers around...have no fear, I am working on it.*

Orange You Glad We Live In California?

2010-01-17T20:06:00.001-08:00

First Pick of the Season.

It's January. And while for many of our friends and family that means snow, gray skies, and scraping windshields at six in the morning, for us here in California it means that it's orange time! I have a confession - I keep forgetting that it's still winter. We have had 70-80 degree weather almost exclusively since we came back from Utah. (I do hear that we will be having rain all of this next week though. And for Californians, that's about as bad as it can get.) I don't mean to brag, but growing up in Michigan and spending a good portion of time in Utah, it's just hard for me to remember that it's winter while it's so warm outside. Enough of that. The point of this post is to entice everyone who doesn't live here to come visit, because January through March is orange picking season! Our great friends Brett and Lisa invited us to go orange picking with them and we (along with some of our other wonderful friends) gladly took them up on the offer. We picked and ate some delicious oranges, and then had a picnic and played at the neighboring park. Not a bad way to spend a Saturday.

"Cheese!"

We LOVE oranges!

If this were a postcard it would say,
"Come visit us and we'll take you orange pickin'!"

"Say Orange!"

Brookie loves playing with her friends (I'm starting to think that she takes after me).
Here she is with her friend Hannah who loves to show her around and watch out for her.
Thanks Hannah!

Eat Mor Chikin (A Shameless Endorsement)

2010-01-12T19:38:00.000-08:00

Daddy (&Mommy) Daughter Date

2010-01-10T08:38:00.000-08:00

Yesterday we decided to take Brooklyn OUT. Not just to the park, but on a little ice cream/movie date. We started by going to the Marble Slab Creamery where Brooklyn wouldn't eat a bite of my coconut brownie ice cream, but devoured most of Shane's Swiss chocolate raspberry ice cream. Maybe I should order coconut more often. =) We then headed to the movie theater and sat down to watch "The Princess and the Frog". Overall, Brooklyn did amazingly well, other than trying to lay down on the sticky floor a few times and trying to eat a whole bag of m&m's. The movie was excellent and the company was better. All in all, a fantastic day.

Here are a couple of pictures from a little picnic/hike we went on with our friends Lisa and Ryan. Some of you may recognize Ryan as Brooklyn's first kiss? We had a great time - I never knew how much Brooklyn loved dirt and rocks. But boy does she ever.

First Haircut

2010-01-06T12:10:00.000-08:00

No...not mine, Brooklyn's of course (mine desperately needs to be cut though). Over Christmas break my family began to comment on the "mullet" that Brookie was sporting. I'll admit, the back was a bit long for the front hairs, which can barely be pulled back in a barrette. I was really hoping to hold out until her hair was long enough to clip a strand, tie it with a ribbon, and keep it forever in her baby book (someone's making one of those for me, right?). A few days after we came home I was giving Brooklyn a bath and had to face the stark reality of how long and scraggly the back really was. Immediately after, I called Shane and said, "I'm going to cut Brooklyn's hair, is that alright?" "Ummm...you're not going to chop all of it off are you?" "No just a trim." "That's fine I guess." And so out came the scissors and off came the hair. Did I ever mention that almost all of my hair decisions are made spur of the moment? Thankfully, this one did not turn out to be a fiasco, unlike some of my own hair impulses. Here's our little journey in pictures.

Amazing Andrea - Part II

2010-01-03T21:17:00.000-08:00

Here are our first ever official (you know...paid-for, posed) family photos. Thanks again to our amazing photographer friend Andrea. As you can see it's been a while since I've posted, so here's the first in what will (hopefully) be quite a few new posts.

(Check out this bottom picture...did you see me right away?)

Special Elmo

2009-11-29T21:03:00.001-08:00

The Thanksgiving holidays were a great success. We got to hang out with Shane's family in Las Vegas - Brooklyn had a blast with her cousins and her grandma and grandpa. We went to an amazing play place where Brooklyn was able to climb and slide to her heart's content.

While we were there Megan and Melanee (Shane's sisters) and I got a little crafty. (Well, truth be told, the crafts were planned by them, I just got to join in.) We had a blast and made lots of Christmas ornaments, as well as an advent calendar made from matchboxes. You put little treats in the drawers and take one out for each day in December leading up to Christmas. Once Brooklyn finds out that there are m&m's in the drawers, I may have to hide this, but for now it sits proudly on my counter as one of the craftiest things I have ever done.

The other thing I made (while we were making ornaments) was a tiny little Elmo for Brooklyn. She has been a little obsessed lately, and you can see by the picture how happy this "Special Elmo" (peshoo emo) makes her. I tried to take a picture of Elmo, but Brooklyn was crying so hard because I took her Elmo away that I didn't have time to turn my flash off. I would have taken a picture after she went to bed..but she took it to bed with her. It's not the best looking Elmo on earth, but it's certainly recognizable to an 18 month old with an affinity for furry red beasts.

Amazing Andrea

2009-11-10T09:01:00.000-08:00

My AMAZING photographer friend Andrea did a little photo shoot with Brooklyn the other day, here are a few of the results.

Good Morning Baltimore!!

2009-11-09T15:54:00.000-08:00

Sooo.... a couple of weeks ago we got the travel bug again (well actually this trip had been planned for quite a while), and we flew out to Baltimore to visit mi hermana Sarah, her husband Jon, and Little Olivia. While there we also visited the great cities of Washington D.C. and Philadelphia, PA. Here are some pictures to show what a blast we had.

The REAL ruby slippers (you know, the ones that went to Oz and back).

Check out my nice walking boot. At least we got to use handicapped parking spots, which amazingly made things a whole lot easier.

It's a pretty amazing experience to stand beneath the Lincoln Monument.

Good 'ol pumpkin patchin.

Brookie and Daddy.

Gotta love those faces she pulls.

Love love love.

Brooklyn doing the "Rocky" at the top of the "Rocky steps".

Brooklyn sort of doing the "Rocky" in front of his statue. No, she hasn't seen the movies, we had to sing "Jesus wants me for a Sunbeam" and she would pop her arms up on "beam".

We got to see our awesome friends Brittney and Ryan and Jackson while we were there. Never mind that they had to drive hours in the rain to meet us at the place we went to accidentally. That's what good friends are for, right? (We also got to see Benton and Brittany, but no pictures.)

Cousins in the costumes.

Just a little extra for your enjoyment. Shane and I were "old people" for Halloween. Unfortunately we couldn't get a picture of our whole selves. It was pretty good.

Cutest Lady Bug on the Block

2009-11-03T07:19:00.000-08:00

Brooklyn got to trunk-or-treat with our ward on Friday night and trick-or-treat with some friends on Saturday night. Can I just say that I had no idea that taking a sixteen-month-old trick-or-treating could be SO fun and so ridiculously cute. By the end she was a pro, running from house to house sticking out her hand and saying "treat". My favorite part of every house was when she would get to the door and knock...and knock...and knock...until someone answered. One guy even started knocking back on the other side of the door before he opened it to see a little lady bug pounding away.

She made out like a bandit. This was only one night's worth of candy (okay, so her bucket is actually rather small). Needless to say, Shane and I have had our fair (or unfair) share of her candy.

Macadamia Clusters and Other News

2009-10-08T15:45:00.000-07:00

Okay, so who has had the Chocolate Macadamia Caramel clusters from Costco? They are heavenly. Try some. Just be aware that they will be gone within about 24 hours...so don't plan on keeping them stocked in your pantry.

In other news...I broke my foot last night. I was walking to my car, thought that it was farther away but saw it right in front of me and tried to stop/turn. I landed really awkwardly and heard that wonderful bone-cracking noise. The break isn't terrible and should heal in about six weeks, but I have to stay completely off my foot for now. The hardest part is trying to take care of Brooklyn and hop/hobble around the apartment on crutches at the same time. She thinks my crutches are fascinating and keeps trying to get in front of me and grab them while I walk -not so cute. She has also learned the word for crutch - cute.

Sad things about breaking my foot right now:

1 - I will have to drop out of my dance class that just started a few weeks ago (sad day Natalie, you are an awesome teacher)
2 - Brooklyn and I have to stop our recently resumed morning walks (it's finally cool enough to enjoy getting outside in the morning)
3 - My family is coming down and we were supposed to go to San Diego next Saturday...not sure if I won't be able to go, or just limit what I do
4 - Shane and I are flying to Baltimore in two weeks to visit Sarah and Jon - we're also planning on going to D.C. and Philly while we're there - we're still figuring out what our options are for that
5 - I'll be on crutches for my birthday

Happy things about breaking my foot right now:

1- Shane got to hang out with us for a few extra hours today while we went to the doctor and got settled at home
2- Shane now gets to do the bulk of the cleaning at home
3- Shane gets to do the grocery shopping =)

Just kidding, only number one was good. I feel bad adding extra duties and stresses to Shane's already hectic life at his job and as young men's president in our ward. But he is bearing it like a saint. Anyhow, I've never broken a bone before (unless you count the time I rolled over my thumb on a banana chair and had to wear a rockin thumb cast for a few weeks), so this will be a good learning experience. And Brookie and I will get a lot of quality (movie) time at home together. If you live in the area and are ever bored, come over and play. I promise we'll feed you ice cream. Or maybe even those to-die-for Macadamia Clusters. =)

Our Little Reader

2009-10-01T15:40:00.000-07:00

Brooklyn can read! Well, okay, she can't read, but we have so few books that she has memorized some of the simpler ones. She can actually "read" both of these books all the way through, but she was in a frustrated mood today, so we only got through parts of them. Enjoy!

Note: Sorry about the awkward videography, but I had to sit close enough to turn the pages...

Wub yoo

2009-09-24T16:27:00.000-07:00

Shane got the first "wub yoo" from Brooklyn last night (after which I made her say it to me three times as payment for not saying it to me first). I just thought it was a blog-worthy moment.

Tea Party

2009-09-15T15:44:00.000-07:00

Wow, can it get much cuter than this? I have a picture of my little sister Joy in a teacup at Disneyland when she was around Brooklyn's age - it is one of my favorite pictures because of the look in her eyes - the awe and wonder of being at Disneyland for the first time. Now I can add this teacup picture of Brooklyn to it as my two all-time favorite photos. This past week was a whirlwind. Two days after getting back from my grandma's funeral in Utah, we picked Shane's sister Megan up from the LAX airport (for those of you who have had to battle that traffic, groans are appropriate here). However we had a great time on the way home - Megan and I catching up on life, and Brooklyn glued to her Mickey Mouse DVD in the back. We had a full weekend. We made some awesome carrot cake cupcakes, ate at In-n-Out, did a little shopping and just hung out. Then Shane's sister Melanee, her husband George and their two kids arrived on Sunday evening, shortly followed by Shane's parents. We spent the week at the beach, Disneyland, and watching some BYU football. We had a blast, and hope that they will all come to visit us again soon! Here are some of my favorite moments.

I must say, Mickey Mouse was a big hit with all the cousins. It was appropriate since we were headed to Disneyland. I have some great pictures of Brooklyn and Sammie with the princesses at Disneyland (for some reason, Kevin didn't want to have anything to do with them). We waited in line for an hour to get those pictures, but they're on our other camera, and I'm just too lazy right now to upload them.

Brooklyn can officially eat a whole ear of corn. She tends to like the food that I like - I could probably eat six ears of corn in one sitting.

On Saturday, Melanee and I got brave and made strawberry freezer jam while the boys watched the football game. Of all the things in the world that I love, strawberry freezer jam has got to be close to the top of the list - maybe just behind ice cream. I was always too intimidated to make it, so we have been strawberry freezer jamless our whole marriage. I discovered on Saturday, that it is one of the world's easiest things to make - so needless to say we'll be adding to our jam stores every time strawberries go on sale. I'm a little worried that this batch will only last a few weeks, so maybe I should hurry back to the store and buy some more while they're still on sale.

All in all, life has been treating us well. Brooklyn continues to amaze me. She can say almost any word you ask her to say, she spins in circles, walks backwards, and can be very stubborn when she wants to be. She also gives the world's best kisses, and she loves playing with her new stuffed Mickey.

Best Treat for a Buck

2009-08-17T11:55:00.000-07:00

And here is me...eating the best treat you can get for a buck (actually in the United States it costs about 2.19. Maybe that has something to do with shipping costs). This was my favorite treat when we lived in Japan. It's an ice cream sandwich, but not in the traditional sense. It has a cake cone outside that looks like a rectangle belgian waffle, with vanilla ice cream, and a layer of chocolate on the inside. It sounds simple, but it is the perfect combination of everything and a delight to your taste buds. I've been looking for this at every Asian store, and finally found it in a grocery store in Little Tokyo in downtown LA. We were there with Shane's parents and stumbled across it. It might be worth an hour drive/$10 parking fee to get one of these every month. Or maybe I'll just take a cooler next time and buy them out.

Is this allowed?

2009-08-17T11:29:00.000-07:00

Am I allowed to post pictures this naked (and cute) on my blog? Oh well, here you go. We were in Utah a couple of weeks ago, and had a blast on the family farm (aka, the house in Fairview where I think every house qualifies as a farm). Brooklyn bathing in a tub...

Brooklyn riding on a four-wheeler... Hey! Who let her up there? No seriously dad, you better get permission next time. Mom power overrides grandpa power.

We had an awesome time there, and weren't scheduled to go back until Christmas. However, my grandma Bangerter passed away on Thursday, so we'll be headed back up sooner than we planned. She was an incredible woman who really lived the gospel and left an amazing heritage. We miss her a lot, but she finally gets to be with her husband who passed away about 10 years ago. So it's a happy/sad day.

Kit-Kat

2009-07-18T17:26:00.000-07:00

Brooklyn and I were shopping yesterday. Notice the phrase, "Brooklyn and I". She definitely takes an active part in the shopping these days. I was looking around for some good deals on cereal (we always have the most fun in the cereal aisle) and she was examining a display in the middle of the aisle. I saw her come to the cart, then saw her walk away again. This is what I saw next to my flour when I looked down.

Now, she has never had candy from a wrapper like that. But somehow those candy companies know how to make it obvious that there is something really delicious inside - even to a 13 month old. I put the candy back and we continued on our way. When we were checking out I was so busy putting my items on the belt that I failed to notice what Brooklyn was doing until she had pulled about 5 candy bars from the displays and was trying to bite through the wrappers. Thinking that I would keep her from biting into all the candy on display, I grabbed a kit-kat, ripped it open, gave her a little piece to eat, and then paid for it along with the rest of my groceries. The kit-kat was a big hit. And as I got into the car, it hit me. (Not the car, but the following realization). I had just done something that I had sworn I would never do! I gave my child candy for being naughty! I had always pictured a screaming child begging for candy, and me, a martyr to the cause, denying said child of the candy and distracting them in some other brilliant way. I guess the problem was that in this day dream, my child was always a brat, and always screaming. But Brooklyn was just so cute standing there, biting with all the faith in the world that there was something good in those wrappers. It caught me off guard, and I just caved. I think I may have created a monster.

The Mouse with the Big Ears

2009-07-07T13:44:00.000-07:00

Playhouse Disney is a series of cartoons shown on the Disney Channel every morning. They're new cartoons featuring characters such as Mickey and the gang, Pooh and friends, Little Einsteins etc. Now, don't worry (mom), I don't plop Brooklyn down in front of it for three hours while I sleep/get ready in the morning. But once or twice a week, I let Brooklyn watch one of the shows.

A couple of weeks ago, Brookie and I went to Disneyland with Grace and Evie. We were fortunate enough to see Mickey and Minnie heading to their places to take pictures, so we quickly jumped in line. Often you'll have to wait 20 minutes or so just to get a picture, and we only had to wait about 2 min. When it was our turn and we stood next to Mickey and Minnie, Brooklyn started screaming and writhing in my arms. Apparently seeing larger than life "mice" can be frightening to a one year old. It was all I could do just to hold onto her. (See below picture.)

As soon as Grace and Evie jumped in with us, Brooklyn calmed down a bit. Apparently she thought that if they were going to eat us, they would have done so by now. Or maybe it was just the comfort of having her friend close by. She had barely had time to calm down before the picture was taken and we were shunted aside. She kept looking back to check out Mickey and Minnie until we had walked out of sight.

A couple of weeks passed. Brooklyn loves to look at the pictures on my phone (it has a pretty good camera which I use at places like Disneyland since it's so much smaller than our actual camera). She was clicking though the pictures and came to the above picture. She held the phone out to me and started making her impatient noise ("ah, ah"). I wasn't sure what to do, so I started singing the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse song, and she started bopping her head and bouncing her knees. I followed it up with the "Hot Dog Dance" song (for those of you who've seen the show) and she continued dancing and smiling. She made me do it about 5 times in a row. Since then she's come to me with the same picture numerous times and showed off her little dancing/bopping skills as I sing along. She also occasionally brings an ugly little stuffed Mickey that we got out of a cereal box and makes me sing the same songs. Yesterday we were at Target and she saw a BIG ball with a picture of Mickey and the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse gang. Of course I had to buy it. She toddled around the store carrying it in her arms even though it completely blocked her view and she could barely get her arms around the sides. If I ever turn the show on now, she runs over and stands in front of the TV, dancing away. So Mickey, even though she screamed when she saw you, she really does love you.

Lucky Girl

2009-06-30T08:51:00.000-07:00

Brooklyn and I were shopping yesterday (she always has to push the cart now, which gives her freedom to walk around and knock things off the shelves when she wants to) and as I was looking around for a good/on sale cereal, I turned around to see her like this...

She had never had lucky charms before - but since she seemed so keen on trying them I decided to buy them. Turns out that they taste as good as they look - she ate half of Shane's marshmallows this morning.

The Big One

2009-06-13T07:05:00.000-07:00

The Big ONE has arrived. Brooklyn's first Birthday was on Thursday June 11th. Shane and I may be the most un-cool parents ever, but since Brooklyn is only one, she was more than happy to play with her balloons and party hat, and didn't even realize she was missing out on a big party (we're actually going to Las Vegas next weekend to stay with Shane's parents and my parents will meet us there - that's when we'll do her real party). Anyway, I was sick on her birthday, so Brookie and I spent about an hour and a half at the doctor before going home to some Chinese food that Shane picked up on the way home from work. After that we gave her a cupcake, which she absolutely refused to dig into (but she would eat little bits if I gave them to her), and then we let her open some presents. This was definitely the highlight (aside from playing with the balloons of course), and we found that $25 is more than enough to make your one-year-old's dreams come true. Ah, to be young again.

(My first attempt at painting a sign.)

The next day, my friend Lisa took Brooklyn and I (and her 1 1/2 year old Ryan) out to Claremont to take some pictures for Brookie's first birthday. Here are a few highlights.

(Shane may or may not be mad about these last two pictures...for some reason he thinks that Brooklyn shouldn't kiss boys until she's at least 23.)

Also, because Brooklyn had her birthday two days later, I haven't yet mentioned that last Tuesday we celebrated Shane's 24th birthday. Lately Shane has really gotten into saving as much money as possible (which is awesome...and it kind of makes sense that he is even more concerned with our finances now that he is a financial advisor). Because of this, he decided that he didn't want me to get him anything for his birthday, so instead, I made a carrot cake from scratch - first time I've ever ventured into the "non-box-mix" cake world. I even home-made the cream cheese frosting. I was pretty proud of my creation, even though I think I need to take a few classes in cake-decorating before I can enter my cakes into any contests. (Those are supposed to be carrots).

This is just a fun moment we had last week - while I was reading, Brooklyn somehow found her way into my purse. I looked over and saw that she was about to put something into her mouth. At first I thought it was a piece of chocolate, but I never have chocolate in my purse. So I ran over to find her nearly eat a huge chunck of lipstick. Lipstick smashed into the carpet, lipstick all over her pj's, lipstick smeared all over her hands, and of course, lipstick on her lips.

Piggies and Berries

2009-05-29T14:13:00.000-07:00

We went to Utah a couple of weeks ago for my cousin's wedding. We had a BLAST and loved to catch up with friends and family. My mom is holding Brookie and Jill (Mimi's new baby). I can't believe Brookie used to be that small! Brooklyn learned to say the word "baby" while we were there...in her adorable Brookie way of saying things of course.

Brookie and grandpa Haynie. What's that funny face you're making chica?

Brooklyn and Shane on our hike in the San Bernadino mountains on Memorial Day. She was a trooper...and so was Shane - he carried her almost all of the 2 and a half hours.

Grace and Evie picking strawberries on a sunny afternoon...Evie I'm pretty sure they told us not to eat the strawberries while we were picking.

Though Brooklyn is close to walking, she's not quite there yet, which is why she wasn't allowed free reign in the strawberry patch. Such freedom would have wrought havoc on her outfit, not to mention the berries.

Brooklyn's hair is finally long enough for "piggies". She's pretty good while I put them in, and doesn't try to tear them out during the day. I think she looks like the cutest bug I ever saw.

And that's all folks!

Mother's Day

2009-05-11T09:52:00.000-07:00

So yesterday was my first official mother's day. (Last year Brookie was around, but still in my belly...however, I had suffered quite a bit for her already). Shane was awesome, he took care of Brooklyn so I could sleep in, he made me banana pancakes with strawberries and freshly whipped cream on top, and he basically just pampered me all day. Church was great (the elder's quorum took over primary, so I got to go to Sunday School and Relief Society), and we met some new friends there who invited us over for a delicious Hawaiian dinner last night (Kalua pork....mmmm). But all day I couldn't help but think that things were backwards. Of course being a mom is hard - incredibly hard sometimes - but all things considered, I'm much happier now than I was before. So shouldn't Brookie be getting some of the praise? Why isn't there a Kid's Day? Or an Adorable Babies Day? Speaking of babies, Brooklyn almost isn't one anymore! She is 11 months today! Of course she still about the size of a 7 month old, but she is defnitely growing up. She can stand up on her own now, and she's taken one step...twice. She loves to laugh and get chased around by daddy. She will take any opportunity to use my phone, and will sometimes even hold it up to her ear and say "ha" ("hi"). She is basically just the all-around cutest 11-month old in the world. So here's a shout out to all the kids in our lives - you rock our socks off.

Google-able

2009-04-21T19:54:00.001-07:00

So, during a recent training at work, Shane was told to make sure that he was "Google-able". Meaning that if potential clients want to do some homework on him, they'll find out good things rather than that he's an ax-murderer or swindler, or whatever. So I decided to google my own husband and see if he would pass the test. I typed in his name and up popped a lot of basketball rosters and sports news pages. Apparently there's a high school basketball star named with his name in Hawaii. And then, up popped two of my friends blogs, but not our blog! (which is probably good). Apparently my friends had written his full name for one reason of another, and I guess we haven't. Since then I decided to be careful not to write his full name...you know, so "they" can't know how weird we are...or I am. Just in case. As for my friends' blogs, they didn't write anything obscene or degrading, so I don't think we have to worry too much. When was the last time you googled yourself? Are you Google-able?

It's been awhile...

2009-04-13T11:58:00.000-07:00

I decided to blog. Mostly because every time I look at one of my friend's blogs and see our blog on the side, it says "3 weeks ago" under our name. I figure that's probably about as long as I can go to keep people checking our blog AT ALL. The main issue is that I don't consider myself a very entertaining writer, and I am STILL having problems uploading pictures...I know, it should be easy, especially because we have an SD card reader in our computer...but, I'm just technologically deficient and I have a hard time figuring out what program to use, where the pictures are stored etc. So you'll have to forgive my lack of pictures and adorable videos (I'll have Shane post some soon). So in lieu of that...

I could tell you all about how Shane and I got box seats to a Clippers game from his work a couple of weeks back. (Never heard of the Clippers? Neither had I. They're the other LA basketball team, and yeah, they're not that great.) The fun part was the box, full of free and delicious food, oh and the dessert cart that came around halfway through the game. I felt like I was on the Hogwarts Express! Shane had a 7 layer carrot cake that was too good to be allowed (and this coming from someone who doesn't normally like carrot cake).

Or, I could tell you about how Brooklyn and I flew to Utah last week and had a blast with friends and family (my parents couldn't get enough of Brooklyn...they never can, which is why they drive out to California at least once a month to see her). But I'll have to post pictures and news from the trip later.

Or I could tell you about the awesome Easter we had. Shane spoke in church. He had spent hours preparing a talk just to get to church and find out that the topic he was supposed to speak on was actually quite different from the one he had prepared for - he pulled it off incredibly though. I sang with a few other women, and then we both taught lessons (me in Primary, and Shane in Young Men's). By the time we got home we were pretty exhausted, but then spent the next three hours preparing dinner and getting ready to have some recently made friends over for Easter dinner. It was the first time I had ever cooked Easter dinner and it turned out great.

But what I really wanted to talk about was Harry Potter. Anyone who knows me probably knows that I am an avid HP fan. My aunt introduced the first book to me way back when no one had really heard about them and I've been hooked ever since. In fact, I've read the first 3 about 7 times, and the others 2-4 times. After the 7th came out and I read it, Shane and I then read them all aloud (he had never read them before). Well, we decided to read them again, since we couldn't really agree on any other books to read together, and right now we're on the 4th one. Last night, we were reading the part about the Yule Ball where Harry and Ron have to find girls to ask to the dance. J.K. Rowling really captures the hilarity and embarrassment of middle school/high school dating. Anyone who hasn't read Harry Potter (Sarah) is totally missing out. We laughed for 5 minutes over the lines in the book, and then we thought how glad we were that we were done with that part of life. On that note, I'd just like to say how awesome Shane is. He basically gives me everything I want, and loves me way more than I deserve. I'm not sure how I got so lucky, but I'm sure glad I did. And I'm sure glad that we're done with the awkward dating and can just do fun dating now...so long as we get a babysitter, which isn't very often.

Computer Smashin' Part 2

2009-03-23T07:42:00.001-07:00

So, this video is actually three weeks old, but too cute to pass up...

Unfortunately what happens at the end of the video left us without a shift key for a week and cost us $10 to repair. Needless to say, there probably won't be any more computer smashing videos. We'll probably have to start filming some of her many other talents (open mouth kissing, waving bye-bye, saying dada, mama, nana (banana), crawling like a speeding car to the open bathroom door when I'm not looking, pulling herself up and walking along the edge of the couch, playing peek-a-boo by pulling a shirt over her face and off again while waiting for me to say the words, and guiding my hands to the patty cake song). Wow, if that wasn't a run-on parenthetical statement, I don't know what is. Anyway, hope you enjoy.

9 months ago...

2009-03-12T09:37:00.000-07:00

Nine months ago, Brookie was born! I can't believe she's 9 months old, but I also have a hard time remembering what life was like without her. I just started doing some sleep training with her (read the book Baby Whisperer if you're interested in teaching a 9 month old who wakes up 4 times a night and won't fall asleep without nursing how to put herself to sleep in 5 minutes and sleep for 10 hours straight). Needless to say, I'm getting a lot more sleep (at least more consistent sleep), and we're all a lot happier. She still takes about half an hour to go down for naps, but at least she's falling asleep in her own crib (with a little help from mommy- for now), and she is on a much better routine.
Aside from progress in sleep, Brooklyn can wave "bye-bye" when daddy leaves for work, or mommy goes to run errands. She is crawling ALL over (some army crawl, some on her knees), she pulls herself up on everything she can and tries to walk a little while holding on to the edge of her crib, and she crawls all over us and pulls our hair/sucks on our faces if we're laying on the floor. Here are a few pictures to share her cuteness.

Watching her fall asleep in her crib is so fun- especially when she falls asleep like this. (I think she was sitting up crying, holding her teddy bear, and then she basically just fell over on her face and was asleep within thirty seconds).

I can't wait until she figures out what those buttons do. Actually I just lied...I can definitely wait.

This photo was taken at the Grauman's Chinese Theathre in Hollywood. I must say, Hollywood was a definite disappointment - it was kind of a run-down part of town with only a few redeeming factors. The hand and foot prints of Shirley Temple from 1935 was one of those.

Sorry Shane, it's not your most flattering picture, but this scene is one of my favorites. Brooklyn will do anything to get her hands on that computer. (Another computer video coming soon).

It's a Small World at Disney Land. I think we've been there 4 times now, and Shane has part of the day off tomorrow, so we're headed up again. I think she might be starting to like it. =)

Anosmia - the forgotten disability.

2009-03-01T09:16:00.001-08:00

Last week I caught the bug that seems to be going around. It started with a sinus infection and despite the trip to the doctor and the pharmacy, the congestion still hasn't gone away. As a result I've been without my sense of smell for the last few days. I've heard stories about people who will wear a blindfold for a day or use a wheelchair to get around for a while so that they can better understand the struggle of having a disability. I admire those people. I, however, am not one of them. No, the closest that I have ever come (and involuntarily, mind you) was to feel the pain of anosmia for a week. Often, people who temporarily surrender one of their senses write about what it's like to live in a blind or a deaf world. In this post, I will take you into the world of the nose-deaf.

I was surprised to find that the change from a smelling life to a non-smelling life was not all bad. There were pros as well as cons. For example:

Con: I can't taste food. Last night we went to a Japanese restaurant here in So-Cal that was franchised from Tokyo. It was a favorite of mine while I was in Japan, so I wanted to see if the food was the real deal. My judgment: I still have no idea.

Pro: I can't taste food. I ordered a piece of cake at said Japanese restaurant, but since I couldn't taste it, I stopped eating the empty calories. I actually think that's the first time in my life that I haven't finished a piece of cake.

Con: We walked past some cherry blossom trees at Disneyland whose fragrance I wasn't able to enjoy.

Pro: I walked into a restroom at Disneyland whose odor I didn't have to endure.

Pro: I am impervious to all bad smells. That means that I can walk into a discount store bathroom or change Brooklyn's diaper without even flinching.

Con: Sometimes bad smells are a warning. It's your nose's way of saying "Hey, don't come into this discount store bathroom unless you want to get really sick."

Other Con: Since I'm nose deaf, I can't tell when Brooklyn's diaper needs changing anyway.

Pro: I don't notice when other people have bad breath or B.O.

Con: I don't notice when I have bad breath or B.O.

Pro: Losing one of your five senses can often enhance your other four senses.

Con: Since my sinus infection was accompanied by an ear infection, I was not only nose deaf but also kind of actually deaf.

Ultimately, I am looking forward to regaining my sense of smell. Sure there are probably a lot more really bad smells out there than really good smells, but I'm trusting my good judgment to help me navigate this world of odors.

To find out more about the very real world of smell disorders please visit the Anosmia Foundation

Economic Stimulus for 8 bucks a week

2009-02-19T20:13:00.000-08:00

President Obama has included a $400 per individual tax credit in this month's stimulus bill. Since this program didn't really work last time, they have decided to give us 20% less and dole it out over the length of a year. That means that we can all expect an extra 8$ per week in our paychecks instead of one lump sum. (I've already commented on my other blog about how stupid I think this plan is, but that's not the point I'm trying to make here.) The only way that this will provide any stimulus to the economy is if we take that money each week and blow it on something that we probably don't need. Ideally it would be something that is highly labor-intensive and will create a lot of jobs, like haircuts or massages. If we do something smart like save that extra money (for when taxes inevitably rise) or pay down debt, there is no stimulus. The Government is betting that the American people are spend-happy. Hmm... so far it seems like a pretty safe bet.

But if you are looking for a smarter way to blow your money, might I suggest something - invest it. Buy $30 worth of stock in the company of your choosing every month. Stocks are unbelievably cheap right now and you'd be helping to stabilize the markets.

What will I do? Well, haircuts and massages aren't really my thing, so I will probably just buy a big sack of candy. Mmm, stimulus. What will you do with your weekly windfall?

Good 'ol America

2009-02-04T07:17:00.000-08:00

Yesterday afternoon Brooklyn and I (and Grace and Evie - see Disneyland post) did what millions of Americans did across the country. We got a free Grand Slam Breakfast from Denny's. Delicious food, great service, and only a 1 hour 45 min. wait.

Things we learned today

2009-02-02T16:46:00.000-08:00

1.) Today we learned that Brooklyn can crawl. Well, sort of. It's really more of a scoot. Some might even call it "using your feet to slide across the room on your face."

2.) Brooklyn also taught us to never give up, especially when you're trying to do something as rewarding as listening to Gloria Estefan or ABBA which I wish I could tell you are on Maria's playlist.

3.) Oh yes, we also learned that it takes a lot of time to fix a computer when you let your 7-month-old beat it to pieces.

An Afternoon at Disney Land

2009-01-29T11:47:00.000-08:00

So, if you couldn't guess by the title of the post, Brookie has now had her first visit to Disneyland! Man, between living and touring in a foreign country, 3 moves, visiting 4 states, a few dips in the Pacific ocean, and now one of the world's most visited attractions under her belt, this 7-month old is never going to be satisfied when we FINALLY settle down (which we are hopefully doing). Some ladies in my ward have year passes to Disney Land (the passes pay for themselves after going only two days for So Cal Residents). They have little kids as well, and they convinced me to get a pass and join the fun. So we headed out to Anaheim (45 min. out in the morning, 1 hr. 45 min. back in rush hour traffic) to party! There are actually quite a few rides where you can hold a baby on your lap. Some of those rides (the ones that are dark and have loud sounds) were a little scary for Brooklyn, but for the most part she really enjoyed the day. Her favorite part (or maybe it was my favorite part) was the tea cups. That's one of the only things I remember from going there as a child, so a re-visit was a must. Here are a few of our favorite moments. (As well as some more favorite moments of the past few weeks).

Twirling around in the tea cups.

I have a very similar picture to this one of my little sister Joy (now 18, then 2) at Disney Land in a tea cup. In fact the paint on the inside is exactly the same and it may possibly be the same tea cup!

Mama and Brookie on the carousel.

My favorite part of the day - ice cream in a waffle cone. As I was taking the picture, Brookie got her hands in the ice cream. If she had known what it was, she would have gotten her hands in her mouth before I wiped them off, and I may have had to share.

April and her little girl Hannah (her baby Paige was sleeping in a stroller next to her), and Grace with Evelyn in her stroller. We had such a blast! Hopefully we'll go again soon.

On Friday the weather was nice, so Brooklyn and I decided to try out our pool. I don't have to tell you how cute she is in her bathing suit, just see above picture.

Brookie finding out about "Brooklyn in the Mirror."

Check out those big brown eyes.

John Thain and Office Luncheons

2009-01-25T21:44:00.000-08:00

I've found myself blogging a lot more lately. And by "lately" I mean today. It's pretty simple really. Where I would have normally been playing the Nintendo Wii had it not been Sunday, I've been blogging. Maybe that means I play the Wii too much. But I don't really like to read into things.

Let me tell you, these first few weeks on the job have been quite the experience. My actual office is great and I get paid to study. Bank of America and Merrill Lynch, however, have seen better days. On top of Bank of America buying Merrill Lynch only to find out that it didn't have enough money to do so, Merrill Lynch's ex-CEO who was supposed to help oversee the acquisition was forced to "voluntarily resign" this week. Can you believe it?

I really don't understand why Bank of America is so upset. All he did was drive Merill Lynch into the ground by holding onto a bunch of toxic assets, hide the weak condition of Merrill's balance sheet and allow the company to be fire-sold to BofA, skip away for a skiing vacation in Vail when it all hit the fan, finagle the government into covering his huge misjudgments with a few billion dollars in bailout money, and when he rewarded himself for a job well done with a 1.2 million dollar company-funded office redecoration, he got fired! What's that all about? Since when did we start holding executives accountable?

Perhaps I should drop my petition for that solid-gold doorstop that I thought would look so nice outside my cubicle.

You know what one of the best things about my job is? Free food. When mutual-fund salesmen come to make a pitch to the guys in my office that actually matter, they usually sponsor an office lunch. Of course, during the lunch we are obliged to listen to what they have to say about the products they are selling. I usually load up my plate with free food, sit in the meeting of about 10 or 15 Financial Advisors and listen very intently to the wholesaler make his pitch. Having only been on the job for three week, I usually only understand about 15% of the words that he's saying and 0% of the concepts that he is explaining, but I try to look very focused and nod agreeingly as often as I can between bites of overstuffed burrito or egg roll. My biggest fear is that he will look directly at me and say. Who are you and why are you eating my food? Do you even understand what I am talking about? Then I would be so flustered I would say something like: Who me? I don't even work here.

Oh, and on a much less interesting note. I've weighed in on Obama and the stimulus package in my other blog.

Back to Blogging

2009-01-15T17:26:00.000-08:00

Well, here's to another go at blogging. I have to say, blogging again after this long brings back vivid memories of what it was like to try and keep a journal. My childhood journal (that's right I only have one) is filled (and by filled, I mean it has about six written pages) with entries from every two years or so that say something like this:

"Well, a lot has happened since I last wrote, and I've decided that from now on I'm going to start writing in my journal every day..."

Then I would fill in some of the smaller details like graduating from Elementary School, Middle School, hitting puberty and getting my driver's license. Then I'd wait two years, and do it again. (The journal thing that is, not puberty)

But seriously though, a lot has happened since I last wrote, and I've decided that I'm going to start writing in my blog every day...

So as Maria has announced, I am now working for Merrill Lynch as a financial adviser. The job title pretty well explains what it is that I actually do - advise people about their finances. I thought that this would be a great opportunity considering how many people have suffered in the recent market turmoil. I thought that the fear in the market would turn people toward seeking professional help. The problem, as I've come to find out, is that after the market turmoil, nobody has any finances left.

You may have heard of Merrill Lynch before. It used to be one of the giants on Wall Street, until September of this year when Merrill took its full hit in the sub-prime market and Bank of America offered to buy us up and save all of our jobs. However, it turns out (as was published in the news today), that even though Bank of America had noble intentions, those nice folks didn't have any money. Rather than telling somebody though, they bought us anyway and then begged the government for a bail-out. That seems to be theme these days.

Anyway, my job's not too bad at all. Until I am licensed, I am being paid to study for my licensing exams. After that, the pressure's on. My salary gradually decreases while my commission rate increases and if I don't clear certain sales hurdles in the meantime then I could be "let go." This doesn't really worry me though, because if I lose my job, I'm planning on just asking for a bail-out.

In spite of these very demanding expectations, the four month "study period" is ample time to get my footing and prepare to meet these sales hurdles. And during this time I am only required to work for 35 hours per week. You know, like France. This way, when the government does end up owning Bank of America (and every other financial institution in America), I'll have no problem making a smooth transition into a comfortable government job. Hey, maybe this is more like France than I thought.

I couldn't ask for a better work schedule. I start at 7:00 and finish at 3:00 and since I only live 5 minutes from the office, I can usually come home for lunch. Still though, all this new-found alone time is starting to wear on Maria. I can't say that I blame her. We went from a house full of family to a little apartment in far-flung California. Still though, she's so starved for social interaction (other than me) that I'm afraid she's only about a week away from arranging Brooklyn's dolls around our coffee table for a tea party.

Brooklyn, on the other hand, is doing much better than we had expected. Although we have had to pick up the slack where Brooklyn's grandparents, aunts and uncle would have usually played with her, she loves the balmy 85 degree weather of California. And our apartment has all new carpet for her to roll around on.

73 degrees

2009-01-14T20:47:00.000-08:00

Well, we're here! Our official and indefinite home is Rancho Cucamonga, CA. The week before Christmas, Shane's company called us and asked us to move up our starting date from the end of January to January 5th. So after a whirlwind Christmas and wedding (yea Diana and Jonny!), we packed up and drove out on January 1st. My wonderful parents drove with us...actually they drove the moving truck and towed Shane's truck, we just followed behind in our car. I didn't think I could drive the 9 hours by myself with Brooklyn screaming in the back. It all went wonderfully and we made it just before the office of our apartment complex closed for the night, got our keys, and started moving in. My parents stayed a few days to help us get settled, and Shane started his first "real" job! So far he really enjoys it, and we only live 5 minutes from his work, so he gets to come home for lunch, eat some home cooking, play the Wii, play with Brookie, and go back to work for a few hours. Right now they have him working from 7:00 to 3:00 - that will change once he's licensed and starts working with clients - but for now, we're loving it.

Brooklyn is rolling/semi-scooting all across our apartment and loving it. She's also loving having her own room for the first time in her 7-month life. I'm loving having a kitchen again, and my own washer and dryer for the first time in my 24-year life. We've met our next door neighbors, a really nice middle-aged couple who are just living here temporarily, but I plan on baking bread this week and using that to try and meet a few more neighbors (my parents taught us all to make bread by hand over Christmas - I'll be trying it out for the first time...I'll let you know if the results turn our neighbors into friends or enemies). The title of the post shows the temperature in our apartment right now...it's January, and 9:00 at night. Okay, so that's a little warmer than we want inside, but I just couldn't bring myself to turn on the air conditioning in January (actually I've used it twice, but I'm trying to break the habit). The weather here is GORGEOUS. As soon as we get Brookie some swimming diapers, we're going to hit the pool.

Anyway, enough about that. Here are a few pictures to boast about our fantastic holiday.

Brookie with Grandpa (Papa Joe). Shout out to Aunt Renee for the rockin sweater that she knitted for Brooklyn.

Brookie's Pre-Christmas photo shoot.

Diana and Jonny coming out of the temple. They got married on Dec. 27th, 2008. We were married Dec. 28th, 2006, which means that my parents had 4 children get married within exactly 2 years!

Brookie (the flower girl) is trying to give some last minute advice to the Bride.

Jon (Sarah's husband) playing with Brookie who is eating...I'm not sure what.

Happy 2009 to everyone! I promise I'll be better at blogging this year. =)

To stay (in my parent's basement), or not to stay??

2008-11-25T16:02:00.000-08:00

So, the time has come...the job offers have either all rolled in at the Oka house, or not rolled in. And what is the verdict? For those of you who have been getting together a fundraiser so that we could move out of my parent's basement come January, you can stop. We have a job! (That is, Shane has a job). And we couldn't be more thrilled. Shane will be working as a Financial Adviser for the company formerly known as Merrill Lynch. And on January 19th we will be moving to....drumroll....California! Southern California to be exact (Riverside area). I never thought I would end up there, but with winter rolling in, and lots of love to show after the Prop 8 mess, I am ready! Shane is really excited about the job, and I'm just excited that he has a job, so it's good news all around. Also, Shane has started a new blog (see post below) and you should check it out - it's pretty sweet.

Shane's new blog

2008-11-25T00:05:00.000-08:00

Recently I am less interested in writing (and talking) about myself than I am about the economy. So I started a new blog. I tried to comment on what's happening in the economy simply enough that anyone can understand it. I think that you will find it either informative or a good cure for insomnia. I may have gone a little overboard on my first post. It's rather long.

Election Time

2008-11-03T08:33:00.001-08:00

I know that of the few readers of this blog, there are not many who have any doubts as to what they are voting for tomorrow regarding the Presidency, or, if you are in California, Arizona, or Florida, how you stand on the subject of gay marriage. My friend Becca posted a link on her blog to one of her friends who researched and very eloquently stated her reasons for voting for John McCain (as a lesser of two evils candidate) as well as why to vote yes on Proposition 8. I would invite you to follow this link and read the posts. (Thanks Becca). Though most of us don't have the opportunity to vote on Proposition 8 (or Prop 102 in Arizona, or Prop 2 in Florida), we can do something. Our bishop yesterday invited us to unite our faith and prayers on this important subject. We can pray for undecided voters, we can pray for a change of heart in other voters. The gap is closing and we can pray that keeping the family sacred, between one man and one woman, will overtake the position of legalized gay marriage. I strongly believe that it will eventually spread to all states if we don't unite our faith to stop it. It will affect all of us, our children, and our grandchildren. Hasn't this time been prophesied of? Well, who will stop it if not the followers of Christ? In no way am I saying that I hate people who are gay. Some of my best friends in high school were gay. What I am saying is that families need to be kept sacred. The bonds of marriage must be kept between a man and a woman. If we teach that gay marriage and marriage between a man and a woman are equal, how many more children will CHOOSE gay marriage as a life style. PLEASE unite your faith and prayers in behalf of the voters in California and Arizona. And if there is anyone voting on this issue who you know and who you could contact, contact them now. PLEASE help keep marriage sacred. We need to keep bringing children into this world and raising them up unto the Lord. We need to provide a righteous place for them to live.

Gangsta Brookie

2008-11-01T11:24:00.001-07:00

I got this outfit for Brooklyn at her baby shower from one of Shane's relatives. The brand is Naartjie - apparently it's a pretty cool brand although I had never heard of it. Anyway, it's officially my favorite outfit now and I got some pretty cute shots of her in this outfit/headband.

Michigan Fun

2008-10-15T13:56:00.000-07:00

So last weekend I dragged Shane to Michigan under the pretense that he had never seen my home town, but it may just have been a well-disguised excuse to show off the baby to all of my friends.

We were lucky, while it was snowing in Utah, it was 70 degrees and sunny in Michigan! Perfect weather for apple picking. Since Shane had never before picked an apple off the tree and eaten it directly, that was a must. We also picked a ton (okay, not actually a "ton") of raspberries, had some real apple cider and some "homemade" donuts. We also bought some apple butter from the apple orchard and tried to take it home with us. Unfortunately I forgot that we were only taking carry on bags. Oops! So we get to security in Detroit and a lady picks up our bag and asks us to follow her so she can check it. The dialog follows:
Her: "What a cute baby! What's her name?"
Me: "Brooklyn."
Her: "Does she know her name? Brooklyn, Brooklyn, hi cutie. Oh look, she does know her own name!" (At this point she starts looking through the bag and finds the jar of apple butter, I feel stupid so I don't say anything, I just wait for her to yell at me and tell me to throw it away.)
Her: (looking clearly at the apple butter label). "Hmm, is this baby food?"
Me: "No."
Her: (nodding her head while speaking) "Is this baby food?"
Shane: (coming over and catching on) "Yes."
Me: "Oh yeah, it's baby food, new flavor."
Her: (smiling and putting it back in the bag), "Have a nice day, the elevator is over there."

So if you'd like to try some apple butter, come on over, we still have some. =)
Here's an update in pictures, it was a blast.

This is me holding my friend Sherry's baby, Tucker. He was born 5 days before Brooklyn.

Shane eating his first "fresh" apple.

Picking fresh raspberries. They were actually delicious, looking at my face you might have your doubts.

Laura, Me, Danielle and Kristen at the apple orchard.

Sherry and her daughter Maddie. Maddie took a liking to Shane while we were there. He had to play with lots of small vacuum cleaners and dolls to win her affection, but it was quite an accomplishment.

Tucker and Brooklyn...holding hands?!?! She seems to be enjoying it a bit more than he is. Hmmm...we'll have to talk to that girl.

Laura and I at a lake on a road just behind our house.

A family picture in front of our old home.

You HAVE to check this out

2008-10-08T17:13:00.000-07:00

My family and I had some fun this past weekend at my parent's house in Fairview. It's amazing, you have to see it to believe it. That's why I posted a link to my dad's blog so you can watch the video for yourself.

Tiny HUGE house.

Covering my tracks again

2008-09-21T14:47:00.000-07:00

We discovered by happy accident that Brooklyn laughs when people sneeze. I'm not sure how I feel about her laughing at another's misfortune at such a young age. Perhaps she takes more after her father than I had hoped.

An addendum to a potty post

2008-09-21T13:39:00.000-07:00

It may seem like this is turning into an obsession over Japanese toilets, but for any of you who are still interested, there's one more thing that I simply can't help but share.

5.) Privacy

In keeping with the "Old vs. New" motif, I guess that I could roughly classify old traditional Japanese toilets as lacking in privacy while the modern Japanese toilets have been taken to the extreme with regard to privacy. But as with all other aspects of the modern Japanese toilet, the Japanese again may have missed the mark.

This is an actual picture of a Japanese restroom in a park. In fact, I took it myself, from the street. As you can see, whoever designed this bathroom decided to dispense with the fancy doors and snail-shell walls that separate the men's urinals from innocent, unsuspecting (sometime children's) eyes. Perhaps the most ironic thing about this scene is that the windows above the urinals are glass-block windows, designed to blur out whatever might be seen though them. Right...because what we're really worried about seeing here is a face. Take notice as well that the are two "welcome" mats placed on the steps of this open-air bathroom for you to wipe your shoes. In the most traditional Japanese bathrooms, even public ones, it would be considered improper to wear your shoes. Again, is the stuff that will make the bathroom floor the dirtiest really going to come from shoes?

I have to say though from my experience, using this toilet in a public park would be a much more private alternative to the way many old Japanese men relieve themselves. I recall a truly unforgettable experience from my mission. My companion and I approached a man from behind who we thought was looking down at a flower or something. We extended our hands to greet him and before we could realize what was going on, he spun around, zipped up and grasped our outstreched arms.

So what about the modern Japanese toilets? Well apparently the Japanese took a lesson from George Costanza because the stalls in the building where I worked this summer were equipped with doors that went all the way to the floor. And since the only way in or out is by opening the door, it can only be locked from the inside. Finally! A bathroom stall where not just any Joe Blo with a nickel or a paperclip can let himself in. And within this fortress of privacy, the toilets themselves are often equipped with a button that when pressed will make an electronic flushing sound in an effort to conceal whatever embarrassing sounds the person sitting on the toilet might be making.

Is the modern Japanese toilet the pinnacle of privacy then? Not quite. You see although the Japanese have apparently caught on to value of doors and walls on the outside of the bathroom, and in between the stalls, there is little protection between each of the urinals in the men's bathroom. Really though, this wouldn't be a very big deal except for the fact that the cleaning lady comes in unannounced at random intervals to restock the paper towels, wipe the counters or mop around your feet while you're standing in front of the potty.

Laughing Girl

2008-08-18T06:02:00.000-07:00

Okay, I know it sounds stupid, but at this moment I am seriously the happiest I may have ever been. Brooklyn just laughed for the first time! A seriously good belly laugh. She laughed once and I called Shane over and she laughed again, and then we called Megan (Shane's sister) over, and she kept laughing! Unfortunately, as soon as Shane pulled the video camera out, she stopped (blasted video camera)...so we have no record of the truthfulness of this statement. You'll just have to take my word, and my supreme happiness, as proof.

A little more fawning

2008-08-10T05:12:00.000-07:00

Maria is making me post something to distract potential readers from my previous post. Enjoy.

A little potty humor

2008-08-04T03:14:00.000-07:00

I am sure that by now all of you who have nothing better to do than to read our poor little blog are sick of seeing us fawn all over our child. Well, I'm going to throw you a bone. A full exposé on a Japanese toilet. Caution: may not be appropriate for those who don't like to read about bodily functions.

There are few more intriguing juxtapositions than the Old Japan and the New Japan. This is perhaps easiest to see in the bathroom...

Quiz time. Please identify the object in the picture above. Is it:
A) Some sort of giant porcelain slipper
B) An over-sized bird jacuzzi
or
C) An old-school Japanese toilet

If you guessed C, then well, you know the rest.

Pictured above is a genuine Japanese toilet in all its glory. As you can imagine, this isn't the most comfortable thing to use. The upside is that it's very sanitary since it's not designed to touch any part of your body directly. Even the flusher. If Japanese people are anything like me, they are all just stomping on the the handle and walking away. I think that the craziest thing about these toilets is that they are still being installed in new buildings. They remind me of a camp toilet (you know, the kind you dig in the earth with a shovel) upgraded with a porcelain lining. And you would assume that since they have modern plumbing they wouldn't smell as bad as a camp toilet. You would assume.

The sheer dynamics of using one of these things is mind-boggling. It took me at least a few months (and a little bit more logical reasoning than I'd like to admit) to determine which side was even the front. After I left Japan, I decided to see if I could find a user's guide somewhere on the internet. To my great amusement, I did. Even though I had apparently had the right idea, using an old style Japanese toilet still ranks high in the hardest experiences of my mission. I won't get too graphic, but I will say that the Japanese must have the leg strength of Olympians. No wonder that one little island country was able to produce Samurai warriors, high-flying ninjas, and viable rickshaw industry all during the same period.

Okay, meet the modern Japanese toilet. Apparently, the culture became so embarrassed at how far behind their traditional toilet lagged in comfort that they had to one-up the rest of the world again. I do have to say that while this is truly my favorite toilet, there are still a few Japanese twists that I think were a bit of a swing and a miss:

1) The heated seat.

The first thing that you notice when you sit down on a high-end Japanese potty is the heated seat. Now, I have been using the toilet long enough to know that the fact that the seat is already warm (especially in a public toilet) is not a good sign. Still, you can see the advantages to a heated seat in a country where often the only insulation you have during the cold winter is a few paper doors. And the heated seat is certainly a more sanitary alternative to the many petri-dish masquerading as cloth toilet seat covers that I threw out of each of my missionary apartments. Eww...

2) The bum-washer.

Can you guess which of these buttons is the bum washer? The bum washer is only the second most important button the toilet. The first being the stop-the-bum-washer button, it's the one on the left. It's a grave mistake to assume that the bum washer will automatically stop after a certain period of time or even worse that it will stop when you stand up. Trust me.

I'm still not sure what the button on the right is intended for, but I don't plan to push it. The bum washer is a complete 180 on the Japanese toilets. It seems that they were willing to sacrifice a lot of sanitation for a little bit more comfort. I'm actually a fan of the bum washer, on my own toilet. But even I am pretty wary of the many bum washers on the many public toilets around the city.

3) The Toilet-Sink Combo

So this is a sink that's built right into the toilet. You wash your hands with the water that refills the tank. I think it's a great water-saving idea (even though Japan really has no idea what a drought even is). But there's still a little bit of a flaw with this one. As soon as you flush, the sink turns on. There is rarely space on the side of the toilet so you need to lean over the bowl (a precarious situation in itself) and hold your hands under the water. On most of these toilet tank sinks, there isn't really a place for soap, which doesn't really matter because the trickling water doesn't come out with enough force to wash the soap anyway. The two or three times that I have actually tried to use these, I have ended up just having to finish the job in the regular sink.

4) The air dryer after the bum washer.

This little ditty tops the list for the worst additions to the Japanese toilet. It's another conservationist's twist that has tried to eliminate any need for toilet paper. Once you are done with the bum washer, instead of drying off with TP, a warm-air fan turns on to dry you off. Hmm... Let's think about this one together. You've just done something to necessitate a bum washer. And now this little contraption will blow warm air from the toilet bowl across your bum up to your face.

Well, thanks for indulging me in my little walk between two Japanese toilets. I hope that I was able to broaden your potty horizon.

Tokyo Tidbits

2008-07-30T02:06:00.001-07:00

1- So far we have felt 4 earthquakes. Okay, so maybe they're not newsworthy, but when you're up on the 14th floor and it's the middle of the night, it sure feels like it. Shane has to keep reassuring me that the building won't fall down...that in fact engineers take into account the fact that earthquakes exist and that there are a lot of them in Japan. They wouldn't build a 14 story building that could fall down from a relatively small quake, so he says. Hmmm...

2- A couple of weeks ago at church I met a girl (okay, so she's probably 10 years older than me...maybe not a girl per say) from mainland China. I loved her dress and she loved my baby. Turns out she recently got married to a man in the ward, although she is not a member. He is probably 10 years older than her and is the chairman of a big bank here in Tokyo. She had just moved to Tokyo that week and was looking for friends, as was I. We exchanged e-mail addresses and agreed that we should meet for lunch that week. Seeing as neither of us have been in Japan very long I was picturing a small catastrophe where we would try to meet at a restaurant, traveling via metro, and both get miserably lost (me without a cell phone). I was a little surprised and more than happy when she and her DRIVER came and picked Brooklyn and I up for a nice Friday afternoon lunch. I've discovered the way to not drip with sweat every time I go out in Tokyo...just get a driver!!

3- When I was hanging out with Serena (the girl from # 2), she told me that the sister missionaries had stopped by and that they were visiting her that week to teach her the first lesson. I, knowing that missionaries like members at their lessons, asked the sister missionaries if they would like me to come to the lesson with Serena. They were excited and I talked to Serena to get her address so that I could get there on the metro. Instead, she again sent her driver to pick me up and take me to her house...I think I'm getting spoiled. Turns out that after I had talked to her she had invited two other girls in the ward as well. Talk about an investigator who invites their own members to the lessons! Golden. The lesson was great, and at the end as we were chatting and eating some of her homemade corn bread and fruit, I became pretty good friends with one of the other ladies in the ward. She has an 8 month old son and she's been living in Tokyo for a few years. We're going to get together next week to talk about Tokyo and what it's like living here.

4- There is an entire English stake here in Tokyo, with 4 wards. However, in the summer most of the wives and their kids go back to the States for an extended visit and the wards are left rather small. So right now 3 of the ward are combined into one. That's why on Sunday you have to shake 6 missionaries hands when you go into the church building (which is, by the way, right next to the Tokyo Temple, and is also directly above the Japan MTC...that's right, above. The Japan MTC is actually in the same building...it consists of the 3 basement floors below the ground level where we have church. I guess in Tokyo the sky and the center of the earth are the limit, but there's not a whole lot of space to expand sideways). Anyway, I wanted to feed the missionaries since I don't really get a chance in Provo. I asked the sisters for their meal calendar and they said that the elders had the calender...so I signed up...to feed all 6 missionaries. I was pretty excited until Shane reminded me that we only have 1 small pot and 1 small frying pan and no oven. Not exactly the ideal cooking situation to feed 8 hungry people. Not to mention the fact that our only table is a coffee table, and out only seating is a couch. Oh yeah...we also don't have enough plates. So instead of canceling, we decided to take them out to dinner at one of Shane's favorite Japanese restaurants. We met them all at a train station and had a nice dinner...and we're only $73 dollars the poorer for it.

4- I never thought I'd say it, but I desperately miss WalMart. I always knew that I liked shopping at WalMart...but in some aspects I loathed it as well. Now I just miss it. To buy groceries here I have to walk to the nearest grocery store (about 10 minutes up the street) and pick out the few items that I can tell what they are (for example I can pick out a carton of milk because of the picture of a pasture dotted with cows...but due to my lack of proficiency with Japanese, I have a sneaking suspicion that we've been drinking whole milk this entire time). Of course with the items at the grocery store that I can manage to buy, we never go hungry, but the variety of meals that I know how to make with the limited items I have is slightly pathetic...sorry Shane. Since I have to walk to the grocery store, I can only buy a few days worth of groceries at a time. Thankfully Shane bought a little rolly cooler thing (see Shane's Costco post) so I can roll, rather than carry, the groceries back. I usually make this "big" grocery trip once a week with the baby strapped on in a front pack carrier. To get through the rest of the days I walk just a block up to the dollar grocery store. That's right... everything in the store costs a dollar. Some of you may have heard of Japan's amazing dollar stores where you can get everything from China to Tupperware to ties. But this is a special one, it consists of mostly groceries. You can buy fruits and vegetables (which are otherwise extremely expensive), juice, bread, meat (I've used it and we haven't died yet), crackers, cookies, ice cream bars (my favorite), etc. It's really pretty amazing. However, when it comes down to it, nothing beats the convenience and variety of WalMart. Not to mention the fact that I would have NO idea to buy the other things that WalMart offers (pillows, steamers for a stuffy baby, BIG cartons of ice cream etc.). When I go back to Utah I may miss my little dollar store, but right now I miss WalMart.

5- I enjoy using the subway here. I'm getting pretty good at going on small trips by myself, toting Brooklyn along via front pack carrier. She's usually in a better mood when we travel than when we are just at home. The only mishap I've had on the subway was when I went to meet Shane at his work during lunchtime. I needed to pick up the apartment key, otherwise I wouldn't have been able to get back into the apartment all day (we had realized that morning that we had lost the second one). I went down to the line that takes me there and there were two trains already waiting. One going one direction, the other the opposite direction. I realized that I didn't remember which stop Shane's work was called, so I made a hasty decision and jumped on the train that I thought was right...needless to say, it wasn't. At least I remembered how many stops it was, so after two stops I got off the train to see if it was right, when I realized it wasn't, I jumped on the train going the opposite direction and when the required number of stops, where I found a worried Shane who had been waiting 20 minutes. It all turned out okay in the end and I didn't even cry...much.

(Here is Brooklyn in her front pack carrier. This was when we went with our friends Jake and Mekelle - Shane and Jake served in the same mission and we knew them in Utah - to a huge shopping district in Tokyo. Brooklyn loves to be out in the city.)

6- Brooklyn is GROWING! She has slowed down on the chubbiness and is growing rather long. Of course she is still quite a bit chubbier than when most of you last saw her, but she is even more long than that. She loves to lay in her changing table and look at her mobile. It's not motorized so I have to turn it for her. She loves to swat at piglet, and sometimes smiles at pooh. Speaking of smiling, she smiles so much now! (It makes all the semi-sleepless nights worth it.) I swear, sometimes she's almost laughing. I haven't captured any great pictures yet, but I'll keep trying. Here are some pictures of the queen of this little apartment in Japan.

Brookie loves her daddy. She loves to cuddle and she gets so excited when daddy comes home!

Hi, my name is Chubby.

I love bath time! It's the best!

Isn't her bum the cutest? Okay, so this is the third attempt at getting a bum picture. The first time we tried it she peed all over me. But I couldn't give up yet. The second time, she pooped all over the floor! But I wanted to show her who was the stubborn one. We finally got our picture! And then she spit up EVERYWHERE! Well, it's probably a good thing that she's decided this early in life that she doesn't like when people take pictures of her bum.

Brooklyn has a little seat that vibrates and plays music. Sometimes in her sleep she likes to pretend to be a conductor.

This was a "motherhood" statue at a shrine we recently visited. I thought it was a fitting picture.

Happy Day

2008-07-21T23:41:00.000-07:00

After two semi-miserable nights in a row, Brooklyn gave me her first ever "I love mommy" smile this morning. She's the best.

Brookie Bear

2008-07-17T18:30:00.000-07:00

Well, so far Tokyo is interesting and beautiful, but the most beautiful and interesting thing in it is my Brookie Bear. She is the cutest. She hasn't smiled right at me yet, but apparently she likes to be around me, even though she tries to hide it...

While my parents were here they got to a lot of sight-seeing, as well as baby-holding. My dad was pretty excited when she got chubby enough to see dimples on her knuckles. They've gone back to Provo now, and so begins my life as a stay-at-home mom without anyone else at home during the day. I'd say that in the day and a half that I've been doing it that I've at least survived. The days do seem a bit long with Shane gone from 8:00 am until 7:00 pm, but as long as they're broken up with naps, and calling family from Skype, they're at least tolerable. =) Now I don't mean to complain, I really am having fun, and finally getting some time to read, and LOTS of time to baby hold. Again, she is the cutest.

If you look closely, so can see a milk dribble coming out of the side of her mouth. Those are her favorite things to do, eat and sleep. She also loves "standing" on my lap, and she actually supports her own weight really well...especially considering the fact that she is still standing on the sides of her feet. She is super alert during the day (and sometimes at night), and she LOVES being held. I think the three weeks at my parents house with a grandparent or aunt always ready to hold her have spoiled her for good. It's a good thing that I love holding her. =)

Brooklyn (and mommy) Meet Tokyo

2008-07-07T00:48:00.000-07:00

Well, to start off, my blogs are generally much more boring than Shane's, however, since I usually post pictures of the baby, mine may be worth reading anyhow. The LONG three weeks where Shane was in Japan and Brookie and I were in Utah are finally at an end. When we stepped off the plane in Tokyo and I saw Shane for the first time it was a bizarre feeling. I think I had begun to think of him as an image on my web cam, and seeing him there was almost an out of body experience. The only other time I've felt that way was when I came home from my mission and saw him standing there with my family. At that time I just shook his hand - this time it took me a minute to realize that I was allowed to hug him and not be awkward around him for the next few weeks. =) It was so fun for him to see Brooklyn. We've been having a blast ever since!!

Okay, I'll back up a little bit. The week before I left was SO busy. I was just scrambling to get everything done that would be quite a bit harder if not impossible from Japan. Thankfully I had a lot of help. Sarah came out from Baltimore to see Brooklyn for the first time. We had so much fun that week playing with the baby and running errands galore. Sarah helped me a ton and all of Brook's other "aunties" also had fun holding her and watching her for me while I was packing etc. On Wednesday (July 2nd) I finished packing around 10:00 pm and finally got in bed, excited to fly to Japan the next morning. Thankfully my mom was coming with me, otherwise I'm not sure how I would have managed the flight. Brooklyn was an absolute angel while we were traveling. She slept most the time and cried less than she normally does in a 24 hour period (about the amount of time from when we left our house in Provo to when we got to our apartment in Tokyo). On the long flight from LA to Tokyo she had a little "bassinet" that hooked into the wall in front of our seats, so she was able to sleep a lot of the time in that. (Sorry about the fuzzy picture)

She also had an "infant seat belt" (which was the size of a regular seat belt...see below image to get an idea of how tiny she is in comparison) that she had to wear during take-off and landing. Her tummy is so small and the seat belt (which was attached to mine, strapping her to me) was relatively large (I guess people don't expect you to be flying with a 3 week old), so I'm sure that if there did happen to be any problems during the flight (assuming that ANY of us came out okay - I've always thought that seat belts on an airplane were an interesting thought - come on, if the plane goes down, there's no way this tiny strap around my waist is going to increase my chance of survival), I'm sure that it would have done her more harm than good. (Sorry about all of the parenthesis in that paragraph).

Anyway, when the long flight finally came to an end. The workers in the Tokyo airport were extremely helpful and brought a little push cart over for our luggage when they saw us trying to push a stroller and haul 5 large bags. In customs the man essentially asked us to tell him what we were bringing into the country. Since we didn't speak any Japanese and he didn't speak any English, it became an interesting miming session of what was in our bags (you know, clothes food, a baby bed...the usual). After becoming frustrated at our lack- and his lack- of understanding, he finally let us through. (Note to terrorists: All you have to do is pretend you don't understand, and they'll let anything fly). That's when we met up with Shane. The next part of the trip was by far the hardest, and most humiliating. I was already so exhausted, having only had 2 hours of sleep in the last 24 hours or so, and since we had arrived in Tokyo it felt like our journey should be done. I wish I had a picture of us hauling all 5 bags and a large stroller through the train and subway stations in a place where we already stick our like sore thumbs. Even a picture wouldn't have captured the amount of sweat pouring down my face as the humidity hit me like a ton of bricks (or a tidal wave). You'll just have to let your imaginations suffice. After getting off at the final stop we dragged said suitcases and stroller up the street a ways before we finally arrived at our hotel where we had to take three trips up the tiny elevator (everything here is tiny). We were home at last, and I had never been so glad to step into the shower.

Brooklyn is officially a world traveler. We think she likes Tokyo because every time we step outside the humidity and warmth put her right to sleep (sleep is one of the only ways to judge if a baby likes something or not).

I'm tired of this post so I'll write more and put up more pictures in the next one.

Costco Japan

2008-06-28T04:12:00.000-07:00

A word on Costco. I am a little puzzled when I visit the Costco in Provo and see the huge number of single or newly married students clawing their way through with shopping carts toward the mountains of breads, rotisserie chickens, and over-sized boxes of laundry detergent. It occurs to me that one of two things is happening. They were either given a Costco card by their parents and so their really isn't any barrier to entering the consumer market. Or, they actually think they're saving money. Don't get me wrong. I think that Costco is a great way to save money. I mean, a case of 5,000 Slim Jims for $10 is a great deal. But I am convinced that Costco helps the very small family do little more than over-consume. Instead of buying the same amount of groceries for less money, we buy more groceries for the same amount of money. For example, Maria and I bought a five pound box of, albeit, very good strawberries. We ate them in four days. We then bought a 5 pound cheesecake and ate that in four days as well. So, needless to say, I am convinced that my recent weight gain is entirely Costco's fault. Yes...Costco's fault.

Anyway, I think that's the phenomenon that's happening with the Costcos in Japan. With an average of just under 1 child per household in Tokyo, it didn't seem to me that there should be enough demand to support the market. But I learned just how wrong I was yesterday when I decided to go see for myself.

By about 1:00 in the afternoon, I had accomplished everything I could on my to do list and thought that I would venture out into Japan's warehouse shopping world. I brought little more than a backpack and four hours of free time. In all, the train ride took just over an hour. If you like to people watch, Japan has got to be one of the best places in the world, especially the trains. As soon as the doors open to let people in, it's a mad scramble to get a seat. Even the otherwise passive Japanese are not above throwing a few elbows to sit down for just a few moments. And you have to be aggressive during this silent match of musical chairs or somebody will slide underneath you just as your sitting down. (Again in my minds eye I can see a particularly relevant episode of Seinfeld.) Apparently, the ideal situation for a Japanese riding the train would be to get a seat and to either fall asleep or get a LOT of cell phone texting done before you get off. The seats on the end, therefore, become the most desirable because there is a cold metal support bar jutting out from the wall that you can use as a pillow. Yes, a pillow.

Well, I found myself caught up in one of these public transit seat face-offs and learned a great deal. Here, from what I gathered, are the rules. 1. If you want to win, you can't acknowledge that the other person exists, ever. 2. As soon as you sit down, you must look at the floor or open your cell phone. 3. You have to make you approach as soon as you see somebody else getting up to leave. 4. It's all in the hips. Anyway, long story short, I lost the face-off because I didn't stick closely enough to rule #1. I hesitated and I lost. Luckily I managed to spot a very small space that I could just barely fit in if I wedged myself between a couple of college students. Realizing that I wouldn't be getting off for another hour, I pounced. I was feeling pretty disgusted at the girl who stole the other seat until an old lady boarded the train and the girl offered her the seat that I had lost. Then I just felt stupid. Comfortable and stupid.

I got off the train and got my bearings and started what turned out to be a pretty healthy walk toward Costco. When it finally came within sight I could barely believe my eyes. It was like a chunk of America just plopped right down onto Japanese soil, with only a few minor adjustments. With the price of land what it is in Japan, the parking lot is actually a parking garage housed on top of the warehouse. Cars drive in, people get out and grab a card and ride a long conveyor-belt ramp to the bottom. When they're done shopping they take their cart to the other ramp which will return them to the parking garage above. The Japanese have done it again! I soon realized that even in Japan, the thought of somebody hoofing it to Costco is pretty ridiculous because there were no carts at the entrance, only in the parking garage. Luckily, I was able to hunt down an abandoned cart inside the store, at least I think it was abandoned.

As I started shopping, I immediately noticed several things that bring me back to my original statement:

1. Costco is Costco is Costco. They don't change their product lines, their marketing, or even their prices very significantly. This was very good for me, but it seemed like a foolish way to do business. This became clear when I walked past an aisle and spotted familiar Kirkland brand white trash bags with red drawstrings. Large cases were sitting there collecting dust. That's because in Japan, waste removal is funded by taxing trash bags issued by municipalities. If it's not in a city-issued bag, it's not picked up. Good thinking Costco. To be fair though, I guess Costco Tokyo has adapted a little bit. Where you would normally see the 5,000 count box of Slim Jims you can now find 5 pound cans of dried seaweed.

2. Japanese people are not quite the sophisticated Costco goers that Provo residents are. A typical shopping cart in a Japanese supermarket is really nothing more than a small stand with wheels that holds your shopping basket. The Japanese are not really used to pushing around a giant cart that can block half of a giant warehouse aisle. Consequently, I had to navigate through a field of carts that had been abandoned so that their owners could smell laundry detergents, take turns sitting in the massage chairs, try to figure out the rotisserie chicken thing, or wait for another batch of free samples. Apparently, the concept of free samples is foreign enough that the "sample" somehow gets lost behind the "free" and the $2 hot dog and drink special is no longer the cheapest way to get lunch.

3. Even though it was a piece of America, I was definitely still in Japan. I still haven't figured out why a culture that has so quickly embraced the idea that they can talk, e-mail, listen to music, find directions and even arrange subway fares all with a cell phone, still doesn't seem to be very comfortable with paying all of their expenses with a plastic card that fits in your wallet. All of the sites on tourism in Japan assured me that Japan is a credit-card world. Not so. The largest grocery store in my town didn't accept my credit card, and even Costco, the ultimate symbol of American consumption, only accepted one of the eight that was holding. (Don't ask) Fortunately I got through the line without too much shame and pointed myself toward the snack bar. I wasn't hungry, but I couldn't pass up the opportunity for a good ol' American hot dog and a smoothie. When I got the front of the line and ordered, I could hear a couple of boys about my age talking. It didn't take me long to figure out that they were talking about me. They were trying to figure out whether I was a foreigner. Apparently, my Japanese was good enough to cast some doubt over my brown, parted hair. I was flattered at first. Then when I took out a pocket-full of loose change to pay for my meal, they laughed to each other and said "Yep, he's a foreigner." (You see, Japanese coins have value up to roughly $5 so they are used a lot more in regular transactions. Most Japanese keep a coin pouch, but I haven't had the time to buy one yet.) I wasn't really offended, but I did throw them a glance just to let them realize that if I was was speaking well enough for them to debate my nationality, it was probably a safe bet that I could understand what they were saying.

Now, as it's time to start winding down my ranting, I would just like to you leave you with a picture that I took when I finally got home. These are all of the things that I bought at Costco. I am extremely proud to say that I carted all of these things home through 2 trains and about a mile walk and managed to avoid much embarrassment. Though I did get one funny look while I was stuffing my backpack with pillows just outside of the store.

Japanese Megabanking

2008-06-20T04:15:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I went to the Bank to set up a checking account. You would assume that as I am working for one of the largest banks in the world I could just do it in house. Apparently however, Deutsche only wants to hold people's money if they have millions of dollars. So I consigned myself to walking across the street to open a personal account. I'm not sure if I have lost a lot of Japanese ability since my mission, or if I was never really as good as I thought but these last few days have been quite humbling. When I eat out (everyday, by myself) I have developed the habit of only ordering the things from the menu that I can read out loud with a reasonable amount of confidence. Even when there is a picture that looks more appetizing than its neighbor, I have so far refused to just point and get the thing I want. It's a matter of personal pride. Needless to say, I have been eating a lot of the same things over and over. Perhaps I should learn how to read a few more characters before I eat next time. Anyway, so far my pick-the-one-that-I-understand-method has worked out just fine in restaurants, but yesterday
I was brought to a whole new level of Japanese panic. While I was opening my Japanese bank account the lady persuaded me to open a credit card as well. That part I understood. Then she explained to me that there was some sort of payment or something that would happen on a regular basis. I wasn't sure who was making this payment to whom. She then asked me to choose how much the payment should be. The options were: $100, $300, and $500. So what did I do? Exactly what you would have done - I picked the middle one. So now every month, $300 dollars will do something, somewhere, having something to do with my credit card. That I am sure.

After that half hour of acting like I knew what this lady was saying. I was taken back to a desk with a giant 14 year-old boy. Okay, so perhaps he wasn't 14, but he really looked like he was, except that he was bigger. First he looked at my application. He promptly decided that it was too messy and that I had erased too many times and so he encouraged me to fill out a new one. I obliged. He explained to me again what had already been explained (and I didn't really understand it better this time) ever now and then inserting all of the English words that he knows for my benefit. The thought occurred to me that if he knows the word in English, then it's probably pretty likely that I already know it in Japanese. But I was soon reminded that I didn't understand many words other than those ones and my pride washed away. Next, he had me sign a "signature card" which he used to compare with the other four signatures that I had given in the application. After about 20 minutes of indecision he decided that two of my signatures were very similar but didn't perfectly match the signature card and two other others were similar and matched the signature card well enough. He then asked me which signature I would like to proceed with. In spite of my rusty Japanese I am pretty sure that my disbelief was clearly communicated. I chose a signature. He then made me cross out my other two signatures, re-sign and then sign where I had crossed out to validate the contract. I am serious. This actually happened to me. Tell your friends.

Cultural note: The reason that this young man was so bewildered by my signature style is that the Japanese use personalized stamps to sign everything. That's the way they like it. The exact same every time.

First Week in the Life of a New Mom

2008-06-18T20:42:00.000-07:00

Below is my first glance at the most beautiful little girl I've ever seen. I'm the luckiest person in the world! So, the past week has been pretty crazy- what with having a baby, moving out of our condo, sending my husband off to Japan, moving in with my parents, and learning how to be a mom. Since Shane updated the blog after she was born, I won't repeat all the details of her birth, but it was an awesome experience. I'll try to post some highlight pictures, but a camera could never quite capture her cuteness.

This is her "don't even think about trying to wake me up" look. You can't really see it, because she doesn't have as much hair on top, but the nurse at the hospital gave her a little "fohawk" (spelling?). It was unbelievably cute.

She's a very loving little koala bear. Really though. She's a perfect baby. She only cries when she wants to eat, or sometimes when we change her diaper, and even then it's only for a few seconds.

Shane used to joke that I only wanted a baby because they're cute. While not completely true, it is fun to have a little doll to dress up.

She's tiny! I've never gotten to hold a baby this small for more than a few minutes, and this one's mine. Shane and I were both over eight pounds, so we were both pretty surprised with a six and a half pounder. Brooklyn has spent quite a bit of her life in this carseat already. Two days after she was born we had to cart her around town to pick up her expedited birth certificate, apply for her passport, overnight the passport application to California, and run some other baby errands. She'll be a world traveler by the age of 3 weeks.

Brooklyn's first bath at home. After the initial shock, she actually really liked it. She looks so cute in her hooded towel that I want to bathe her all the time.

Brooklyn loves her daddy. When we dropped him off at the airport she was SO sad (aka: sleepy). Well, maybe it was mommy who was so sad. But the countdown is on, only two more weeks until we can see daddy again!

Isn't she precious? This flower is actually pretty small, but on her head it looks huge. Again, dressing her up is so fun, but with spitting up and pooping, none of her outfits stay on her for too long.

This was today's outfit. Unfortunately the bow was a little big and it didn't stay on for too long. The rest of the outfit was ruined with spit up (more like projectile vomiting) a little bit later in the day. Needless to say, we feel so blessed. Being a mom is the best. Shane is the best dad - he was up with her every night until he left so I could get some sleep and so he could spend more time with her. Hopefully he's getting enough sleep now that he's living the bachelor life in Japan. =) Life is great. Brooklyn and I love visitors if you're in the neighborhood. Sorry about the extremely long blog. I'll be done now...

Business Dress Ups

2008-06-18T14:17:00.000-07:00

I think my favorite time of the day here is morning. From the hours of 7:00 to 9:00 am, Japanese business men dressed in suits of all different colors (black, dark gray or dark green) and brandishing briefcases of all different styles (actually, apparently there's only one style) flood the streets, breakfast corners and subways of Tokyo on their way to start a new day. And I am now one of them. I don't understand why, but it's a camaraderie that I've come to cherish. Still, I can't help but think that I am probably the only one among this faceless, cookie-cutter Japanese business army that feels this way. Perhaps that's because I'm the only one who doesn't really belong there.

I am loving the experience, and working as hard as I can, but still I can't escape the thought that I am just playing dress-up with my daddy's suit and briefcase. While other people are contracted workers who go in every day to put food on the table, I am just testing things out - trying to see what real-world work is. I feel kind of like Kramer from the episode of Seinfeld where he goes and gets a job. Here's what I am talking about:

While everybody else carries briefcases to transport their important documents, my briefcase is filled with fruit snacks. No, seriously. It's packed full of candy. I realized after the first day that desk work is kind of boring. And I thought I would enhance the experience with a few sugary treats. When I think nobody is looking, I will carefully slip out a package of fruit smiles and go to town. Sure, it may be juvenile but it certainly keeps a smile on my face.

Another little article that has kept me feeling self-important is my name badge. Anti-trust laws in Japan require a degree of separation between all of the departments within the bank. We call it a firewall. As a result, just to get to my desk, I have to clear about 5 security points using my ID and Security Card. When I was about 10 years old, my cousins and I formed a secret club. The only meeting that we ever had was to decide what our secret club security cards should look like. Basically, my current security cards looks about that like. Because mine is a "temporary" card, I had to fill in my own name badge. And since they didn't tell me what I was filling out, it says "David Oka." It doesn't really matter though since I haven't really met anybody yet who has gone out of his way to learn the name of the intern. And just to deflate my pride even more, I realized just how exclusive these security cards were when I saw a couple of high school part-timers working in the coffee shop on our floor who were wearing the exact same security badge. The only difference is that their names were not written in by hand.

First Day Jitters

2008-06-16T04:26:00.000-07:00

I got up at about 6:00 this morning to give myself plenty of time to get ready. I was pleased to discover that there was an iron in my room to help me get ready. There was also some contraption in my closet that's supposed to press pants. After fooling around with it for about a half hour I still had no idea how to use it. Needless to say, my pants were no more pressed-looking - which really didn't matter since they weren't wrinkled to begin with. The restaurant next door to my hotel offers free breakfast every day for hotel guests. I was, and still am, pretty excited about this. I had to endure a seat in the smoking section, but ultimately it was worth it.

I made it to my office building without too much trouble. Though, I was disappointed when I didn't see any subway-pushers. Nevertheless, it was still obvious that I wasn't in Kansas anymore. The building in which I work is about 44 stories high. I work on the 20th floor. Apparently, all of the windows on one side of the building have been sealed closed because they can look directly into the Prime Minister's residence.

All morning I felt like we were being wined and dined even though it was the first day of work. The office lobby was beautiful. It looked like a hotel lobby. And we "grabbed" lunch at $30 per plate at the company's expense. We were given these really cool security passes that automatically open the tall frosted-glass doors that separate the individual departments of the bank. They set us up with bank accounts, e-mail accounts, and I personally met with the CEO of the company. Working in Central Management, apparently I am now privy to a lot of information that I really don't feel qualified to know. I was told to always lock down my computer if I am away from my desk, and I was shown a special trash bin with a bunch of locks on it that I am supposed to use for confidential documents.
Deutsche has a huge employee base - over 6,000 just in Tokyo.

Most of the floors in the office are just filled with very long tables with employees seated throughout. I even have my own desk at the end of one of these tables. I have my own computer, and a drawer. I think I'll get a cool paperweight to put on my desk. You know, in case there's a breeze that blows through the office. In one sense, the corporate culture is intoxicating. Seeing how nice the office is makes me wonder what other perks there are to banking. On the other hand though, there's no getting around the feeling that you're working for "the man." One of my seniors explained to me that Deutsche is so large that there is no single person that knows everything that goes on here. There's something very eerie about that.
Anyway, it was a long day but a good one. My only problem so far is that I haven't really found any nearby grocery stores so I am either eating out, or grabbing o-nigiri from the local convenience store.

Little Me in Big Tokyo

2008-06-15T06:17:00.000-07:00

My head has been reeling all day with this inner-monologue. It's become painfully evident that when you're traveling alone, all of the witty remarks and sarcastic comments that you have about other clueless travelers go to waste. So I will try to recap as many as I can now.

My flight left at about 11:00 AM, Utah time. Needless to say, leaving behind a wife and three-day-old baby made for the hardest goodbye I've ever had to say, even if it is just for two and half weeks. After I regained my composure, I boarded my flight to LAX and we were off. The first leg of the journey was mostly inconsequential, except for the fact that it seemed like whoever was flying the plane qualified to do so by winning a lottery or something. Perhaps Delta decided to make June 14th into an Amateur Night...morning. The flight was rough enough to where I could actually feel that the plane was making sharp turns, which I don't think are really supposed to be made in a commercial cruiser. There was a boy behind me who kept making jokes about the plane crashing. I knew that the pilot really was bad when the father stopped scolding the boy for embarrassment and started scolding him because he was afraid the comments harbored a tinge of truth.
After what was ultimately a safe landing, I wandered my way through LAX. I stopped off for a bite of pizza at the California Pizza Kitchen. I ordered, and paid for my $10 pizza when it occurred to me that I probably wasn't going to be able to finish a $10 California Pizza Kitchen pizza. But when I was handed the tiny box of over-priced airport food, I realized that
I would have no problem dusting it off by myself. And instantly, I was in the expensive world of travel.
I swung by the Duty-Free shop with wide-eyes and a pocket full of cash. I was thrilled at the opportunity to buy some merchandise without cutting Uncle Sam in on the transaction. But as you might guess, I was sorely disappointed. The prices in the duty-free shop really were no different than any other prices that include tax. It seems that when all of the duty free shops in an airport are owned by the same company, monopoly pricing will easily offset the reduced taxes. Disillusioned, I walked out of the store, turned around, and began to wonder: why are all of those other people still in there?
The next part of my travel was my favorite. (I would have said this in a sarcastic tone if anybody had been with me). Like cattle, they herded us toward the international gate. The line was filled with ignorance. The first thing that I noticed was a particularly annoying girl who kept getting really close to me. Lately I've become increasingly annoyed with how closely people approach me in line, but this was the worst. It felt like she was trying to pass me, (which I gladly would have let her do) but never had the guts to do it. Our walk toward the front of the line became like a chess game. Every step I took had two purposes, to get closer to the front of the line, and to block the annoying girl that kept trying to get around me. To make matters worse, she was clearly upset at the man with whom she was traveling and her annoying walking was coupled with annoying broken-English bickering. The funny thing is that they were both speaking in broken English.
The vast majority of the line was foreign. Almost all of them were getting on my same flight to Japan. Airport security explained the passport process to us as if we were four year olds. Half of me felt disgusted at how people assume that others are stupid just because they don't speak a certain language while the other half thought that perhaps these people really were stupid because in spite of the large hand gestures and clear demonstrations, everybody kept getting it wrong. Soon, however, the whole of me felt very stupid, because I got it wrong too.
I waited in the terminal to board the flight to Japan. That area of the airport was so run down that I began to wonder if such poor maintenance of the Japan-bound termanals wouldn't qualify as discrimination. Oh well. I was so excited to board, sit down, and have a restful flight where I could catch up on some long-missed sleep. To my dismay, however, I located my seat and realized that for the next 11 hours, I would be sitting next to the bickering couple from the line. For the next few hours, they continued their conversation with a mix of choppy English and what I assume to be Mandarin. There were only three seats in our row. The couple occupied two of them and I sat silently in the window seat. It was easily the most awkward few hours of my entire life.
Eventually, the couple settled down and after I stuffed earplugs in my ears and headphones over them, I got some shut-eye. I slept for about 6 hours, so the flight didn't seem so long. I was filled with excitement in the moments before touching down, and then with horror once I had to speak with people in Japanese. Apparently, teaching new missionaries to speak Japanese isn't enough maintenance to avoid some culture shock. I rushed off the plane, only to be stopped at customs. After showing my passport, the lady explained that I needed to be fingerprinted and photographed. There was a screen in front of me that was to display my picture as it was being taken. It was clear to me that Japan really isn't concerned about dispelling stereotypes because the screen was bordered with all kinds of Japanese ClipArt. For a moment, I seriously wondered if my picture wasn't going to be made into some sort of Anime character.
When I got through customs, I hurried downstairs and bought a bus ticket just before the bus arrived. I waited in line with ticket in hand, ready to board the bus. The line was long and not moving. I couldn't figure out why nobody was boarding the bus which was just sitting there. The employees were standing, looking around at us. After a while, the airport employees mumbled something into a loud speaker, and the bus took off. Then it dawned on me, the line that I was standing in was for the next bus. I went back in to the airport, had my ticket changed to a later time and, deflated, looked for something to eat.
I decided to eat at McDonald's which I'll admit made me feel very much like a foreigner, but it was the only thing that would be fast enough. The neighboring tables both seated American families. I do have to say though, Japanese McDonald's are much higher in quality. I don't know how that works, but it does.
By the time that I finally got on the right bus, it was dark. It took over an hour to ride into Tokyo. I was shocked by how big the buildings are. There are big buildings everywhere in Japan, but not like this. Even my skinny little hotel is 14 stories. I happen to be staying on the 14th floor. The room is even better than I expected. I can see the Tokyo skyline from my balcony, I have 2 beds, 2 showers, a washer/dryer, a dishwasher and lots of air conditioning. And the cherry on top: a "washlet" toilet with buttons!

Brooklyn Marie Oka

2008-06-11T18:35:00.000-07:00

Well, Maria read what I blogged earlier today and demanded that I amend the story of our first child's birth. So for those of you who are looking for the boring version, here it is:

We finally got the call to come into the hospital at about 11:30. We were standing in line at Lowe's to buy some Gorilla Glue which, by the way, is a small little miracle itself. Perhaps not as spectacular as childbirth, but still pretty amazing. Anyway, they had cleared a room and found a nurse for us and we finally got settled in at about 12:30. Through some creative reasoning, Maria's doctor convinced the nurses to put her on Citatec, a cervix ripener that is usually reserved for women who are overdue. We sat for the next few hours in relative comfort. The contractions became more frequent but not a great deal stronger and the cervix still hadn't dilated. After the third dose of Citatec, (about 8:30) Maria had a really strong contraction that caused a "popping" sensation. Her water had broken.

As soon as her water broke, the contractions became more frequent and significantly stronger. Maria was in some very serious pain. It took us about an hour to finally get the permission and get an anesthesiologist to administer an epidural. Meanwhile, Maria weathered the most painful hour of her life like a champ. After a couple of doses of anesthesia, Maria was once again her pleasant, patient self. Before we knew it, she was dilated to a 7 and after a little more waiting a 10. The time came to push! About 17 minutes passed between the time that Maria started pushing to the time that the baby was completely delivered. Dr. Wolsey noticed that her heart rate was dropping during pushes and realized that the cord was probably wrapped around the baby's neck. He ordered an episiotomy to get baby out before the drop in heart rate could become dangerous. The delivery went forward without any further complication.

Baby Brooklyn was born at 12:57 on June 11, 2008. She weighed 6 pounds 8 ounces and measured 18.5 inches long. She hasn't had any problems. She's a quiet, calm little baby who doen't cry much, but instead expresses her displeasure by scrunching her face. Mother, Baby, and Father are happy and healthy.

A Wonderful Birthday Gift

2008-06-11T12:28:00.000-07:00

When Maria asked me what I wanted for my birthday, I wasn't sure what to say. Deep down, I really wanted a Nintendo Wii, but I was embarrassed to say that out loud. So instead, I told her, "Honey, the best gift that I could get would be for you to have this baby soon." Here's how I saw this playing out: when she realizes that she isn't going to be able to pull this off, she would get me a Wii to comfort me. Well, wouldn't you know it - she went and got the baby for me. And guess what! It turned out to be a pretty great gift. It may even be better than a Nintendo Wii. Though that's not really a fair statement since I don't have a Nintendo Wii against which to compare her. But here's what I do know.

Baby bowling is not as fun as Wii bowling. Trust me.

My baby can make better faces than the Wii. Whoopie!

I'm not sure yet, but I'm pretty sure that a Wii costs less.

Well, I guess we'll keep her.

Happy Birthday?....

2008-06-05T08:23:00.000-07:00

Well, as you can see, we're getting desperate. We can't wait for this baby to come. We even tried to throw her a birthday party yesterday to trick her into being born. But as you can probably tell from the picture, and my bulging stomach, it hasn't worked yet. The cheesecake, however, was excellent.

If anyone has any fantastic ideas to help get this baby out, let us know. =) Not that we haven't already done all the research that we can think of, but you never know. In case you can't read it, the sign says, "Happy Birthday Brooklyn." We've decided for sure on her first name. Now we just need a middle name. Maybe that's what she's waiting for...

Sarah got Married!!

2008-05-31T08:59:00.000-07:00

So...it's been awhile since we've posted, but that doesn't mean that a lot hasn't been happening. A week ago (May 23rd) my older sister Sarah got married to an awesome guy named Jon. Our only complaint with him is that he is taking her off to Baltimore to start his professional job a few days after they get back from their honeymoon. We're actually extremely excited for them and hope to be able to go out and visit them once things calm down on our end. Here is a picture of Shane and I at the wedding.

In other news, our condo has been sold! The loan went through for the people who bought it, and we close on it next Friday. We're pretty excited about that. Also, the baby is due in two weeks! We've been power walking every day hoping to get the baby ready to come out. Hopefully the next post will be a baby one (we're hoping she comes sooner rather than later). Oh yeah, I also got my hair cut (see above photo). So long for now!

The Pitter Patter of Tiny Feet

2008-05-04T20:18:00.000-07:00

We just attended our third and final baby shower. We received an unbelievable amount of wonderful things from an unbelievable number of wonderful people. We are feeling how truly blessed we are. Among such great gifts, we got a lot of little tiny baby shoes. Neither Maria nor I really have shoe fetishes. Well, let's be honest, ever since I graduated from high school, I am pretty much willing to put anything on my feet that doesn't hurt and has a good chance of staying on. But all of a sudden I am feeling myself totally obsessed with these little baby shoes. There is probably nothing that makes me more excited for this baby to come than looking at these:

Big Belly

2008-04-28T15:42:00.000-07:00

So I think I figured out how to post a picture. So...here's my big belly.

Finals are over!

2008-04-27T18:05:00.000-07:00

This year's finals were pretty rough, and I couldn't be happier that they are finished. I have been so stress-free the last few days that I don't even know what to do with myself. I have been in school continually since September of 2006 and I feel mysteriously lighter without the burden of homework or test preparation looming over me. We are making more serious preparations for Japan; the first thing on the list is to sell our home. We've had a few bites and things look promising but we learned by sad experience not to count our chickens before they're hatched. A few days after we signed a contract on our first offer, we got a little over-confident in the reliability of the contract and blew a bunch of dough on a new suit for this internship, and a celebration lunch. Well, of course, the deal fell apart and we started making more meals from our food-storage. We were pretty discouraged there for a few days, but we're optimistic again and just waiting for the right buyer to come along.

First Blog

2008-04-26T08:50:00.000-07:00

Well, here I am on a Saturday morning. Everyone says that we (Shane and Maria Oka) need to set up a blog since we'll be having a baby soon and moving to Japan for the summer. So here is my first attempt at setting something up on my own (I'm not altogether computer savvy). So for those of you who don't know, Shane and I are having a baby sometime in the next seven weeks. In exactly seven weeks Shane gets on a plane and heads for Japan (we're hoping the baby comes before that point since the due date of the baby and the departure date of Shane coincide - June 14th). We're having a baby girl, and we couldn't be more excited! When I figure out how to post pictures, I'll post a picture of my big belly. Apparently I'm not that big for someone who's seven and a half months pregnant, but we'll just attribute that to my long torso.
Aside from having a baby and moving to Japan (as if that weren't exciting enough), we're also trying to sell our condo. We bought it when we got married, a year and four months ago. We've (okay...mostly just Shane) been remodeling it since then. We finally finished it at the end of March and put it up for sale. We've had a lot of interest, but so far nothing has officially gone through. Any takers? Check us out, we're listed for $93,500 on KSL.com and craigslist. Well I'm hoping that as I become a more experienced "blogger", the posts will become more interesting, but that's all for now!