Grandma Gayle and Partying in Tokyo (Dec 1-6)

Wow, where did this month go? I've been behind in posting here on the blog.  So here are a bunch of posts for the past few weeks worth of events.  Enjoy.

Our First Visitor
On December 1st Grandma Gayle – Tina's mom – arrived to visit for several weeks. She says she's here to visit all three of us, but we know her true motivation: to hold her grandson Nathan. :^)

It's been a treat to have Gayle around; she's helped with cooking, Christmas baking, cleaning, babysitting, grocery shopping, diaper changing, furniture placement, laundry, etc.  Besides showering Nathan with love and attention, Gayle has given Tina and me some much needed rest.

Gayle arrived at an exciting time for us.  We got our furniture only the day before, so we benefited from her help in unpacking and organizing our stuff.  Then we decided to buy a complete bedroom set.  (Yeah, the kind in which the dressers and the bed frame all match each other.  Tina and I automatically felt "more adult" having non-Ikea furniture.)  So we really took advantage of an extra pair of hands while we self-delivered our new bedroom set.

Nathan in the meantime has had his first two teeth come in!  All this while producing enough drool to fill at least three swimming pools.  Seriously, how is it he is not completely dehydrated when he's basically a non-stop running faucet?

You place Nathan on your knee.  Drool.  You wipe his chin.  Drool again.  You wipe his sleeve and place him in his bucket chair.  Hmmm, there's drool on the table and the floor.  You tickle his cheek.... congrat's, drool on your fingers.  Hey, Nathan, check out this toy ball.... drool.  And this rattle.... DROOOOOOOOL.

Another amazing thing Gayle has done is push Nathan in his stroller across the base to Tina's hospital for quality mommy time almost every day.  Believe me, it's a workout.  (2.5 weigh watchers activity points for those of you keeping score at home.)

Nevertheless I can't express how much we appreciate having Gayle here right now.  Although it took longer than I thought, but we did eventually got off base and treated Gayle to an authentic conveyor belt sushi bar in Yokosuka.

Tokyo Christmas Party
The very first Saturday Gayle arrived in Japan Tina's hospital threw its annual Christmas party in Tokyo at the New Sanno Hotel.  This fancy hotel in the heart of the city is available only to US government employees.  It's a very popular hotel in Japan because it serves all the branches of the uniformed services plus workers visiting Tokyo for the US embassy.

The New Sanno was already fully booked so Tina, Gayle, Nathan and I stayed the night at the Hardy Barracks - a US Army "hotel" across town in the Roppongi area of Tokyo.  Only $45 for a two room suite!  It wasn't the Four Seasons, but it did have a technologically-advanced toilet.  Yeah, lots of funny moments learning what exactly all those buttons caused to happen to your bottom side.

Gayle was generous enough to babysit Nathan while Tina and I hung out with our new friends/Tina's coworkers.  I had a hard time recognizing a few of them without their uniforms.  Picture a room filled with military folks on their day off and access to a bar.  Yeah, lots of bad dancing.  Yours truly was guilty of partaking in the bad dancing.  Needless to say it was a lot of fun.

That first photo is of me and my gorgeous Tina with her long, beautiful hair.  I know she never has the time to "do her hair" like that.  Especially with all of the work she has to do to her hair in order to adhere to the uniform regulations at work.  So I really appreciate it when she does it like that because it's like getting extra frosting on the already wonderful cake.

And this last photo Tina and I are posing with our new friends Peter and Hillery Arroyo, who are so friendly and helpful.  The Arroyos live in our building.  Peter's the friend who has a LCD projector as a TV and watches college football (on Sunday mornings here) during what he calls Eggs and Kegs.  Good times.  Peter and Hillery hosted us at their home for Thanksgiving dinner, which was delicious.  And they have lent us a really cool play mat for Nathan.  So we were very happy to share the table during dinner.

More photos are available in my Picasa Web Album here.