Recent Pictures

Carolyn got me a new purse for my birthday and Sterling decided it was just the accessory he needed with his outfit. It's almost bigger than he is!

We went to Santa Monica last Friday with Jay, Caitlin, Carolyn, Sterling, Luke and I. We went in to Lids to try to find a hat that fit Luke, and Sterling got way into trying them on. He was cracking us up because he would just go from one hat to the next and he wanted me to try this one on with him.

We took this a couple of weeks ago because Sterling wore his new shirt. It's not a great picture, but he's getting to that age where he definitely doesn't just stand around waiting patiently while you get the camera ready.

Like his cousin Ava, Sterling is really wanting to feed himself lately! Actually, I think since he's waited this long, his motor skills are actually pretty decent and his does a good job for the most part. And sometime he just loses patience with himself and hands the spoon back to me because I can get it in there faster and in bigger bites!

This was a night a couple of weeks ago that we went to dinner with our land lady Paula, (the white lady in the middle) and her friends Koji and Takako who were visiting from Japan. We were at the Bonaventure Westin Hotel, where they have filmed many famous movies like "True Lies", "Rain Man", and "In the Line of Fire" (along with many others!). Paula has been a wonderful person to us- she is letting us live in her condo rent free and has been so generous in many ways. This particular night she wanted to take us to the revolving cocktail lounge at the Bonaventure where you can see the entire city. The funny part of it was that we had Sterling...He was pretty good for the first hour or so, but then, not surprisingly, he got a little restless. So we let him get down and walk a little...Then he started to run, and we were embarrassed and made him stop. But Paula was quick to say,"Oh he's so cute! And he's having fun!" Then Koji and Takako got down and started chasing him around the lounge! This restaurant was filled with people having after dinner drinks (It was 9:30 before we left) and just trying to have a relaxing evening, and here is a one year old running circles around the place! I don't know when the last time a kid was probably even there! But Paula thought it was great and we all had fun, despite Sterling causing a scene :)

The Fires of Southern CA

I know a lot of you have been wondering what's going on out here in Southern CA, so I wanted to make sure everyone knows we are fine! But on our way up to Northridge yesterday, we took this picture from the interstate. Those are NOT storm clouds in the sky, that is the smoke from the fires. Many of the people we know that live in Santa Clarita have been evacuated, although as of yesterday, Steve and Stacey had not been yet (and we hope they don't have to!) Andy and Amy Storms did have to evacuate, but their home is fine. Supposedly the fire fighters have kept the fires away from the houses and moved it toward the brush. Pres. Bush declared Southern CA a state of emergency yesterday because there are too few workers, not nearly enough water, and way too dry to try to get rid of all these fires easily.

My great friend Carolyn got to come this past weekend to celebrate my birthday with me! It was so much fun! We got pedicures, walked down Rodeo drive and looked at all the fancy shops, went to a really cool Japanese restaurant for dinner, and then went to a movie. It was an awesome birthday weekend!

Last night our team went to IHOP with our friends Michael and Beth that live out here. They announced that they are pregnant and we are so excited for them!

Recent Outings and Events

On one of our days off we decided to go to Griffith Park and have a picnic. It was a beautiful sunny day and Sterling really enjoyed eating outside. After that, we drove over to the Autry National Center (which is also in the park). It is a museum about Western History, with a focus on Gene Autry, Native Americans, and Old West culture. It was really interesting, and of course, Luke especially loved it!

Well, Lindsey and I completed the Long Beach 1/2 Marathon! We were both happy to cross the finish line. I was happy that I did it 6 minutes faster than my time in Indianapolis!

While Lindsey was here visiting we went to Little Tokyo to have dinner. Sterling was trying to eat rice with chopsticks, which is hard for an adult to do, let alone him! He made a good effort though. There are two foods that Sterling loves: rice and cheerios. He is the perfect little mix of Asian and American!

This is at the parking lot of Shepherd of the Hills church in Northridge. Sterling, Luke and our teammate Jay were playing soccer. Sterling kept putting Luke and Jay in certain positions and then kicking the ball to them and stuff. It was pretty fun. As always, Sterling thinks he's pretty big stuff.

New Pj's and New Bike

Sterling and his friend Owen, whom he affectionately calls "O", like to play basketball in the kitchen. They stood there like that throwing balls in the hoop for 15 min. or more (which is a very long time for a 1 year old's attention span!)

We got to go to dinner one night with our landlady Paula, as well as some friends of hers from Japan. Before we went to dinner we explored around LA a little. We took this picture in front of Union Station, which is right across from Olvera Street, the birthplace of Los Angeles! It's a pretty cool area of the town.

Sterling got a new pair of pajamas the other day and he really loves them. They have monkey's on them, but mostly he just likes it that they have feet and that they zip up the front. He gets kind of crazy at night sometimes because he doesn't want to go to sleep, so this first pic is him inside the laundry basket. The next two pics are of him in his new pj's on his new bike. It's actually not new, Cade Meyers (steve and stacey's son) let Sterling borrow this bike until we move to Japan. Sterling absolutely loves it! Anytime we are in the house he is either pushing it, pulling it, riding it, or crawling over it like in this picture. Thank you Cade!

Reading Together

Sterling and Luke have been doing a lot of reading together lately :) They were reading on the bed one night and I thought it was really funny that they were reading "bringing up boys" together. I'm sure Sterling was getting a lot out of it. They were also reading together on our plane trip home from Iowa to pass the time.

Dancing Kids

When we were in St. Louis, Sterling and his cousins Natalie, Jacob and Ava were dancing in grandma and grandpa's living room and it was quite hilarious. Sterling gets pretty into after a few seconds...the head bob is esp. good.

Iowa Trip

Well, now I will post pictures from the Iowa portion of our trip, which was also tons of fun! While we were there we spent time with zack, amy and blake as well as with Granny and Papa Tom.

For those of you who don't know, Luke is from Keokuk, IA and this is a statue of chief Keokuk, the native american the town was named after. Luke and Sterling got their picture taken by the chief so we can have it as a memento for Sterling to look back on.

We took this picture right across the road from chief Keokuk, (all in the town's park) and it is a tree that commemorates the sister cities of Keokuk and Ryuo, Japan. It's so cool that Keokuk has a sister city in Japan! Hopefully we will get to visit Ryuo while we live in Japan. Granny bought Sterling a Keokuk sweatshirt, which he is sporting in this picture to support his Dad's hometown!

We also got to go to a high school football game while we were there. Granny bought all the kids Keokuk sweatshirts and they looked so cute in them! All of these cousins are around the same age- sterling, Ava, Blake and Aija. Too bad Paige wasn't in the picture, or we would have had all the 1 year olds together!

Amy, Cindy and I took Blake and Sterling to a pumpkin patch while the guys went golfing. They loved it so much! This was a grain bin that they had cut off and filled with shelled corn. They played in it like a big sandbox.

Sterling got to hold a pumpkin while we were there, but it was hard for him to hold still for a picture because he was having so much fun running from one place to another!


sterling's two favorite activities while we were in Iowa was to chase the cat's and to ride on the mule with papa tom. He thought he was pretty big stuff because he had his own seat and didn't think too much of it when he had to share with Ava. He was always grinning from ear to ear when he got to ride on around and help Tom with the chores.

St. Louis

Last week we took a trip to St. Louis and Iowa for Neal Woollard's wedding and a family reunion on Luke's mom's side. We had a great trip with so many wonderful memories, that I am going to split the posts up. This will be the St. Louis post.

This was when Natalie and Jacob were there with us. The kids all had so much fun dancing and playing together, although I didn't get Ava in this picture. Jacob and Natalie were both SO sweet to their little cousin Sterling. I have a video of all of them dancing, I'm going to try to post it either on here or on youtube sometime!

Sterling got really into playing with this babydoll while we were in St. Louis. At first he was nice and gentle, but then he started throwing it and grabbing it by it's head! He pushed the little stroller around everywhere.

We got to see Sterling's newest cousin Maddox while we were there, which we were so happy about! Sterling was absolutely adorable with Maddox- he somehow knew to be gentle and loving with him, and in this picture he was giving him a kiss. He even was telling all of us to give Maddox kisses too!

So we also took a picture of the three older kids together. Zion is three and Paige and Sterling are about 19 months. Aren't they cute?

This is when my parents and Kara made a trip over to visit us. We went to the park to play and Sterling kept us all running the entire time! He had my dad go down the slide so many times!

Everyone got on the swings at the park, and here is a picture of 4 generations of Chase's! Nana and Papa, Steve, Luke, and Sterling.

Kara and I had fun on the climbing rock...it was meant for 10 year olds, but we had fun anyways!

Family Pics and Brayden

On Saturday we went ot Griffith Park which is like New York's Central Park, only this one is way bigger! There is tons of stuff to do like horseback riding, playgrounds, cookout areas, tennis, golf, volleyball, a carousel, the LA zoo, and the Gene Autry Western History museum. But this picture is of the three of us (Luke took it!) riding on the little train ride for preschoolers. It was so fun for Sterling. It goes on this little track that goes past the ponies as well as some other little old "western towns" they made to look like the old west. There is also one tunnel and Sterling just looked at us and smiled and laughed really big when we went through it. It was a fun morning.

In the afternoon on Saturday we went up to Northridge so that Luke could watch football all day with Mike. So Erin and I took the boys and let them play at the mall. Sterling and Brayden actually play together really well, and Sterling has started trying to say his name- he calls him "Bay bay"...pretty close.

And this was Sunday at the beach. Ashley took our picture and Sterling actually stood there and smiled for it. We were proud of him for being so good.

Beach pictures

We went to the beach with Sterling on Sunday. He really loves the beach! He hates it when we have to leave. It was really funny watching him chase the birds; he thought they were pretty cool.

Life in California

Lately we've been busy, but it's just our usual routine. Sterling goes to play with Colette and Owen while we have our meetings, so this picture is of the three of them holding hands-- isn't that cute?! They all love each other, but of course also spend a lot of their time fighting over toys and yelling at one another.

Sometimes if we arrive a little early for our morning meetings, we go to this Coffee Bean coffee shop and Sterling has a little bit of chocolate milk. It's a pretty special treat for him. He thinks he's big stuff sitting in the chairs like we do.

Luke and Sterling still go to the park most mornings to play. Sterling has never liked the swings before, but the other day he saw other kids swinging and decided to give it another try. He loved it and stayed on the swing for a long time.

This was just when Sterling and I were messing around and playing yesterday. We got a little bored in the evening so I just started taking pictures of him :) But after this, we decided to go out in the courtyard and walk around. We had baked cookies and were looking for someone to give them to. While we were walking we got to meet one of our neighbors across the way and they have a little boy that is close to Sterling's age. We were excited to make some new friends and hopefully the boys can play together. The other cool thing about that was that the dad of the family works at DisneyLand, and they gave us free park hopper tickets!! We couldn't believe it when she brought them over to us! Now we just have to figure out a day that we can make it to DisneyLand- how exciting!

Sterling's Typical Week

Sterling is borrowing a little booster chair from our friends Mike and Erin, so now he is starting to feed himself a little more- although he still prefers to have us do it! He's kind of lazy that way :) He's sporting his Taylor University t-shirt in this picture to support his aunt Kayla--Good luck at school!

3 or 4 mornings a week Sterling and Luke go to the park to play while I go to the gym. They have lots of fun sliding and playing. It's great father/son time, and I enjoy getting to have time to work out! Sterling loves his time outside--he's always been an outdoorsy kind of kid.

Sterling also got a new pair of flip flops a couple of days ago and he looks so cute trying to walk in them! He actually does a pretty good job for such a little guy. He usually just kind of scoots along. This picture was taken in the elevator we have to take to go to our parking garage. He really likes riding the elevator a couple of times a day, he thinks it's pretty fun.

This picture was also taken at the park one morning when they were playing. Sterling has been experimenting with all kinds of new words. Here he was telling Luke that the cow pictured on the swing set says "MOOOO" It's really cute when he says it!