Announcement

Most of you know this already, but I am currently 3 months pregnant! This has been a huge surprise for us, something we were definitely not expecting. Many of you also know that we were right in the middle of an adoption of a baby boy from Ethiopia...So this pregnancy will put that on hold for a little while, although we still plan to continue with the adoption as soon as I have the baby and we are both healthy. This has been a crazy couple of months for us as we've tried to adjust to the idea of having another baby as well as adopting!
Many of you also know that since I'm already 13 weeks along I've been having trouble finding a clinic to go to. Here in Japan you basically have two options- you can go to a hospital (where you will be in an open birthing room with other mothers and your husband is not allowed in and no one speaks English) OR you can go to a clinic, where you have your own room, there are some doctors and nurses that speak English, etc. So obviously I want to go to a clinic but the problem with that is that everyone wants to go to clinics so they get "booked up" quickly! I went to one and they didn't have room for me so I was a little worried about getting in somewhere since I'm already so far along. BUT, today Luke and I went to a clinic in Nagoya (an hour train and subway ride, but we're hoping a little shorter by car) that has room for me! The doctor lived in America for a few years and speaks great English so we are really excited! Plus our teammates The Parsons just moved into a house in Nagoya that we might be able to stay at when it comes time to have the baby so that we wouldn't be so far away. Things are finally coming together!

Okazaki Zoo

This first picture was taken at our school the night there was an outdoor BBQ. We all brought our own meat and grilled it. It was raining, but there was a little carport roof and Sterling and Brayden had a ton of fun just playing in the rain :) Andy took this picture of all of us and I think it's really good!

The rest of these pictures are from the zoo. We went one day while Luke was in school.



We added a second monkey to this last picture!

Hiroshima

These are all pictures of the day we spent in Hiroshima. It took three hours on the bullet train (each way) but it was worth the trip. The museum was very interesting and sobering, the surrounding area was beautiful. There was a park called "Peace Park" with lots of memorials and one of the pictures below shows the form of a building that was left behind as a monument after the bombing. The other pictures are of Sterling enjoying ice cream after the museum.

Birt's Visit to Japan

Sorry for how long it's taken to get this post on here. I've been trying for three days now to get pictures on and blogger has not been working. Even this post I've had to put on each picture individually (what a pain!) Hope you enjoy seeing a little of what we've been doing. We are having a great time and I can't believe they're leaving tomorrow. :(
Grandad and Sterling riding on the train.


Dad and Kara trying on the Samurai helmets in the Samurai museum.


Sterling inside the Samurai museum


In front of the Okazaki castle.

Grandad and Sterling playing with blocks.

"Indy 500" Party

Yesterday we had a BBQ with Japanese friends and our team at a park and it was SO much fun! Tony was in charge of grilling the meat and we brought some sides as well as all the decorations and fun stuff. We had intended to have an Indy 500 party over Memorial Day weekend, but I hadn't been feeling well all week and didn't pull it off. So instead we had it this weekend and it was perfect! MANY thanks to my Grandma and Grandad Birt and my Aunt Carolyn and Cousin Miranda who sent all of the goodies for the party!

This is the invitation we gave to people.

Here is Sterling drinking from the race car cups. He had only been there a little while and he was already hot and sweaty!

This is everyone playing a yard game that Jay made up. It was a version of bean bag toss, and obviously Sterling thinks he's one of the big kids :)

Here is Sterling and Brayden with the race flags. They had tons of fun with them, and Luke got a video of this too, which we'll put on later this week.

Here he is playing on some of the playground equipment. He was so excited that it was a bulldozer because he's been very into construction equipment lately.

Here is Sterling and Brayden chowing down on some veggies and dip. The Japanese girls just thought they were too cute. They just watched Sterling and talked to him all day long!

Here is one of the girls playing race cars with him. Instead of using this as a table cloth, the boys used it to race their cars.

Here they are running around with the flag balloons. It was fun for a while, but they kept blowing away!

Here is Sterling actually trying to play the bean bag game, but all he really ended up doing was throwing them at this guy he was playing with. Then Sterling started to chase him and throw the bean bags at him...so the bean bag toss wasn't too successful, but Sterling thought it was a fun game anyways! (I apologize, I can't think of the guy's name that is playing with Sterling...)

And this is on the way home from the park. We got started around 10:30-11:00 and we didn't leave the park until 4:45. Sterling ran and played the whole time, so needless to say he was exhausted after such a fun day!

Sterling and Miku

Yesterday we were playing outside with Sterling's friend Miku. If you listen closely you can hear them say each other's names which is really cute. And also, if you're wondering about Sterling's outfit- he has been obsessed with blue lately. He will only wear 2 pairs of blue b-ball shorts and a couple of different blue t-shirts he owns. It's getting old already!

Frog Video

Trash and Playing with the Girls

Well, these are kind of in a random order, but basically we had a really fun day today playing with our neighbors. In the morning the kids just ran around and played with Sterling's toys- it was hilarious to see them playing with all his farm stuff. They liked all the animals and the trucks. Even one of the dad's was really impressed that Sterling had a little Dodge truck because they don't have those here in Japan. They also played a little bit of baseball. Then this afternoon we got a little pool for Sterling so he was playing in that. This evening they all got out and played bubbles together, so it's just been one big day of playing outside for Sterling! He had tons of fun and it was really fun for us to hang out with all the parents as well. We obviously still have a language barrier, but we got along the best that we could.
The other pictures that are in the middle are from Sterling and Luke taking the trash out the other day. They are all in separate bags according to what kind of trash they are- Sterling has the PET bottles. We can only take them out on Fridays, so it gets a little trashy in our house, but we're getting better at the trash system, luckily :)

Narai Park

It was our 5 year anniversary yesterday, so we went out to eat at a Thai restaurant while Andy and Tony watched Sterling for us. They had a lot of fun and so did we!

Every time Sterling gets out of the bath/shower he has to wrap his towel around himself like this and run around for a while. I think he thinks he's being like Luke.

We got a box from my grandma and papa and this is Sterling sitting inside of it eating the Cheerios that they sent! He thought it was a perfect little seat.

The next three pictures are from the park we went to today. There is a little water area where the kids can play. It's like a little stream running through the concrete- a pretty cute idea and Sterling loves it. And in the last picture he's holding everyone up as he slowly gets down off the slide :)

First Field Trip!

These first pictures are Sterling playing with his new cars and the box that they go in from his Granny and Papa Tom. He really loves them and plays with them ALL the time. Except last night he got in trouble so Luke took them away- We're hoping that will be effective in modifying his behavior :)


This was just a funny moment that I had to get a picture of. Sterling in his rain boots, shorts that are too big on him, and his monster truck hat...too cute, I thought. And he obviously didn't want to be holding Luke's hand!

The last two pictures are from this morning (Wed.). He is going on his first field trip today! They are just going to the park right near our house (the one with the rides and stuff), but I'm still sad that I don't get to go with him on his first trip. (I don't know if there are any parents going, but they didn't offer for us to go, it's hard enough just to communicate the basics!) They are going to ride on a little bus and everything! They told us to make sure that he wore his hat and he talked all morning about how he was going on a trip with his sensei's. He was very excited!

A Rainy Day

We had a rainy day last week, so we went to the play place at Wing Town again, and here's a little video of Sterling playing there.

This Week

These are just some pretty random pictures from this last week. The first is Sterling drawing on a piece of paper, which so rarely happens that I had to capture it in a picture. He usually has no patience for drawing.

Today we went to McDonald's with the Parsons' kids and we all got ice cream. Sterling and Owen esp. got really hot in the play area, so the ice cream was a nice cool down.

These are the neighbor girls that Sterling always plays with. Miku is in the middle and Yuu is on the right. Sterling was being very nice and sharing his pringles with them :)

My mom and dad sent Sterling a magazine (actually it was for all of us because it had an article in it about Japanese beef). It had all kinds of John Deere tractors and combines and he sat looking at it for a really long time tonight! I was surprised actually at how long he sat there just looking at all the pictures.

The park, again

Luke took Sterling to the park this morning. It's pretty much a daily thing. These are just some random cute pictures he took. (Sorry it's been a while since we last posted).