SHARING the days

We were back in forth between Wimberley and Austin, sharing the days, and staying very busy. We saw lots of friends, all of our family, celebrated two Christmases, a wedding, and the New Year!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some highlights:
- Being with family and on the water in Wimberley.
- Getting to visit with baby Elle who is less and less a baby. We loved watch these two girls play so sweetly together.
- Watching Wiley and Blue open their gifts. Wiley got several pairs of shoes and was happy to try them all on, several times. Blue was almost hyperventilating as he opened his crane and forklift. He had been requesting these very consistently for months and has played with them just as consistently in the months since.
- Wiley getting her nails painted for the first time. 
- Seeing the extended family and meeting Andy's family during the wedding festivities.
-Watching Blue develop a major crush on Hannah, one of Mal's bridesmaids. He still talks about her. And seeing how handsome he looked in his wedding attire. Also, remembering what a great job he did standing up front during the ceremony.

off to TEXAS

We got back from Kyoto and two weeks later we were off to Texas! Blue had going back to Texas and Christmas all wrapped up into one event. He was excited to play with some of the toys we had to leave behind and to see all his family. I think it almost outranked Christmas in the end. We did do a few Christmas-themed activities in Tokyo before we left though. There were quite a few beautiful light displays and bright tree-lined streets. And what would Christmas in Tokyo be without a little staged photo op? 

 

The flight to Tokyo had gone so well I wasn't sure what to expect on the second round. It was definitely different, mostly worse. Blue did not nap at all and Wiley slept maybe an hour and a half out of fourteen hours. She puked all over herself about two hours into the flight and was just so squirmy in general. She refused to sit with Graham so I had to wrestle with her. Wiley's flight highlight - stickers! Blue's flight highlight - his new Robocar Poli transformers (these need their own post...). 

 

 

That sure is one expensive seat, Wiley! We landed in Austin and the kids slept in the car plus some. When Blue finally woke up he had what I would call a panic attack. His system was completely out of whack, he was hungry and dehydrated, and was overwhelmed to be in a familiar but also unfamiliar place. So we put him back to bed and slowly woke him up over the next hour or so. Both kids immediately got into the new sleep time groove but Blue woke up still feeling off. He rested with us in bed for a bit. Sweet boy, he was whispering "cheese" as I took this picture but he felt really awful!

We were glad to have all that behind us though and to enjoy our time with family!

kyoto: day FIVE

Wiley and I beat the boys out the door early this morning to make our way to a nearby flea market. I was so excited for this and got lucky that it was a ten minute walk from our apartment and scheduled for the weekend of our trip. I love flea markets (it runs in my mom's genes) and this one was a lot of fun despite the light rainfall. I had been to a Tokyo "flea market" or shrine sale as they sometimes call them here but it was fancy - more like little outdoor antique stores. The Kyoto version had some of that but it was mostly junky... in a good way. And cheaper.

I got this cool old scale with all the weights in this cute little box for $15! And a bunch of Christmas gifts for folks back home. Walking back to the apartment I somewhat regretted the scale purchase but now that it is back in Tokyo and sitting on my shelf I think the suffering was probably worth it.

 

 

 

We shifted our itinerary around mid-week when we learned that it was probably going to rain on our last day of the trip. We slotted in Nishiki Market which is a covered alley of sorts with vendors selling all sorts of different food items but also some crafts and local goods. The street goes back several centuries and some vendors have kept their stalls in the family for generations. Imagine lots of fruit, specialty pickles, dried foods, fresh fish, grilled meats, fresh soy milk doughnuts, everything sesame, etc. We bought a special knife for ourselves and one as a wedding gift for Mal and Andy. They engraved our last names into the blade of the knife. Guess what? It was also very crowded.
We were tired, we were out of indoor things to do and we decided to head back and do an early dinner. Graham paid one last visit to the onsen and we said goodbye to Kyoto the next morning.

We really loved the city despite its crowds and thought if we could pick we might choose to live in Kyoto over Tokyo. It felt like Brooklyn to NYC or like Austin to Dallas or Houston. Graham had the best orange of his life in the city and I will never forget the spectacular fall colors. It also made us realize that traveling with the kids was doable and fun so here's to many more future trips around Japan!

kyoto: day FOUR

Can you believe it is January and I still have two more blog posts to write about our Kyoto trip back in November! Getting right to it...

Day four started out with a train ride to the Fushimi Inari Shrine which is famous for its long paths lined with hundreds of orange gates. It was crowded and a little frustrating to maneuver with a stroller so we didn't linger. 

 

 

 

 

  

We had lunch (tonkatsu! my favorite!) at the train station en route to Nara, which was the capital of Japan before Kyoto (which was the capital before Tokyo). We really enjoyed our time in Nara. There were large parks and beautiful gardens and about 75% less people than there would have been in Kyoto. We had one small, but beautiful, garden all to ourselves and it was striking what a different experience it was - so serene and and you were actually able to pause and appreciate the little moments. Wiley particularly enjoyed Nara's city mascot - a giant baby with deer antlers. And Blue enjoyed the space to run and jump and he was quite taken with the actual deer. 

 

 

 

 

 

We were just in time to catch the sunset from Nara's tallest viewpoint. It was a pretty one too.