Jul 17, 2009

39 WEEKS

We are heading to Koko's 39 week appointment in a few and will update here. Also we started Twitter and its to the left on here and at this site www.twitter.com/toddandkoko so you can follow what we are up to. I feel like MC Hammer on Hammertime on A&E, it's out new favorite show since Jon and Kate turned out to be dirtbags that were capitalizing on their children.

I will do my best to update it when Koko is in labor without getting in trouble :)

May 24, 2009

IS IT A BOY OR A GIRL??

It's been a while since we posted anything, but here is the latest. We went to get another 4D ultrasound in Yokohama and this time it looks like it could be a boy!! The technician couldn't really tell but after the appointment was over Koko saw her in the restroom and she said 65% chance it's a boy. Hopefully if we get any gifts they are a neutral color, since we've never had 100% confirmation on the gender of our little bundle of joy that will be here in less than 2 months.

We still have a gift registry on http://www.amazon.com/. Search "wende" in the baby registry area. We have a lot of stuff already but constantly finding stuff that we need from the inventories in different books.





























If you look closely you can see her pretty little face and long fingers, mostly you see her legs and arms. After 30 weeks it's difficult to get a good view of the baby's face in 4D but you can kinda see it. She's very active and playing with her cord in the videos, as the ultrasound technician said, "it the only toy she has right now".

On another note, we drove to Sasebo to see Koko's parents (1234km away) for Golden Week and my 33rd birthday. I was a longggg drive but something to do.

Koko and her parents on the golf course (she's 28 weeks pregnant)


This is the Miyajima Shrine we went to on the way back.



Koko with a baby deer at Miyajima


My birthday party at Koko's parents.


Mar 22, 2009

It's a girl

This post is just to see if we can input our own videos. This is a video of the 22 week 4D ultrasound recorded from the DVD they gave us played on my TV and then recorded with my camcorder. This is just a test so if it works I will try to place a longer one here or at least the parts where you can really see her. So now it's a confirmed girl!! We are so happy.


Feb 27, 2009

妊娠19週 - 残り20週

早いものでもう2月も終わり。やっと春がそこまでという季節になりました。
と、ふと窓の外を見ると雨が雪に変わっています!! 暖かくなるまでもう少々我慢の様です。

私の妊娠発覚が去年の11月。添付写真のテスト日が11月17日。当初は本当に妊娠してるのかなぁ???と半信半疑でした。あっという間に妊娠19週目に入りました。マラソンに例えると折り返し地点を通過中といったところです。

私の場合、悪阻が全くなく、今までやってきた検査も全て異常なしでクリアーしております。超音波でベイビーを見ると、お腹の中ですくすく育ってるんだぁと思いますが、その他の面ではあまり妊婦の自覚がありません。実際に生活も妊娠前とほぼ変化なしです。

ただ・・・・・、体重増加が唯一の悩みです。
お腹のベイビーは頭からおしりが約13cm、体重が約260gだそうです。それを思うと、私の体重増加幅はやばいです。ほとんど私の脂肪ということです。妊娠前半はかなり暴食してしまいましたので、後半はもっと気をつけて行こうと思います。

そろそろ胎動を感じてもいい頃ですが、私はまだです。担当の助産婦さんが、「最初はお腹の中でちょうちょが舞っているような、泡が浮いているような、ブラシでさわさわするような感じ方よ」とおっしゃいますが、そういわれたらそういう感じもするけど・・・ってなとこですね。それにしてもその表現がおもしろいなぁと感心いたしました。とにかく、ベイビーには早くキックを覚えていただいて、暴食に走る母を戒めていただきたいです。

Feb 26, 2009

Baby Girl????

Well, we went to the Navy hospital yesterday and were told by the ultrasound technician that our baby looks like a girl (three lines?????). I guess the little kickstand I saw on the 4D ultrasound was something else. Anyway I'm very happy about it although in the long run I'm happy I've already lost all my hair :) . It should be great, plus I was 15 when my baby sister Alysha was born, so I have a little practice with baby girls. Anyway, we are doing another 4D ultrasound soon, so hopefully we are sticking with it being a girl after this appointment. We'll see.......

Also, I can't get to this website from the ship anymore so I'm going to try to figure out a way to keep everyone up to speed with our Wende/Uchiyama family in Japan when I'm underway this summer.

Feb 19, 2009

Its a boy (or is it) and our Valentines day trip to Tokyo

It’s a boy or is it? We went to Tokyo last weekend to enjoy Valentines day at the New Sanno. We had a great weekend and ended up doing a 4D ultrasound of our baby, so we now have our first baby pictures. The 4D ultrasounds are really interesting since you can see the baby moving in real time and even see the skin texture. We had a 10 minute appointment and were provided with a DVD and about 10 still pictures, it was really awesome to see the baby moving around, yawn and stretching. At 17 weeks he’s still tiny, but it looks like everything is there. The ultrasound technician wouldn’t tell us the gender (since 4D ultrasounds are used mainly as a novelty), but in my opinion it looks like a boy, we’ll find out for sure at out next appointment.






We also went to the Blue Man Group (no pictures allowed, so check out this link), it was a fun experience as well. The show was about 2 hours long and for not saying a word the whole time it was cool to see the interaction with the crowd. I highly recommend going to see them if you ever get the chance.

For a Valentines day dinner we went to Lawry's Prime Rib. This is the same place I proposed to Koko a few years ago and one of our favorite places to eat.

Over the last week we also went golfing at Camp Zama, wow is all I can say. For it being in the middle of winter is was very fun to play. I’ve been in Japan for over 10 years and have never made my way up to the course, I’ve been missing out. I’m going to try to get up there a few more times before the ship leaves this summer. By the way, Koko is still golfing while she is pregnant and getting better each round.

Well, that's all for now. Since it took me a week to get this out, I have an update to my Camp Zama golf plan, me and Shawn L. and Shawn S. are going up on Saturday for a round. I hope the weather is nice. Until next time....

Feb 4, 2009

Nike Plus, Etc.

Not much going on here, but wanted to write something just to keep the motivation on blogging. Koko is doing good and looking a little more pregnant each day, she started exercising by taking the nine flights of stairs home after work each day ( I did it once and that was enough for me). I will stick with running and logging it at nike plus. This is my last running certificate, its 1000k so 625 miles, http://nikeplus.nike.com/nikeplus/v1/html/milestones/print_certif.html?id=418798078&region=us&language=en&locale=en_us&dateFormat=MM/DD/YY it took me about 2 years to log that many miles, but who would have thought I could have accomplished something like this 10 years ago. Most of the motivation has came from gaining the "husband pregnancy" weight with Koko (which, by the way isn't fair).

A couple weeks ago we found a Kristy Kreme shop in Kawasaki, that hasn't helped the losing weight campaign but man they sure were good. I've been asking Koko to go back but they are off limits for a little while.

On the last note, we don't know the sex of our baby yet. However, we are going to do the 4D ultrasound at the 17 week mark and the official on base ultrasound on the 25th of February at the 18 week mark so we should know something pretty soon.

This link is for a baby register I created, so all the blame is on me if I did it wrong, I really haven't put anything we need on there yet since we don't know the baby's gender. However, its there in case you would like to forward to anyone. Just search our names.

That's all for now. We should have more to write in a couple weeks.

Jan 12, 2009

長女・ヒメ 長男・元気

我が家には2匹の猫が居ます。


まずは長女のヒメ。メス、1999年生まれ。8月で10歳。人間の年齢に換算すると56歳です。気づけば立派なお歳になられました。
推定約生後半年まで野良猫として生活していたヒメですが、1999年秋、ひょんなことから私の元へやって来て、一緒に生活することとなりました。それ以来、約9年間私と人生を共にしています。
性格は女王様タイプ、と思いきやお人好しな面もあります。最近は年の功も重なりかなり丸くおなりになられました。ご飯を食べる順番も以前は「私が先よ。」といった感じでしたが今は最後尾に並んでいたりします。基本は甘えん坊で臆病者、好き嫌いがはっきりしており、彼女の中で自分より下にランキングされた猫・人間に対しては当りが厳しいようです。辛うじて私は彼女に認められているようで、知り得る限りランクAな待遇を受けております。


そして長男の元気。オス、2007年生まれ。8月で2歳。人間の年齢に換算すると20歳。2007年の初冬、Rから拾われて来た時は風邪で鼻たれ小僧、そして何が起きたのか後ろ足の太腿に傷を追っていました。
今はすっかり健康優良児でありますが先日軽い膀胱炎になり私たちを心配させました。メスよりもオスのほうが泌尿器系の病気にかかりやすいようですね。
元気は根っからの女の子好きです。ちょっと前までウチで預かっていたメス猫のナンシーが一番のお気に入りでした。元気のナンシーを見る目とその他の猫を見る目が明らかに違っており、彼のオトコ的な一面を見た時は母親の心境としては複雑でした。まだまだ赤ちゃんだと思っていたのに・・・・。
性格は怖がりの甘えん坊です。男性恐怖症?!らしく、男性の気配がすると影も形も無くなってしまいます。最近やっとタッドに心を許してきたかな・・・といったころです。私が一人で家に居ると四六時中後を追ってくる甘えん坊ぶりです。


姉弟の関係は良くもなければ悪くもないと言ったところでしょうか?
いい歳になりまったり過ごしたいヒメ。まだまだやんちゃざかりのでふざけたい元気。昼寝スポット・またたびグッズ等の取り合いで衝突が生じますが、あまりの歳の差に深刻なケンカまでには発展しません。ヒメに睨まれると一回り小さくなってしまう臆病な元気ですから。


いつまでも健康な2匹で居てほしいです。











Jan 8, 2009

We're Back

Well we got back from Thailand a few days ago and haven't sat down to blog about our trip yet. We didn't get to upload or do any blogs from the hotel since they didn't have wifi, but who needs wifi when you are on vacation. Anyway, I have the pictures uploaded and just need to get Koko's permission before I post them online for everyone to see.

The trip went well, we were only supposed to golf 2 times, however, we went 4 times and had a great time. We both played pretty good and our caddies really were good at a couple courses. I broke my new Nike SQ2 driver so I was gluing it back together each night. (I got the driver on sale for $79, regularly $329, must have been why it was on sale).

The hotel was great, we had pool access right from our room but the water was pretty cold. Anyway I'll write more later.                            














旅のご報告 & 新年のご挨拶

新年明けましておめでとうございます。
皆様にとって幸多き一年となりますよう願っております。
今年もチーム池子をよろしくお願いいたします。

あっという間に2008年が去り、2009年が訪れてから既に1週間が経ちました。本当に時間の経つのは早いです。今年は一日一日を大事に過ごしたいものです。

プーケットではほぼ毎日ゴルフプレーとなり、年越し旅行というよりもゴルフ合宿でした。案の定、母上からは「妊婦のくせに毎日毎日ゴルフなんていい加減にしなさいよ。」とお叱りを受けましたが、仕方がありません。この機会を逃すと次はいつプレー出来るか分かりませんからね。トータルで4ラウンド、12/29(月)Blue Canyon、12/30(火)Mission Hills、12/31(水)Red Mountain、1/2(月)Loch Palmをまわりました。いずれのコースもすばらしい景色、コンディションでプレーを楽しむことが出来ました。お天気も良く、一度もスコールには遭いませんでした。暑さもタイにしてはまだ耐えられる暑さでした。
ゴルフビギナーのMとRも早くコースデビューをして欲しいものです。私の出産後までには是非一緒にまわれるようマジメに練習して下さい。お願いします。

帰国後、一日休養して仕事初めとなり、なんだか旅疲れのとれないまま仕事復帰といった感じです。お正月らしいことなど何ひとつしていませんが、夫婦2人の時間はこんな過ごし方でもいいかなと思っております。子供が生まれてから、季節の行事・習慣をウエンディ家風に自分達らしく形にして行こうと志しております。(まだタッドと話し合ってはいませんがね・・・)

では、簡単ながら旅のご報告、新年のご挨拶とさせていただきます。