Moving Along

Things are moving along here in Japan. Still living the life and enjoying ourselves

out here. Its starting to get super duper hot, plus the humidity (barff) we try not 

to leave our place very often...and only some days we feel like we are stuck in a 500

square foot, 1 bedroom apartment! ;) Maggie is just growing like crazy! She is 

waving!She can sit up pretty good, but as still had some nasty falls so I still keep

a finger on her to help her balance a little. She is taking big girl baths, and 

absolutely loves the water (we took her to the outdoor pool, and she LOVED it...also

tries to drink asmuch of the pool water as she can haha). She's ok with tummy time 

if there is something good to look at, which currently mom's phone is becoming her 

prized toy (got to keep my eyes on her!). 

She only sleeps on her side, and we do the lay her down in her crib

tired method, and I know that she wont go to sleep for a while if I lay her down and

she just lays flat...I have to keep coming back and putting the binki in her mouth, 

but as soon as she rolls to her side, she's down for the count! She still takes 3 

naps a day, which I LOVE! Honestly, is because im really strict about her nap 

schedule, and making her fall asleep on her own really is the secret, because what 

else can she do in her empty crib. :) I thought it would be harder to do the "cry" 

it out method, but honestly, she cries for 1 min sometimes and then boom she's out. 

Sometimes she doesn't even cry. She loves to smile at everyone, the cleaning ladies

are her favorite. I'm not sure what they are saying to her, but she squeals every

time they even look at her. She still does this adorable thing where she will smile

at you and hide her face like she is embarrassed. (Except she doesn't do it for mom

and dad, probably because she is tired of seeing us ;)). Also she says "mom" Anton 

confirmed it(but also says it's not her first word? Haha) Yep we have a genius baby. 

She has had some rough nights, I blame the teething process, which thank goodness 

for Tylenol. And probably the fact that she sleeps in our closet, and its such a 

small place that anything and everything wakes her up...but I have some new sound 

proofing ideas we are going to try out TONIGHT! (me and Anton are tired of being 

zombies hehe)

All in all, we are having a really fun time. We heard word for the company that the

more realistic time line, is that we should be here until about March. So not as long

as we thought, but still far to long to go without seeing family. We miss everyone, 

especially Mag-ster misses everyone. We wish everyone could see her fun moments in 

person, instead of documented. But im trying to get really good at getting it all on 

tape. 

we are making plans to venture out into the wild (aka outside the base) really soon.

stayed tuned, and if you feel like making a trip to Japan, we have a couch waiting 

for ya! (cough cough Nancy cough cough) ;) 

Disney Trip!

Well its no surprise that once the Kodra's heard there was a Tokyo Disneyland, we HAD to go! Because of July 4th, Anton got a 4 day weekend, so what better to do then hang with our homie Mickey! We stayed at Tokyo DisneySea Miracosta hotel, and it was worth every penny! We were close to the park and it was all disneyfied!! We spent one day at DisneySea, it had similar rides to California adventure, as well as some new ones. They had different "lands", and the decorations were awesome! It was super frustrating that NO ONE spoke english...even if they said they did, they really didn't. They had this "switch pass" where one person has to wait in line and ride the ride, while the other sits with the child, then the one that waited gets escorted through the "cast entrance" to get on the ride directly. It was awesome, and totally great when the wait was 5 minutes...the longest me and Maggie waited for Anton was probably only 50 minutes. Maggie did so great! She napped most of the day, and loved riding the rides that she could ride. Currently, there is a disney bear named "Duffy" which is the current fad here in Japan....oh my gosh, the line to enter the store to buy this bear was literally 240 minutes....do you know what that is? People waited 4 hours for a stuffed animal.... Needless to say we got to ride all the rides we wanted to, and our favorites 2-3 times! I enjoyed a roller coaster in adventure land while Anton's favorite was tower of terror. Maggie's was the Aladdin show...which was all in Japanese...but she never blinked through the whole show! :) They had a fantastic firework show, which worked out great because we got to see fireworks on July 4th and we weren't even in America :) The next day we attempted Disneyland...big mistake. It was a Saturday, and it was a Japanese Holiday...we road 3 rides. It's a Small World, Haunted Mansion, and Space Mountain. We were ok with that, because small world and haunted mansion were the ONLY rides Maggie could ride! (they wouldn't even let us hold her for some of the small rides like you can in California...dumb!) Disneyland was literally covered with people, one person had to walk in the front and push people away so the next person could push the stroller threw, it was miserable... So me and Maggie took advantage of the Hotel and took a good nap, and made Anton go back to see if there was anything we missed....He gave up after an hour too! Too many people for it to be fun really, but considering we had a great day Friday, we thought it was a fun trip all in all. We were both excited to come back home (to base) though...and agreed that if we go to the park again, we would only go on a weekday!