Great American Vacation pt. 5: the end

It’s late and I should go to bed but I really should get this done so I can get to the backlog of posts about stuff that’s accumulated since we got back from the US.  There is gonna be a bunch of stuff coming up this week that I’m sure I want to get up here too… man.

Anyway, I just wanted to post a couple of extra pictures like this one:

and talk about some thoughts or whatever that I didn’t get to in the four previous posts somehow.  I also wanted to put up a new header.  The header is a shot of an amazing sunset that we saw the morning we headed over to the airport from my sister’s place.  I didn’t have the big camera out and the best pictures were on my iPhone but believe me, it was amazing.  Speaking of going to the airport, we left really, really early. The only benefit of it was because of the number of people going we needed to take my sister’s big car, which has no A/C, we could roll down the highway with just the windows open and it’s wasn’t horribly hot yet. Just really windy!

After we got to the airport it was time to say goodbye to everyone that came with us and it was very sad.  Especially difficult to say goodbye to my sister, she made the trip wonderful.  She always does.  Love you Dre!

On the trip home MJ was even better than he was on the way there.

So the trip, the trip…  It was awesome.  For me, it was really good to see my family, especially my dad who I hadn’t seen in so long but it was great to see everyone.  It’s crazy how much my sister’s kids have grown in just a year and a half, Skype can’t adequately show that kind of stuff.  I loved being able to spend time with the wife on our first international trip and it was good to spend time, away from the parents’ house with my sister-in-law and her husband.  But I think above all, the best part of the whole trip was the time I got to spend with MJ.  Many days here in Japan when I go to work I only get to see my boy (awake) for about thirty minutes to an hour in a day.  Sometimes less.  It was awesome to be able to hang out with him as much as I did.  The environment we were in was a bit harsh on him but I think he handled it well, that kid’s a lot stronger than he looks!  I really fell in love with him more than ever.

I can’t wait to go back now, for a trip that is.  Still not sure that I want to live there any time soon but the real estate  prices compared to those in Tokyo are really enticing…  Alright, think that’s about it for the trip.  It was great. A couple last pics to take us out, first one from the sister’s camera from the day of the wedding:

And finally: Alright, next time we’ll get into some of the backed up crap since we came back.  Look forward to that!  Tomorrow I’m going to my first baseball game of the season (finally!)!!!  Can’t wait!

Great American Vacation pt. 3: Phoenix

Halfway home now and heading into the second leg of our trip to the US we ended up getting out of Vegas in the early afternoon under a bit of cloud cover so it was cooler. It was still in the 100′s but I had gone to Wal-Mart in the morning to pick up some sun shades to help out the baby in the backseat. The trip to Phoenix was pretty easy, about a 5:30 drive through a wide-open desert and across the Hoover Dam. It was really beautiful, I wish we could have taken a little time to get out and get some better pictures but mornin took some from the car that weren’t too bad. Next time I hope to go when the boy is a bit older and the weather is a bit cooler but anyway, we made it.

It was the first time to see the fam in a year and a half and the first time for mornin and MJ. The family LOVED the baby and were happy to meet the wife as well. Since we arrived late, we just hung out a bit, chatted and then went off to bed the first night. The next day I’d hoped to get into town and see a D-backs game at Chase because it was the last game they were going to be playing there since the following day was the start of the All-Star break but it seemed like it’d be in everyone’s best interest to let the boy (and wife) have the day off after the trip over from Vegas. The next few days we spent a wonderful time in the care of my sister, doing a bit of shopping around town, crossing things off my list, chatting with the family, taking walks and relaxing.

Some of the highlights were when my dad came down from his summer job at the Grand Canyon to see his newest grandson (and maybe the other grandkids too):

We also had a pretty fun impromptu pool party with the kids and some of their friends:

On the 13th, the wife, MJ and I took out MJ’s great-grandma for a birthday lunch

and then I finally got to shave my head!!!
The next day I headed to the airport to pick up the wife’s sister and her hubby. The rest of the day, we just hung out with them a bit, went to Chipotle and In-n-out,

and checked out the hotel they were staying at down the street from my sister’s, nice place:

Finally we headed off to bed with plans for the next day to head off on one last American Adventure before the U-turn back to Tokyo started…

Great American Vacation pt. 1: Vegas

Where to begin, oh, where to begin?  I guess we’ll start with what’s happening now.  The wife and baby are sleeping.  MJ’s been having a little trouble getting back into the Japanese time-zone thing. We’ve been back for two whole days worth of time now and I’ve got to head back to work tomorrow, not something I’m looking forward to at all. Doesn’t help that it’s a 1-10 kind of day. F.

Oh well, on to the trip…

Think I’ll skip some of the details of times and that kind of boring thing and just re-cap some of the highlights.

The trip from Tokyo to Seattle to Las Vegas went by a lot quicker than it ever has before.  I think that it had a lot to do with traveling with three other adults and a baby.  The layover in Seattle was not nearly long enough so after getting our bags and going through immigration, we barely had time to pick up a coffee and get back on the plane.  Wish we could have spent a day or two there…

I took so many pictures that it was hard to choose which ones to put up on here.  There’s a bunch more up on my facebook page but I just don’t think I’ll put them all up here.  They might end up on the Flickr page.  Anyway, we arrived in Vegas pretty early in the day, got the car and headed off to the hotel, here was our view:Nice view but I’da liked to have been able to see the strip but it was pretty nice none the less. We stayed at the Planet Hollywood resort and it ended up being a pretty decent place, there was a shopping area downstairs called the “miracle mile” and there were a bunch of good shops and restaurants down there, here’s a shot of one portion: Crappy part of it was that the shopping area is basically a big circle and the parking lot is on the complete opposite side of the shopping mall from the casino/hotel so I had to make a serious trek to get the car everyday. Speaking of the casino, the wife got in some gambling action while we were there:

I think we both probably only gambled about $20 each, that was enough for me.

On the Thursday before the wedding my big sister and her husband came to Vegas to meet MJ and then come to the wedding on Friday.  I was very happy that they ended up coming, there was a time where I thought there would be no one on my side of the chapel.  They were pretty happy to see their little nephew and I think he was happy to finally meet them!

The morning of the wedding I was awoken by the baby boy around 2:30 am and never did get back to sleep.  I took the opportunity to get out and take some pictures of the strip under the cover of darkness, most importantly, before the weekend.  There was still some serious foot-traffic for a Thursday night but what do you expect, it’s Vegas:

That’s about it for the main part of the Las Vegas leg of the trip, we didn’t get to any shows or anything like that, mornin was really worried about the baby so we spent a lot of time in the hotel, me watching ESPN and her doing something. We did get some Taco Bell and they did screw up my order.  The final day and a half of Vegas will be in the next post, the wedding! Until then…