SATB Tour- Part 3- Austin, TX

Our next stop on our "Tour of America" was Austin. We packed up from Uncle Craig's house, drove 2 hours to the Atlanta airport and flew from Atlanta to Houston, then Houston to Austin. Barbara picked us up, and our first Texas request was a stop at Taco Cabana for tortillas and queso. We made it to her house, unloaded and enjoyed the cheap mexican food goodness.

We then spent the next few days celebrating Christmas with Brett's various (and many) family members. As the pictures show, we had a great time.

Mallory the morningof her first Christmas.Mallory meeting couin Bella, who is about 1 month younger. They had on the same little pants, although it wasn't planned.
This getting spoiled thing is fun!
Have you ever seen a cuter little booty?
Our family of 3 at the big Cochran family Christmas party.
The entire clan. Told you there were a lot of them! I'm still impressed that we could manage to get this many people, and kids and babies, in a picture and have all of us looking forward and smiling!

Hanging out under the tree.
All the grandkids -Kadon, Porter, Dylan, Samantha, Logan, Mallory, Bo, Bella, Garner and Cheyanne.
Mama B with all her grandkids- seeing as how a few of us live out of Texas now, it was pretty special to ALL be in town at the same time!
Mallory with her new Cabbage Patch doll.
Christmas wore her out (but doesn't she look like a sleeping angel in her little Christmas dress?)
Aunt Rachel with Mal
"The Shad's" play with Mal
Shad rocks out on his guitar later in the night. Notice how just a few of the kids are still up for this late night event, and notice that one of them is our Mallory. She is a party girl!
Cheyanne had a fun time playing with her baby cousinLooking just adorable under the Christmas tree.

We had a great time in Austin with Brett's side of the family, but luckily, we didn't have to end it yet. On Dec 29th, the 3 of us drove up to Abilene to get a camper to take down to the cabin in Brownwood, where most of the family spent New Year's. The cabin, although it has been added on to recently, still isn't quite big enough for all of us, so we had 2 campers as well. Stay tuned...pics from New Year 2009-2010 at the cabin are up next...

Score one for the International Date Line!

So, as you all know, it is Super Bowl Sunday in America. Well, here in Japan we are 15 hours ahead (of Central Standard Time). That means it is Super Bowl MONDAY here. That would suck except...

1. I don't really care about pro football personally

2. Everyone except "essential personnel" (drs, firemen, cops...) get the day off

While it is weird to be drinking OJ and eating a bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch instead of beer and chips, I'm totally ok with the 3 day weekend!

So, go....whoever you want...I don't really care, and thanks for the bonus holiday!!!

SATB Tour- Part 2- Atlanta, GA

After a week in Seattle, the 3 of us boarded yet another plane and flew to Atlanta, Georgia. My immediate family lives in Houston, but this year we spent the holidays in Georgia to get to see all the family. My uncle (my mom's brother) lives in Athens, about 2 hours from Atlanta. So, my grandparents (mom's parents) flew down from Virginia, mom flew over from Houston, my cousin flew in from San Francisco, and of course Brett, Mallory and I rounded out the crowd. We had a GREAT time just hanging out, playing cards, decorating for and celebrating the holidays and just spending some good quality time together.

The 4 generations of girls- Nonna (my mom's mom), Nana (my mom), me (the new mom) and Mallory!
Isn't that the cutest little reindeer butt you've ever seen?
The whole family: Uncle Craig, me, Mallory, Brett, Mom, Poppy, Nonna and Ross.
The grandparents with 2 of their grandkids and their one and only grandchild!
Ross and his cousin-once-removed (and no, those aren't all his beers on the table).
Nana and her little Santa's helper
The girls at a fun little bar in Athens (and Mallory's first bar trip- she already looks like she's eyeing that beer).
Hanging out on the sunporch on a Hello Kitty blanket (a bit of Japan in America :)
Helping Nana open Christmas presents
"flying" with Daddy
opening our Christmas loot
Poppy and a few of his favorite people
reading the paper with "Bobby"
Hanging out with my "bobby"
Brett and Craig "star" the tree together

Hanging lights on the tree
Craig and Mary Beth open their Harry and David gift box- that one was opened early so we could all enjoy the treats inside!
Poppy, Nonna and their great-granddaughter
my 3 favorite girls- my grandma, my mom and my daughter
"talking" to Poppy
having a conversation with her great grandparents
Nonna and Mallory

You can see that we had a great time as a family. I was so excited that little Miss Mallory was able to meet her great grandparents and spend the holidays with them. I know she won't remember it, but we have lots of pictures of the event and the great times we spent together. It was a great time, and went by too fast as usual. After spending 5 great days in Georgia with my side of the family, we were off again...this time to Austin (via a quick layover in Houston) to spend some time with Brett's side of the family...

"Show America the Baby Tour" 2009-2010

So, I've been gone from this blog thing for about 2 months now. Hope you missed me :) But it was for a good cause- we were in America!!! We went for about 6 weeks and had a wonderful time and got to see and visit lots and lots of people and places. If you were one of them, we LOVED seeing you. If we didn't make it your way this time, you can get your tickets for "Show America the Baby 2010-2011" now ;)

We made it back about a week ago (Mallory and myself anyway; Brett came back toJapan on Jan 3rd), and have slept thru the night for the past 2 nights (that means all 3 of us around here did!) so I think we've officially kicked the jet lag and are back in the swing of things in Japan. But more on that later...

For now, I'll start with the first "leg" of our trip, which was Seattle. (We never actually went up it, but we drove by the famous Space Needle and I thought about the scene from "Sleepless in Seattle" of course.)

We all left our little slice of concrete heaven here on base in Japan back on Dec 12th at about 7:30am, headed off to Narita airport in the shuttle bus and 3 hours later arrived at the International Airport. After checking in 2 very large suitcases, 1 duffel bag, 1 bag of flight gear for Brett's simulator, 1 computer bag, 1 diaper bag, 1 backpack, 1 stroller, 1 carseat, 1 catseat base, 2 coats, and 2 pairs of shoes (no we aren't moving back yet...it just requires us to bring that much crap to pretty much leave the house at any time now that we have a baby). We figured out that yes, we do indeed have an infant with us (it took us over 1 hour at the United counter to get a "ticket" for her even though she sits on our lap and doesn't get a seat). Then we trekked over to security. We managed to get all our stuff (see above if you need a refresher on the fact that we looked like nomads walking thru the airport) thru security and boarded on the flight, and away we went. Many, many hours later (although b/c you cross the International Date Line it's only like 1.5 hours after you left your house in Japan) we landed in Seattle. We were all pooped, but pressed on and got a rental car. Us Cochrans are cheap and knew that this was just the beginning of the trip, so we didn't want to blow our wad on an expensive car. We got the most compact thing possible, and had to push and shove and wedge all our stuff (and ourselves) into the car. We did it though, and made it over to McChord AFB, and crashed! Let the first battle with jetlag begin!

We spent from Dec 12-Dec 18th in Seattle because Brett had to attend his annual simulator there. We don't have family up there, but had a great time anyway and got to see and do quite a few things. First we had lunch with some friends of ours that we met on our wedding trip to Belize! Kacy and Kelly are a super fun couple who live near Vancouver, so they drove south and we drove north and met them just north of Seattle. It was really cold- this is a waterfall that had frozen over- so we were bundled up, and it was Mal's first time to see snow! We had a buffet lunch at a casino there (yes, my child has been to a casino before the age of 4 months- please don't judge our parenting skills)and talked and talked for several hours. They told us that Kacy is pregnant so they are expecting their first bundle of joy this summer! A Canadian playmate for Mallory-yay!

Later, while Brett worked, I did some shopping and took Mallory to see Santa at the mall. Here she is sitting in her carseat in her cute Christmas dress waiting to talk to the big man. She hasn't entered the "stranger danger" phase yet, so she was perfectly happy sitting on his lap, and trying to eat his beard. He was very nice and let me snap a few extra photos on my own camera (I'm sure it is because I added to his "toy building fund" by buying the big package of pictures from them- but how many times does your baby get to sit on Santa's lap for the very first time? I'm such a sucker as a parent!)

We have another set of friends that live in Seattle, so we went to dinner with them one night as well. Chuck and Rachel are a couple that we also met while in Belize. In fact, they are the "witnesses" to our wedding, and their names are on our marriage certificate! We met them at a fun little pizza joint, and talked and ate and laughed.

Mallory and I did some playing and hanging out in the base hotel.Mallory found her feet, which must be very fun to play with and eat.

Thanks to Facebook, we also got to meet up with my cousins Skylar and Shaun, and Skylar's new wife Oksana. I had posted on facebook that I was in Seattle, and they live down in Oregon. So we met in the middle in Portland (driving down in rain and sleet) and hung out and had lunch together. It was a quick visit, but definitely worth it! I hadn't seen them in a couple years, and they were so excited to meet Mallory (I guess she's their 1st cousin once removed??). Anyway, we had Greek food and walked over (in the rain) to a book and coffee shop to chat some more before heading home.

By the end of the week, Brett finished up his simulator and we were heading out for leg 2 of the trip- the Findly family visit in Atlanta, GA...