Our first visitor!

Rikki was officially our first visitor from home! She just left today and we had a WONDERFUL time with her while she was here. We called her our "test dummy" because she's the first out of 5 people that are going to be coming to see us throughout the next month or two. So we got to experiment with her what types of things were the best to go see and do! Her first day here, Bea and I took her to the Imperial Palace while the boys were at practice. It was pretty cool (even though we were looking for an actual single building, when finally we realized that you can only go inside the East gardens, not the actual palace itself.)

It was a lot of walking and poor Rikki was extremely jet-lagged. But she was a TROOPER! We took some good pictures that day because the weather was actually fairly decent. She also got to go and see 2 of Ty's games (and they won both of them! Woohoo!) We went and saw "A Christmas Carol" in IMAX 3-D so that she could experience a Japanese movie theater, where you have assigned seats and adult booster chairs!

We went on a double decker (roofless) bus tour that took us around the heart of Tokyo and to Tokyo tower and the Rainbow Bridge (which was GORGEOUS right as the sun started to go down at 4pm!) We shopped quite a bit, but unfortunately decided to save Shibuya and Harajuku shopping for the last day. Unfortunate because it POUREDDDDD. It was raining when we woke up, but we decided we would be fine with umbrellas and jackets. Wrong. Two hours into our excursion our feet were soaked (and we were both actually wearing real shoes, not just flip-flops), and we were frozen to the bone.

We kept going to Harajuku where I discovered a 4-storyForever 21 and H&M! Awesome! But we didn't really have the patience to go in (there was a quadrillion people everywhere and we were starting to get irritated from all the umbrellas smacking us while we were making our way through the area!)Note to those who have yet to visit still: Personal space is not an option here. You deal with it or you freak out. Those are the options you have. Some days we can deal, some days we crack under the pressure. But people don't wait for you to be nice. You need to be pushy to survive here. That's just how it goes!

Anywho, we had a great time with Rikki. And hopefully she had a great time too! Next up: Adam....coming tomorrow!

Updating you thus far...

Since we're starting this midway through the season, a lot of you have missed out on what's been going on so far. Well to start out, Ty's team is doing AWESOME (10-4). For those of you who don't know, we're in a new town with a new team this year. The Toshiba Brave Thunders to be exact!

And the other American on the team (Cory) and his girlfriend (Bea) are right next door to us. We all get along great and it's SOOO nice to have a few friends here! We started out the year here with it being 85-90 degrees with 100% humidity and up until last week it felt like it was still early fall with the weather being around 70. But we've officially hit winter and brrrrr it's freezing! Ty has struggled a little this season with a couple "owies". We even got to experience an ambulance ride and a 2-night hospital stay when Ty's back went out in September! Scary! But he's doing fine now and working his butt off to play well and stay healthy!

Bea and I have found some great shopping areas that we tend to get ourselves into trouble with occasionally. I've slowly but surely been expanding my cooking abilities and making Ty be my taste-tester! I'm definitely getting better, but still have A LOT more learning and experimenting to do! And they don't have ovens over here which makes it a little more limiting. Other than that, we've just been lying low and enjoying our time together! Miss you guys!

November 18, 2009

Our first post! We are going to do the best we can to give you a look into our world over here. Sorry I didn't discover this blog thing until half-way through this season. But hopefully you'll enjoy the rest of what we'll be showing you! We miss you guys all so so much and can't wait to get home to see you! Thank you everybody who's been helping out while we've been gone. And THANK YOU to everyone that has sent cards and gifts and taken time out of their lives to come visit! We really do have the BEST family and friends ever! Hope you like the pictures and stories that we'll be posting for the rest of our time over here! Love you guys!