measurements were right in the middle of all the ranges. She also endured her first round of immunizations. Before leaving the hospital after her checkup, we stopped by the maternity ward to visit the nurses/midwives. They are so great! They were very patient with me when I was in the hospital...taking great care of us, doing their best to understand my Japanese, not saying anything when I unknowingly "broke rule/requests" that I wasn't aware of (who knew I was supposed to bring my own chopsticks and not put my medicine wrappings on the food tray??--I discovered my mistakes as I read the info sheet on the 2nd day:), and they would explain the meals to me or come by for a chat. Every time we stopped by to visit them the first month I told them I wanted to check back into the hospital:) They were happy to see Mika, though she was asleep, so they couldn't see her eyes. By the way, Mika is now sleeping 11 hours/night, which is lovely! I'll post a picture of her first thing in the morning--happy, well rested and ready to go to church.
hday together with the church fam. Mika wore a "My First Christmas" outfit that our friends the Risdens sent her (see red & white outfit with cap photo). I (Aki) asked a lady who came for our Christmas service (she volunteers with the Seniors program that were pictured in the last blog) to keep an eye on Mika while I quickly did something. She went and stood right over her! (I thought she'd just watch from where she was sitting:) So I moved Mika closer to her and she LOVED watching her (see photo). On Christmas Day (Thursday, and not a holiday here) we had a Christmas dinner with our church family that worships together at the Center location (avg. attendance is about 10). Some couldn't come, but one of our members brought her family and they are pictured holding Mika in the Santa outfit. The grandmother really wanted to meet her! (Two of the ladies are also my English students & had visited us in the hospital) Mika got a nice warm "my first Christmas" sleeper from Grandma & Grandpa Crouch that she loves because it is nice and warm which is especially nice since there is no central heating here. She was all smiley for the photos, then let me know she'd done enough smiling :) The other photos are just ones I thought were cute...not on Christmas, but that's ok:) Hope you enjoy these pictures!
In October, Taka took the train with some of our youth to a Friendship English Camp outreach (see August blog for more on that) follow-up BBQ in a part of the prefecture that is maybe an hour away. All of the kids that attended camp were invited for a little reunion BBQ where they had games, food, worship time & a message.( Taka was asked to speak this year & shared a message from the story of the lost coin.)
