Visiting Friends!

Hooray! This weekend we enjoyed a visit from our friends Shannon and Alan and their little boy Cameron. They were passing through Tokyo on their way back to the States from Southeast Asia. They were supposed to have an 8 hour layover, but we ended up getting to spend almost 30 hours with them which was an unexpected blessing!!! Of course this was the result of them having missed their connecting flight (we won't say who's fault that was...oops!), but we thoroughly enjoyed the extra time we got to spend with them.

In just 30 hours we managed to have two picnic lunches, ride about 25 different trains, visit an international Baptist Church, watch a mikoshi (Japanese shrine) parade, stop by Ueno, Ginza and Akihabara (all popular tourist Tokyo stops) and walk through the Imperial Palace Gardens...oh yeah, and we got to travel back to our house for 6 hours of sleep too!! I think we were all exhausted at the end of our "big day" but it's not that often that super cool people happen to pop by Japan...so it was worth it!

In other "Visitor News" - Josh's dad and my mom and sister Lydia have all purchased tickets to come and see us during the month of August and we are sooooo excited. Though we hope our baby will be cute in the "virtual world" for all of you who will first meet her on our blog or via webcam, it will be especially fun to have some people here soon after she arrives! Hopefully some other family members will be able to make it over in late summer or early fall - we'll see!