Grace's First Weekend Trip - the Supply Corps Birthday Ball

This weekend was the annual U.S. Navy Supply Corps Birthday Ball, and here in Japan, we usually have it in Tokyo. Now that Grace is a month old, we figured this was a prime opportunity to take her on her first weekend trip somewhere!

Grace is already a San Miguel fan!

Here she is with the Tokyo Tower behind her from our room.

Grace became quite accustomed to the room service - this is my way of ensuring she knows how to be treated by a guy starting early - whoever her future husband is, refer to this blog often! Note: even with all the pink she was wearing, the room service dude asked us if it was a boy. We were dumbfounded.

We were totally preparing for a rough weekend of her crying, not wanting to be with the babysitter, and generally giving us difficulty - but this is how she spent most of the time. We are SO fortunate, she's always been good in the car, at church, and now while we're gone for an entire weekend - including sleeping for most of the 6 hours she was with the sitter on the actual Ball night - Thank You Lord!!!!

Here she is drinking a bottle with the sitter - again, we were so amazed she was so good - it's usually pretty tough for me to get her to take a bottle vice feeding from her mother. Note: I actually took this picture b/c Cicely was worried the sitter might kidnap Grace, so this would've been the only ID of the sitter, had that happened. She said she had been doing this for 21 years, so I have to admit, I felt pretty dumb taking the picture - I'm sure she saw right through me too.

Isn't my wife absolutely stunning? She doesn't believe me anymore.

No celebration in Japan wouldn't be complete without the Taiko Drummers! I have video, but it's a bit long for this, so I'll post it to my Facebook account later.

Here's my XO and his wife during the traditional Japanese Sake Ceremony - the VIPs are on stage behind them breaking open the Sake Barrel.

Here are the officers from my department.

The morning after the Ball included Sunday Brunch before checking out of the hotel and heading back home. Here she was in her favorite mode of transportation when with Dad - the Bjorn...it's my favorite too, as it requires zero to little effort on my part!

All thing considered, this weekend turned out way better than we ever expected in the realm of family travel - if this is how things will be, the 14 hour flight home this June should be a breeze!