WE HAVE A NIECE!!

Today's blog #5 (ridiculous I know -- I think this will be the last)

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So as a preface to this blog, I am one of six children and Kenta is one of four children. Given that you might think that we would have been an aunt or uncle much earlier in life, but since we are both the oldest children and the first to marry in our respective families, we have missed out. That is until April 25 when Kenta's sister Emi, who married Jeff Stapler on Valentine's Day of 2007, gave birth to a beautiful baby girl. They named her Kailie Hana Stapler. With graduation and the move we hadn't been to see our new niece until June 21 when we drove down to their small town in Missouri for her blessing. Since Jeff is not a member of our church, Emi decided she would like her father, now Grandpa Takagi, to bless Kailie. So we arranged a big family get together in Missouri. We drove down from Indianapolis. Kenta's mom and brother (Koji) were already in the states moving Naomi (his other sister) into her new apt in DC. They were joined in DC by Kenta's dad who flew in from Japan. Then those four flew into St Louis and drove to join us. Lots of crazy traveling. But we all had a wonderful time with Jeff, Emi, and Kailie. We practically had to draw straws in order to hold Kailie, but everyone got the opportunity they wanted, I think. Anyway, here are some fun pics.

The Arch of St Louis, MO

The flooded Mississippi River

Kailie and Grandma Takagi

Sleeping Kailie and Grandpa Takagi

Koji holding a smiling Kailie... well she was smiling just before the picture was taken.

Takagi clan just after the blessing

(L --> R Kenta, Virginia, Naomi, Koji, Grandpa Takagi with Kailie, Jeff, Emi, & Grandma Takagi)

As a somewhat sad conclusion to this blog, three days after Kailie was blessed Jeff was deployed to Iraq for the next 15 months. He's an officer in the army in the military police division. He'll be able to come home for 18 days leave at some point in time, but he will surely be missed by his wife and new baby. Now that Kenta and I are only 6 hours away from Emi, we're going to try to get down there to hang out more often. Emi and Kailie are, of course, always welcome to come up and stay with us, but traveling that long with a 2 month old might be a bit difficult so we don't expect them anytime in the next couple months.