Meet Me in St Louis

Kenta and I met his sister (Emi), her daughter (Kailie), and his mother (Sue) in St Louis. Emi and Kailie are living in Waynesville, MO where Kenta's mom was visiting them over this last week. His parents still live in the Kobe/Osaka area of Japan, but they visit the States a few times each year. Waynesville is about 6 hours away from Indy (where Kenta and I live), but we're only 4 hours from St Louis. So we made a compromise, and, in accordance with the old song, met in St Louis. It was just a quick trip, but we had a great time. We had a few different things planned, but we ended up just hanging out together for a while and doing a bit of shopping.

The star of the show was, of course, Kailie our nine month old niece. You'll notice in the pictures below that Kailie was in each of the photos as well. Until she gets too tired, she is a wonderful kiddo to be around. Very smiley and fun. Check out the pictures below to see the relaxing and fun time we had this weekend.

Virginia and Kailie at The Cheesecake Factory

Emi, Sue, and Kailie at The Cheesecake Factory


Kailie snoozing while we're shopping

Kenta and Kailie

Kailie *enjoying* some bananas


Hope you all have a nice Valentine's Day. Instead of spending that day with the ones I love, I will be delivering the products of other people's love -- a different spin on celebrating love on Valentine's Day. I'll let you know if there are more holiday themed names.

New Years 2009

Kenta and I both had the week off over the week of New Year's, so we flew across the country to spend the holiday with my siblings and parents. As one of my sister's couldn't take the time off, we all went to her in Salt Lake City. We had a fantastic time. We celebrated a late Christmas together, did some shopping, played some games, ate a lot of good food, and RELAXED!! It was wonderful. Kenta and I also reconnected with several friends who are living in the Salt Lake area. It was great to see so many good friends again.

Here are some pictures from our visit to Temple Square

The next few pictures are from 'Christmas Day' ... celebrated on New Year's Day.

This is my LARGE little brother Jack cuddling with a bunny. He's almost 18 years old now.

My sister Jessica and her husband Erik opening a gift.

My sister Rachel -- very excited about getting saffron rice.

K&V opening a gift. My brother Stephen is sitting on the other side of Kenta.

These are three of the sisters I served with in Korea. We had a mini mission reunion over a delicious brunch. On January 30 I celebrated my 7 year anniversary for entering the MTC. It's amazing how time flies!!

We also met up with Kenta's mission president and his wife.

But really this sums up our trip. We got more than our fair share of sleep and truly enjoyed having very little schedule to worry about.

Isn't Kenta adorable when he's asleep?

We hope that the New Year brings blessings and happiness to each of you as it has for us thus far. Take care and keep in touch.

Takagi Christmas 2008

Well Christmas for us was a little bit different this year. I could opt for the week of Christmas or the week of New Year's off this year, and since my sister's were on an "in-law" Christmas year, Kenta and I opted to have New Year's off this year. So I worked by heinie off this year over the holidays. In fact I had a 27 hr shift on Thanksgiving Day and a 27 hr shift on Christmas Day. No holidays for me.

Kenta had 2 weeks of paid vacation over the holidays as his office was completely closed down. So Kenta's sister Emi came to stay with us over the week of Christmas with her daughter Kailie. Here are some of the pictures we took during this time. You may notice that I'm in scrubs in all the pictures. Most of these were taken when I had come home from work -- post-call and too tired to care about what I was wearing.


As a side note, I did get to deliver several Christmas babies including one cute Hispanic baby who was named Jesus. There were also a couple Noelles and Mary/Marias.

Our Christmas Tree

Emi and Kailie at our Christmas Eve dinner

Kailie's first Christmas


Kenta and Kailie

I thoroughly enjoyed putting together Kailie new doll stroller. That was the best part of Christmas for me.

We celebrated Christmas on Christmas Eve while using our webcam on Skype with the rest of Kenta's family in Japan who were celebrating their Christmas morning. It was a great set up, and it made it feel a lot more like Christmas to have Kailie around to open toys and be excited about everything.

We hope you all had a fantastic Christmas and holiday season.