Day Trip to Hakone

On Saturday, John and I spent the day in Hakone, which a small town about a hour and a half outside of Tokyo. It's famous for it's "koyo" (changing leaves) in the fall. It also has several modes of transportation including a pirate ship and gondola ropeway. We caught our train at 7:00 am and got home around 6:30 or so. It was a long day, but we were glad to get out of Tokyo for a change of scenery. Here are some photos from our trip:

The steam you see is sulfurous gases being released on this active volcano crater. They sell "black eggs" that have been boiled in these hot springs. They are said to prolong your life by 7 years. We did not choose to partake in these nasty looking things. Also, the guidebook warned us not to linger there for too long because the gases are poisonous. Yikes!

These were taken from our gondola ride, which had gorgeous views of all the changing leaves and Mt. Fuji (although it was a bit hazy).

Here is our pirate ship that took us on a 40 minute ride along Lake Ashi. We upgraded to 1st Class, which basically meant we didn't have to fight our way to have a good view. It was worth the $10!

We wanted our photo with our "captain", but he was charging for photos and was a bit creepy. Pretty funny, though.

This torii gate is famous in Japan for being in the water. It leads to a shrine that you can also get to from the road. Makes for a pretty picture.

We found a nice couple to snap our picture since we never have any together.

This pic is for my friend, Lauren, who LOVES these type pictures! ;-)

Here's one of just the growing belly!

A little profile pic for you as well.

Here's John by the torii.

I made John take this pic today after church since I was in a dress for the first time in a long time. But I realized I had to hold the bottom of the dress or you couldn't see the belly.

My last appointment was on November 4th, and all was well. The doc confirmed that we are still having a girl, which was good news! He also did a detailed sonogram where he measured and checked all kinds of things. All I know is that everything looks healthy and she is growing on schedule. That's all I need to know. He did a short 3D look at her to check for a cleft palette (she doesn't have one), and it was really weird looking. She looked like she was still dressed for Halloween...a little too skeletal looking! I won't be posting that video.

Last but not least, we are releasing the name. We debated keeping it a secret until she was born, but we are too excited and I am too weak! So, the name is...

Elliott June Rutledge

We had heard the name Elliott for a girl just once before, and we started to consider it. We fell in love with it, especially when we found out it means, "the Lord is my God." Then, we knew we wanted a Japanese middle name since she will be born here. We wanted one that could be easily used in the US as well. Not so easy, but we came across "Jun", which means purity. We decided to put the "e" on the end to make it a little more feminine. So, there you go.

Until next time...