"Ousside!!"

As all parents of toddlers know, "outside" is a magical place. Its a place where the endless bounds of 18-month-old energy can fully express itself, where fresh air can soothe crankiness, where whining gives way to giggles, etc. We got back here to Asia right at the tail end of the rainy season, so I try to make sure we take advantage of any non-rainy times to take Sarah outside.

We are very blessed that our apartment complex has this wonderful playground in the courtyard! Now before you go thinking that our courtyard is a toddler's paradise, I should tell you about all the unnecessarily dangerous spots there are due to poor design and planning, but I will keep that post for another day. So, supervision is totally necessary here. Still, we love this playground!!
Sarah immediately begins by attempting to climb the slide. Occasionally, she will climb the stairs. But, generally, she prefers the challenge of the slide.

I make sure I'm right behind her, like this.

Then, its up she goes, from one platform to the next! (You can see the puddle here--ah, the rainy season!)


The pure joy of climbing. Its one of Sarah's favorite things!

She also likes trying to grab the camera out of mommy's hand. Also fun for Sarah.


Then down the big slide she goes!!!

Jeans are a must for playing outside, as things are bound to get a little dirty. But that's one of the greatest things about childhood, right??

Sarah Loves Shoes

Hi there friends and fam! David, Sarah and I are officially back in Asia now, doing good but its taking a while to get over the jet lag this time. Anyway, today's post includes photos from our time in the U.S. this summer, but highlights an aspect of her burgeoning personality that is true no matter what side of the globe we are on: Sarah loves shoes.

"Shoes" was one of the first ten or so words Sarah learned to say this summer. She can not only put on pretty much any adult person's shoes, but these days she can even walk around in them--including flip-flops! She even knows which toes the strap on flip-flops go in between (I know--I need video of this)!

This summer, we went shoe shopping a couple of times, although never for Sarah (she's already pretty well set with regard to shoes). The first was a trip in Texas for me, and it was the first time she'd been in a shoe store. You think we'd just taken her on a trip to paradise. She was awestruck at the aisles and aisles and boxes and boxes of shoes. After going up and down a couple of aisles, just checking out the merchandise, she began pulling some of her favorite pairs down off the racks. These included a pair of leopard print rain boots, and some shiny patent leather red stilletos. That's right, my daughter has very flashy taste in shoes.

Our second shoe shopping trip happened in Connecticut when we were looking for shoes for my mother-in-law, which is the trip where these photos were taken. This time, Sarah did not go for grown-up shoes, as she had the first time, but quickly located this toddler girls' shoe section instead. She chose a pair of bright sparkly pink flip flops and some lavender sandals.

Here she is climbing up on the bench, so she can try out her selections.

First, the lavender shoes. They sure did coordinate with her outfit that day.

Choices, choices. Which ones were her favorites?

There was never really any competition--the sparkly hot pink ones of course!!!

We didn't get the shoes for Sarah, but she didn't seem to mind too much. She's a girl, and just the experience of shoe shopping was enough fun for her that day!!

New York Trip

David is in New York City today, going to the consulate to get a visa so we can return to Asia next week. That would be pretty cool, if this weren't the second trip we'd had to make into the city for the same purpose. Anyway, this post is not about this trip, its about the first one. I just mentioned the one today because I had to vent, just a little, about the fact we had to make two trips.

Anyway, other than failing to actually obtain the visa services that were the whole reason for that first trip into NYC, David and I succeeded in having a good time together in the big city. :) Here is the story of our day:

We set off about 7:15 a.m., made good time and arrived in the Bronx, where we would park and get on the Subway, at about 9:15. We hoped to get to the consulate by 10 or 10:30. I had planned for us to park somewhere near the Bronx Zoo because, hey, there's gotta be plenty of parking near a zoo, right? Wrong, apparently. Not in New York, at least. We drove around the Bronx for an hour trying to find a safe/legal/available place to park (preferably, all three of those things). Finally, we found a space near the subway (well, the train at least, it was like a 15 min walk from a station) and headed into the city. The subway trip took longer to get into the city than I had expected as well (nearly an hour!), so I was a little anxious about us getting to the consulate in time to get our visa service done . . .

But that was not the reason, we had failure at the consulate. We got there in plenty of time, stood in line, only to find out that they don't off the service we needed (transferring a visa with nearly a year's worth of validity left into a new passport because the old passport is about to expire). The reason I thought they could do that was because the U.S. Passport service had assured me they could. We decided to use the cultural skills we'd acquired in Asia and try a "second ask" (sometimes, one person will tell you something is impossible, but if you are persistent or ask someone else you find that it is, indeed, possible), but the lady behind the customer service desk only confirmed what the visa person had first told us.

Bummed, we left the consulate and started walked back toward the subway. David said he was so frustrated he was considering just leaving the city and heading back to CT, rather than staying and doing fun things around the city like we'd planned. But first, we were hungry, so we stopped at a random deli and ate lunch.

After lunch, our spirits perked back up, and we decided to make the best of our day. We walked up 42nd Street to Times Square:

And then up 5th Ave to Rockefeller Center and St. Patrick's Cathedral:

I know I sound like a broken record talking about my new camera, but I was really pleased with the shots it took inside the cathedral:
My old camera could never have accomplished anything like these results in such low lighting!
After the cathedral, we headed up to Central Park. Here is a photo of me in Central Park, though it looks like a photo of me in front of some random dead grass. You'll have to take my word on the Central Park thing. :)
Since it was just the two of us, and we were too timid to ask any sophisticated New Yorkers to stop their busy big city lives to take a photo of us together, this hold-the-camera-out self-portrait is the only picture we have of both of us. Still, I think its pretty cute!
We sat on that rock for a while and watched a softball game, and then headed to get some dinner. David had seen a sign while we were walking for a "Prix Fixe" menu at a restaurant. I had no idea what that meant, but David somehow knew that restaurants in New York in the summer do these special fixed-price menus where you get an appetizer, entree, and sometimes drink or dessert all for one relatively low price. So, after Central Park, being the resourceful travelers that we are, we went into a Kinko's, got on the internet, and googled "Best Prix Fixe restaurants New York" and got a listing of some deals that were going on. We picked out a bistro in the East Village, and made our way down there on the Subway. The website said the deal was only available from 5 to 7 p.m., so we assumed that arriving for dinner at 5:15 would be fine. We had a 3 hour subway/car commute back to CT that evening, so we wanted to get an early dinner, maybe walk around a bit, and then head home.

We were, of course, the only customers in the restaurant. But that didn't stop the waitress from complaining to the bartender about how early we'd come, loudly I might add. Or giving me annoyed looks the whole dinner. Awesome. I hate stereotypes of any kind, but this woman was not giving New Yorkers a good name. Still, the dinner was pretty good: the asparagus appetizer was excellent, my entree was great but David's was just OK, and both our desserts were good.

After dinner, we hoped to find a little pastry shop where we could buy canolis and ecclairs to take back to David's parents and brother. I had told David about the awesome little Italian pastry shop my cousin Gwen had taken me to the last time I visited New York, and we had hoped to find a place like that. Well, we found . . . that exact place!!! As soon as we walked in, I realized it was the same pastry shop my cousin had taken me to five years earlier! Crazy, huh? We took a while making our choices from their huge selection, but ended up just buying two different kinds of canoli (David's favorite).

Our last adventure of the day happened as we were trying to get on the subway to head back to the car. We found the subway station, went down, swiped our cards, only to realize that from this subway station you could only go one way (east, and we needed to go west). So we left, walked back up, across the street to the other subway entrance to get on the same train, just going the other way. Only, when we tried to swipe our cards we weren't allowed in! We asked the attendant what was going on, and she said we had to wait 18 minutes before we could use those cards again.

Thankfully, we were doing fine on time and this only gave us a reason to prolong our New York visit a little while longer. We'd spent most of the afternoon in the touristy areas--Times Square, Central Park and all that, but down in the East Village it felt like the "real" New York. We watched as all the young, single professionals poured off the subway, headed for their studio apartments or out to dinner with friends. We sat in the courtyard of a really nice, newly re-done apartment complex (it looks like it used to be "the projects" and it probably was, now it was cushy if tiny condos!) and watched some guys play a game of roller hockey. The evening was cool, and our spot was relatively quiet, and it made for a nice ending to a fun, if not entirely smooth New York day!

Sarah Loves Doggies

So, I think I have mentioned this before on this blog, but just to reiterate: Sarah Loves Dogs. Loves them. This is something I have encouraged in her since her babyhood, though I have tried to also be cautious about safety, especially around animals we don't know. My rule is usually "look, but don't touch."
Recently, though, we visited some friends who have a 10-yr-old yellow lab and two young energetic daughters whom the dog is very, very good with. So I let her express her love for the doggies. These photos are the result:





I absolutely love this last one! My new camera really takes some spectacular shots, especially outdoors. I really want to get this one printed and framed.

Anyway, as you can see, Sarah Loves Dogs. And I can't wait for Sarah to get to meet THIS doggie:
This is Henry, my sister Becky's new puppy! He is a Portuguese Water Dog, and I think he's just adorable. I think his name really suits him; in most of his photos he has a very serious expression! In this photo, he is looking a little more playful, though.

My sister got him this summer, but after we had visited them. So Henry and Sarah have yet to meet. But I am sure they will have quite a friendship whenever they get a chance!