Meeting Aunts and Uncles

One of the biggest reasons that we decided to come all the way home to the U.S. this summer was to give Sarah a chance to meet family--specifically my dad, and most of her aunts and uncles who had never seen Sarah in person. Sarah met her granddad at the airport on Tuesday (had I been in a better frame of mind I might have insisted on a photo!), and on Friday she got to meet her Aunt Becky and Uncle Josh for the first time! They have showered her with attention,

Serenaded her on the guitar,

Given her lots of kisses,

And a homemade sock monkey that is bound to be a life-long favorite,

And even let her wear their shoes!

Josh and Becky, its been so wonderful to see how much you love Sarah. I am so thankful that you will always be a part of her life!!

Zoo Trip

Before we left Asia, I was already scouting out fun things for us to do with Sarah in Denver to help keep both her and us occupied and help us recover from the jet lag. I found out Denver had a zoo, and we were sold!
We'd considered taking Sarah to see some elephants while we were in Thailand earlier this year, but I am glad we waited until now. She is just beginning to really show an interest in animals, so she was just at the right age for her first trip to the zoo!



Sarah was less than a foot from this Orangutan, who just looked up at her with these big sad eyes.
Sarah did her best to cheer him up!

She also got really close to this gorilla. We were very thankful for the glass that separated them!

I took all these photos with my new camera. It has a 12x optical (not digital!) zoom, which really came in handy to take photos of the animals up close. I know most of you who are reading this visit mostly to see the Sarah photos, but I just had to post these great animal shots I got!
Here is a red river hog, very much enjoying a belly rub from his trainer.

These are the most incredible looking monkeys I have ever soon.

An orangutan enjoying his hammock.

Grizzly bear on the prowl.


A beautiful bird. Can you believe how gorgeous are all these creatures God imagined into being?

Sleepy lions.

A mama and a baby giraffe. The baby was like 20 feet tall.

This photo is a little out of focus, but I was really impressed with my camera zoom's ability to capture this giraffe's face.

We're Here!

David, Sarah and I arrived in the good ol' USA on Tuesday at 10:00 a.m. The trip was . . . fine. At some points it was pretty miserable, at other points it really wasn't so bad at all. But, ultimately, it is over. I could give you the play by play, but I'll just summarize to say that we saw the Lord provide at so many points on the trip, and he delivered us safely to our destination, so we are very thankful!

Here is Sarah's first photo with both her grandparents!

We spent the first night at my Uncle John and Aunt Diane's house. Here I am with my aunt, who was a very gracious hostess to us weary travelers!

My dad and my uncle John.

As expected, Sarah did wake up in the middle of that first night and want to play for a couple of hours. To keep ourselved occupied, David and I decided to play with our brand new camera, and we got these shots:

30 plus hours of travel, plenty of jet-lag, and awake in the middle of your first night's sleep in a real bed . . . THIS is what you look like. In case you were wondering. :)

The next day, we spent some time enjoying the gorgeous Colorado weather and myaunt and uncle's backyard.


Here is the jet-lag catching up with Sarah just a little bit.

We've had a great first few days enjoying family and trying to adjust to the time change/get some rest. I've got a ton of photos, so look forward to more posts coming your way!

Procrastination

As of this morning, I have exactly 5 full days until David, Sarah and I board a plane to go to the U.S. for the summer. On the one hand, WOO HOO!! On the other hand, boy do I have a lot of stuff to get done and not a lot of time. So, right now, Sarah just went down for a nap, and I decide instead of checking something off my important and practical to-do list, I will blog. Yup, blogging it is.

Meanwhile, I am trying to squeeze every last bit of life out of the old Sony Cyber-garbage. I've figured out that if I good lighting, about 1 in every 3 photos I take will actually come out. So here are some of the photos I have managed to salvage:

Sarah and her friend Zane at a PJ party.

Sarah decided that instead of napping one day, she would pull a roll of paper towels off the chest of drawers next to her bed (I'd been wiping down her pack n play with them, and accidentally left them in her bedroom) and unroll the entire roll in her bed. Well, at least the girl knows how to have fun!

One of Sarah's favorite toys (and by toys I mean non-toys that she is allowed to play with because they are not dangerous or breakable, since she refused to play with actual toys at this stage) is this sieve. She loves to use it as a mask, or put magnets in it, or just carry it around the house by its handle. I think I've used it for its actual purpose like twice, but she uses it pretty much daily.

I am so excited to give our new digital camera a try in just a few days! We ordered it online, and had it delivered to my parents. It is a Panasonic ZS3, which we settled on after reading a whole bunch of reviews. It is a definite step up from the Sony Cyper-junk, and we got a great deal buying a manufacturer refurbished model. I can't wait to take some photos with it and post them up here for you to see! Anyway, enough procrastination. Gotta get back to the to-do list. :)

Teething

Here is a photo of Sarah from happier times last week, before the teething began. Oh, teething, how I dislike you!! Sarah actually hadn't gotten any new teeth since right after she turned one, then came the last 4 days . . .

The first symptom we noticed was Sarah having a fever and being irritable, and we thought she had some sort of a bug. This was distressing, but if it had been a bug it probably would have passed by now and she'd be feeling better. Not so with teething!

Instead, we've had 4 days of fevers off and on, and a very clingy and uncomfortable 15-month-old. On Friday night (or was it Thursday??) she just cried and cried and finally fell asleep at 2 a.m. The next day was the worst because she was both exhausted and in pain. And, man, do toddlers ever know how to let you know when they are uncomfortable!

We finally figured out she was teething; we think she is getting one or more molars coming in. Molars are exciting! She'll be able to eat apples and all sorts of new things! This is my mantra as I wait patiently for my sweet little girl to start feeling better . . .

Till then I think teething is my nemesis!

A Mother's Day to Remember

Last Sunday, I enjoyed a really wonderful and special Mother's Day. David talked with our good friend Andy Huffman, and decided that our family would spend the day together with their family, and that the two dads would cook a special dinner for the whole crew! As I have mentioned earlier, the Huffman's are David's and my closest friends, and we are very sad that they will be moving permanently back to the U.S. this summer, after having spent the last 7 years together with us here in Asia. So spending the day with them was the perfect way to celebrate Mother's day.

Andy and David did a great job of cooking--they made us a delicious meal of London Broil with caramelized onions, Baked Potato Casserole (which took two tries . . . the first batch got burned!), and salad. Erin-Ashley and I spent most of the afternoon relaxing and talking, and then spent some time with the kiddos playing outside while the dudes did the cooking. My camera basically only takes photos outdoors now, so I was able to snap a few shots of the kids playing together:
Jack gave Sarah a gift of a chunk of concrete. She loved it!!!

A close-up of the concrete chunk:

Both Jack and Sarah just wore onesies. We commented on whether or not it was very culturally acceptable to take our kids outside sans pants, but it was quite hot outside! Sometimes you just gotta defy the cultural norms and let your kids wear what is comfortable!

Emma Grace is always such a sweet friend to Sarah. Do you think she knows they will be sisters-in-law in the future. (Jack and Sarah are "betrothed," hehehe.)

All in all, it was a really fun special day together with this family that means so, so very much to us!!

Digital Camera Woes, etc.

Hey all! Well, I am trying to get back to blogging here, after an absence of a couple of weeks. Things have been a little busy here--David, Sarah and I have all been sick, off and on; the schedules been a little hectic; but the biggest reason I haven't been blogging is that my current blog habit is to basically just write about whatever photos I have taken-recently, and my digital camera is in the process of slowly dying . . .

For the past three weeks or so, I estimate 60% of my photos (David LOVES it when I make up statistics!!!) have turned out either like this:

Or like this:

So, there's been plenty of me mentally cursing my Sony Cyber-Shot (which I have been convinced was garbage from the beginning), and not much content for the old blog. However, today I actually uploaded the photos and did find a handful of post-able ones! For example:

David put my backpack on Sarah, and we thought the backpack plus her PJs makes her look just like a little sky-diver! CUTE!!


Then there is this one, which is almost certainly another permutation of my camera's malfuntioning, but is still kind of cool . . . or creepy. You decide:
I like this one. Its probably the best hold-the-camera-out-and-shoot self-portrait I have ever taken, despite the fact that it was taken first thing in the morning. This photo is very, very real. :)This one shows one of my favorite new things that Sarah is doing these days: actually ENJOYING sitting on her parents' laps!! Sarah has gotten more into cuddling, and now she'll actually contentedly sit on mine or David's lap, or beside us on the couch, for a couple of minutes. Just enjoying our company, and we enjoy hers. I love it!

So, back to the camera situation. I am guessing my posts for the month of May might not be the most photo-filled, but that's OK. Maybe it will stretch my writing skills, who knows. But we will be going back to the U.S. on May 31 (HOORAY), so we will get a new camera then! I am sure we could buy one here but A) electronics tend to be more expensive here, and B) we bought my current Sony Cyber-garbage here, so I am choosing to blame both Sony and the higher risk of getting something that was rejected from the factory for its on-going problems (I haven't gotten a single good picture of our lighted Christmas Tree in four years because the thing doesn't take pictures in low-light). So, yeah, we will be buying the camera in the States, and it won't be a Sony.

Any suggestions on good, inexpensive point-and-shoot digital cameras? I am thinking about this Canon or this Nikon. I would love to get an SLR, but those are just too dang expensive and I just don't think my current level of seriousness about photography merits it. :( Plus I like something small so I can take it everywhere I go. Anyone have a little digital camera they just love??

[Note: This post should in no way be interpreted as a plea for any relative of mine, biological or through marriage, to go out and buy a camera for us. I appreciate the thought, but we know how much we can spend and what would suit our family's needs best, so we'd rather buy this ourselves. Thanks, Dad!!]