Here's what we hear (and understand) from Nathan's babbles throughout the day.
bah - ball
baba - daddy
daddy
anne - mommy
mama - food/drink
oh-oh - uh-oh
uh-uh (while shaking his head side to side)
buh-buh - bye-bye (with a wave)
bitti - all gone
shhhh (while placing finger up to his mouth)
buh - book
hey
He also says hello when playing "telephone" but I couldn't figure out how to write it the way he says it. ;-) And he likes to imitate what we say when we tickle him - he likes to tickle, tickle, tickle back at us!
Sunday, August 1, 2010
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Interesting Pictures
We bought a carpet for Nathan's room, but it needed to be bound. So we took it to a carpet store, and while we were expecting to be told "Leave it, and we'll call you when it's done," we were told "If you'll wait about 15 minutes my friend will be here to do it, and you can take it home right away." We didn't really understand, but when this truck pulled up we learned what he was talking about. This is a portable rug/carpet sewing machine. He sets up his table, threads the yarn to this thing inside the van, and binds the edges. He had the whole thing bound in just a matter of minutes, probably less than 5. Cool, huh?
silk worm moths
Nathan's "reading" one of his mommy's personal childhood favorites
"Go, Dog! Go!"
Nathan was having fun playing with our friend's bracelet, so we decided to take the opportunity to dress him up. Isn't he adorable???
Mark snapped this picture driving home from a fishing trip. He captured the small strip of land that connects a peninsula to the mainland. I think it's a pretty cool picture!
Mark's breakfast while out with some friends one morning.It's eggs, cooked a bit runny, yogurt, olive oil, and parsley.
What a way to start the day!
One of our favorite scenes in July each year - a field of sunflowers.FYI - here they're actually called moon flowers.
a beach we recently visited
Nathan's officially a climber! One of his favorite past times is backing up / climbing up to sit on top of boxes (or anything else higher than the floor).
Sunday, July 18, 2010
Catching Up
Alright, I'm a little embarrassed that it's been 4 months since our last post, but I'll try to fill you in on the latest happenings.
April:
Nathan celebrated his first birthday.
Don't touch my birthday cake!
How do I get that out???
Nathan got sick the weekend of his birthday, and this gift from our friend proved to be the perfect way to get him settled back to sleep!
May:
We celebrated 12 years of marriage!
June:
We moved to a different city - close to 3 million people! Now we're trying to meet new people and learn our way around. We'll work on getting some pictures of the city to share soon.
from our balcony after a storm
Some of our friends got together at the beach one day to celebrate the 4th. Nathan thoroughly enjoyed himself!
As for other random things . . .
April:
Nathan celebrated his first birthday.
Don't touch my birthday cake!
How do I get that out???
Nathan got sick the weekend of his birthday, and this gift from our friend proved to be the perfect way to get him settled back to sleep!May:
We celebrated 12 years of marriage!
June:
We moved to a different city - close to 3 million people! Now we're trying to meet new people and learn our way around. We'll work on getting some pictures of the city to share soon.
from our balcony after a stormYou know, it's not just kids that get excited about seeing rainbows.
Maybe it has something to do with the fact that the Father keeps His promises - always!
July:Maybe it has something to do with the fact that the Father keeps His promises - always!
Some of our friends got together at the beach one day to celebrate the 4th. Nathan thoroughly enjoyed himself!
As for other random things . . .
- A few months ago our apartment was egged. We don't know who or why.
- Nathan is a climber now, and he's becoming quite the little talker! Interesting though, he says very little in English. He loves to imitate us, and his blue eyes and blond hair continue to charm all the locals!
- We bought a gardenia plant for our balcony yesterday. Maybe it will survive me!
- Our new city is known for a special cheese that doesn't melt when you fry it. It just gets brown and crunchy on the outside - yummy!
- We'll be traveling back to the States in 4 months for a visit - we're excited about that!
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Randomness
Celebrated Valentine's Day by eating fish at a little restaurant by the water.
Ruined beef stew by adding leeks because I thought our national friends would like it - they didn't!
Found chocolate Easter bunnies at a local bakery - imported from Germany.
Dried cranberries are becoming easier to find - a bit pricey, but worth it!
It rained mud here a couple of weeks ago - not really as dramatic as it sounds, but interesting nonetheless.
Ruined beef stew by adding leeks because I thought our national friends would like it - they didn't!
Found chocolate Easter bunnies at a local bakery - imported from Germany.
Dried cranberries are becoming easier to find - a bit pricey, but worth it!
It rained mud here a couple of weeks ago - not really as dramatic as it sounds, but interesting nonetheless.
Get out of the way . . .
Nathan's walking! He took his first solo steps today! It's amazing how motivational a TV remote and a travel alarm clock can be . . .
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Nathan's Favorite Pastimes
Here are a few of Nathan's favorite ways to pass the time . . .
Needless to say he's keeping us on our toes these days! He's also beginning to pull up to a standing position, which of course all of his favorite pastimes that much easier to accomplish. Yikes!
- digging in the trash
- scattering the cookie cutters all over the kitchen floor
- climbing the step into the bathroom
- crawling around with a wet rag hanging from his mouth
- chewing on socks (his, anyone's, clean, or dirty)
- taking everything out of the toy box so that his mommy has to clean it all up
- taking the clean folded laundry out the basket to toss around or chew on (I know . . . if I would just put them away it wouldn't be a problem!)
- removing the telephone jack from the wall
- trying to play with every electrical/technological thing in our house - wires, cords, phones, remote controls, vacuum. He'd probably try to drive the car already if we let him!
- trying to steal dirty dishes out of the dishwasher
Needless to say he's keeping us on our toes these days! He's also beginning to pull up to a standing position, which of course all of his favorite pastimes that much easier to accomplish. Yikes!
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
to the other side of the world and back again
Well, here it is another month later without a peep from this blogger! Not to worry . . . I'll try to have you caught up in a jiffy!
To sum things up, we spent Christmas and New Year's in the States with family. And we had a blast! Nathan got to meet his grandparents, aunts/uncles, cousins, and some new friends who are just his size. We did a lot of eating, talking, eating, napping, eating, visiting, eating, traveling, eating, eating, and more eating. We had a list of all the foods we wanted to eat in 3 weeks, and almost everything got checked off the list - whew! Yes, we came back home carrying a few extra pounds. :-)
Our trip to the States was unbelievably smooth! We had 3 flights. Nathan slept all through the 2 shortest ones and halfway through the longest one. We couldn't believe it! He adjusted to the time difference pretty quickly, too. Our trip back overseas was a bit more bumpy. We had one short connecting flight to NY and one direct flight from NY to our country. Our connecting flight was OK. Our overseas flight wasn't so bad. Nathan slept for a few hours. The hard part about the long haul was that by the time we hit that leg of our journey (and after 3 weeks of sleeping in a tent and being hauled everywhere in the car seat) he WOULD NOT sit in the car seat on the plane without screaming! So he slept in my arms for 5 hours straight. Good that he slept - but my arm and hand got all tingly!
Then we got off the plane . . . where everything seemed to go haywire. We spent the majority of the day with friends who so graciously offered a place to crash until our boat was scheduled to leave in the evening. We decided on a time to go to the boat office, and just as we got all of our stuff unloaded from the car and our friend drove off this guy came over and told us our boat had been cancelled. Mark wanted to make sure so he ran inside to check. Nathan and I stood outside by the luggage. Sure enough it had been cancelled, so Mark got tickets to another location - from that location we were going to have to take 2 buses to get to our city. It seemed like a lot of luggage shuffling, and it was still going to take until at least the middle of the night to get home. Mark went back inside and cancelled those tickets, and we headed to the bus station by taxi.
When we got to the bus station we found out that the earliest bus leaving from there and going straight to our city wouldn't leave until 11:45 PM - it was only 7 PM at the time. Mark went all over the station looking for alternatives. He found a bus that would leave at 11 PM, and he bought tickets. We sat to wait and decided there had to be another bus to leave sooner, so he went to check again with a couple of other bus firms. He found one leaving at 9:30. The only thing is that it wasn't going straight to our city. We would have to take that bus so far and then switch a few hours later. It sounded like our best option, and we were sooooo ready to just be home.
We still had to wait a couple of hours before boarding, but the ticket agent played with Nathan for the longest time, which gave us a little break before our bus adventure began.
We got on the bus, and we all fell asleep almost immediately. After riding a couple of hours, our bus boarded a small ferry. We all woke up. From that point on, Nathan was tired of being held, and he didn't really care who knew it! (We were tired of holding him, but we still needed to hold it together a little better than him!) After a couple of more hours on the road, we got to the place our bus switch was to take place. The attendant on the bus told us that we wouldn't be entering the bus station so we would need to get off the bus on the side of the road and wait for another bus that could take us to our city. (This is about 1:30 AM.) We got off and started unloading our things, and we were told to get back on the bus because they wanted to find a specific bus for us. They were so kind! For the next half hour we could hear them talking to different bus drivers on the cell phone trying to find the best ride for us and a place they could drop us off to wait. They kept telling them they had a young foreign family with a baby - that goes a long way in this country! Finally they found a bus going our way and agreed on a place to pick us up. So around 2 AM we got dropped off on the side of the road beside a closed rest area kind of place. Another 30 minutes later (and after about a hundred buses had driven past) our bus finally came. At this point we were just trying to make light of everything and help poor Nathan keep his sanity.
Another hour and a half later we were in our city - a beautiful sight! Then the news we didn't want to hear . . . we weren't going directly into the bus station. Once again we got dropped off on the side of the road, dragging our luggage across this grassy median thing to get near a taxi. Mark still had to run down the road to get the taxi, but once he got to us and we got everything loaded, it was as if a million pounds had been lifted from our shoulders. We were ALMOST home at 4 AM!
The first thing on the agenda was to give Nathan some space and freedom. He crawled all over the place! I doubt he's ever been happier. All we (Mark and I) wanted to do was take a nice hot shower. Well, guess what . . . our hot heater wouldn't work! We were all asleep by 5:30 AM and slept until 2PM.
I also forgot to mention the lovely young lady the Father sent our way on our overseas flight. She spotted Nathan crawling around from across the room at our gate in the airport and came over to play with him. She ended up sitting right next to us on the plane, and boy was she a blessing! Nathan slept 5 hours, but our total flight time on that flight was 11 hours. She helped A LOT during those 6 hours of awake time, even it was only to make him smile or laugh when he seemed a bit disgruntled. She even walked him up and down the aisle a few times.
Anyway . . . We had a great time catching up with family and friends, and now we're back in the saddle again. Language class has started back up. The weather is dismal and cold. Nathan's pulling up on everything and wanting to walk so bad!
I'll share some pictures in another post.
To sum things up, we spent Christmas and New Year's in the States with family. And we had a blast! Nathan got to meet his grandparents, aunts/uncles, cousins, and some new friends who are just his size. We did a lot of eating, talking, eating, napping, eating, visiting, eating, traveling, eating, eating, and more eating. We had a list of all the foods we wanted to eat in 3 weeks, and almost everything got checked off the list - whew! Yes, we came back home carrying a few extra pounds. :-)
Our trip to the States was unbelievably smooth! We had 3 flights. Nathan slept all through the 2 shortest ones and halfway through the longest one. We couldn't believe it! He adjusted to the time difference pretty quickly, too. Our trip back overseas was a bit more bumpy. We had one short connecting flight to NY and one direct flight from NY to our country. Our connecting flight was OK. Our overseas flight wasn't so bad. Nathan slept for a few hours. The hard part about the long haul was that by the time we hit that leg of our journey (and after 3 weeks of sleeping in a tent and being hauled everywhere in the car seat) he WOULD NOT sit in the car seat on the plane without screaming! So he slept in my arms for 5 hours straight. Good that he slept - but my arm and hand got all tingly!
Then we got off the plane . . . where everything seemed to go haywire. We spent the majority of the day with friends who so graciously offered a place to crash until our boat was scheduled to leave in the evening. We decided on a time to go to the boat office, and just as we got all of our stuff unloaded from the car and our friend drove off this guy came over and told us our boat had been cancelled. Mark wanted to make sure so he ran inside to check. Nathan and I stood outside by the luggage. Sure enough it had been cancelled, so Mark got tickets to another location - from that location we were going to have to take 2 buses to get to our city. It seemed like a lot of luggage shuffling, and it was still going to take until at least the middle of the night to get home. Mark went back inside and cancelled those tickets, and we headed to the bus station by taxi.
When we got to the bus station we found out that the earliest bus leaving from there and going straight to our city wouldn't leave until 11:45 PM - it was only 7 PM at the time. Mark went all over the station looking for alternatives. He found a bus that would leave at 11 PM, and he bought tickets. We sat to wait and decided there had to be another bus to leave sooner, so he went to check again with a couple of other bus firms. He found one leaving at 9:30. The only thing is that it wasn't going straight to our city. We would have to take that bus so far and then switch a few hours later. It sounded like our best option, and we were sooooo ready to just be home.
We still had to wait a couple of hours before boarding, but the ticket agent played with Nathan for the longest time, which gave us a little break before our bus adventure began.
We got on the bus, and we all fell asleep almost immediately. After riding a couple of hours, our bus boarded a small ferry. We all woke up. From that point on, Nathan was tired of being held, and he didn't really care who knew it! (We were tired of holding him, but we still needed to hold it together a little better than him!) After a couple of more hours on the road, we got to the place our bus switch was to take place. The attendant on the bus told us that we wouldn't be entering the bus station so we would need to get off the bus on the side of the road and wait for another bus that could take us to our city. (This is about 1:30 AM.) We got off and started unloading our things, and we were told to get back on the bus because they wanted to find a specific bus for us. They were so kind! For the next half hour we could hear them talking to different bus drivers on the cell phone trying to find the best ride for us and a place they could drop us off to wait. They kept telling them they had a young foreign family with a baby - that goes a long way in this country! Finally they found a bus going our way and agreed on a place to pick us up. So around 2 AM we got dropped off on the side of the road beside a closed rest area kind of place. Another 30 minutes later (and after about a hundred buses had driven past) our bus finally came. At this point we were just trying to make light of everything and help poor Nathan keep his sanity.
Another hour and a half later we were in our city - a beautiful sight! Then the news we didn't want to hear . . . we weren't going directly into the bus station. Once again we got dropped off on the side of the road, dragging our luggage across this grassy median thing to get near a taxi. Mark still had to run down the road to get the taxi, but once he got to us and we got everything loaded, it was as if a million pounds had been lifted from our shoulders. We were ALMOST home at 4 AM!
The first thing on the agenda was to give Nathan some space and freedom. He crawled all over the place! I doubt he's ever been happier. All we (Mark and I) wanted to do was take a nice hot shower. Well, guess what . . . our hot heater wouldn't work! We were all asleep by 5:30 AM and slept until 2PM.
I also forgot to mention the lovely young lady the Father sent our way on our overseas flight. She spotted Nathan crawling around from across the room at our gate in the airport and came over to play with him. She ended up sitting right next to us on the plane, and boy was she a blessing! Nathan slept 5 hours, but our total flight time on that flight was 11 hours. She helped A LOT during those 6 hours of awake time, even it was only to make him smile or laugh when he seemed a bit disgruntled. She even walked him up and down the aisle a few times.
Anyway . . . We had a great time catching up with family and friends, and now we're back in the saddle again. Language class has started back up. The weather is dismal and cold. Nathan's pulling up on everything and wanting to walk so bad!
I'll share some pictures in another post.
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