trip pictures

Alright, here I am! Alive and well in CA. I haven't had time or computer access much to post anything so here I am catching up. We're having a great time, visiting lots of people, and eating lots of yummy food!

So, here's a bunch of pictures and a video of some of the things we've done so far.

On the plane! It was Katie's first flight.

She only slept for about 2 and a half hours but otherwise she did great.

When we requested a basinet for Katie the airline said it would be a floor bassinet. They said that you put it on the floor under the seat in front of you! I thought, WHAT?!?

It turned out great though because they moved our seats to the area behind the bathrooms so there weren't any seats in front of us. It gave Katie a place to play that wasn't exactly the floor.

Katie had lots of fun!

My mom, dad, Laura and Sarah picked us up at the airport. Sarah brought Katie this baloon that said, "Welcome to the USA, Katie!" SO cute! What a welcome to her country. :-)

Of course we started off with a good old In-N-Out burger!

Trisha and Caleb were in town to help at VBS so Katie and her cousin got to hang out together in the double stroller and nap.

Eating with Grandma Shoe

Playing with Grandpa Hopper. This is one of our old toys from when we were kids!

Camping with Katie's new cousin! Yep, we went camping with two babies and we actually had fun! Katie decided that playing in the tent was a lot more fun than sleeping in the tent but we did ok. It was so nuce to be out of the city in nature!

We got to get together with most of the SOUL girls from BIOLA.

This is us plus the husbands and kiddos.

Here's what a 7 and a half month old baby looks like at 2 in the morning on jet lag!

Leaving on a Jet Plane...

Yep, it's true. Tomorrow morning we're getting on a plane heading to good old California! Yippee! We're really excited to see lots of friends and family and introduce Katie to her homeland. And have some Mexican food and an In and Out burger. And Ruby's. And Red Robin. And Jamba juice. And Golden Spoon... Yummmmm.....

If you think about it, pray that Katie would do well flying. And that her parents would do well with her flying. :-) Pray that all of our luggage makes it through ok and that our flights go smoothly. I always pray for uneventful travel. Sounds good to me.

In other news, Katie has FOUR new teeth this week! Yep it's true. She's chewing on everything!

Also, she discovered the bookshelf and is impressing her parents with her reading choices.

Just for fun

A big day...

Yesterday was a big day for Katie!

After her first nap I found her like this. She started sitting up on Friday but this was the first time to see her waiting for me like this in her crib. It was a pretty cute way to be greeted.



During her second nap she cried and cried which is not really normal anymore. When I went to check on her the poor thing was squatting at the end of the crib, much like she'd been sitting up earlier, and holding on for dear life to the edge. I think she was afraid to let go because she didn't know how to get down. Poor thing. It was a pitiful sight. So I got her up and we tried the nap a while later.

After the next nap I heard her chatting to herself in her crib so I knew she was up. What I saw when I went in made me jump! Oh my goodness, she could have fallen out!!! We've never seen her try to stand up holding on to anything before. Another first for this little Monkey. I must say, she was very proud of herself. She just kept smiling and smiling... This also explained how she had gotten herself stuck in that awkward position during her earlier nap.

So, Daddy had a project when he got home. He moved her crib down to the lower level. It doesn't look nearly as cute now without the pretty bumper. Maybe I should invest in some cute sheets...


Unfortunately the excitement for the day wasn't over. When I put her to bed for the night she started crying after being asleep for about 10 minutes. This time her leg was totally stuck between the bars of the crib. Poor thing. No fun...


So, today I'm hoping for a much less eventful day, Katie-girl!

Friday Favorites...

Friday we went out of town over night and came home yesterday evening so here it is Sunday and I'm writing for Friday. :-) As we say in Portuguese, "Não faz mal."


So this week I loved these plastic cups from Ikea. Actually it was Katie who loved them and allowed me to get a lot done in the kitchen while she sat in her Bumbo and entertained herself beautifully with a plastic cup. So great!

Getting away on Friday night was great. We drove about three hours up to Portugal's main mountain range. We had the great idea to get away from the heat as it has been really hot and kind of humid and go to the mountains but we quickly discovered that it was hotter there than at home! Oh well. We got a great deal on a hotel on line and it had a nice pool that we thoroughly enjoyed. It was fun to see a new area of the country and Katie did pretty well with all the time in the car.

Baked Oatmeal. Have you ever had it? It is so yummy and easy to make. I hadn't made it in a long time but Trisha mentioned it and inspired me to get the recipe out. Yum! Jonathan says it's the perfect meal. :-) Maybe I'll post the recipe sometime... (by the way, no, I'm not artsy enough to have taken a cool picture of my dish but I found this one online. There are a lot of baked oatmeal recipes out there. Who knew?)

Getting Around

Friday Favorites...

1. Well, watching Katie crawl definitely tops the list this week! That's been a lot of fun... This week she's been saying "mamama" a lot. She doesn't know what it means yet but it's really fun!

2. Yesterday we went up north about an hour to the factory store for this Portuguese artist that I love. His work is in ceramics and he makes a bunch of different kinds of things but what I like are his dishes. They're really unique. His signature pieces look like vegetables. They're very different. My favorite pieces are his other dishes that just have neat patterns on them. It was really fun to shop in the warehouse and have SO much to choose from.

3. Teri's strawberry pie and enchilada recipes! I made them both this week and they were GREAT!

It was a very busy week so here I am on Saturday writing for Friday... Oh well! It was a good week!