"Be the change you want to see in the world" -Gandhi


Sunday, November 20, 2011

Seattle's Best


The month of October was an exciting time for our us, filled with lots of family fun and traveling.      Dana has been very busy at Cultural Vistas, he was flown to China for a work trip and visited Hong Kong, Macau, Guangzhou and Zhuhai for university recruitment purposes.  Out of his extensive previous travels, this was his first time to Asia, so it was quite an eye opening experience, certainly a very different pace of life then Africa! 

Before he left Maryland, we planned a family trip to a local Maryland farm to find Sophiya's very first Halloween pumpkin!  Halloween isn't really celebrated in South Africa, at least to the extent as it is here in the US, so this was all new for her!  She picked out her favorite pumpkin, we sipped on apple cider, visited the farm animals and went on a traditional hayride.  It was a lovely day together!

After saying goodbyes to Daddy as he embarked on his trip to the other side of the world, Sophiya and I flew five hours (so easy compared to a 30 hour trip!) to Seattle to visit his family.  With the exception of his parents, the last time the rest of his family saw Sophiya was about a year ago.  As you can imagine, the growth within this time is astounding!


We were lucky enough to be able to attend my beautiful sister-in-law's baby shower hosted by Dana's mother!  She is due any day now and looking forward to welcoming their little girl, Arabella, into the world.  Sophiya proved to be excellent entertainment for the afternoon, making all the ladies smile and laugh, helping her Auntie Krystal open presents and showing off her dancing skills in her pink tutu.  As you can see in the subsequent photos, she fully embraces the photo sessions with her biggest smiles and never fails to say "Cheese" when the camera is on her.


Dana comes from a family of boys, as one of three boys growing up, his eldest brother now has three boys and their cousins consist of two boys!  With the birth of Sophiya and now Arabella and our second girl on the way (name will remain a secret!), there is a new generation of females taking over and we are all so excited about all the new girl power!!  Sophiya thoroughly enjoys playing with her boy cousins, they are all so sweet and gentle with her.  She has gotten an introduction to the art of  "rough housing" and seems to have gotten the hang of it!



We took another trip to the pumpkin patch with Nana and Papa, another fun adventure for Sophiya.



Sophiya with her Great Grandma Michelle, who recently went in for open heart surgery and is now in recovery.  Sophiya helped as much as she could in the healing process to shed light on the situation and keep smiles on Grandma's face when we came to visit in the hospital.  It's amazing how empathetic a two year old can be, even though she may not fully comprehend the magnitude of the procedure, it was clear that she understood that she needed to be calm and gentle when visiting.


 Carving pumpkins with Nana, Papa and Uncle Bubba.  Yes, that's right, Uncle Bubba, somehow Mason was named Bubba by Sophiya and the name stuck! We get a kick out of it every time she calls out to him!


Sophiya making Auntie Chris and Uncle Kevin laugh with her cheese ball smiles.  Uncle Kevin promptly taught Sophiya all about racing on the patio, so she now poses in the track and field start position before taking off in a sprint.  A few days earlier, Sophiya, Auntie Chris and I took advantage of beautiful fall weather and visited the Woodland Park Zoo.  We had such a nice time, saw all kinds of animals and Sophiya was intrigued with all the sights and sounds. 


 Papa's pumpkin was a representation of Sophiya's infamous "Oh No" phrase.  This is a commonly used expression to respond to a bowl of mac n cheese that she has deliberately thrown on the floor, if she draws on herself with pen or if decides to dump a full container of water outside of the bathtub, all of course occurring when Mom's eyes were away for a second!


 Oh Halloween, what fun it is to be a parent now and experience it through your child's eyes!  It seems like a long time since we've actually celebrated or acknowledged Halloween, and this year we've done all the traditions and it feels so great!  We weren't quite sure how Sophiya would respond to the whole Halloween and trick or treating concept, but she sure caught on quickly.  She embodied the cutest little kitty cat, complete with whiskers and red nose and the perfect "Meow" to go along with it!  I got in the spirit and did myself up as a cat, just so she wasn't totally freaked out about us drawing on her face!


Once she realized that all she had to do was knock on someone's door, say "treat!" in the sweetest voice possible then a quick "thank you" after receiving a fair bit of candy and receive "ooos and ahhs" from my in law's normally trick or treater-less neighbors, there was no stopping her!  She would turn straight around and head to the next door for more.  Having Sophiya sampling a fair bit of this sugary goodness was something that Nana highly encouraged, thus the bucket eventually had to be well hidden to avoid a massive sugar induced melt down!


For the next few days after Halloween, Sophiya requested to wear her costume and have more makeup put on, smart little bugger wanted to go out and get more candy!!  What a wonderful time of year with the leaves changing in the Northwest and we were lucky to have some beautiful days (and of course the grey rainy ones too!) in the Northwest during our visit.  We look forward to returning during Christmas time, this time all together as a family.

Next American holiday introduction for Sophiya will be Thanksgiving at my parents' house in Minnesota!  We're leaving tomorrow and it sounds like there has been some snow, so another first for her!  It's wonderful to be able to spend so much time with everyone now that we are closer.  Sophiya loves to eat, so I'm sure Turkey Day will be another holiday she loves as well!

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

A Walk Down Memory Lane


Thanks to our amazing friend and extremely talented photographer, Emma Graham, we have the blessing of a beautiful farewell to Cape Town photo collection documenting our family's last few weeks in South Africa.  These are wonderful memories for us, ones that I look at frequently, a timeless gift from Emma and one we will be forever grateful for!  Thank you Emma!
The first shoot was done at our home in Bergvliet and the second shoot was done at Kommetjie Beach, which was where Dana and I were married in 2007, a very special place to us.  Enjoy!

 


 












Here's a real trip down memory lane in the photo above... 
                             July 1st 2007, our wedding day at Kommetjie Beach 4 years ago!!

 And now in 2011...


And then there was three, soon to be four!!

Friday, September 30, 2011

Heart of Red, White and Blue

After a month of being away from Dana, we reunited as a family in our new home in Columbia Maryland!  Sophiya was thrilled to see her daddy after so long and instantly jumped into his arms at the airport and has been glued to him ever since!  We had a couple days in our empty apartment to get semi-settled, our container of belongings in still en route from South Africa, due to arrive end of October, if we're lucky.  Dana's parents arrived that Friday and we headed down to Washington DC for the weekend with them!
We left our hotel on foot first thing in the morning and were go go going all day!  We saw the Arlington National Cemetery, Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial, Iwo Jima Memorial, Jefferson Memorial, Korean War Veterans Memorial, Lincoln Memorial, the new Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial, Theodore Roosevelt Island and Vietnam Veterans Memorial.
Washington Monument, Dana rocking his Springbok Rugby birthday t-shirt, love it!
The new Martin Luther King Jr. monument, "Stone of Hope"
Jefferson Memorial
Keeping Nana and Papa busy touring Washington DC!
Capital Building
Obama's residence!  The White House, wow!

Pool Time with Papa and Daddy

Needless to say, Sophiya was kept very busy (just how I like it!) and we were all exhausted by the end of the day.  We went to an amazing restaurant that evening called the Founding Farmers, had a lovely dinner with delicious local ingredients and impressive architecture.  "The Founding Farmers name represents a combination of ideas: it is a celebration of the land and the American family farmer; it is a nod to the founding fathers of our country, many of whom owned and farmed land that surrounds Washington, D.C.; and it is a place where true, sustainably-farmed, grown, and harvested American foods are brought to our guests."

After being overseas for so long, spending the weekend in Washington DC was so appropriate for our re-introduction to American way of life.  We felt the energy of being at the heart of our nation's capital, everywhere you look there are people from all over the world, a "Rainbow Nation" (if I can be allowed to steal from South Africa's nickname), a place of rich history, culture, pride and power.  It is here where the decisions of our country's future are determined and the leaders of our great nation are debating (heatedly these days) issues that will affect generations to come.  We reflected on our country's history and contemplated the path of our country for our posterity.  All this while simultaneously chasing after a one and a half year old, luckily it was four against one toddler, so adults won (most of the time).

After our weekend in Washington DC, we headed down to Williamsburg, Virginia for a weekWilliamsburg is a special place in America as it represents one of the first founding settlements of the original colonists, where the idea of "America" was bornThe town has preserved its rich cultural history by restoring the original town center and turning it into a "living museum".  Townspeople dress in traditional colonial garments, speaking in character as members of the 18th century Williamsburg and embodying their role as the town shoemaker, doctor, tavern owner or African American slave.

Besides touring colonial Williamsburg, we spent lots of time at the pool, took a trip to the Virginia seaside and visited the Norfolk Botanical Garden.  Sophiya had a blast swimming and playing all day with Nana and Papa, enjoying every moment with them.

Virginia Beach, where the ocean water is warm enough to swim!  yay!
Norfolk Botanical Garden

Nana and Sophiya

 It feels so good to be home, especially after being spoiled with all of our family time.  Sophiya is certainly loving being closer to her grandparents and so are we!  It was tough saying goodbye to Nana and Papa, but luckily this time we know we are only a 5 hour flight away, not 25+!!
 Sliding and learning to rock climb at Centennial Park

We are settling into Columbia nicely, everything is going very well.  Dana is enjoying his new job with Cultural Vistas and will be going to China on a work trip in mid-October.  He'll be doing presentations at universities, recruiting Chinese students to join the internship programs Cultural Vistas offers.  I'm so proud of him to have this exciting upcoming opportunity and to have found such a great job!  Sophiya and I will be visiting Seattle during the time he'll be away (15-28 October) to see Nana and Papa again, and attend my sister-in-law's baby shower.  We are really looking forward to this!   

I'm doing well, 22 weeks pregnant now with our second little one, feeling healthy and enjoying the second trimester much more than the first.  Columbia is such a great place to live with kids, there are endless parks to visit, trails to take walks, libraries and the schools are the best in the country.  We've got a membership to the local Lifetime Fitness, so I've found some great yoga classes to attend.  We have still yet to visit downtown Baltimore and the Chesapeake Bay area, but we will be doing lots of exploring! 

Sophiya is growing with leaps and bounds.  She is 21 months now, I still find it hard to believe she is going to be two soon.  These first couple years have really flown by, note to self to remember with the second one!  Sophiya's vocabulary and ability to communicate is increasing everyday, it's amazing to see the way she tries to say new words, attach meaning to different phrases and starting generally get her point across with the few words she's got (intermittently with frustrated cries and shouts of course when I don't understand!)  She has really gotten into coloring, which keeps her occupied for ages, it's fantastic.  I know there is going to be a day that crayon will end up on the wall because she is such an art enthusiastic, but so far so good!  The other activity she is intrigued with is cooking, so I try to get her involved as much as possible with meal making, hoping it will result in her eating well, which has been helpful on a few occasions.  I'm not a big baker normally, but I think I will give this a try in the next few weeks as I'm sure she'll love it.
Reading with Daddy, notice the new hairdo from Nana??

That is about all for now.  Fall is upon us in Maryland, so I'm enjoying seeing the tree leaves turning colors and the crisp autumn air.  Looking forward to an official Halloween next month, we'll finally be able to carve a pumpkin again and dress Sophiya up in a ridiculously cute costume, yay!