And She's Off!

After taking only 5 steps at a time between furniture for the last six weeks or so, Anna decided that today was the day to walk. She literally stood up and walked across the entry way, which is no small feat. She is still crawling as her major form of locomotion, but has logged a pretty amazing number of steps today. Of course she is very proud of herself.
Anna is funny in that she will not do something until she is ready to do it well. She never sat or pulled up until she could get back down in a controlled manner. We never had the lumps and bumps stages, except for one fall in the pack and play onto a window seal at daycare.
Maybe hanging out with Tessa last week influenced her. Hopefully that's the only thing Anna learned, as Tessa is the Houdini of babies and can extricate herself from any constraints.

More Taiwanese in Texas

We are home after a great trip. We had an empty seat on the first flight for Anna to play in with a very nice woman from Guam who helped entertain Anna. We were squished on our second flight and the very nice flight attendant moved another traveler so we had an extra seat again. I couldn't thank her enough.

It was a wonderful trip. We saw parts of Austin, which was not what I expected. Lots of trees and some hills, but still pretty flat compared to home. The weather was hot and humid, but not as bad as I expected.

We ate tons of great food, both at Dena's and at local restaurants, and have several new favorites, especially the queso sauce. We all blew any semblance of healthy eating. I won't even mention the wine and beer!

The girls did great together. While they are not old enough to truly play with each other, they did lots of parallel play. The biggest problem was whatever one wanted, the other had to have. Of course there were a few baby slaps and bonking each other on the head, but a few seconds later Anna would be putting the binkie in Tessa's mouth, or Tessa would be giving Anna her sippy cup.

Most of the trip we spent just hanging out and chatting. I couldn't have asked for a better trip.


Shopping at the HEB store



Margaritas and my new favorite food, queso (aka Tex-Mex cheese sauce) at a local diner




The girls loved the queso also and made quite a mess




Tessa was upset after both Dena and Matt told her "No", so she crawled up in my lap. Of course Anna had to join the party.

Taiwanese in Texas

Anna and I are in Austin Texas visiting Dena, Matt and Tessa Steiner. While we have talked and emailed frequently but this is the first time we have seen each other since reutrning from Taiwan. I'll post more later, but I wanted to get some photos up.


I can't believe she can do this!


Eating out again. We won't fit in our clothes when we leave here.







Whatever one has, the other wants




The Girls out and about shopping.




Having High Tea.

Fast friends

It seems like they are always eating. They would rather have the food from the others tray than their own.

Shopping at the Domain, we bribed a few kids with pennies for the fountain to take pictures of us.

Ryan's Graduation

Ryan graduated from pre-school. He is very excited to be a "kindergardner" now. Sunflower had their traditional luau.