No Winter Blues Here - Through 1/31/08

Indigo is wearing a blue sweater knittted by our friend Tanja. Speaking of knitting, Melanie had a knit night with various neighborhood knitters over, some of whom are in a class that Melanie attends. We had a fun long Martin Luther King weekend. We were invited to brunch at the Army Navy Club in downtown DC to celebrate our friend Rick's birthday. We had to dress up, which gave us an opportunity for Indigo to wear one of her pretty dresses. Indigo and Sarah looked adorable and behaved amazingly well in the ornate dining room. Later that night, our friend Amy came over to babysit Indigo while we met our friends Becky & Subir at an Eddie From Ohio "EFO" concert at the Birchmere. Amy brought her oldest son Jacob which turned out to be a good thing since Indigo really took to him. Unbelievably, an opening act called One Horse Town sang a song entitled "Heart of Indigo", which brought tears to Melanie's eyes. Needless to say we have a signed CD from all the band members.
The following Saturday, we had a fabulous time and dinner at
over at our friends Gabi & Stephen with their two daughters Chloe and Isa. Indigo was fascinated with each of their hamsters. They also gave Indigo her first tricycle, which included a license plate with her name on it. We could not get over how quickly Indigo caught on about peddling, soon she will be riding a bike! There was also much fun singing karaoke without any drinks.
On the Sunday, Indigo and I drove Melanie to the airport for her flight to Milwaukee which was the first time Melanie spent a night away from her. I then took Indigo to a playground at a park and to see the ducks and geese in a pond.
After all of Melanie's worries, we survived the three and half days that she was in Milwaukee. We had the babysitter on the Monday and Tuesday while I worked and then Ellen came over with Sarah on Wednesday and spent the day at our house looking after both girls which was really awesome of her.

January Catch-up Continued Through 1/13/08

Indigo has developed her first true attachment to a stuffed animal or doll, which is her kitty pillow. She must sleep with it, and will hold it when you take her out of her crib in the morning. She calls it her kitty. She is also beginning to say more words. Among her favorite new words are saying meow, bye-bye and mmm for moo (we are so behind on posting that since we wrote those words Indigo's vocabulary has greatly expanded). We went to an open house at our Temple to apply to their pre-school for next September. This will be a two day morning program.

On Saturday morning, Melanie took Indigo to Patricia's house where Indigo had a play date with Patricia and Robyne's kids.

We had a lovely evening when Rick, Ellen and Sarah came over for dinner and we shared a belated gift exchange. The girls were so cute and had a wonderful evening playing together.

First weekend of 2008

We drove out to Warrenton and met up with our friend Joanne and her three year old son Miles, as well as our friend Robyne and her twins, Calli and Stirling and Alexandria. After having lunch we went to a local park where the kids played. Indigo enjoyed Miles' small two wheel bicycle with training wheels. Unfortunately the only photos we got that day were on the cell phone. The next day Melanie took Indigo to the barn to meet up with Robyne. Indigo sat on Dan for the first time, but again we were without camera. Indigo enjoyed playing with these blocks which were given to us by friends Toni and Tom while we were still waiting for her.

New Year - Six months and 2008

Whoa there - don't faint! A long overdue update - that's one resolution that's already hit the toilet. We had a really lovely New Year's evening. Our friends Marty, Laurie and their two boys, Connor and Aidan and the puppy Cody all came over for dinner, exchange of holiday gifts, watching a movie, celebration of the New Year and to spend the night. We had a great evening and it was particularly nice to all be at the house in the morning together on New Year's day. We cooked breakfast and then took all the dogs to the dog park before Marty & Laurie et al. headed home.

As has become an annual tradition for at least the past 3 years for us, later on New Year's Day we went to the traditional good luck dinner hosted by Jayme and Bill. Jayme always makes the most amazing meal of sausages, pork and sauerkraut and accompanying fixings. We can't believe how many people they are able to host for a sit down dinner and this year she had even more people. We all had a super time.

On January 1st it was six months of having our beloved Indigo in our lives. It seems like both a short amount of time and also forever. It sure does seem like it was ages ago that we were in China having her placed in our arms and I look at pictures of her then and hardly recognize her. 2008 - the first full year with our daughter - that makes it a good start! Lots of catching up to do so hopefully another post to follow soon.

Week of Christmas holiday in Myrtle Beach & Dim Sum

We headed down to stay with my parents in Myrtle Beach on the Saturday before Christmas. We hit a fair bit of traffic and the journey took us 9 hours. Indigo was really super and did not get cranky until about the 8 hour mark - who could blame her, we were cranky by then too.

Our time in Myrtle Beach was really super. We took some time almost every day to take a walk on the beach with my parents and the dogs. Several times we were joined on the beach by my sister Clare, her dog Meathead, her boyfriend Josh and his son Jacob. We love being on the beach and it was especially special to have Caleb there with us, where he really enjoyed himself.

Christmas Day was fun with Indigo really enjoying receiving presents and the family all having a roast lamb dinner. One of Indigo's favorite books is Goodnight Gorilla - she loves it. Granddad taught her to pound her chest when she sees a gorilla so one of the gifts from Granddad and Granny was a plush gorilla. They also gave her an adorable oinking/walking pig and a very special gift of a music box with a spinning dreidel. The dogs both got new toys too!

One day we took a drive out to Huntington Beach State Park where we enjoyed a walk along the boardwalk through the marshy wetlands, checking out the bird life. While there we also went to Atalaya, which was a winter home of Archer and Anna Huntington, built around the early 30s and last visited by them in 1947. Atalaya was really interesting as it was built in a Moorish architecture similar to that of what is along the Spanish Mediterranean coast. It is now essentially ruins but the layout and rooms are all essentially intact and there are all these beautiful arches and tall palmettos. From there we walked right down to the beach which is awesome because there are no houses. Some people were feeding gulls and Indigo was fascinated watching them. On our return home we drove through Myrle's Inlet and enjoyed the sunset and the pelicans. One evening Mom and Dad were kind enough to watch Indigo and we got to go the movies! We saw Charlie Wilson's War which was really superb and we highly recommend. We left the next Saturday. The journey home was pretty good until about the last 40 odd miles out from Washington and then it was dreadful. David drove the whole way on both trips and he did a superb job.

On Sunday we enjoyed a great brunch of Dim Sum with a couple of the families with whom we had traveled to China. The girls had a fabulous time and were all very cute.