San Antonio And A Morning In Baltimore

I had hoped to blog more consistently again, but life has still not slowed down... So tonight when I saw an opportunity to go through some recent photos and write a post, I just went for it!

I was recently in San Antonio for 3 days to participate in two evaluation-related workshops (my area of work). It was the longest I had ever been away from Daniel and I tell you, I found it painful -- literally. The first two days went well, but on the third day, when Jonny sent me a photo of him via text, I felt pain in my chest, I missed him so much (now it's funny, not at the time though! :-))! Thankfully, he didn't' miss me much at all and had a blast with his papai and at school -- it was just me. The workshops were great though and the highlight was that I got to see an old friend from Europe, Cristina, who had come all the way from Italy to participate in the conference too. We even got a photo of us together by the "river walk" in San Antonio (I found it artificial but at night on my way back to the hotel, it was quite magical being by the water and walking past restaurants with live music - nice atmosphere).

This past weekend Jonny had a meeting in Baltimore in the morning and so Daniel and I decided to enjoy the city too. We went to Port Discovery (a children's museum), using groupon coupons I had bought months earlier, and Daniel had a blast. I wouldn't pay full price for the museum, I thought it was a bit run down and not that exciting, but it was still a fun morning.

Daniel loved the Bob the Builder section:

And the moon bounce!



He loved playing in this train and pressing the whistle button (the noise scared him at first but he quickly adjusted)


The coolest part of the museum was the Diner, in which the kids pretended to cook the parents food and serve them. Daniel loved this - and I loved watching his enjoyment!

We then met papai for lunch at the inner harbor. It was a beautiful warm fall morning. It was special to be there again, especially since it was across from the building I worked at for four years - lots of memories... Seeing my son enjoying himself just outside my old office, was special...

Playing outside my old office building...

Daniel loved seeing the ships and boats

A nice lunch outside at a place I had eaten at often - Chipotle!

Fall and Halloween!

Sorry loved ones for not blogging for over a month. After my last post written from Belgium, we visited France, Portugal and then England again. As you can imagine, after almost a month of traveling (3 weeks of which I was a "single mother" since Jonny was either in Malaysia or at home) I arrived back home exhausted and it's taken us about 3 weeks to get settled back into a routine. Plus, many other things have been going on related to our careers, future decisions, etc., so it's been a hectic time (more on that some other time)...

The fact that I have literally hundreds of photos to sort through from Europe has also not helped, but I decided that I just have to see when I'll get to do that. Main thing is to get blogging again!

So since today is Halloween and we have recently been taking lots of cute photos, I thought I would just get straight back into it tonight!

Fall is here and the colors of the trees just take my breath away every year! Though the Fall is a strong reminder that winter is on its way (which I don't enjoy because of the cold), it's so beautiful... Just last week close to our house, I took these photos of Daniel (and the ones above) which clearly show how stunning the leaves are here this time of the year...



This past Friday, October 29th, Daniel's school had a costume parade and Daniel got to wear his fireman costume which he inherited from one of our neighbors. He is obsessed by firemen and firetrucks, so you can just imagine how excited he was to be one!

Daniel all dressed up outside our home before school


Costume party in the afternoon - these are Daniel's little friends that share a table with him (assigned seats, so he sits next to them during the day). Daniel is eating his first ever lollipop in this photo (I wasn't thrilled about it, but I knew the day was coming! :-))


With Enya and Sid (our neighbor Enya is in Daniel's class now!)

Daniel's class coming outside for the costume parade (Daniel didn't know I was there waiting)

This is when he saw me (he was already smiling and happy which comforted my heart - just always good to know he is happy at school)

Then tonight, on actual Halloween, we got together with our neighbors for dinner at Devesh's house and then we took the 3 kids trick-or-treating again (as we did last year - see how they have grown!). Daniel was so excited about it, though he still doesn't realize that he got lots of candy (he filled it up but hasn't looked at his pumpkin bucket since coming back home). Look how cute they looked and enjoyed the experience tonight!

Yay, I have managed to get one blog post published in October! Until next time loved ones; hopefully very soon!

Family Reunion In Europe Part 1: London

Hi Loved Ones! We are currently in Belgium and have been busy enjoying our time visiting our precious niece Josephine (who we call "Fifou"), Jonny's brother Peter and our sister-in-law Jenny. Granny Heather is also here with us and we've been enjoying many special moments together. We have already taken hundreds of photos and now it's time to start going through them and updating our blog...

But I need start at the beginning of our trip, since our trip to Europe started with a 2 day short visit to London...

First, here are some photos of Daniel and Vovo Daddy at the airport, before our flight over the Atlantic to London. I'm so thankful Vovo was able to travel with Daniel and I, since Jonny went to Malaysia to be with Grandpa Boon for his surgery. Daniel was so excited about being at the airport and seeing all the airplanes and then actually being in one. Since it was a late night flight, I thought he would fall asleep quickly but instead, he was awake for most of the flight! He did great though and understood the importance of staying in his seat until we arrived in London.

Though we had less than 48 hours in London, we enjoyed every minute of it with tia Fafa and tio Juju. We are so blessed that they now live in Lancaster Gate, just opposite Kensington Gardens, and so we spent most of our outside time enjoying the Gardens and two fabulous playgrounds - one, called the "Diana Memorial Playground" which was so special - and free! Daniel loved chasing the birds and at one point (see photos below), was surrounded by them. Above all, it was wonderful to see Fafa and Juju so happy together (they recently celebrated 2 years of marriage) and Daniel was surrounded by love and attention from them and vovo Daddy, which made being away from Papai a lot easier.

Daniel adjusted to the 5 hour time difference imediately while it took me about 4 days. He has been wonderful with all the changes, what a blessing. We are so thankful for all we are experiencing, these are special days!

Will try to update on our time in Brussels soon!