Alright, I will finally accept that he's crawling

June 26, 2009

So, last week Noah was able to go 3 or 4 "steps" crawling. I admitted that I was impressed with the little guy, but would not accept that he was officially crawling until he could make it all the way across the room without stopping. On Friday, he exclaimed "Booyah!!" and commenced crawling across the office floor. That showed me..... In my attempt to corral Mr. Mobile, I placed him in the pack n' play surrounded by his favorite toys. Not long after sitting back down at my desk, I hear a little giggle. Which, now that I think about it, sounded more like, "ha, you can't stop me now!". I turn around and there he is, with his best Sir Edmund Hillary smile, standing in the pack n' play after succesfully climbing the side.

It is fun watching him, now, after weeks of discouragement at trying to crawl. But it is also a bit sad because it's just another reminder of how fast our little boy is growing.

Father's Day

June 21, 2009

My first Father's Day was very special. After some very impressive brainstorming, Rani found the perfect place for us to go. The Castle of Lenzburg! It was awesome. Not only was it a restored castle, but it was also a museum, showing artifacts from as early as the 13th century.

The family in the castle gardens

A view of the castle from town

A drawbridge!

The castle courtyard

The garden outside the ladies sitting room

Sleepy Noah

Rani and Sarah being corny.

The main kitchen set up like it was back in the 16th century

These things were really cool. It was called a stove and it was connected to the fire place in the kitchen to heat the room. It even had a seat on the left side to warm your bum, I guess.

Another fancy stove in the ladies sitting room

The museum was great with many things to keep kids interested

Noah trying on a helmet

Looking like Sir Lancelot. I don't know who had more fun playing dress up, Noah or the girls.

The Dungeon!! This tool was used for interrogations. I won't explain how......

The knights quarters with armor, swords, and other cool stuff.

They even had a crossbow

A super old fashioned elevator for goods and even people!

It is hard to see, but St. Bernards would run on the hamster wheel to make the elevator go up or down. Don't worry Aunt Carol, I think the dogs liked it.

Just sitting around.....

June 1-20

As you can see, we haven't done much since our trip to Portugal. Rani and I have been studying and Noah has been doing a lot of sitting around. Since the pictures of us are pretty boring, we decided just to share Noah's. Noah started sitting on his own around the first week of June and from that sitting position he has quickly progressed to the "downward dog" or his "almost"

crawling position.

Playing with a new toy

He loves to laugh at the ducks and birds

Helping Daddy cook

Another favorite, wrastling with Mr. Monkey. Mr. Monkey no longer takes advantage of the smaller Noah.


Noah started on solid food this month as well. Unfortunately, we missed taking pictures of his funny faces.

Lovin' the biscuits. Not the mess!!

He is already trying to feed himself....

Pretty happy after a his 2 tablespoons of cereal

I can't remember who was imitating who.

UPDATE! Noah took his new sounds to daycare the next day and really freaked them out when they thought he was choking!!

This was towards the begining of the month when Noah was figuring this crawling thing out. Fortunately, he soon tired of this method.

Portugal! Our first "family" vacation.....

May 18-24, 2009

With a couple holidays on Thursday and Friday, we decided to put together our first family vacation. We decided to spend most of the week in the South of Portugal in a popular beach town called Albufeira. With something like 300+ days of sunshine, we figured we couldn't go wrong.

Pretty excited for our first day of vacation.

The first thing Noah saw was the big palm tree in the yard. He could sit and watch it move and make noise in the wind forever (really like 5 mins., but it felt like forever). Normally, I wouldn't brag about learning something from our 5 month old, but in this case we quickly recognized how cool it was to have the opportunity to lay under a palm tree.

Wanting to EAT the beloved palm tree!

My kind of baby watching. An activity gym, a Portuguese beer, a few palm trees, and the Kindle.

Geared up for our first trip to the pool

He didn't know what to make of it at first. But soon learned it was more fun than the the bath.





In old town Albufeira

Nothing can beat grilled meats and a pitcher of Sangria. I think Noah agrees, at least about the meat.



Albufeira Beach




It was a good thing we didn't come for the ocean swimming, since my feet were numb by the time this picture was taken

So, someone had the great idea to put Noah in, instead. He thought it was pretty funny at first, but then started lifting his legs up to avoid the water.

He enjoyed sleeping under the umbrella much more

On Saturday, we headed to Lisbon. It was kind of fun because we did no research on the city before arriving. Just figured it out while we walked around (and after arriving home, thanks to Wikipedia). We got there just in time to see a Portuguese singing and dancing competition.

The main drag in the historical district. Notice the intricate brick road. All of the roads of this area were similar.

The Rua Augusta Arch. It is located on Rua Augusta, so that makes sense, but could not figure out what for. It seems it separates the commercial part of town from the old port. Recalling our 8th grade history, we remembered that Vasco Da Gama left from Lisbon on his journey around the tip of S. Africa to find the Indies. So, we found this a fitting spot to stop and give thanks to Mr. Da Gama for finding silk, spices, and other nice stuff.

We enjoyed a parade with much dancing and singing. We asked a street vendor what was the occasion and he replied, "Oh that, they do it all the time". We pretended it was the Annual African Heritage parade (sounds like Boulderdash?) and made it much more fun.

Every European city seems to have an area with bizarre seating arrangements. For example, St. Gallen with the rubberized benches growing out of the pavement or the 2000 year old pillars that fell down and nobody bothered to pick up in Rome. These lounges were on wheels and they all had trees growing out the back.


Noah had to see what all the fuss was about!

This was a first. A dog begging for change. It is hard to see, but it is holding his change cup in its mouth.

It worked, how can you resist

A local model posing in front of the river and next to a colorful tree

Oh oh, castle walls. You can't pass up a chance to explore a castle!

Up we climbed. Here we are waiting for Mom to catch up

Kurt's requirements for a cool castle: 1) Arrow slits, lots and lots of arrow slits 2) A moat, even if it is now dried up 3) Ramparts, you know to walk around on 4) A drawbridge 5) Towers, the more the better! So, 4 out of 5 isn't bad.


Now, those are arrow slits. The Castle of Sao Jorge sits on ground that fortified the first settlements in the 6th century B.C. It has seen many wars. Most notably, it was taken from the Muslim Moors in 1147 A.D. during the 2nd crusade.


Noah agrees, arrow slits are fun


He even found some his own size. (Couldn't quite figure out why?)


A family picture from atop the castle walls


A view of Lisbon from the castle. The Cristo Rei is on a hill in the background next to a bridge that looks like the Golden Gate Bridge (actually made by the same company).

A view of the Cristo Rei. It is quite dramatic looking down across the river onto Lisbon. The Cristo Rei was constructed soon after the famous statue of Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro.

Castle exploring tuckered Noah out. Doing the Sleepy Noah Box Step at the entrance

Although successful in putting him to sleep, getting around in Lisbon didn't help him stay that way

We had a great traditional Portuguese meal. The overtired Noah was all we needed for the evenings entertainment.

We have only seen him this way a couple of times. He laughed for 15 mins. straight. If you dared look at him he would crack up. And if you wouldn't look at him, he would get the attention of our fellow patrons and have them laughing. As you can imagine, he slept like a log

What's a blog without a silly video?