One Year Older and Wiser Too!

 As  you probably know Violet turned ONE recently. I was going back and forth on whether or not to have a party but at last minute decided to have a mini celebration with our best friends! (At least, those who live near by).

 We did it in our backyard, a favorite place of Violet's because it includes her favorite pastime: gnawing on under ripe apples.

 The party was loosely "lamb" themed because a couple days before we saw some baby farm animals at the Pioneer Day fair and she was obsessed/only cared about the lamb. This is us with her lamb cake pops I made with the help of Aunt Adrienne.

 Violet and her Aunty 'Lis (my best friend from college, Alisa).

Aunts Bethany and Adrienne and Auntie 'Lis and cousin Porter-man.

 Cousin Michaelle and her gift to Violet (coincidentally a lamb!-I didn't tell anyone there would be a theme).

 We had Michaelle  re-give Violet her gift, for posterity's sake.

 Picture with her ma. I felt like I should be celebrated on her birthday too for all the hard work I did to get her here! Forget Mother's day!!

 Giving me a good ol' fashioned open-mouthed wet one. Hopefully she ditches that habit before she discovers boys.

 Another favorite pastime: sharing her food.

 On to opening presents!

 Violet is 1! As symbolized by her new bathtub foam letters and numbers.


At one year Violet is:
Walking (since just before her birthday)
Imitating our every move.
She loves to read, often she prefers to read to herself. Her favorite book is "What is Your Language?"
She says: Mom, Dad (dah!), Boo, Amen ("Nen), Bye (bah), Hi, Hey, Baby (kind of, sometimes)
She signs: More, All done, Thank you, Please, Milk
She gestures: blowing kisses, waving, Peek-a-boo (over her eyes..it's so cute), blowing on hot food (or any food, even if it isn't hot),folding her hands for prayers, and gives us lots of hugs and kisses
She likes to find our noses and honk them. She smiles as big as she can and shows all her (4) teeth when it's time to brush (then cries the whole time we brush them).
She LOVES her dad and can hardly bear her excitement when he comes home. She loves babies and loves to enjoy animals from afar.
She is so friendly and social and smiley and spends all day in intense, unintelligible conversation.
She's a gem! 

 She ended up getting lots of lamb-y things for her birthday. Hoorah!

 Porter helping (?) her with her new computer from Grandma

 The small gathering of favorite folks.

 Picture with  Grandma, also an honorary guest at said birthday bash.

 One of Violet's favorite foods is zucchini bread. So I made zucchini cake and chocolate cake for the pops and reserved a square of the zucchini cake for Violet, as well as a chocolate pop. Not quite a quintessential messy first birthday cake-but she did love it! (Also, that is our upstairs neighbor's collection on the patio..for the record).

 Happy Birthday Violet!

And, as a finale...I know this is blurry but Jonathan was throwing Michaelle so high in the air, and she loved it! Just thought I'd share!

La Segunda Semana

 Well, I am sorry I have lolly gagged on this report of our adventure. Truth be told, I already did this post and some how (despite me hitting "Save" 1 billion times) you guessed it...it didn't save. So I lost my steam for a while there. PLUS I had two straight weeks of none stop entertaining and hosting. Anyway, here it goes:


 Come Monday, Sam had to start the real reason he was there-to work, and Violet and I began our own little adventure of figuring out what to do in a foreign country where we don't speak the language or have our own transportation.


First thing on the agenda: swimming almost every day. Most days Violet was covered with sleeves and a hat when swimming, but here she is in one of the other variations (hat always followed though).

 

We also enjoyed getting to know our host family better. Sister Cornish has lots of children and grandchildren, so she welcomed the pitter patter of Violet in the house (and the cries and squeals and mess..). We played many games (most nights of the week), enjoyed enriching conversation, swimming and eating together. Violet especially loved the piano:

On Saturday the Cornishes took us to La Zona Colonial, which is essentially Old Town Santo Domingo..like super old town. In fact, the oldest town in the "New World." One of the things we visited was a 500+  year old fort...La Fortaleza Ozama, on the Ozama river. It had narrow steps and very thick walls. It's endurance over 5 centuries got Sam thinking about what materials we should use for our own house...

Some really narrow steps. I felt like I barely fit:

The walls were made of stone and coral, which you could see fragments of :

You can see the Ozama River behind us as well as some of the remaining lush foliage:

The barracks. It's pretty amazing to imagine this fort before industrialization. Just these two buildings surrounded by thick blankets of jungle and a commanding river. 

All throughout the fort were tiny slivers in the walls that, presumably, allowed the defenders to aim at targets without being vulnerable.

Violet giving us a lesson on defensive war tactics:

Our only picture in 6 weeks with the Cornishes. Poor Elder and Sister Cornish have to be in Sunday best, no matter how muggy and hot it is:

Violet setting off cannons. If I had known I was in the picture, I wouldn't have looked so cute:

The whole fort was surrounded by these super old cannons. It was pretty cool. Also, really scary if you were their enemy.

After going to the fort we headed into the busier part of the town. The "central park" kind of, town square perhaps. It was the start of a long calle of tourist shops. In the square though there were lots of locals, playing Dominican dominoes, just sitting around, approaching us (in English, Spanish and French) to ask if we needed help, or  yelling "Get out Americans!" (in Spanish). Like I've said before, to spare too much attention, I avoided taking pictures of everything. But it was a pretty cool square. The day was hot and HUMID, a good combo to knock any baby out:

In the square is the oldest cathedral in the western hemisphere (says Elder Cornish). The picture is kind of icky, but you can see that the gate says 1523.. that's cool! And old....We couldn't go inside though.

As you can see, we were tired and hot. We had also gone to Colombus' son's house (all basically redone, only some original stone)  and stopped in an open cathedral where there was some sort of service going on with Dominican military officers marching REALLY slowly  to REALLY loud music. Wish I could tell you more accurately what was going on. Sorry. Anyway, we shopped on the calle for a little while, but headed home before reaching the end of it. While shopping lots of people stopped to talked to Violet and ogle over her. A praiseworthy pastime, if I do say so myself.

La Primera Semana

Alright, here we go. Before we start though a little disclaimer: though this is with some regret, I didn't take very many pictures of our day to day experiences. Petty theft is a big issue in the DR and, if you couldn't already guess, I didn't exactly blend in. Quite the opposite. So,  didn't want to draw more attention to myself by looking touristy/more wealthy than I already look just by being white. So, hopefully you will still get a taste of our little adventure from the times I did take pictures. 

Alright now: Week One

After taking an over night flight from SLC to Atlanta then ATL to the DR, we arrived at the Las Americanas Airport in Santo Domingo on Thursday May 3rd in the early afternoon.

When we arrived at the airport it became immediately obvious to me how different we really were from the locals. We were basically the only white people in site, and this was the international airport. Anyway, it was so hot and sticky and we were sweating like crazy and exhausted-but we had arrived! 

After waiting probably 30 minutes, our ride arrived. He was the man with whom Sam would be spending most of his time over the next 5 weeks during his internship. We were relieved to see him.

Our 30 minute drive yielded scenes I had only heard of through stories. Trash everywhere. Tiny little shacks that I think people lived in. Insane driving--no regard for traffic laws. Men walked between cars that had only feet between them with their hands packed full of goods-mangoes, cashews, cell phone chargers, etc. They went window to window trying to sell their products-how they lived walking between the cars in that traffic was beyond me. But in contrast beautiful trees and plants and bright blue skies. It was a thrill to finally be there.

We stopped first at the local grocery store to exchange some money (39 Pesos to 1 American dollar), where I promptly had Sam and our new friend barter for some mangoes and other unidentified fruit from a vendor. My goals: eat tons of local fruit and go to the beach. I was on my way. 

We finally arrived "home" to a tower of gated and guarded apartments called Torre Conservatorio. The guard let us pass and we lugged all our luggage (emphasis on "lug") to our new residence on the 4th floor. We would be staying with Elder Cornish from the 2nd Quorum of the Seventy  in the LDS church (the church to which we belong).  We would be staying with him, his wife and their son Reid, we are so grateful to them.

Here was the view from our bedroom:

 As you can see there is the Santo Domingo LDS Temple and it's almost a literal rock's throw away, and a swimming pool. In the distance is the ocean and to the right is a park that used to be a zoo, but now people just go to exercise there.  Pretty nice view, right?

      Violet getting adjusted to her temporary sleeping conditions:

Our bedroom, we all shared one room. I loved the white curtains everywhere in the apartment over the big windows, letting in tons of light:

Sammy preparing some crisp rice in the only dining room we have yet to enjoy as a family (a note on "crisp rice" the rice that burns at the bottom of the pan is considered a delicacy of sort in the DR. It's served in restaurants as something to order from the menu and is highly sought after):

    Violet experimenting her music accompaniment for the Meringue (the national dance):

   Sam and I on the living room balcony at night, the temple behind us:

The view from the 14th floor where we had dinner twice a week with the lawyer Sam was working with. By the time we left, half of those trees had brilliant orange blossoms, it was beautiful. (The net was to keep their 4 year old from climbing over the balcony railing.) :

That Saturday we went to Boca Chica. No one swims in the ocean you can see from the apartment pictures, it's rocky and cliffy and dirty. We have to drive to get to any "swimmable" beaches. This was our first beach. I was excited for Sam to feel warm beach water. The thrill of not having to freeze to death adjusting to the water temperature, but just getting right in and enjoying.

  Violet "enjoying" sand and for the first time. You wouldn't guess it from here but, she wouldn't stop eating it:

                                            Caribbean Packards:

                              Kevin (the lawyer), Anna (his daughter), Violet and me:

Violet loved the beach, but like Sam thought this one was a little boring. It was shallow for probably a couple hundred yards with no waves. I was excited about a warm beach, but the really shallow water that we were sitting in was actually a little too warm, like bath water. But it was a beautiful fun day.

When we got there, a man helped us park and stayed and watched the car and kept it safe for a tip (everyone does odd jobs like that around the country for tips). He was so very kind and showed us his beautiful one year old son. The people are truly beautiful and wonderful, the best part of the country. I should've taken more pictures of them.

Alright, signing off for now. Hope this wasn't unbearably long. Hasta luego!

Proximamente....

As you may have heard, we recently embarked on a mini adventure to La República. If you are worried that you will never know the details (all 6 of you)... stay tuned! Once I get laundry done, baby tended and pinterest off of my screen... updates will materialize.

Until then, stay tuned y bienvenido a neustro viaje!

Mom School

   While visiting with a friend who has children ranging in ages from 4-30 we got on a discussion about motherhood. 

   I asked her if having 2 adult children and 3 children at home gave her an enlightened perspective on being a parent, or just made her tired because she's been at it for 30 years with no end in sight. 

   She told me that is has taught her the valuable lesson that kids really do grow up, and it happens so fast. If we don't love it now while it's happening, we will miss our chance.

She also said, teenagers aren't as bad as everyone says. 

As we were talking we came to the conclusion that in order to really enjoy each phase of our children's lives, we need to learn to give something up at each phase. If we can learn to give up something, it leaves space for us to enjoy what's happening instead. 

I'm still quite a young mother, with a pretty good baby. But I have learned to give up a few things a long the way: sleep, running "quick" errands, more sleep, dresses/tops that don't open or stretch at the top (courtesy of nursing), freedom with my schedule, easy days at the beach with my husband and the list goes on I'm sure.

But the latest sacrifice is my preoccupation with the notion that there must not be messes. Especially foody messes. As Violet is learning to eat, and frankly resisting any help along the way, I have to take a deep breath and remind myself that this is an exciting new phase. I have to give up my cleanliness ideals and make room for the joy of watching development happen right before my eyes. The joy of watching Violet learn and grow and discover a world that is totally new to her (i.e. using a spoon and drinking from a cup). Things we can't remember not doing, Violet has never done before. Amazing, right?

So, here are some pictures of Violet and I learning as we go (but really just of Violet):

Well, in this last one she is just chowing down on sand, nevertheless, a mess to which I must surrender!

In the end, the sacrifices could never equal the rewards. She is my best little pal and she totally trusts me. She forgives me seconds after I make her angry or sad or accidentally bump her head or smash her fingers. She watches everything we do and mimics us (the highest form of flattery you know...). She is so happy to see us in the mornings and loves to meet new people, but makes sure we are nearby, just in case. She carries on important babbling conversations with us and loves all the silly games we play with her. She wants to share with us. She wants to play with us and snuggle with us (if only for a few seconds-minutes at a time).

She is getting big. If I spend time worrying about her messes while she's still small, I will find myself with a grown girl who can clean up her own messes-and a lot of missed opportunities to enjoy how she got there.