before I forget...

The videos!  Wow…two posts in one night…don't get used to this :)  These are two videos of Reece on Christmas morning.

I bet you all thought we tipped over!

Whew!  Where on earth did the time go?  I promise you our little island of Guam is still upright and our (my) lack of blogging has nothing to do with what the crazy man from Georgia thought could happen to us.

So here we are…2012.  How did we get here so quickly??!!  Because I really don't have anything wild and exciting to share (shocking, I know), I'm just going to give some updates on what us crazy Kennedys have been up to.

Let's see…we'll start with China.  Hehehe…JUST KIDDING!  I know it only took me two months to finish that post, but rest assured, I am long done with it :)  Let's begin with Christmas!

We I put up our tree the first weekend of December.  I was quite excited this year to get the tree up since last year we canceled Christmas in our house.  Ok, I know Christmas has a deeper meaning than just a gift-giving holiday and you can't just "cancel" it, but while we recognize the day for what it is, we chose to treat it just like any other day, except we didn't have to go into work.  Folks, I had just arrived to Guam, was all messed up with the time change and hormones, didn't have time or care to shop, and we just had a quiet day at home with the Griswalds (my favorite Christmas movie).  So now you can understand why this year, I was PUMPED!  It was time to bring back all that spirit and then some.  Out came the ornaments and the tree, and to work I went.  I'm going to take this opportunity to explain to you that I did do all of this myself only because my husband was suffering relentlessly from massive pain in the butt. Literally.  He had a hemorrhoid.  It's ok to laugh…I did.  You would have thought he was gnawing his own arm off the way he behaved.  I just made sure he changed positions on the couch every now and then so he wouldn't end up with a skin decubitus as well.  I gave him all the love and support a wife can give a hemorrhoid husband, but by about day 3, I was ready to lance that thing off myself just to keep from hearing about it and get him UP!  So anyway, I decorated while he watched (I'm sure he was thankful for the hemorrhoid at this moment though).

No chimneys in Guam, so the stockings were hung on the wall by the tree…doesn't quite have the same ring to it, does it?!  As soon as the tree went up, it seems the gifts for Reece immediately started making an appearance.  Oh my word.  The presents this child received.  Unbelievable.  I was nervous putting wrapped packages under the tree out of concern Reece would try to open them.  I was adamant he wait until Christmas, since you know, 9 month olds totally understand days of the week and holidays and such.  But anyway, we didn't have to worry because at first, the child had zero interest in anything tree or present related.  He would look at the tree and touch it, but quickly lost interest.  Whew!

The week before Christmas, the marina on the Navy base hosted a 'Holiday Boat Parade.'  They asked those who owned boats to participate and to decorate their boats for Christmas to go on display during a boat parade.  The boat lover Carlos is, he was out there for almost 2 full days getting busy before the parade.  He did a great job with the decorations and was by far the best looking boat.  The pic in the daylight doesn't do it justice, but my photos at night (when the parade took place) were not that good.  We took friends with us, a bottle of wine, some beer, and a boat parade we had!

Back at home, it wasn't until gifts from my brother showed up that Reece became a force to be reckoned with when it came to trying to keep him from opening gifts early.  I don't know what it was about that candy cane paper, but the child was bound and determined to try and eat it. Now the simple solution would be to put the gifts in another room so he wouldn't be so curious, but see, that would've been too easy and I was being a good mother by trying to teach my 9 month old how to be patient with gift opening :)

Fast forward to Christmas morning, otherwise known as the day our living room blew up.  We rejoiced in the fact that we still had a baby…translation:  too young to know Christmas/Santa and therefore does not wake up at 4am to open gifts.  So we slept until Reece's norm (6:30), got up and did our normal routine with him and even put him down for his morning nap.  It wasn't until after his nap did we start opening gifts.  And by we, I mean me.  We took TONS of video footage of Reece NOT opening his gifts.  No interest whatsoever.  So I would open his presents for him, he would glance at whatever new toy came out of the box, then grab the remote control for the tv and begin his usual playing with the remote.  His first Christmas went exactly as how Carlos and I predicted it would be, which is why we only bought him a couple gifts (so many gifts came in for him that we weren't even going to get him anything, but because one day he might ask us what we bought him for his first Christmas…because I'm sure he'll ask (sarcasm), we had to get him something!)  By the time all the gift opening was done, I was the one who needed the nap!

Reece loves his Leap Frog table…no unwrapping required.  We had it set up and ready to go

Enjoying the pile of presents

Greeting his new Pooh Bear!

The poor child's pj pants were a bit big, so he had a baby gangsta' sag going on

I have a couple of videos to post as well, but I'm going to attach those in a separate blog.

So after present opening, Reece ate lunch and went down for another nap while we cleaned up before heading out the door to Christmas dinner at our friends house.  Unfortunately, this is also where my camera decided to go crazy and I was only able to get one pic of Reece with me on Christmas.  None of the pics with Carlos turned out and none were taken of the 3 of us together with our tree (sad face).  Side note, I have since bought a new camera and it is awesome!

 

The following week we rang in the New Year very low key.  Carlos had gone out fishing during the day and caught many, many mahi mahi fish so by the time he got home, we ordered take out (Reece was already asleep), watched a movie and went to bed.  There isn't much to stay awake until midnight for here in Guam!  I rang in New Years day with a stomach bug that pretty much put me down from the afternoon through the next day.  It was awful, but always wanting to look on the bright side of things, it was the fastest holiday cookie weight loss ever! :)

Now that all the holiday hoopla has died down and things are back to normal at work, we have set our sights on what 2012 will bring.  Reece will be turning 1 in March (seriously…2 months away…my word) so I've been working out some party planning details.  We are in the early stages of planning a trip to Australia in April.  Carlos will be taking Part 2 of his ortho boards in July so this means a trip back to the states for him.  We are hoping to end 2012 with a trip to New Zealand in early December.  Other than our travels, we'll see what else our last full year in Guam has in store for us!

A Few Recent Pics of Super Reece

Reece being forced to pose for potential Christmas card photos (note, this is not the one I used)

First Thanksgiving!

His first taste of REAL turkey, straight off the bird.  None of that baby puree turkey!

He liked it, but was quite the serious eater!

Another Thanksgiving celebration…this one was pool-side!  Carlos stole Reece's hat.  I think he looks like Mr. Magoo

My happy little turkey

I took this to show genetics are a funny thing.  The child sits like me!  My feet are hardly ever planted on the floor when I'm siting on a chair (exception is when I'm somewhere nice in public of course!)  But at work or home…oh forget about sitting properly!

Reece has new wheels!  Thanks Yai Yai!

Taking in the tree for the first time.  Notice the bottom of the tree is not decorated :)

This would've been so cute had Reece not turned out blurry.  I need to become a better photographer

My dare--devil.  Across the couch, over the pillow, and hanging over the edge so that he can pull the coasters toward him.  And what do I do?  Take his picture :)

Reece built a gingerbread house at school!  Well, his teacher and I built the house while Reece snacked on a graham cracker and watched.  He offered very little help, but sure did enjoy his cracker!

Beijing and Back Part 3…and the END!

In the interest of wrapping up this drawn out saga (because now I need closure and have to finish blogging about the trip), I vow to end this 1+ months of posting about our China trip.  If not for all of you, I'm doing this for myself as well.  I need to move on with my life and not have this hanging over me :)

I'm not even sure what I remember at this point, so I'm going to try and keep the next two days of our trip somewhat brief (yes, for all you non-believers out there, I can be brief).

Saturday morning we woke and hurried downstairs to grab a quick, and hopefully filling, breakfast before we headed out to the Wall.  We were going to need our energy!

The journey out to the Wall (at least the part we were headed to) was about a 1-1.5 hours drive.  On the way out, we stopped first at the jade factory where they had the most amazing sculptures made/carved completely out of jade.  The details were amazing.

This doesn't look that impressive in the pic, but this was an entire village scene completed over 3 years of carving

the artist did even the tiniest of details in every bit.  This is a closeup of one  of the miniature temples carved in the sculpture

Anyway, after shopping around for a bit, we were off and heading to the Great Wall.  We had one small near death experience while on our way.  As I previously mentioned, people drive like maniacs in Beijing.  This time was no exception when in the smaller laned rural area we were in, a car thought it would be wise to pass a bus by driving into our lane almost causing a head on collision with our van.  Fortunately, we had a very experienced driver and he was able to avoid the car, the bus, and even the random things on the side of the road.  I'd like to tell you how he did it, but I just had my hand on Reece in his car seat and my eyes closed.  I thought it was over for all of us.

When we got to the Wall, we were told "go left to the more difficult climb, go right for an easier climb."  So what does my husband say?  "We are going left!"  Mind you, this is a man who does pretty much zero physical activity.  He thinks because he looks in shape that he is in shape, but it's all a ruse.  I kindly reminded him that he was going to be the one carrying the baby in the carrier while doing the climb, but he wasn't going to let that stop him.  I just made sure to have my camera because I knew how this was going to go down :)  I'll stop here to take a minute to tell you that it was simply amazing to be out in this mountainous area of China and seeing such history before us.  We could look all around and see different parts of the Great Wall and see just how far it keeps going.  If we had come to China and only saw/stood on/climbed the Great Wall, it still would've been totally worth it.  The other stuff was just bonus, but this, this was why we were here.  As we began our climb, my husband received cheers from various folks along the way for  climbing with the baby.  One Chinese man said "with baby?  Go Go Go!"  I think Carlos needed this cheering squad because I could tell early on he was wondering what he got himself into.  Funny thing about the Wall.  They must not have believed in symmetry back then because one step up would be about 12 inches and the next 4 inches.  It was interesting, but just had to be that much more careful.  We stopped periodically so that we could take pictures…and so Carlos could rest, although he would never ask to rest, so I just threw him the occasional bone and said "wait I want to get pictures."  I knew he was hurting :)  Carrying Reece up this VERY STEEP wall was climbing with an extra 16 pounds!  I'm glad I wasn't doing it!

We set our destination point in our sights very early and vowed we would make it.  So we climbed and we climbed and we climbed (and paused for pics).  Reece slept on the way up of course :)

When we got to our goal, we stayed at the tower for a good while just soaking it all in.  Absolutely stunning…

Let the fun begin!

Our destination is that tower way at the top

 One of those unstated breaks

 Amazing

 Giving the quads a rest

 we made it!

 the view from up here

 Family photo op on the Great Wall

 Reece's paparazzi.  These folks were amazed by Reece and kept wanting his picture, so I decided to take a picture of them so they knew what it felt like

 What goes up, must come down…slowly! :)

VERY STEEP!

After we got back down, we rewarded ourselves as any good American would…with ice cream!  We loaded up back into the van and off we went to the Ming Tombs.  In between destinations, we stopped to have lunch and all I can say is WOW.  It was a feast and the food was sooooo good!  We also got a tour of the copper making that goes on in China.  It's a very detailed trade!

The Ming Tombs were interesting, but I think at this point of the day since we were all so tired, we were a bit "templed" out.  We walked around, learned about the history, but weren't exactly our excited selves at this stop.

We rounded out our Saturday with a stop at a tea shop where we learned Chinese tea drinking customs and tasted a variety of Chinese teas.  I'll be honest when I say that I am not a tea drinker.  I have tried tea every which way you can imagine.  I want to like tea since I know it is good for me, however, I do not.  So as you can imagine, for a non-tea drinker this stop was not exactly that exciting.  Not wanting to offend anyone though, I participated in this tea drinking party that went on.  I held my cup correctly, made the appropriate Chinese tea drinking noises (yes, there are noises), and to my surprise, I actually liked the taste of what was in my mouth!  So we kept moving along until we had tried the 5 traditional teas and I really did enjoy all of them.  I realized it must be just how pure the tea was and not how we try to make it comparable in the states.  While it was good, I still won't become a tea drinker.  A little taste was good, a cup would probably be too much for me to handle!

Tea drinking

Reece making friends at the tea house

Off to bed we went after another long/late day!  One more day to go!

I can keep Sunday brief since there wasn't much activity.  Sunday morning we had free so Carlos and I put Reece in his stroller and just went for a walk around the area of our hotel.  There were some interesting sights to be seen just being immersed in the local culture.

Playground near the hotel…interesting...

Too many cars, no place to park, so why not park on the sidewalk?  This was rather annoying.

A very popular mode of transportation in China.  Bicycles everywhere!

and they haul EVERYTHING on these bicycles!

a lot of housing area of Beijing don't have private bathrooms, but rather share a bathroom located somewhere in the neighborhood

After we returned from our leisurely stroll, we loaded up and went out to the Summer Palace.  The Summer Palace was the "vacation home" so to say of the "Dragon Lady" otherwise known as the Empress.  I guess you could say it was her personal resort.  The Summer Palace covered a large space of land surrounded by Kunming Lake.  

Again, the details are just unbelievable

 Close up

very peaceful place

 Dragon boats on Kunming Lake

Marble boat with stained glass windows

To sum up our trip, we had a phenomenal time.  Before Guam, I never would've thought I'd travel to China.  Being able to take advantage of trips like this is probably the best perk of being in Guam.  I loved seeing the Chinese culture, and their mega-city of Beijing.  I loved the fusion between old China and the modern China.

On the morning of our departure, I took a few last photos…

Working hard at packing.  We'll worry about the missing sock later

He is so proud of himself :)

Our tour guide Lily had a hard time saying goodbye to Reece.  She just loved spending time with him!

And of course, at the Beijing airport I had to get my Starbucks since we are deprived in Guam!  I'm not ashamed to admit I went twice in the 4 hours we waited for our plane.  But this was out of stupidity on my part.  The first time I ordered my beverage of choice I said to the lady "tall, skim caramel macchiato."  Then as she was making it, I realized I said "tall."  Really??  No 'Bucks in a year and I ordered the smallest size?  What was wrong with me?  So that's why I went back.  To make up for what another year of no 'Bucks is going to do to me :)

So now that I've reached the end and we all returned safely (I'm going to spare you the details of the flight home.  It was uneventful for the most part.  Reece slept, but only if I was holding him, but he slept and that's all that matters) I want to share with you how I/we survived this trip.  There are a few products that made our lives sooooooooooooo much easier during our time in China since we were go-go-go all day, every day (disclaimer:  I am not being paid to endorse these products, although if the companies would like to pay me, I wouldn't complain).

The first was Plum Organics Baby Food.  The baby food is in these squeeze pouches instead of glass baby jars.  MUCH easier for travel and disposal and less mess!  Less mess because the next product, the Boon Spoon, goes with the Plum Organics food by twisting off the cap to the pouch and attaching these plastic spoons onto the end of the squeeze pouch creating this awesome closed feeding system.  Just squeeze the pouch and the food squirts onto the spoon via the neck of the spoon.  Insert the spoon in the baby's mouth and voila!  No jars to scrape, no spillage…totally awesome.  And they come in a convenient pack of two (which is what we needed during our days so we didn't repeat a dirty spoon) and they have a travel case to keep things even cleaner!  Genius!  

The last product that saved us…more on the grand scheme of not having gross, messy laundry to pack…were the Bibsters disposable bibs.  Since sad to say most of Reece's solid feedings occurred while we were in route from one place to the next and he was in his car seat, these Bibsters kept his clothes nice and clean.  They cover quite the surface area!  And when we were all done feeding him, off came the bib and tossed into the next available trash can.  No dried food/crusty/nasty bibs to take back to the hotel and pack in our suitcases to take home and wash.  

Aaaaaahhhh…it's amazing how simple products can make life so good.  When it comes to the babies, it's the easy things that matter!

So there you have it, China all wrapped up in 1+ months :)  This means if I ever travel again (which we will), I probably shouldn't start blogging about it or I may never finish.  Hope you enjoyed and for any of you traveling in the future with babies…see my recs above for a hassle-free time!