Yoga, Snow & A First Haircut

Here are a few random pictures of recent good times. Emilia has apparently appropriated her doll Gunther’s swimsuit (which is the old-fashioned 1920s full-body style). Although she can’t get the straps over her shoulders, she likes to take off her pants, put on what she can of the suit, and then show me her newest yoga poses (which she learns at school). Above she does her best Richard Simmons impersonation.

And here’s Emilia checking out the first snow of the season. She wasn’t too sure about the snow, but since this day wants to wear her rain boots no matter how suitable (or unsuitable) the occasion.

Lastly, here’s documentation of Emilia’s first haircut. We took her to one of those kids’ hair salons. It was kind of a crazy atmosphere, but Emilia was perfectly content the whole time, particularly since she got to enjoy a sucker during the actual hair cut. We just got her a trim (after all, some of that hair is two years old!), so you really can’t even tell she had it cut (we love those crazy curls too much to do anything more drastic!).

Happy Halloween from Little Bear!

Although this was officially Emilia’s second Halloween, it was the first one we really celebrated with her, and boy did she celebrate! She got several days’ use out of the “bear suit” we borrowed from a friend. Above she’s all suited up for some trick-or-treating, which she seemed to be an expert at. I wouldn’t be surprised if we find her ringing the neighbors’ doorbells for weeks and asking for a treat.

Above Emilia is dressed up and enjoying a small petting zoo at a Halloween-themed birthday party last week.

And here Little Bear is all bundled up for her first hayride at yet another Halloween party last weekend (surprisingly, the only one without nice weather). Below Emilia helps Yaya carve a pumpkin.

Flamenco Fun!

I couldn't help but post a photo of our little Spanish girl in her flamenco dress (a traditional Spanish dress). This was a gift from Agustín's brother and his wife (who would really like to have a little girl to dress up like this). The last time we tried this on Emilia over the summer it was still really big on her. Well, I came home from a morning of studying at the coffee shop last Saturday to find Agustín had spent the morning playing dress-up and photo shoot with Emilia because apparently she's almost grown out of the dress already. Just like her mom, she is not exactly the picture of grace and femininity. It doesn't help that Agustín put a onesie on under the dress, which you see peeking out the sleeves. Oh, and Emilia put the bracelet up on her bicep like that of her own accord. But she sure likes dresses and such much more than I did at that age, and handles heels better than I do even now.

Lots of Visitors & Fun

Wow! September just flew by and we’re already a week into October! The past few weeks have been extremely busy in our household. In addition to school and work responsibilities, we have been busy having fun as well. Three weekends ago we took advantage of a nice warm day to take a family hike at a local nature center to explore the outdoors together (see above and below). Emilia loved running around outside, but wasn’t so keen on her papa trying to show her a frog up close.

Then two weekends ago we had visitors from Madison—two former colleagues (and friends, of course) of mine and their families. I was so busy taking pictures of Emilia with her new friends Belle and Wesley that I forgot to take any photos of my colleagues and I. But the kids are cuter than us anyway.

This past weekend many interculturalist friends of mine were in town for a conference, and I enjoyed meeting up with several of them. We also had one of my closest college friends and her partner visiting us. We visited the Minneapolis sculpture garden and a local apple farm (Emilia loved eating the apples right off the trees--see below), and enjoyed a walk to the park and a sunny but crisp fall boat ride.

Emilia absolutely loved having all these visitors; she acts shy and innocent for the first minute or so around new people, but her true self soon shines through as she calls them all by name (or just “boy” in the case of my friend Kim’s spouse—apparently she doesn’t much care for the name Jason) and orders them to play with her. She kept telling Jason, “Boy make castle!” And make castle he did!

Fall Fun

Just a few quick photos of our fall evening fun in the backyard. Trying to enjoy this nice weather before we're forced into hibernation. And don't worry about the photo of Agustín "throwing" Emilia; all the necessary safety precautions are always taken (and the naked body flying through the air is Gunther, the well-worn, much-loved Cabbage Patch doll that was once mine and now hers, not another small child).

I turned in my written preliminary examination last week, which is a great relief. Yay!!! Now it's just classes, teaching, and on to the next hoop to jump through.

Agustín the futbol star and his biggest fan

Washington Visit

For my 30th birthday (which was at the end of June), my mom offered to take me on a trip. For numerous reasons, not the least of which because I was already leaving Agustín and Emilia for two-and-a-half weeks this summer, I chose to make it a long-weekend visit to my brother Devin in DC. I’d never been to DC, if you can believe it, so it was nice to see some of the iconic sights. And even more fun to see Devin and his girlfriend Noelle, and get a glimpse into their life on the east coast.

One of Devin’s jobs is as a bike tour guide, so he hooked us up with some free bike rentals, showed us around and shared lots of interesting tour guide lore. My favorite of the memorials was FDR’s (a bit off the beaten tourist track, but not far with bikes), shown in the photo above.

We were able to meet up with a friend of mine from the area, who I’d met earlier in the summer at SIIC. Above we’re all enjoying some music in the park before enjoying an amazing Asian-fusion dinner.
Here we are just before a morning of kayaking on the Potomac River.

August Update

Finally uploading the August photos and sitting down to write an update. I can’t believe I’m back to classes tomorrow and summer is officially over. Although I’ve spent a huge chunk of time since returning from SIIC in July writing my written preliminary examination (one of the many hoops you must jump through when pursuing a PhD), we also had plenty of time for fun. I think I’ll tell the story mostly through photos (and it will probably take more than one post).

Earlier this month we went to a kids luau hosted by the city. The photo above is of Emilia with a few of her buddies at the luau. Here’s another of our family on the same bench, and Emilia and papa playing in the grass.



Uncle Devin gave us this soccer (we—including Emilia—prefer the word ‘futbol’) net as a gift. It’s already been the source of much family fun. Thanks, Devin!

Babysitting Nelly (Yaya and Gampa’s dog). Emilia always wants to hug her; Nelly is not amused.

Ice cream at the pool. “Big pool, big pool!” Emilia always says.

“Big spoon, big spoon!” is another favorite phrase, as Emilia seems to think she’s outgrown the toddler spoons. I must admit though, she handles a full-sized spoon rather well for someone who is not yet two.

We all enjoyed watching the Olympics together in the evenings. Our favorites included swimming (“big pool, big pool!”) and gymnastics. Emilia loves jumping, and the first time she saw gymnastics, they were doing the floor routine, so I told her she was going to see jumpy girls. Well, “jumpy girl” is now one of her favorite games. She always wanted to see “big pool” or “jumpy girls.” We found her sport when one day diving came on and she yelled, “Big pool! Jumpy girls!”

Lastly, Agustín and I celebrated our sixth wedding anniversary this weekend. My parents took Emilia and we spent a whole day together, just the two of us. We didn’t do anything particularly extravagant, but it was very nice and rare for us to spend that much time together, alone without Emilia, and, perhaps more importantly, without trying to do anything more than just relax and enjoy each other’s company.

Now it’s back to school for me tomorrow. Where did the summer go?

That’s all for now, but I’ll post an update about my trip to Washington DC (to visit my brother Devin) soon.