We are! Penn State!

Tovina showed her true colors today as we watched the Penn State bowl game.
Early on it was a real nail biter.
But Penn State pulled ahead and Tovina cheered for every touchdown!
Yup, she is definitely a fan from head to ...
She even learned the importance of all the activities that go along with watching a college bowl game. (note: this is a local Hawaiian brew)

Swam in the Ocean

Well, maybe swam is a bit of an overstatement, but Tovina definitely got in the ocean today. She was not sure what she thought of it. I thought she might find it too cold, but when she did complain - which was really not that much - her complaints mostly centered on the fact that I had allowed some gap between her body and mine which was completely unacceptable. Other than that, the ocean spray, the startling water, the wind, and the immediately soaked diaper did not really seem to bother her. In fact, it was hard to tell if she noticed that we were even in the ocean.
I thought she handled herself quite well and plan to continue the experiment tomorrow.

From the condo

We are lucky enough to be staying right on the ocean. Just outside are lava rocks (from old eruptions they say) with lots of critters. So far we have noticed these crabs
and these... uh.. no idea what these are actually. Anyone else have an idea? We thought they might be barnacles but that does not seem to be right.

In other news, Tovina finds the beach exhuasting
And sometimes really upsetting. Actually, this was because her mommy refused help her go to sleep. Bad mommy.

Safe travels

We made it and are now safely on the ground in Hawaii! I have also learned that one way to get your very own private bed is to weigh under 24 lbs. Here are some shots of Tovina sleeping in her Japan Airline supplied bassinet. Apparently it was quite comfy.

I'm going where?

Having been home for all of 10 days now, me and Tovina are heading to Hawaii - weee!
Unfortunately, daddy can't come with us -sigh :(

The best little Santa

We joined some friends in town for dinner tonight. In addition to the secret santa gifts we also brought one little elf.

Safety First

Tovina and I stopped by the construction site last week to say hi to folks. As you can see here - Tovina was very careful to follow all the safely rules before walking the site.

The furniture has arrived!

A couple of months ago we ordered up some furniture designed by Michael. It was just delivered today and wow are we excited!

Here is the buffet table
and the coffee table with these cool outward-rotating drawers.



This is the kitchen table. They brought the stand in first and then just laid the top.... well.. on top. It is still very stable though. And we tested it out tonight and food stays on it really well.

There are 3 end tables. Here is the one with an aleph (there is also a bet and gimel but they are not featured here.)

And lastly, here is our Active Susan! The furniture store called it a mahjong table, but we like our name much better. It started when we tried to get a lazy-susan for the dining table. And it is also in honor of a good friend of ours who inspired us to get some Chinese art for our home.

Making new friends

When we were in Shanghai, Tovina and I would walk past a park where people were doing their morning t'ai chi. Since we were usually walking past at 8am, it was just as one group was finishing. So here is what would happen: Tovina and I would be waiting at the crosswalk to cross to the park and at the other side would be a group of energized older ladieswho couldn’t help but notice this little person staring over at them. While I was waiting for the light to change, these lovely women who make their way across the street and congregate around Tovina – who was strapped into the front carrier. Every day the size of the group increased. On Saturday there were over 10 and they kept calling more friends over.

Unfortunately I understood practically nothing they say. After much repetition, there have been a few things that came through, mostly questions. Here is what they wanted to know:

She is 4 months old
She is a girl
She is mine
I am 32
We are Americans
She will be coming by tomorrow
She looks like Michael
I feed her breast milk

I learned to keep Tovina’s hands trapped with the little fold over flaps on her outdoor jumper, otherwise they admonished me about how cold her hands are. One day I had her in a little sweater under her outerwear. The top of the sweater was visible where the blue outdoor jumper was not quite zipped up all the way. The ladies were concerned that I had not buttoned the sweater up all the way so I woman took off her gloves so she could do up the very top button of the sweater which was right under Tovina’s little chin. I had left it undone because I could not convince Tovina to lift her chin enough for me to get it. Clearly these ladies had more skill, or at least determination, that I did.

They held us up through at least 3 turns of the cross walk light.

Studying hard

Tovina was a big hit with the class in Shanghai. Here she is at the Saturday night dinner.

You may notice that you are not seeing me in any of these photos - that was because I was actually eating my meal!