Celebrating Life

It's hard to believe that two years ago Olivia was making her grand entrance into the world (Olivia's arrival) and we were a little overwhelmed by the fact that we had entered the realm of parenthood.  She is certainly no longer a baby and very much a toddler now.  Every day she reminds us of just how big she is getting. (Especially when I have to pick her up and hold her!)  Back on the 7th, we celebrated Olivia!  We didn't throw a big party like last year.  Instead we had a really sweet day together with just the three of us.

The day started with Olivia waking up to her bedroom floor covered in balloons.  Geoff and I had blown up a bunch of balloons the night before and filled her floor while she slept.  I don't think she noticed the balloons when she first woke up (it was still dark in her room) but later she discovered them and we had a fun morning playing with the balloons.

Next up, we had lunch at Chick-fil-a.  This is currently Olivia's favorite restaurant (she gets excited anytime she sees the Chick-fil-a logo), which is probably the fault of her parents eating there more than they should.

During the afternoon, Olivia helped me bake her birthday cake and then later in the evening, she opened her birthday presents.  It's fun to see her get more excited to open gifts every time she has the opportunity.  She had trouble waiting until she got the OK to open her gifts and loved pulling off the paper.  When it came to cake time, she successfully blew out one candle but then needed Daddy's help on the second.

Few two year stats and facts:

• Height: 36 inches (95% percentile)
• Weight: 27-28 lbs (55% percentile), so basically tall and skinny like her mama
• Loves Elmo, Cookie Monster and Barney
• Accomplished navigating on the ipad/iphone to YouTube and her apps
• Has her particulars: doesn't like Mommy's hair being in a ponytail (points at my hair and angrily yells "out!"), must have her dinner plates facing a certain direction and only wears certain pajamas
• Is a great little helper, especially in the kitchen.  She loves to help mix and stir whatever I'm making
• She's an early bird (not sure where she inherited this trait from), getting up most mornings between 5:45-6:30.  I don't think she's slept past 7:00 since she was an infant.  
• She is initially shy around new people but quickly warms up to them
• Loves going to her class at church, but equally loves seeing Mommy and Daddy when we come to pick her up.
• Her vocabulary continues to grow.  Last week she surprised us by saying "cheese" when we held up a camera.  She's also added in a couple more spanish words: mas for more and pan for bread
• She is very ticklish on her neck and loves to be tickled there

Lastly, we have another life we are celebrating as baby #2 is on the way, scheduled to arrive around February 26.  Last week we found we will be adding another daughter into the mix.  We are excited for Olivia to get a sister!  So far my pregnancy has been easy breezy for which I am so, so grateful for.  I haven't been sick; not even the slightest bit nausea.  My energy levels have been good although keeping up with a toddler on top of being pregnant makes me ready to go to bed by 9:30 every night!  Anyways, we can't wait to meet her in a few more months!

Colorado

Last month we got nice little break from the heat and humidity of Texas as we spent a few days up in the mountains of Colorado vacationing with Geoff's family.  Geoff, Olivia and I hoped on a plane to Durango and from Durango we drove another 3-4 hours to a small town in southern Colorado called Lake City.  As expected, it was beautiful there.

Braving the cold water on her toes

The primary reason for trip, other than to spend time with family, was for the adults (minus Mama Glory who watched the girls) to climb Umcompaghre Peak, elevation 14,309 ft, the 6th highest peak in Colorado.  All of the others were seasoned climbers of "14ers", but this was my first one to climb.  It was quite the experience!  It total, up the mountain and back down, we hiked 11.75 miles in seven hours and covered 8,000 feet in total elevation change.  The weather was beautiful and perfect for climbing, although we did encounter a brief little hail storm on our descent.  Hail beats rain though because you don't really get wet...just pelted in the ear.

At the trailhead when everyone looks fresh and ready to go!

Geoff with our destination in the background.  This was around 12,000 ft where the tree line ended.

This picture below shows probably the steepest part of the climb where you had to use your hands to steady yourself as you went up the area on the right.  

Views from the summit were amazing everywhere you looked.  We took a nice break up there and enjoyed our lunches before heading back down.

The Streit family of three...with baby #2 at 14 weeks.  Much more on that to come in a future post.

I think the hike down might have been worse than the climb up because tired legs and sore feet were setting in. Our car was definitely a welcome sight to see.

The cousins had much fun playing together.  They LOVED playing Ring-Around-a-Roise.  They would do it over and over and over and over again.  We hit up a little park in Lake City a couple times to help them burn off some energy.  As the oldest, Avalon was definitely the leader of the group and it was fun to watch the little girls try to keep up with her and do what she was doing.

Since the girls all have birthdays all within about two weeks of each other in late August-early September, we went out for ice cream to celebrate.  Olivia does not get ice cream, or sweets in general, very often so she was thrilled.

Avalon thoroughly enjoying her ice cream! Olivia keep pointing at Avalon and then pointing at her own face, a little confused by Avalon's Hitler style ice cream mustache.

We got to see plenty of wildlife while we were there.  We saw numerous deer, including around 6 bucks with huge antlers right in the front yard.  We also saw four black bears.  One little cub was just chillin' in a tree in town and then the morning we left, we saw a mama bear and her two cubs in the front yard of the cabin.

Lastly, our trip back to Durango to catch our flight back to Houston was not without some excitement.  First off, we left Lake City a little later than we had planned, but Geoff wasn't worried because he doesn't have a problem driving fast when necessary.  Plus, he had found a small short cut that would save us a little time.  Well, the first problem we had was when the road we were taking as a short cut was temporarily closed due to a hot air balloon festival.  It was cool to see the balloons, but required us to backtrack and we lost time.

Then Olivia started making spitting noises and next thing I know, she's throwing up all over herself and her car seat.  We pulled over and got her cleaned up using dirty clothes from our suitcases (it's not like we were prepared with towels for such occasion) and got her changed.  We got back on the road and 30-45 minutes later, she again throws up whenever else is left in her stomach.  She didn't act too upset about it, other than being covered in puke, and didn't seem to be in any pain so we think she probably got a little carsick going over the mountain passes with all their turns while looking at her books.  We finally arrived at the airport check-in counter for our 12:00 flight at 11:25.  Fortunately for us, Durango is a small enough airport that you have up until 30 minutes before your flight to check in, so we just barely made it.  The rest of the trip home was uneventful (Thank you, Lord!) and Olivia did great on the plane.

Olivia & Bear

Olivia has a good friend.  His name is Bear.  Bear is a relatively new friend of Olivia's but Bear is not new to the Streit family.  Bear, previously known as Fuzzy Bear back in his prime when he was fuzzy, was born 32+ years ago when he was given to Geoff on his first birthday. While Bear has aged significantly in the last 32 years and doesn't look so great anymore, he hasn't lost his touch on how to be a great friend.  Geoff's mom recently shared with me that every summer when Geoff would come home from college, she would ask him if it was ok for her to throw Fuzzy Bear away given his life expectancy was well past.  Every summer, he would decline the offer saying it wasn't time yet.  I guess he must have known deep down or something that Fuzzy Bear would someday be a friend to his future daughter.

Olivia has really grown close to Bear in the last couple months.  It's been enjoyable and funny for us to watch her begin to treat him as a family member and be a little mommy to him.  Here are a few of the things that she likes to do with him:

• Give him hugs and eskimo kisses
• Put clothes or diapers on him
• Share her food or drink
• Make sure he gets his pretend fingernails/toenails clipped when she gets hers clipped
• Snuggle with him in bed
• Include him when we read books
• Take him on rides in her little shopping cart
• Buckle him into her highchair
• Do his hair (not that he has any left at this point)

London bound

2012 has certainly been an eventful year so far with big changes coming in the near future for our family.  Since Geoff and I got married nine years ago, there haven't been a lot of changes to our lives.  We have work at the same jobs.  We lived in an apartment for our first year of marriage and then bought our first house in 2004 and haven't moved since.  We've been at the same church all nine years with many of the same friends.  Yeah ok, we did have a kid two years ago and that certainly changed our lives, but everything else around us was constant.  Well, that is ALL changing.

Back in May, Geoff was approached by his boss regarding a potential two year assignment in his company's London office.  The timing was certainly interesting.  We had just put an offer down on a house that we planned to tear down so that we could build our dream home.  The day before he was approached, I had received a job offer with a different company that I planned to accept.  Despite that, we were definitely interested in the opportunity for adventure and told his boss as much.  With Geoff working in the oil and gas industry and for future advancement for him at the company, we've always known there was a possibility for us to move abroad.  All in all, the timing made sense for us to do this now since Olivia isn't in school yet.  Plus, London seemed like a fairly easy place to transition to as apposed to somewhere else in maybe the middle East or Asia.  Geoff received the official word in mid July that his transfer had been approved and we should get moved over there as soon as possible.  Now we're just a couple weeks away from the big move!

Geoff and I went over to London for a few days several weeks ago to look for a house to lease. (Thank you Momma Glory, Granddad and Grandma for watching Olivia for a few days!)  It a very hectic couple days for us.  We met up with a relocation/real estate agent and she took us to 12 houses the first day.  The second day, we went to more 8 houses in the morning and then we returned back to 3 from the first day that we wanted a second look at in the afternoon. I felt like we were on the tv show House Hunters!  We would leave each house commenting on what we liked and what things about the house didn't measure up to our defined criteria. Homes there are definitely different than what we are accustomed to here in Houston.  All the buildings were old and most had limited storage and tiny kitchens.  However, we did find one in the part of town that we want to be in with five bedrooms and an abundance of closets and storage space.  So if you're interested in making a trip to London for a visit in the next couple years...we'll have a place for you to stay!

The picture below isn't the home we will be leasing, but I thought the homes were really pretty.  I love all the old architecture and history in London and can't wait to explore the city when we get there.

Fortunately, Geoff and I also had a day and a couple evenings to do a little sightseeing while we were there.

Tower of London and Tower Bridge

We wanted to take a tour of Buckingham Palace but they had already sold out of tickets for the day by the time we got there so instead we wandered around it and then wandered around the streets of London.

Buckingham Palace

The Olympics had just ended but signs of the Games were still all around town.

We happened to walk by some building (we weren't sure what it was) but it had guards stationed outside.  At the time we walked by, it happened to be the changing of the guards time so we got to see their changing ceremony which was pretty cool.

Coach taxi, anyone?

Big Ben

As typically tourists, we went and rode the London Eye, this massive ferris wheel.  It was very crowed with tourists and the typical tourist trap shops and people trying to get your money.  We probably won't do it again while we're there, but it did provide beautiful views of the city and the Thames River during the 30 minute ride and I'm glad we can say we did it.

Not to worry...there will be plenty more pictures of London (and hopefully the rest of Europe) to come in the next couple years.  Cheers!