Catching Up - Utah Trip

I just found a memory card that had pictures from a trip Asher and I took back in the beginning of February.  We flew out to Utah to visit my brother and his family before we left for Albania.  We had a great time!  I got to see tons of good friends and family, hear good news about babies on the way, Carlyn, and I got to eat at my favorite places one last time (Jamba juice, LBT Wraps, and Cafe Rio, though now there's one in Maryland!! I was a month too late!!! Not Fair!)


Asher's Flight to Utah


One highlight of my trip was going out to the car with Tara, on our way to run errands and finding the door iced shut.  After using brute force, Tara finally got it open - strong woman!  Unfortunately, we couldn't get it to close again - Oops!  But we had places to go, so the highlight is when Tara had to drive her car, holding the door shut with one had, and talking to Scott on the phone with the other, and somehow steering, maybe with her knee?  Don't worry, we were completely safe! :)  We made it to Scott's work and were able to change cars so we didn't have to hold the door closed on the highway, haha. 

Another highlight was learning all the names of Amy's My Little Ponies.  One morning, I was in their kitchen getting some food when I heard random words being yelled out by Tara and Amy, "Rainbow Dash, Scootaloo"  "Toola-Roola, Pinkie Pie" "Cheerilee, Sweetie Bell".  I thought maybe they had made up their own language :)  When I walked into the other room to see what was going on, I found them playing a My Little Pony matching game, and they were just calling out the names of the ponies as they flipped the cards over :) Suffice it to say, I learned all about My Little Ponies over the next few days, and loved it!

My final highlight must be shown in pictures and videos.  Let's just say we had a "bouncin'" good time :)

Here are some other stills of the fun time :)

And my all time favorite...

Good times, good times!  Thanks Tara and Scott for letting me hang out with you guys!

Videos

I've finally gone through some of the videos we have taken of Asher.  I know they are a little lengthy, but what can I say?  I didn't have the heart to make them any shorter :)  Enjoy!

Asher Updates

We've been taking lots of picture and videos of Asher.  Development updates for Asher:

One of his top teeth came in about three days ago, and the second one broke through yesterday.  Unfortunately, his sweet little nibbles are no longer sweet :)

While he is not crawling, he is awesome at the army crawl!  His major motivator for this is his BYU nerf football.  Sean is definitely a proud daddy after seeing that!

He is making his "D" sounds, and while Sean thinks he said his first word when screaming "dadadadadadada", I'm pretty sure it is not actually directed at his dad, so it doesn't count. :)

Here are some recent pictures of our awesome little man.  Oh, did I mention that he's done a complete 180?  He doesn't cry very much anymore, he's spitting up less, and everyone he meets says how is the happiest little boy ever, and what can I say - they all love him :)



He loves his/dads sports blanket - Thanks Heather!



Eating byrek, typical Albanian food
made from filo dough and feta cheese :)

 

Opening day at our community pool - Asher loved the water!



Dad and Asher chilling on a beautiful day



This is what happens when I leave Sean with Asher :)

 

Helping unpack!



He played til he dropped :)


Videos to come...

Mt. Dajti by Telefreiku

We had our first official excursion this weekend!  While we still haven't gotten our car yet, our friends the Bevans have!

Deciding to brave the streets of Albania the first full day of having their car, they invited us to go with them to the top of Mt. Dajti via Telefreiku, or cable car.  A couple years ago, the Albanians purchased the Telefreiku from the Austrians.  From what we heard, we were told to go sooner rather than later since the Albanians don't do upkeep as well as the Austrians :)

We had a great trip up, and at the top there were restaurants and horse back riding and four wheeling.  Now when I say horse back riding and four wheeling, you are probably imagining beautiful trails to explore and see the views of Tirana.  Well, you would be imagining wrong, haha.  There was basically an open field about the size of half a football field where you would ride the horse.  And the four wheeling?  Up and down the sidewalk when you and you children walked to see some of the sites....yeah, and they weren't going very slow either!  Albania is all about safety :) 

Oh!  And I can't forget to mention the dog, I mean dogs :)  We had walked up a path to what we thought was a old hotel turned museum.  there was a hill right before it with a pathway leading up.  Unfortunately, the path was closed off, and it wasn't anything we could go into.  As we were deciding what to do next a dog appeared up on the little hill.  I said something like, "Aww, the dog is protecting the house."  Then another dog popped up, and I said, "Look another one!"  And then about three or four more dogs appeared, and we are all like..."oh crap", as we turned around and booked it quickly back down the path :) haha.  Unfortunately, I didn't think to take pictures of these parts.  But we did get some pictures overlooking Tirana, though it was kinda a hazy day.

Anyway, it was a lot of fun, and Asher slept all the way down to the bottom and all the way home, so that was nice!

    

View of Tirana