Jumping and Moonwalking

Now that Asher has mastered walking, he has decided to try his hand at jumping, which is hilarious to watch, and also moonwalking! (sure it's just walking backwards, but still it has a moonwalking feel to it :) )

In other news, it looks like we will be back to the States sooner than we had anticipated.  Sean's brother Ryan will be getting married in Utah at the end of December, so Target here I come!!! Too bad we will be missing Black Friday!

Things are great here.  Asher is just the happiest little boy who give us so much to smile and laugh about.  All the rest of the families moved into the neighborhood, and everyone is very friendly.  I think it's about 50% American spouses and 50% foreign born spouses, so we are learning a lot about other cultures as well as Albanian culture.  I think it will be a great two years. 

We finally are getting things going in Church, and now have a better functioning primary, as well as nursery.  Fortunately for us, the age for nursery was lowered to 10 months old ;)  Sure we have no air conditioning in the room, but hey, fans work just as well....yeah, not so much.  Just a few more weeks, and we should be out of the hot summer temperatures.  I will take pictures of our building on Sunday and have a post all about it.

The First Steps of Many

Asher took his first steps a couple of Saturdays ago.  It was witnessed by a group of our friends during a "Rock Band" party we had at our place.  10 months old and already taking his first steps!  Not that we were surprised at all due to his always-on-the-go personality :)  In the past few days he has been taking a couple steps here and there, but all were towards me with mom right there to steady him if needed.  It was today though, that it seemed to have finally clicked and Asher really started trying out those strong legs of his!

Here is a video of him walking :)  Previous to this, he hand only taken 4-5 steps at the most, walking only a couple of feet.  You can imagine how surprised and thrilled we were when this happened!

Ignore the mismatched outfit, it was one of those days where you just needed something clean to put on the poor boy :)  I'm thrilled that he is starting to walk on his own, though after he took a tumble and bumped his head on the coffee table, I think it's time we rearrange things, or at least remove some furniture for awhile!  Also, I can't wait until the baby proofing supplies come in the mail.  He loves opening cabinets!

Time for another Asher update!

With Asher's 1st birthday just a month away - crazy!! - I realized we need to do another post with some recent pictures.  For his last Dr. appointment (at 10 months), he weighed in at 23.5 lbs and was 30.5 inches tall.  I believe these were both somewhere in the 90% range.  Two Saturdays ago, Asher took his first steps - yay!!  I'm looking forward to the day when he can walk all by himself!  While he hasn't consistently used his "dadadadada" to refer to Sean, he's getting there!  Sean and I, on separate occasions, thought we heard him say "dog" and I might have heard a "book" come out of him once  :)  Oh how he loves his books!!  While he doesn't say specific things, he is very vocal, as seen in the video below...

He continues to exude energy and has started getting into cabinets, much to our dismay :)  When this stated happening, I went online and ordered lots of baby proofing cabinet, drawer and refrigerator locks (yes, he is already attempting to open the fridge).  I'm hoping they get here soon, because he's a fast one!



Caught red handed!

       

This has become one of his most favorite cabinets to play in, and mom's favorite distraction for him!

He's also started opening the front door...time to start locking the top lock!



Leaving church one Sunday, a little primary aged girl came up and
handed me this drawing of Asher, or "Ashel" as she has written. 
I thought it was pretty good - she got the curly hair, turned collar and everything!



Hey, that's me!



 

Asher makes the best faces ever!

     

Don't bother me, I have emails to check, meetings to schedule and parties to plan. 

Dad, please make sure you schedule me for lunch.

Um, I said now, dad. Sheesh!

Asher has been walking a lot, with the help of anyone who will hold his hand, or his little walker.  He loves walking!

 Well, that's all you get at the moment.  I'll have more when he turns 1!

Beautiful Albania

This past weekend, we decided to do a day trip up to Shkoder, a city about 2 hours north of Tirana.  The principal attractions in Shkoder were the Venetian Mask Factory and the Rozafa Castle.  We visited them both and really enjoyed the trip!


City of Shkoder

The owner of the Venetian Mask Factory is apparently pretty famous for what he does.  He has several shops in Venice and one in the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas where he sells the masks that he makes at his factory here.  Fortunately, for us, they are cheapest here, hot off the factory floor!  We went to Shkoder with some friends, and Sean and our friend Tom bet on which wife would spend the most money at the mask factory.  While all the masks were beautiful, I didn't end up buying one at the time, so Sean lost, but won in the end since we didn't spend any money...yet. haha.  I had seen one that my friend had purchased, and I fell in love with it, so I'm holding out until he makes one like it again.  Once that happens, I will be spending some serious money, it just wasn't this weekend. :)

Rozafa Castle was pretty cool.  A lot bigger than some of the other castle ruins that we have visited.  It was pretty hot the day we went, but it all worked out.  Much to our dismay, Asher was fascinated with the wroght iron trash bins...that made for a couple of breakdowns at the end of a long day.  He slept all the way home though, so that was wonderful!

 

View of the nearby Mosque from the top of the mountain. 
We could hear the call to prayer reverberating through
the valley as we walked around the castle.





 

Sweet Asher - He always has a smile for the camera.



Asher, starting to show that he's pretty much done for the day :)

 

After a good day, we went home, took a nap and then went to a pool party.  Asher did great with the full day.  Lots of fun all around.