23 months.

This is the second to last picture I will be taking of our boy. I am just not sure how long it will still be cute to have him sit on our bed in a diaper. Mike thinks we should do it until he is 18 but I think we have given it a good run and can get ready for September when we will undertake version 2.0 with a girl. Maybe I will take an occasional one of him on the bed for kicks.

He basically talks all the time these days. I understand about 30% of the jumple of words and sounds but his vocabulary has grown a lot in the last couple weeks it seems so I am working on decoding. He seems to understand everything we say though. I do like "wsh" for "fish" and "BAH" for sheep. He is so super independent and stops us from helping do most things for him which is great but funny since he can't do most of them. We went to the pool for the first time yesterday and I think it is going to be a good summer at the pool for him. Once he warmed up to the idea, he seemed to like it. I need to get his "happy dance" on tape which he holds special for grandparents from what I can tell. He moves faaaaast and unfortunately, I am slooooowly recovering from my stupid fall so I can't keep up with him which he loves. He eats entire apples- core, seeds, stem, everything but he's not into gummy candy.

Hour 11 of our 10 hour layover at LAX

Last day in ChCh.

Glad we spent this day together. We really miss you all.

22 months - the big ride home

flight to Auckland - Waking up after good sleep on long flight to LA



Hour 3 of 10 on layover in LA

Hour 11 of the 10 waiting for red eye to Baltimore


Waiting for flight to Boston

We made it home! It was a loooong trip back and I still have lots of pictures from NZ that I need to post but I thought that I would try to get some new ones of up our boy for the family that I am sure are missing this monkey. He traveled really well but we were in transit for 30+ hours and not even an adult copes well with that. He got into wearing his own backpack but he had to hold his hands to keep it on.

12 hour flight to LA
10 hour layover in LA (we created a little play area near some windows in the food court)
4.5 hour red eye to Baltimore
1.5 hour layover
1.5 hour flight to Boston
2 hour drive to Windsor.
PHEW!!!

There was only one moment on the full red eye flight to Baltimore on the budget airline that blew hot air, with an exhausted, sweaty toddler splayed out over my legs, my pants wet with sweat because it was that HOT, and extremely grumpy flight attendants that I thought I was going to SCREAM. We laughed, it passed, and 4 days later our boy is almost on the right schedule. It's been a few crazy messed up days and nights but not bad.

We returned to gorgeous warm weather. I love this season in Vermont. The trees are green, the lilacs were still out and it all smells so fresh. There was snow on the ground when we left so this is nice. I got right to getting our little patio garden planted to get it done before it was too late and was feeling pretty good about my progress despite jetlag and then BOOM, I sprain my ankle. I was watering our plants and just turned on my foot the wrong way and now I am unable to do anything. I have had it up and iced for the last 2 days so I am hoping a couple more days of this and the swelling and bruising will be down and I can walk again. So so so terribly inconvenient.
Oh well, moving on. Maybe I can get more NZ pictures up in the next fews days.