Thanksgiving and other updates

I guess it's been almost a month since the last post.. time certainly flies with a toddler in the house! Alyssa FINALLY started getting her front teeth, and is on the verge of walking. Just today, she let go of the couch and turned towards us when she was playing. Luckily she did that right after Michael got home from work, so he got to see it as well.

Thanksgiving was a lot of fun.. my (Rebecca's) parents came into town for the week. We had a small Thanksgiving celebration here in Camas. The day after Thanksgiving, we headed up to Seattle so that my mom and dad could attend the wedding of a good friend of theirs. Being in one room all together (Alyssa, Michael and I) was a little rough, but she got used to it and slept much better the second night there. Seattle is a really neat city, and it turns out that Rebecca has a friend from High School that she reconnected with while there. So I think we will be traveling up there again in the not too distant future.

Alyssa has started getting pretty good with the sign language. It's nice to know what she is thinking about, or when she is hungry. And it's neat to realize how much she understands! Our fantastic nanny works with her on her signing as well, and Alyssa is up to 4 signs; milk, more (which she also uses for food), light and please. She now says "hi" all day long, as well as "Hi daddy" and "Hi doggie".

We will update with a couple of videos when blogger is not acting funny..
-Rebecca, Michael and Alyssa

Trip to California

We had a great trip to California (although it was very quick). We left for Sacramento on Friday, Nov 2nd at about 8:30 in the morning (yes, it was a very early morning but we were able to make it over the bridge before rush hour traffic really started). The flight was pretty uneventful, and getting out to Kristen's didn't take much time at all. However, I will say this.. we won't ever be renting a car seat from the rental car company ever again. It was a really bad seat; we ended up borrowing a carseat from Kristen for the rest of the trip because I didn't feel comfortable having Alyssa stay in it.

Alyssa stayed with Kristen, Jason and the boys while Michael and I went to a wedding on Friday night. We left for the wedding at 2:30, and came back about 11:30, which is the longest that I have left Alyssa in a very long time. She did pretty well, but ended up waking up about 10:30 or so very fussy because she didn't know where I was. It was kind of a rough night, but not as bad as it could have been.

Saturday was busy; we had lunch with friends, dinner with Michael's parents and Kristen, Jason and the boys and then drove out to Sacramento. It was a long evening in a house with no furniture (we stayed in the Orangevale house) but it was nice not to have to pay for a hotel.

Kinda sucked that Michael left for Finland the next day for a week long business trip; we are missing him terribly, but will see him on Sunday.

Crawling down the hall at Kristen's house

I think that's a hug from cousin Brandon. And yes, Alyssa's shirt does say "I love boobs".

(from L to R) Brandon (cousin), Alyssa and Jacob (cousin)

Unfortunately, Alyssa had had enough with picture taking by the time she started taking pics with Grandpa and Grammy (hiding behing Alyssa).