Trip to San Antonio

Since Dede was going to be in San Antonio for the day, Bryce and I went to visit. Estelle was nice enough to let us take over here house. Dede brought Bryce a great book that plays Old MacDonald. Bryce taught Dede that when you are done reading a book, it makes a great snack.

Estelle made her delicious gumbo but Bryce thought that the bread was the best.

Research Study

I got a letter a few weeks ago asking for Bryce to participate in a UT research study. The study was looking at short term memory of 6 months old. Our appointment was today. Bryce sat on my lap and looked at 2 computers screens. There was music and the screens flashed different shapes. They recorded how long he looked at the objects. The funny part of the s tudy was that I had to keep my eyes closed. Earlier studies showed that babies tend to look at what their moms are watching. It was hard to keep from laughing. There was something silly about sitting in a room with my eyes closed wondering what Bryce was looking at.

Anyway, he loved participating. Smiled and laughed at all the research assistants. They gave him this cute bib for participating.

Trip to San Angelo

My mother took Bryce and me to visit Mimi and Papa for the weekend. Bryce was an excellent traveller as always. We had a wonderful visit. Thank you for having us!!

Papa made his world famous pancakes for breakfast.

Mimi entertained Bryce while my mother and I ate the first batch of pancakes.

Barnaby thought Bryce was taking up too much room on the floor so he had to make do with resting on the chair.

Bryce has discovered his feet lately. Just thought this picture was funny.

6 months old

A lot is going on! At his 6 month checkup on Monday he weighed 15lbs., 7oz (20th%) and was 27in(70th%). Right after the appointment his first tooth popped up. I need to stop sticking my fingers in his mouth becuase that little tooth is sharp.

The other news is that Bryce started food. We did rice cereal for a week and now I'm adding in vegetables. Sweet potatoes were a big hit this morning!

Lucky for me if I run out of food, Bryce is happy to eat his bib :)

Visit from Nana

Myra came to visit last weekend. It was cold and rainy so we did't do much. Here are a couple of pics.

A New Year's wedding nightmare

(Russell posting) This past weekend was Paige's cousin Will's wedding. The wedding was in Jackson, Mississippi (are you saying in your head...i-s-s-i-s-s-i-p-pi?). We were a little nervous because we hadn't taken an airplan trip with Bryce before so we were in for some firsts. Well, to cut to the chase, Bryce was the easy part. He slept on all 4 of our flights, seemed happy to entertain everyone in the waiting areas, and even reminded us not to put him through the x-ray machine. Unfortunately, it was everything else that was the problem. Our weekend started with a about 8 hours in the DFW airport. Peggy and Jack only had to spend 4, but that was because they spent the other 4 sitting on their airplane in San Antonio before being cleared to leave.

At about 6 pm, the airport PA system requested that we all move to the corridors...away from the windows. Apprantly that's what you do when there's a TORNADO. Seriously, did they build DFW on a trailer park? How does a tornado touch down at an airport? At that point, we decided that we had enough. Perhaps traveling via a twister works for Dorothy and the Wizard, but we figured the traditional twin jet engine would work better for our needs so we checked in to the airport hotel. I went to Target to buy toiletries and baby food b/c in weather related delays they don't give you your bags back...I thought that was awfully nice of them. At that point, we put ourselves to bed, but our journey was really just beginning.

Next morning we were supposed to head out on the 930 flight. Well, thanks to the remaining chaos from the prior day, there was no crew available for our flight. Peggy was more than willing to serve the drinks and I could certainly tell everyone their seat cushins could be used as floatation devices, but they made us wait...2 more hours. Then, just for grins, they kicked 10 people off the plane...lucky for us (well, I guess that depends on your point of view), Mr. Bryce is the trump card and they won't boot you off if you have an infant.

So...after a long night, a long morning, we finally landed in rainy Jackson, MS. The good news was that loading the rental car would be easy...because we had no bags. Which is typically not a good thing if you a) have been in the same clothes for 2 days and b) have to go to a wedding that night.

Well...to make a long story short, we bought clothes, made the wedding, were delayed 5 more hours coming home, and they lost our bags again...Happy New Year!

Now that we've had a few days to reflect, it still sucked. Hopefully we've paid our penance for 2006 and 2007 so we're good.

Here are a few pictures from the week that was:
http://www.PictureTrail.com/gid14551423

Cool Slideshows

A Canyon Lake Christmas

On Christmas day, the whole family took a trip out to Mimi and Papa's lake house. Mimi was making her version of Thanksgiving lunch sponsored by Christmas day. Turkey, dressing, cranberries, green beans...the works. So...who could pass up a delicious meal like that? We spent the afternoon watching basketball and building a cozy fire. Lunch was wonderful and we all left a little heavier than we came. Here are some pictures from the afternoon (along with some other misc. pictures from Hanukkah that we didn't get around to posting).

A Canyon Lake Christmas
http://www.PictureTrail.com/gid14551036

Cool Slideshows

A Hanukkah Album
http://www.PictureTrail.com/gid14550870

Cool Slideshows

Family Trip

Russell's grandmother and aunt were visting Russell's cousin in Dallas so we were invited to come visit. On the way to the Shouse's house we stopped by Jessica andTyler's. Marty was a great host letting Bryce play in his exersaucer. They weren't so cooperative during picture time though so no photos there.

On to Plano where Bryce met his cousin Morgan. She is about 18 months and very cute. She liked Bryce and kept saying "hi baby". She really liked Russell. She sat on his lap and helped him eat dinner.

Here are some pictures of the weekend!

A new toy...

for Dad :) Well...really it's for the whole family, but i got to the box first. for hanukkah, we bought webcams for bryce, nana & g-bob, and pops & gram. Since ours came first, i was the guinea pig for installation and setup. i was a bit nervous after reading somethings on the tech support forums about the software, but to my delight, it installed just fine. For the record, we all got logitech quickcam pro 5000. the first test was a quick 1 sided video session with my mom on my old AOL instant messenger. i wasn't too happy with the functionality so i upgraded to AOL IM 6.0. Haven't tested it yet, but it certainly looks nicer. But the testing wasn't done. with bryce in his pj's...we did a little photo shoot.

Also...this is my first attempt at posting video to the web, but hopefully you can see some of bryce in action:

Bryce Part I


Bryce Part II


Bryce The Finale


These are just some stills from the webcam...he was a happy camper tonight

Hanukkah a little early

My parents bought Bryce a jumperoo because it was the only large toy I didn't have yet :) Bryce loves sitting in it and playing with the toys.



Big smiles when I push him up and down...how long does it take before he learns how to jump by himself?

Thanksgiving

Bryce enjoyed his first Thanksgiving. We went to my parents' house on Wednesday. We settled the dogs down then went to Mimi and Papa's for chili.

Thursday was turkey day at the Barbans and then we watched the football game on Friday before we came home. Bryce and Josie are worn out from all the attention they got.

Stroller

I was curious to see if Bryce is big enough to sit in his stroller without his car seat. He is! This is not really a significant accomplishment but it was an activity. He loved sitting in it and since it's 85 degrees here today we decided to take a little walk. Josie was thrilled that she got an extra outing. I will still put Bryce in the bjorn for our main walks because Josie isn't great at walking beside the stroller. I guess we'll have to work on that once he gets too big for me to wear...

Happy Halloween

I think that most people know that I'm not a big fan of halloween. I don't like dressing up, I don't eat candy, and the doorbell ringing drives poor Josie crazy. That said, I'm trying to be a good sport for Bryce. He was lucky enough to have 2 costumes to celebrate his first halloween. Take a look at my cutie as a pumpkin and a chili pepper!

Bryce's Naming

Today we held the naming ceremony for Bryce at my parent's house. My great uncle Arnold led the service and we were all impressed with his rabbinical skills. I really want to thank everyone who worked so hard to make this such a special day. I did a lousy job getting pictures but here are the ones from my camera.

This is Bryce's first mongrammed outfit. With my love of monogramming it's certainly not going to be his last!
This is probably the best picture we have taken in a while.
Marty and Bryce loved playing on the floor. Hopefully the boys will become interested in each other soon.
We managed to get the Newman side all together for a photo.

Visit from Grandpa Bob

Bob was in town for work and was nice enough to take us out to dinner. He showed up at 6pm. I wanted pizza, Russ wanted chicken wings so we let Bob decide. He picked Chinese. Always a good choice. Went to PF Changs. Bryce was asleep when Bob got there so I waited to wake him until right before we left. He woke up very happy. When we sat down he was tired of being in his car seat so I put him on my lap. We gave him a chopstick and he banged that on the table till the food arrived. At this point he was tired so I put him over my shoulder and he went right to sleep. I just held him through dinner. Came home right before 8pm which was perfect. Russ and Bob watched football while I fed Bryce and then we all went off to bed. Bryce was worn out from the visit and slept till 5am. I was thrilled.

Back from KL

First...look at my boy in the post below...what a mensch. I need to get him a "Future ladykillers of America" shirt. Anyway...on to the trip:

Well…the Yanks lost but the Horns won, so I’m neutral for sports over the weekend. We had a great time in KL…saw a bunch of sites around the city, stayed in a great hotel, and did plenty of shopping. I didn’t buy very much b/c I figured I’d spent my share at the tailor…which on a side note, I saw one of the shirts I bought at the mall for 4x the price…but I did manage to pick up a couple of smaller items. KL was really nice...felt very much like a US big city, very modern, tall high rises, good public transportation, smaller more ethnic districts (although there wasn’t any “America town”) and plenty of people ready to “give you good price”. We were lucky enough to get a tour guide – one of the APJ team members happened to be in town and was nice enough to drive us around so we probably saw more than we would have on our own or just cabbing it around. We visited the War Memorial/Botanical Garden area, the old rail station, the government buildings & parade grounds, Chinatown, and the Central Market. The hotel was right in the city center and our rooms looked directly at the Petronas Towers and had a very nice rooftop pool and bar that we spent some time at Saturday evening. For dinner, we ventured out to the Bangsar area…the closest residential area outside the city. They have about a 4 block area that has restaurants and pubs…pretty nice little area with a good selection. Our tour guide Willie met up with us for drinks afterwards and then took us home. Sunday we ate lunch at the top of the KL tower which is much like the needle in San Antonio or Seattle…both lunch and the view were disappointing…the “international” lunch buffet was disgusting and there was a lot of smog from the fires in Indonesia so we were in and out fairly quickly. After lunch…we took a quick stop back by the Central Market so we could shop a little more…along the way were nearly killed some guy crossing the street…let me just say that driving here is absolutely wearing me out…even as a passenger…there are no rules…lane lines are a suggestion…there are more motorbikes than grains of rice…and pedestrians DON”T have the right of way…combine all that and I’m ready to buy a gun and start enforcing my own brand of road rules. Anyway…at least after our attempted vehicular homicide we got massages…so that helped the stress level. Sunday was a pretty early night as we our flight left Monday at 7 so we had to leave the hotel at 5 to get there in time…and here we are, back at work coming down the home stretch. Should hopefully pick my our clothes this week although for some reason I think they’re going to have to make one more round of alternations since the last time the guy basically just looked at me wearing the pants and said he knew what to do…I guess they’re from the school of thought “don’t measure at all, cut a bunch”. Don’t anticipate any excitement for this week except a long flight home.

The big event

My father participated in the MS 150 bike ride from San Antonio to Corpus Christi this weekend. Bryce and I went to support him and help drive Daddy back to San Antonio. This was my first time taking Bryce "on the road" and he did great!

First we went to my parents house on Friday and spent the night and then off to Corpus on Saturday morning. Bryce was the perfect passenger, no crying or backseat driving while in the car. We stayed at Dede's house Saturday night waiting for Daddy to arrive on Sunday. Bryce loved the attention that Dede gave him and played and smiled for hours. All the activity wore him out and...he slept from 9pm till 5am! I was thrilled. Hopefully he will start to do this on a regular basis.

Daddy finished feeling great on Sunday. We picked him up at the finish line and headed back to San Antonio. Our first trip was a success. Who wants us to visit next?

Alive and Well in Malaysia

I wrote this email to my mom and thought some others might like to know what's going on half way around the world:

Well...it took a few days, but we're finally adjusted. The hotel has been fine...it's on the island and in a populated part of town, but it's still a few minute ride to the "happening" area and a 30 minute ride across the Penang bridge to the office. We don't really know what we're looking for when we go out, so it's not that big of a loss not being right in the action. The team at the office has been great about taking us out for lunches and stuff. We've eaten a lot of fish, pork, rice, noodles, soup...but in many different styles...some Malay, some Thai, some Chinese. When they serve the fish..say snapper...they serve the whole fish (head and all) and you just kind of pick it off the bones. People here like spicy food so we just have to be a little careful not to go too quickly on the food before we eat too much. We haven't really eaten at many restauarants...they have these "hawker" stands where they just cook the food in front of you (and out in front of the store front if there is one) and you go find a seat in a common area. That food is very cheap and can be anything from chicken to fried jellyfish to squid or fish soup...anything really.

First couple of nights we stayed in mostly b/c we were tired. We did go out one night to the main hawker stand area on the island...recently rebuilt after the tsunami...there were tons of them out at night...and our work people ordered a bunch of things for us to try...pretty interesting. Fruit pancakes, fish soup, purple dragon fruit, veggies in black bean sauce, bbq meats...fairly safe stuff...they didn't want to scare us too much.

This weekend we went up the coast to Battu Ferrenghi beach and stayed there. Managed to get an hour long Chinese reflexology massage on the beach for about $15. BF beach area is also famous for this night market which is basically about a mile long flea market where they sell a lot of trinkets, pirated CD's, fake bags and watches. Everything is haggle priced...so you basically get one price and then get what you want for half of that. One girl from work was also nice enough to pick us up yesterday afternoon and drive us around the island...saw a few temples and botancial gardens (with monkeys). I have pictures, but forgot my cable so i'll have to wait until i get home to download. We did eat out at a nice (that's a relative term compared to the hawker stands) seafood place where i picked my lobster out of a tank...the other tanks had snapper, king prawn (big shrimp), moray eels, yellow eels, and some other exotic fish/reptiles that i probably would never eat.

The other thing we did at the beach was get fitted for some custom clothing. Labor and materials are very cheap over here so I bought 3 pair of very nice dress pants and 5 shirts...all custom tailored for about $220....I'll pick everything up on Tuesday. If I ever wore suits, I could have bought the jackets for all of my pants...the whole suit, tailored is like $120. I have a feeling in 5 years or so I'll wish I would have bought more.

We're back at our original hotel for this week and then we'll travel to Kuala Lumpur for the next weekend. Got a $40 flight on AirAsia so we'll go see the city (they have the tallest building in the world there..bet you didn't know that). This week should be pretty busy at work so it will be a nice break for the weekend.

I think that's all for now...in fact...I wrote so much, I think I'll post it on the blog.