Ashlyn's First Birthday!

Wow, it has been a long time since I updated this! Oops! I was going to be really good about it and keep posting about here in India for anyone that might read this. Sorry about that. Well...I did want to post a couple of videos of Ashlyn here for the grandparents. This was Ashlyn's first birthday. We had some yummy pancakes for breakfast and then some onion pakhoras and cake for lunch! She got chocolate cake (thanks to the lovely and talented Amanda baking wonderful cakes over our wood stove) sans frosting (that is hard to come by here in Kaffer). It was a pretty good day. I can't believe that she is 1!!
I will try to post a little catch up post here soon!

 

On our way!

Okay! Christmas with the family has been celebrated as well as Thanksgiving. felicity has been watched. We have packed and repacked our 5 bags at least 3 times. They are now loaded. Carry-ons are ready. Passports on the desk. E-tickets are printed. Good-byes have been said. Ashlyn has taken her last bath. Christmas cards are almost ready. The house has been cleaned. The 'to-do' list is officially all checked off. I think we are ready. Now I am sitting down to relax and watch one more movie with my parents.
I can't believe that tomorrow we head over the ocean to spend the next 6 months in India. There is, of course, a whole mix of emotions that go with this. Mostly excited but also worried about the next four days of traveling with a 10-month-old who doesn't sit still. This includes 24 hours of flight time, 20 hours on the train, and additional 5 hours in a jeep.
Now I am exhausted as I sit down to write one last post before we leave. I know it will be a week till we get settled and have a chance to update.
Farewell Winter Park. See you on the flip side.

Clapping, Climbing and Walking

We had a big week last week. Ashlyn started clapping which is fun whenever you say yay! Then we went down to Colorado Springs for the weekend. We had fun seeing friends and we went to Old Colorado city on Halloween for a little bit. Ashlyn got to borrow a lady bug costume and it was pretty fun. Later that night she got brave and took her first steps. She is getting a little better at it everyday but she still only takes a handful of steps at a time. She did decide, however, that she still likes climbing the bast!!

One Month

The countdown is on! We have one month from today until we leave for India. Where does the time go? It flies...that is why I feel like I have been blogging but it has been a long time since I posted.
Anyway, one month! There are so many feelings that go with that but I think mostly it just feels surreal. Are we really moving to India in a month! I have to really set my head to it and think about and then it hits that we probably have a million things to do before then. I guess the big things are pretty much taken care of but there are all those little things that go along with leaving the country for 6 months. Sometimes I feel a bit overwhelmed.
It is really exciting though after so many years of talking about going overseas it is finally happening. It is hard to leave family and friends at the same time.

For anyone who reads this and doesn't know, we are on our way to India! This summer we started a small non-profit organization called ECTA. ECTA means unity in Nepali and we use it as an accronym, Empowering Communities to Transcend Adversity. Our first project is in the Northeastern part of West Bengal India. We are going there to serve and train villiage Health workers and start a small clinic and dispensary and eventually help to establish and Emergency respoonse system. This is a very rural area in the Himalayan foothills that don't have much government aid as far as health care etc.
Well, that is it in a nutshell. If you would like to know more about ECTA you can go to our website: ECTA International

Little mover

So the crawling excitment didn't last too long. As soon as Ashlyn started crawling she decided to start pulling up and climbing on things! And now here we are and she doesn't do bad with this little walker.

Summer

Wow! How did it get to be August already!?! I guess I need to peice together an update of the last month!
I have been doing well! I finished my third Xterra triathlon of the summer on Saturday. This one was a little shorter and I did alot better than the first two! I am having fun doing them. On Saturday at the Indian Peaks Xterra I placed 5th in my Age-group and I think that I qualified to the USA Championships in Ogden, UT at the end of September! So now I am into some serious training for the that race! Here are some fun pics at the races.








Ashlyn is growing so fast! I can't believe she is 7 months old now! She has been crawling for about 2 weeks now and she pulled herself up the other day! I am not ready for that. I think she really would rather walk she crawls but then she always gets up on her feet. She sure is alot of fun!

Yep she did this one all on her own.





In other news we have decided to go to India in the fall with our new non-profit ECTA. I will post more about that later.

6 months old!

I can't believe my baby is already 6 months old. I was playing some photos and I tried putting together a little video for the half birthday. This is Ashlyn's favorite song! She smiles everytime I sing it for her.