a quick trip to NYC

After spending the past 5 days in NYC, it's good to be home!!  I'm so glad we were able to schedule this trip before Kristin & Andrew move out of the city.  It was so great to see them before baby arrives as well!  Hard to believe that in just a few months we're going to be an aunt and uncle!!

Highlights from our trip include:

- Caleb's first airplane ride!  He LOVED watching the airplanes!  Thankfully we didn't have long layovers!

- Running into Tina Fey on the streets of Brooklyn.
- Riding the ferry to Manhattan to visit to the American Museum of Natural History.

- Picnicking in Central Park with our dear friend Chad and family!

- Checking out every park in sight!  Daddy taught Caleb how to climb up slides and we had to check out each and every slide at all the parks!

- Enjoying amazing soup dumplings and bubble tea in Chinatown.

- Caleb slept through his first subway ride!

- Eating copious amounts of delicious food thanks Kristin and Andrew's cooking skills!

Thank you for such an amazing visit, Kristin & Andrew! Wish we lived closer!!

Christmas // part 1

This year we traveled to Pennsylvania to visit Dan's family for Christmas.  It was Caleb's first long distance trip and he did incredibly well!

We decided to leave early (early!) morning at 3am, and were able to get a little more than 1/2 way before Caleb woke up!  Leaving so early meant that we arrived just before lunch time, which made the day seem super long, but allowed us to have more of the day to visit.

Caleb met his Aunt Kristin & Uncle Andrew for the first time.

I'm not sure who was more excited for this meeting!

The afternoon was spent ogling the baby and napping.  Unfortunately, Caleb fell asleep minutes before we were going to leave for Christmas Eve service, so he and I stayed back while the others went to the service.

Christmas morning was a lovely mix of excitement and relaxation.  Everyone was excited to see Caleb tear into his gifts.  He loved every minute of it!  As expected, he enjoyed the wrapping paper far more that the gifts themselves, but once we removed the paper, he had a great time playing with his new instrument set from Grammy & Poppy.

  

The next few days were filled with visits from family and friends, many whom had never met our little guy.  

We are so thankful to have been able to travel this year and introduce our little guy to this side of the family.  Caleb was such an amazing little traveler, happy and content much of the visit, and endured the nine hour car ride like a champ!

our travel book. finally.

It's been 2 years, 3 months, and 8 days since returning from our Southeast Asia trip, but the memories of this extraordinary time are as vivid as they were the day we experienced them.

Upon returning, life sped up way faster than we would have liked, and to be honest, we never fully debriefed from not only the 13 months we spent living in Taiwan, but the 48 days we lived out of our backpacks and visited 6 countries in Southeast Asia as well.

I began this project nearly a year ago, and finally finished it a few weeks ago.  The months and months of sifting through thousands of photos was totally worth it.  At 178 pages and including nearly 500 photos from our travels, this project was no small feat, but now that this books adorns our coffee table it allows us to revisit those travels all over again. 

It's incredible to see OUR photos in print.  The day our book arrived, Dan and I sat on the couch looking through our book,  re-living our travels once again.

We both have so much to say about this trip and over time I'd like to add notes right on the pages with a simple black sharpie.  I think these notes from both Dan and I will make this book even more special.

{There are way too many favorite pages to share, you'll just have to stop by for a visit and take a look for yourself!}

We can't wait to share this with family and friends who come to visit as it's the first time in two years we've shared most of these photos!  

For more about our travels check out these posts.