vandopoly: November 2008

Saturday, November 15, 2008

happy joshie day!

Wow! Two posts in one day after no posts for a month - this MUST be a special occasion!

All I can say is that I can't believe that my baby is 2-years-old. Happy 2nd Birthday, Joshie! Most parents know the term "Terrible Two's", but even with the terrible 2's, I love this age! I feel like I learn something new everytime Josh learns something new and he seems to learn something new everyday! Today, for the first time, he said, "Happy Birthday. Josh blow candle.". He used to say new words each day and now he says new sentences each day! It's amazing.

During the cruise, my brother (who has 2 young daughters) said to me, "There's baby-sitting and then there's Josh-sitting." Josh is a wild toddler. He's not afraid to go off on his own, even if Mommy and Daddy are out of eyesight. He just seems to trust that we'll find him. He also doesn't listen very well. Bad combination! He loves to climb; he loves to run; he loves to play in the water. In the past year, we've seem a very active, adventurous and independent child blossom. It's amazing.

We're doing our "official" birthday celebration next week, but I still wanted to mark the day for Josh. Here are some photos of him over the past couple of months as well as his birthday candle blow out...

Watching the planes fly overhead at the airport

Joshie's bonding with Nikita these days

Irresistible smile

Josh as ringbearer with this cousins at Lenny and Tini's wedding in October

Josh's only Hallowe'en party this year (we spent Hallowe'en in Orlando)

OK, how did Josh learn to give the stink eye?!

Joshie and Brian bonding in front of the tv

The birthday boy with his birthday cupcake

disney magic

We went on a Liem family vacation at the beginning of November to celebrate my parent's 40th anniversary this year. In a word, it was fabulous. There are 19 people (plus a half!) in my family and we also had honorary Liem's - Gordon and Andrew - join us.

We all met up in Orlando for a couple of days of shopping and reuniting before we boarded the Disney Magic and set "sail" for a 7-day western Caribbean cruise from Port Canaveral. Now, I can't speak for everyone in my family when I say that we had a fabulous time, but I think everyone had a pretty fabulous time! I think we're lucky that way.

In early October, my youngest brother, Lenny got married in Toronto. The whole family was there for the wedding (2 1/2 weeks before flying to Orlando for the cruise!). My mom's friend commented to her at the wedding that she was lucky that all her kids and their spouses got along well. I never really thought about it, but we DO all get along!

I love spending time with my family. I love it when Josh gets to meet up with his Liem cousins. We always seem to get along (even when we exasperate each other because it takes us FOREVER to get anywhere!). And I know I'm lucky to have such a loving family. It's a hard feeling to explain, but I know that I was very sad when the trip was over - not only because the vacation was over, but also because I wouldn't get to see my family together again for awhile.

As for the Disney cruise, I HIGHLY recommend it for a family vacation. I've never been on a cruise before, but I don't know why anyone would take kids on any other cruise?! They just seem to have everything covered for kids of all ages. All of my nieces and nephews seems to have a blast and one of my nieces even cried when she realized that we weren't going back on the ship!

And though the cruise isn't really meant to cater to adults, Disney does not forget that parents need a break too - they have their share of adult-only areas on board, so if we needed a break from the kids, there were many places to go.

One thing to mention, though, is that this is my second big vacation when I was 4 months pregnant. Ugh. Though I didn't get any more nauseous than I already was (in fact, my nausea improved in the warmer weather!), I wasn't able to partake in the culinary delights that most cruises are known for. Actually, that may have been a good thing! Though, I can't WAIT to take a vacation where I am NOT pregnant!

So, I can't say much more about how amazing our vacation was, so I'll just post the photos now...