Grandpa's here!

On Sunday afternoon, Ieva met her Grandpa Stave for the first time when we picked him up at the Palanga airport. We were all excited to see him & are even more excited that he will be spending the next two months here in Klaipeda with us! Tom has taken a sabbatical from the University of Oregon library in order to volunteer here at LCC's library for the rest of the semester. We think LCC will be very glad to have him!

In less than two weeks, Ieva will also get to meet her Grandma Stave & Aunt Ingrid, as they will be coming to join Grandpa. Vicki may be doing some part time work at LCC along with her job of motivating Ingrid to finish her 8th grade class work. Aside from school, we're guessing Aunt Ingy will want to spend lots of her time practicing her babysitting skills on her niece!

During the past two days, Ieva has already had lots of Grandpa time and they seem to have hit it off famously. Yesterday Tom joined Ieva and I at our baby music class & then carried Ieva in the front pack to the market and all the way back home. Today he stayed with Ieva for a good chunk of the day while Andrew & I were both at meetings, and I came home to find her peacefully sucking down a bottle in his arms - both looking as happy as could be. Ieva loves to stare up at her Grandpa's face and reach out to touch it...I think she knows that he's someone especially special in her life.

Last night Tom made us dinner at his apartment and then we spent the bulk of the evening there relaxing and catching up. (This is us relaxing on his comfy couch!) He (and soon they) live in a great little place less than two blocks away from us! It's really nice having them so close, as I'm sure we'll spend lots of time there during the next two months.

We're not used to having family living near us, but couldn't be more thrilled to finally experience it for a somewhat extended period of time. I suspect that we'll become so spoiled by having them here that we'll have to recruit my parents to come for the fall semester in order to continue Ieva's grandparent fix! In the meantime, we're just enjoying every minute of it.