Happy Halloween!

Halloween is the first holiday Ieva has actively celebrated twice. Although, I can't say how actively involved she was a year ago, when she was only 5 weeks old. It's amazing how much a baby changes during their first year...and it's difficult to gauge those changes until you see the contrast - like in these two Halloween photos. This photo was taken from our blog entry one year ago - when we dressed Ieva up like a little leopard and took her to the dorm to show her off. I remember walking around the dorm with Ieva cuddled in the sling across Andrew's chest & students would oooh & ahhh as they'd peer down at our little bundle.

Now, a year later, at 13 months old, Halloween was spent at a party with the Hoelterhoff kids. Kylie lent Ieva her fairy costume so they could match. Ieva had a great time playing with Kylie and Devin & made inked hand & footprint construction paper jack-o-lanterns with baby Maja.





Andrew even got in on some of the fun! We look forward to many more years of Halloween costumes and jack-o-lantern creations!

Fall Break is here!

Since Matt & Sage are here with us during Fall Break this year, we've decided to stick around and show them the local sights of Lithuania. We have colleagues who are spending this break in places as varied as Istanbul, Prague, Kiev, Moldova, Bangkok, and the US, to name a few.

We began the break with a couple relaxing days at a cozy "sodyba" or cottage in a small village outside of Klaipeda. The cottage is owned by a family who's kids are both alumni of LCC who Andrew & I know well. They have graciously allowed us to use their cottage free of charge a variety of times, which made for the perfect getaway location for this break! We invited some students who didn't have anywhere to go for the break to join us, which gave Matt & Sage the chance to get to know some of the students we work with. In the picture above, you can see Dori, a 4th year student from Albania, Alex, a 3rd year student from Belarus, and Nadiya, a 2nd year student from Ukraine all playing the game 'scum' that we introduced to them.

The cottage is really nice and very comfortable. It has a huge wood stove that sends heat through radiators throughout the house and kept things toasty as long as we kept it full of wood. It was a good thing, as we woke up this morning to the first frost of the winter! Since the water supply on the property is fed by a small well, we'd also occasionally lose water and have to wait for a few hours for the well to replenish itself in order to supply us with more. We had plenty of bottled water to drink, but had to limit our flushing and showers. The house has a sauna & even a small pool to jump in...but only a couple were brave enough to do it - not because of the cold water temperature, but because of the two frogs we found living in the pool! All of this made the weekend feel more rustic and felt all the more like we were getting away.

We spent the weekend playing card games, watching movies, introducing the students to American food (tomato soup, grilled cheese sandwiches and tuna melts), enjoying the sauna, and taking walks around the garden and through the woods around the cottage. It was fabulous to take off our watches, lose track of time and relax together for a couple days!

Front-Page Ieva

Today around noon I walked into our cafeteria to have my friend, Ilona, one of the cafeteria employees, wave me over with an excited look on her face. “Did you see Ieva?” she asked me. I was confused – Ieva was at home with our nanny Aurelija. And then she picks up a Russian version of the local Klaipeda newspaper & points to a picture on the front page. “Ieva!” she says excitedly. And she was right...in the lower half of the front page of the daily newspaper was the article & picture you see here. My daughter was on the front page! I borrowed the paper and showed everyone within the vicinity of the cafeteria.

On our way home from work, we picked up 4 copies of the Lithuanian version of the paper, with the intention of giving one to Aurelija. We thought she’d be so surprised to see herself in the paper with Ieva! We got home & I excitedly handed her a paper...to which she responded “Oh yes, I forgot to tell you yesterday.” She went on to tell us that she was on the street with Ieva, on her way to LCC to bring Ieva to us yesterday when a newspaper journalist approached her. Interestingly, her first question to Aurelija was “do you speak Lithuanian?” as she apparently thought she was a foreigner. This makes us wonder if the assumption was made because Ieva was in a backpack (you NEVER see babies in packs here), or because people have seen Andrew & I carry Ieva around in the pack and know that we’re foreigners. Since Klaipeda is a small city, there are different local “personalities” that we’ve gotten used to seeing over the past 5 years. It’s strange to think that we may actually be one of those personalities to the local Klaipedans!
The journalist was doing an article on the lack of schedules of the local mini-buses and she asked Aurelija to pose like she was flagging one down on the street. Even though Aurelija is looking at the bus, I love that Ieva is looking at the camera! We thought you’d enjoy seeing the article, too. We never thought our Ieva would make the front page this early in life...especially here in Lithuania!

My Uncle Matt is here!

From Ieva:
Today, after nearly two months of traveling, my Uncle Matt & his friend Sage came to see me! I wasn't sure what I thought of them at first...they both have big beards and looked a little weird to me, but they've been really nice and I think I'm going to like having them around. Uncle Matt is trying really hard to make me smile. He likes to play fun games like peek-a-boo with me!


Sage is a really nice guy, too. He talks to me a lot and lets me play with his stuff. Today I tore apart a bunch of tea bags he brought all the way from Korea. He didn't mind and said I was funny.
I don't know how long Uncle Matt & Sage will stay here in Klaipeda with us, but it's fun having them here!

Ieva's first steps!

Ieva took her first steps completey unaided today! She's pretty tenative, but with a lot of cheering, hugs & kisses from us, she gets her momentum & has taken up to 10 steps on her own.

Despite this being the most normal thing that every kid in the world does, we are so excited for our little walker and couldn't be more proud!

Ieva's friends

Much like us, Ieva now has friends here in Lithuania as well as back in the States. Because of our busy schedules, she doesn't get much "kid" time, but when she does, her closest friends here are Devin, Kylie & Maja Hoelterhoff. In this photo, she was playing with Kylie & baby Maja at her birthday party.

Another good friendship was developed this July with Emma St. Peters. Emma & her parents live in Indiana, but have come to Lithuania each summer to work at LCC and we have become good friends over the years. We look forward to getting the girls together again at Christmas!

This summer Ieva met some friends her age back in the States, one of which is Ava Beasley, the
daughter of our good friends Eric & Kareena who live in Newberg, Oregon. The Beasley's home has become our Newberg home when we're back to visit and since the girls are only 2 weeks apart, we look forward to them growing closer as we we go back for visits.

And if we can count family members in the friend category, Ieva's cousin Elijah is at the top of the list. Ieva & Eli have spent time together in January 2006 when Ieva was 4 months old & again in May when she was 8 months & Elijah was 5 (pictured here).

Ieva is also a big fan of her nearly-15-year old Aunt Ingrid & her 25-year old Aunt Hannah. Ingrid & Ieva got to spend lots of time together this past spring when she lived in Klaipeda for 2 months when Tom & Vicki were volunteering at LCC. Hannah spent as much time as she could with Ieva this summer when we were back in Oregon. Ieva can't wait to see both her Aunts again this December when she gets to see them at Aunt Hannah's graduation from the University of Hawaii.

Speaking of family, the only immediate family member Ieva hasn't met yet is her Uncle Matt who has been teaching English in Korea for the past year. Matt & his friend Sage have recently finished their teaching commitments and are currently in the process of taking the scenic route from Korea to Lithuania (via Japan, China, Mongolia, Russia & Latvia). They'll arrive here in a couple weeks & we can't wait to see them!