Giveaways!

So I'm way overdue for another post, but it's not going to be today, but soon! Today I'm posting links for a couple giveaways on my friend's blogs, I participated in the blog Scavenger Hunt and had some good fun doing it. Tonight is the last chance to enter on these two book giveaways.

Jen's Writing Desk Stephen King's On Writing
JenniferJensen.com  The Goodbye Quilt

Good Luck!

Halloween

Waiting for bus back from the Trunk-or-Treat, there were 4 cars and our stroller!

Since Avery was a polar bear we decided to do our stroller up as the North Pole,  took ages to do...

London

We spent a few days in London last week, Andrew's brother Jared got his mission call to Perth, Australia. So we all headed over to the London temple with Jared.  It was a good experience for all involved and we had a good couple of days.  It was also Avery's first trip and she was amazing on the plane, slept both ways, didn't cry at all and was great overall. On our way back to Stansted we stopped in Greenwich and visited the market there. Greenwich is a district of South London and is most famous for giving its name to Greenwich Mean Time. Henry VIII and Elizabeth I were both born there. There has been a market in Greenwich since the 14th Century, but the present market dates from 1700. A picturesque little town but we only stayed a couple hours.

Dual Citizenship

Just in time for our trip to London next week, Avery Kate is a Dual-Citizen of Ireland and the United States.  Pretty cool.  She's 7 months old today and ready to rock.  Now she can work anywhere in the US and Europe when she's older.  But for now she's satisfied with sitting up on her own, and getting up on all fours but not quite crawling yet. She's loved all the food I've given her so far except papaya, she had 4 spoons of that and then refused to eat any more, but I think I might have scraped too close to the rind so I think she could still like it, but for now it's too expensive to buy papayas anyway so no big loss.  Other than that, this is a pretty happy, content baby.

Amazing Maize Maze

I discovered this gem on the internet and decided it would be a great thing to take Andrew's brothers to.  Something outdoors, fun, and different from the norm.  So just outside Kilbrittain in West Cork exists McCarthy's Maze Trail, well, existed, it was harvested over the weekend so we got there just in time! We'd been planning it for a while but since our car broke down we had to plan it to be sometime when Andrew could take the mini-bus from work.  We decided on a Thursday after school because it seemed to be the only free day.  The days leading up the Thursday we'd chosen (which also happened to be the last possible Thursday before they harvested) were pretty dire weather wise. Rain, rain, and more rain.  Weather reports said mostly cloudy for our chosen day and it was definitely overcast on the day, and of course started to rain on the way there.  We picked up Dean and James and Jared came too because we had the mini-bus.  We decided to go the back roads, but the back roads in Ireland in a mini-bus may not have been the best idea, however, we made it only having to U-turn a few times. The closer we got the foggier it got, but we decided it was cooler that way.  Since it had been raining all week including that day, we had the maze all to ourselves. We pulled into the field/parking, and saw that no one was there.  Luckily a guy in a tractor passed by not 5 minutes later and he stopped and said he'd send someone right up.  A lovely lady showed up and brought us to the entrance and explained what we were looking for in the maze.  There were 2 mazes right next to each other, a smaller, 1-acre, warm-up one, in which we were to find 6 animal statues and then find and ring the bell once we've found all of them. The larger maze was 5 acres, and there were 12 signposts with symbols on them which corresponded to letters on a sheet of paper she'd given to us which we then had to rearrange to spell two words.

So we set out and blitzed through the smaller one fairly quickly and were already muddy and soaked.  But we had fun, and then set out into the bigger one, which again we had all to ourselves so it was pretty fun. After a few comparisons to the movies Signs and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and some shouted Avada Kedavra's, we split up and found the 12 signposts and helped each other out.  We then found the bell, rang it a few times and headed back to the entrance.  When we got there we started to look at the letters we'd gathered (A L E M R E Y S A E C M) and the same man in the tractor came by again, stopped and asked how we got on.  We told him we'd just finished and were starting to look at the letters. He said he'd give us a clue: "Áras an Uachtaráin" Which made it super easy. Well, maybe not easy if you're not Irish or live in Ireland. Nevertheless, James, the 9-year-old was the first of the brothers to get it. Overall it was a good experience, the boys had fun, and I'd definitely do it again. Here are some pics (only had the cell phone):

6 Months Old

Ok, so kept meaning to update the blog, but nothing super exciting has happened, and then I said I'd do it next week and so on until it's now been 6 weeks...has is it really been 6 weeks?  Guess so, well Avery hit 6 months last week, but it seems like that went way too fast.

She had a few firsts during the past 6 weeks so I will record them here for posterity:

1. On 29th of August she rolled from her back to her front and became an ambi-roller. She can now roll from front to back and back to front, she just hasn't figured out that if she linked them up she'd become mobile.
2. August 31st, we took her swimming at the Mardyke for the first time.  She seemed overwhelmed at first but was soon kicking away.
3. September 10, first solid food, baby rice.  Since then she has had banana, carrot, butternut squash, and a jar of Sunday Chicken Dinner, apple and banana breakfast, and fruit medley custard.  She loves food, and so far has not disagreed with anything we've given her.
4. September 18th the bottom two teeth have broken through.
5. September 20th, 6 months old today and she was weighed and measured as part of a study we're involved in.  She is 15 lbs 3 oz (6.9 kg), just below the 25th centile. 25.5 inches (64.8 cm), just above the 25th centile. Head circumference is 16.6 inches (42.1 cm), which is between the 9th and 25th centile.  All of which means she is growing at the correct rates as she was 25th centile in all three things at birth.

Other than Avery news, Andrew graduated from college, with a BA in Economics and Politics. Nothing exciting has happened for me yet but I'm hoping I'll have a job soon, but in the meantime I'm studying for the boards so we can make the move to the States.  And I can't find the charger to my camera so I haven't been able to take many good photos lately, but I'm on the search...

The first solid food--baby rice.

First swim

Corcaigh Abu

The Great Outdoors

My brother recently told me that he thought my blog was of made up people, like comic book characters or something, Medic Meg and Andy Pets...so, guess he's never read the blog then, ha.  I admit our adventuring of late has not exactly been crazy, but hopefully soon we'll live up to our blog title.

Until then I'm just going to have to fill the space with pictures of Avery.  If there's one thing we know she likes, it's being outdoors, she loves it. If she's at all fussy indoors, it's insta-calm as soon as we step out the door. So when it's sunny, off we go.  One favorite spot nearby is Fitzgerald's Park, there's a fountain, ducks, loads of grass, and a playground. And we also took her first trip to the beach. She loved putting her feet in the sand, didn't throw her in the ocean this time, but next time she's definitely going in.

Fitzgerald's Park

Avery's discovered she can grab her feet

Her first swing ride, look of pure delight on her

Inchydoney Beach

Tapas for 2

So recently Ireland has caught on to the Groupon craze, there are several different companies out there doing the mass buying deals.  GrabOne is one such company and recently were recruiting people who were passionate about deals and liked to write, and they'd let you in on the free stuff.  So I of course answered the call, and was rewarded with that day's deal, Tapas for Two at Amicus, with wine and Affogato's for dessert.  Only thing I had to do was take pictures and write up a short review.  Sounded pretty easy to me and hey, who doesn't like free stuff?

I've been to Amicus a few times, but I believe the tapas menu is new, well, I have no idea, but I don't remember there being tapas before...the deal was for an antipasti platter, which was filled with different meats, olives, hummus, crostini, salads, chicken liver pate, and loads of bread.  It also came with 2 glasses of house wine and we asked if we could have something else and they said no problem, so we had Cokes instead.  And for dessert was an Affogato, which is vanilla ice cream with an espresso.  I was a bit dubious that a platter full of appetizers would satisfy us for dinner, but by the time the last bit of ice cream slipped down our throats, we were definitely sated.  Overall, not bad, that would normally set you back 36 euro, the GrabOne deal was for 17 euro, so nearly a 50% saving. But I must admit, I would never pay 36 euro for that, and I might be tempted for 17, but still probably wouldn't do it again. But we definitely enjoyed the night out and the food.

And now for what you all came for, an update on Avery Kate, who happens to now be 4 months old.  She has made some developmental progress, which brings joy to the doctor in me, since it seems like that's all we learned in Pediatrics, at what stage should they be doing such and such.  She can now roll from her front to her back and nearly from her back to her front. And she can push up with her arms when she's on her stomach. She started laughing a couple weeks ago, she'd giggle and smile before, but now we can get her laughing.  She's now starting to reach and bat her toys and puts everything she can grab in her mouth.  She's doing her best impression of a vampire since her two top incisors have decided to come in over the weekend, which is why she's producing copious amounts of slobber. She loves being outdoors and being held facing out so that she can see what's going on.  So that's about it for now!

My personal favorite

Tales of Travels: Trivia Friday

Here's a quick post, I guest posted for my friend's new travel blog, check it out. This is to tide you rabid readers over until I can get a post of my own up! Go on and have a guess, for getting it right you could have the privilege of the Trivia Friday title and could get to do next Friday's post! Proof of your intellectual superiority, who could ask for anything more?

Tales of Travels: Trivia Friday: "A big thank you for the guest post this week for our Trivia Friday! She sent in to me the clues as follows: 1. It has a colorful and varied..."

What's more American....

Just in time for the 4th of July, Avery Kate is now an American citizen.  We travelled up to Dublin last week and got it all done, the appointment was surprisingly fast, maybe 15-20 minutes and it was all over, dual-citizenship obtained. Now we just need to get her Irish passport.

For the Fourth we went to the Peters' house for a BBQ. We also played a bit of baseball this weekend so all things American.  I provided a cake for the BBQ and also had the stuff for S'mores, however, we are in Ireland so of course the day ended with rain and we did not get to do the S'mores. Next time...

Whipped cream frosting topped with strawberries and blueberries

Red, white, and blue!

Mmmm, cake...

Whatchu looking at?

Memories

I have many, many amazing memories from my time as a missionary in Germany.  But there's one particular memory that keeps popping into my brain since Avery's arrival.  Really it was such a small thing I witnessed, processed and filed away.  I had no idea that nearly 10 years later this memory would surface. But surfaced it has and I'm glad.

My favorite photo of the Rodgers' Family from the mish

It happened one night at the Rodgers' home.  Either the Rodgers' or the Halverson's would invite us over nearly every week, and often both in the same week, and we loved going the 30 minute train ride from Regensburg to Parsberg.  Great families, great kids, great food, so it was always a highlight of the week.  On this particular night, it was the usual bustling household, filled with lighthearted banter and laughter.  The youngest at the time, Sarah, happened to be a little fussy.  She'd been crying and other people had tried to calm and soothe her but nothing seemed to be working.  After a few minutes, Rachel put down what she was doing (I can't recall what she was doing but probably preparing one of her mouth-watering meals) walked over and picked up her daughter, and simply held her close.  It was like magic, she instantly stopped crying and they just remained there, mother and daughter, gently swaying back and forth.  At the time I remember trying to look away, it seemed such an intimate, private moment, but at the same time I was mesmerized by the powerful bond so evident between them. I could not fathom having such an influence on someone.

Tonight I witnessed another such tender moment when Avery became distressed and began to heartily cry, something that really hasn't happened very often in her 12 weeks on the earth so far.  Andrew picked her up and held her close and she calmed down straight away and fell asleep.  It's amazing how having a daughter changes you, how your capacity for love increases so much you never thought it was possible.  All you want to do is protect the little life that you've brought into the world, while knowing full well that she's not going to stay this size forever.  But for now all we can do is to do our best for her and treasure up these memories.

And for Rachel, for me to remember such a seemingly insignificant moment, one that was no doubt played out hundreds of times in your home with each of your children, is a tribute to you.  I'm sure you can't remember this specific time that I'm recalling, but as you can see it made an impact.  You're an incredible mother and person.  And thanks again for your example and for all the great dinners!

Discovered

Someone's discovered her thumbs and it's driving Andrew crazy. He keeps trying to stop her. I'm in two minds about it, on the one hand I think it can be a hard habit to break but on the other she's pretty good at self-soothing herself with it. Anyway, she's a happy baby and seems to be growing like a weed.