More from Havana

This is our tour guide for the day, Omar, with two of his lovely lady friends.Two men and their babies
A fun parade through one of the squares in old Havana
A random pic

Claire's hair was crazy that day. With short naps on the bus here and there, and major wind, Claire's pigtails started to come undone early in the day.

Pretty dress parade

Each night for dinner, Claire would get all gussied up in a pretty dress. Some of these were shower gifts that Claire now fits into while others are ones I simply couldn't resist buying.

Needless to say, beautiful Claire received a lot of attention at the resort. And like every true celebrity, she was surrounded by paparazzi (well, make that paparazzo - moi!).

Beach baby

A fantastic week in Cuba

Paul, Claire and I just returned home from a fantastic week in sunny, friendly, beautiful Cuba. We stayed at an all-inclusive (my first experience with this) and I have to say, I completely enjoyed the break from planning meals, grocery shopping, cooking and cleaning up. Claire enjoyed the plentiful pina coladas (without rum, of course) while Paul and I enjoyed quite a few of the same (but with rum) and yummy mojitos.

Claire loved the beach. We spent most of our time there, building and digging with her sand toys, collecting sea shells, jumping waves, and grooving to music. We all avoided sunburns thankfully, as we were pretty careful about applying sunblock frequently and hanging out in the shade.

When we weren't at the beach, we could be found at one of the resort's many restaurants, swaying to music in the lobby bar or running (or rather, chasing after Claire) through the long outdoor corridors. Many, many of our pictures of Claire are action shots of her running toward or away from the camera. Here's just one example:

We went on a one-day trip into Havana, which was absolutely incredible. We were a little worried about how Claire would do with the trip (two and a half hours to Havana) and the long day but she was a total angel. That also happened to be the day that Castro resigned but you'd never know it from the lack of unusual activity in the streets. Paul and I were blown away by the architecture and the state of disrepair that many stunning buildings had fallen into. People were incredibly friendly, and everywhere we went, men and women alike would comment on Claire's beauty or ruffle her hair.

Some old American cars on a Havana street

Paul watches as Claire dances to some great Cuban music.

As great a trip it was, we are glad to be home. Claire did have a few moments near the beginning and the end of the trip where it seemed she was out of sorts about being away from home. She didn't eat a lot, but then, we can tell that her second year molars are giving her trouble again, so that could be the cause too. (But I like to think she simply prefers my cooking - ha ha.)

I can only post a few pictures at a time, so I'll follow this post up with a couple more.

Slurp!

I turned our blog into a book! I used a company called blurb. It provides free software that "slurps" your blog and then allows you to format or revise the contents before uploading your "published" book to blurb's site to turn into a book. Here's the Web address in case anyone is interested: http://www.blurb.com/create/book/blogbook?tag=1_sf

I decided to include only the first 100 posts or so, with the intention to create at least one more volume. It was really easy although I was disappointed that blurb can't slurp comments from Blogger (it can from other platforms). I was able to add the comments manually, though, so I was still satisfied. It's 164 pages in total, with several pages taken up entirely by photographs.

We received e-Claire, Volume 1 today, and I am thrilled! I had no idea how it would turn out, but for $48 plus shipping, I couldn't be happier. I'm not sure how much Claire will appreciate the book; however, I know I'll treasure it (and any subsequent volumes) for the photos of and tidbits about our little girl, as well as the record the book provides of the friendships with our travel-mates that we nurtured through blogging.

As soon as I unwrapped the book, Claire immediately started paging through it:

We had a big week ...

It all started with our anniversary of Forever Family Day on February 5. Then the Year of the Rat was ushered in on February 7, followed by two exciting Chinese New Year parties this weekend. We've been busy!

Our first Chinese New Year's party was held at a wonderful place where we've been attending Mandarin playclass Saturday mornings. We, the international adoption group, were invited last Saturday to join their children's party as our Saturday class yesterday. There was one hitch: we'd have to perform three Mandarin songs! Yikes! We practiced strenuously last Saturday and faithfully practiced during the week leading up to the big event. Thankfully it all went fine yesterday, since we were full in number and our instructor sang along with us. Claire had a wonderful time at the party, especially when the big-screen TV played fun Chinese kids' songs and everyone got up for a dance party.

To protect the privacy of others, I'm not posting photos of other kids (hence only one photo here):

Today, we joined our international adoption group for dim sum in Chinatown. We had attended this event a couple of times in the past as "waiting parents", and last year, we missed the event having only returned home with Claire a couple of days earlier. It was great this year to finally attend with Claire! Again, I don't want to post photos of other adults or children without their permission, so I actually don't have any photos from the event itself to post. However, Claire and Kitsya provided this photo op shortly after we returned from dim sum:

Lastly, here's a photo from this past week of a coy Claire:

Have a wonderful week everyone!

Our first anniversary of Forever Family Day

Today is our one-year anniversary of becoming a family. And what a year it has been! We eagerly took our precious girl in our arms a year ago, and over the following days, then weeks, and then months, we delighted in each new glimpse into her personality. Having known Claire for a year now, we can see that our initial impressions of Claire were accurate; she is an affectionate, wise, gentle, witty kid who fills our hearts with love and our days with laughter. Paul and I feel unbelievably lucky to be her parents.

As we celebrate Forever Family Day with Claire, our thoughts are also with our travel-mates who share this anniversary with us. Happy Forever Family Day to all of you! Please give your girls a big hug and a kiss from us please!

In Claire's country

On year ago today, we spent our first full day in China. I'll always remember how excited we were to be there, in China, the same country Claire was in. Even being in the same time zone as Claire was thrilling to us.

We had a wonderful day exploring but unlike other trips we had been on, my mind wasn't fully on the sights I was seeing. Usually, I savour all the facts about what I'm seeing - what year a building was built, its interesting architecture, who lived there, etc. - but on this trip, I was distracted by impending parenthood. We were to meet Claire in 2 days.

We were filled with a strange mix of feelings: elation about finally becoming parents, disbelief that the moment was almost upon us, intense curiousity about the beautiful girl we were about to meet, excitement about joining up with our travel-mates, nervousness about performing the simplest tasks for our baby, and solemn awareness of issues that could present themselves on our journey with Claire (thankfully, none did).

We had a wonderful day to ourselves, followed by a fabulous evening with Yulin and a few other folks, including our travel-mates Pat and Kathleen, and Kathleen's parents. Our trip to Claire had officially begun!

In China at last! Below: a hutong for me (Dajiao means big feet); the nearby, Xiaojiao ("small feet") hutong was where the girls popular with the emperor lived. Sampling some dumplings (yummy!) at the Wangfujing Snack Street:
Not sampling the scorpions and other exotic fare at Wangfujing's Night Market:
Below: enjoying our night with Kathleen, Pat, Kathleen's parents, and a few other travellers. I still don't know where we actually were that night. All I know is that there was a lake, surrounded by trendy restaurants and lounges on one side and clubs on the other.