Sienna Marie

It's been forever since I've updated the blog, but I'm back! New Years Eve was spent in Antigua with Kammie and Jaime. We spent most of the evening at an Irish pub where we ran into Hermano. We stepped outside for a bit to watch the fireworks and grab a bite of street food - yummy! The weather was perfect and we had a great time. At the end of February, Sienna and I headed to the Earth Lodge in Antigua with Amy and her family. The evening was gorgeous, nice and cool in a chilled atmosphere, but the evening wasn't so great. Sienna decided she didn't want to sleep, for some odd reason, and I dealt with her irrational crying and begging to go outside to see the gato. The morning finally arrived and there was a concert, but the heat blazed in and I was happy to head home for a shower. Sienna and I flew to Orlando for Semana Santa (Easter week) where we met my mom, dad, sister and Madi and stayed at a nice resort with a bunch of fun activities. We headed to Disney World ...

Our December vacation started off with a five hour drive from Guatemala City to the Copan Ruins in Copan, Honduras . We had another three car caravan consisting of the Turners, Connors (and their nanny, Andrea) and the Storelees (and our nanny, Reyna). All went smoothly until we came to the border and Wade Turner, who was in the lead, was unsure if we needed to pull over and park or just drive into Honduras as the Guatemalans waved us through and nobody seemed to be manning the Honduran side. I hopped into the lead and, as Wade put it, cruised up the hill faster than I'd driven up a hill all day. The Turner car followed, but the Connor car was stopped by the authorities. They phoned the Turners and told them that we were supposed to return to the border. When Michele Turner called to tell me, I told her I wasn't going back, but would wait for them up the hill. Surprised, Michele turned to Wade and said, "She's not going back" and later referred to me as a renegad...

Sienna's one year checkup came at 13 months on September 3. She weighed in at 21 pounds 12 ounces (50th percentile) and was 30.9 inches tall (90th percentile). She had her MMR vaccination and was a trooper once again. She's walking by herself all over the place now. She hasn't taken too many falls and none that injured her, which is what I worried about with these hard, tile floors. She eats very well, just about everything I put in front of her which is mostly cooked vegetables of all sorts, strawberries, papaya, pasta, oatmeal and more. She's starting to dabble a bit in fruit juice mixed with half water. She loves to drink out of my water bottle, but that sometimes consists of pouring it all over the floor so I take it away from her (she likes to do that with her bottle, too). She now drinks vitamin fortified powdered milk (Nido made by Nestle). It's easier than using fresh milk which can go bad in a short amount of time. Sienna is an absolute doll, travels well ...

Sienna and I left Guatemala on June 17 at 2pm and flew to Houston where we had our usual three hour layover. My friend, Ruth, was on the plane with us and was a huge help! We had an empty seat in our row and were seated in the bulkhead, so we had ample room for Sienna to play. She was her usual princess-self. In Houston, we got a bite to eat with Ruth before sending her off on her flight to Seattle. We spent an hour walking - Sienna is happy as long as the stroller is moving and boarded our flight to Minneapolis at 9pm. We lucked out again and had an empty seat and were seated toward the back of the plane with a bunch of high school kids returning from a Spanish trip to Costa Rica. Sienna was smiling and they were entertaining her. One of the boys with several piercings made a comment that she's the first kid not to be afraid of him ;) Sienna slept the entire trip and we landed in Minneapolis close to midnight. My parents and my niece were there with a cute sign to greet us and a f...