More dancing...

We are really ready to say 'adios, 2011'. but in the meantime Raf is really working hard on his musical pursuits! Here is doing some mix of line-dancing to some Christmas beats. He was in the middle of his dinner and kept returning to his plate for bites.

Working on his music

Christmas 2011

This isn't the Christmas we hoped for. Mum and Dad had been due to fly in on December 20th and they were going to stay for at least a couple of months. With Dad's recent death we've all been dreading the holidays, but with moving we've really not had time to think or do much about anything. Yet we have a little 2 year old boy, who, while he might not really understand what's going on, deserved a nice day with pressies and some joy.

Indeed Raf really had no sense of what was going to happen, and when he woke up this morning with no anticipation of anything, he was very pleasantly surprised to find a stocking full of lovely presents! The first thing he happen upon was a train decoration, and it went uphill from there where he discovered a Diesel train as well as Belle (a Thomas the Tank Engine character). Unfortunately for Raf it wasn't all trains - and he was very unimpressed with other stocking goodies. He did like his raisins and juice, though, as well as the peppa pig books we had snuck in. Oh, and his recorder. He does like to play a tune.

He was very slow in opening his presents at first, and then - every so often - he would go and pick up a pressie (anything wrapped in train paper!) and open it. He was nonplussed with anything that wasn't Thomas! Toward the end of the afternoon, though, he was just liking the unwrapping and was ripping through everything... so we picked up the remaining hundreds of pressies and put them away for another day.

Raf did have a lovely day, and all of us were cheered by watching him dance to the Christmas tunes.

The boys enjoyed their Christmas dinner! Tofurky all around.

Christmas Eve in a new home

We're spending Christmas in our new house. We moved - sort of - yesterday, and we're very happy to be in a brand spanking new house with heat, straight walls, and working locks on the doors. It means we've been frantically busy trying to pack up our house, and since we'd only just returned from Spain it was chaotic, to say the least. It also means that we're not very prepared for Christmas. I don't think that Raf has any idea that tomorrow he'll be showered in gifts, much less the idea that Father Christmas has left them for him.

Anyway, all, happy holidays to you all. It is a super sad time for us.

Musical Rafi!

Rafi kept running after us with instruments every time we stopped 'playing' to do something else....

Groovy Raf

Rafi's grandpa seemed to have two rules which, when followed, made you a good dancer. Those rules were to be both fast and vigorous. Raf seems to have learnt this lesson well. Here he is dancing in Spain. Two of my sisters were staying in a hotel when we were there and to take advantage of their free wifi, we hung out in the 'entertainment' area where the next youngest person was 70, waiting for the disco to begin.

Grandpa meets Raf

When Raf was born my parents, of course, were still in Spain. We planned to go across and see them as soon as we felt able to travel with a new baby. So in October of 2009, when Raf was just 3 months old, we took a bus from Portland to Boston and then hopped on a plane to Madrid and then another one to Alicante where my mum and dad were waiting. We'd been traveling for over 24 hours but we were all so excited to see my folks.

I remembered my mum calling me in the hospital when I had Raf, just an hour or so afterward, and then speaking to my dad and I told him how wonderful it was and how well it had gone and how it was the best thing ever, and he said, "I can tell in your voice, Billy".



They soon became fast friends.