The main purpose of this US trip was to meet my two new nephews, Hunter (11 weeks) and Ryan (3 weeks) and see the rest of the family in the process. We visited Ống Landis at work to watch him fix cars. After that, Gianna was pretending to fix toys for the rest of the trip. Since she also has a fascination with being a doctor, my brother Jeff let her use his stethoscope. Now she is begging to have one of her own. As an added bonus we had lunch with my cousin Dave and his family and stayed with some grad school friends, Greg, Alejandra, and Marcela in Richmond. All of these families have kids, so Gianna was never lacking for playmates. I expected she may be intensely jealous of the new babies, but there were only one or two occasions towards the end of the trip that she got upset that Bố was holding the baby instead of her. We never made it to the beach, but there were plenty of pools to swim in. Gianna went from a timid barnacle to a sea dog in the matter of a week. Check out
pics of her swimming with her Hello Kitty swimmies.
Two things really hit me on this trip. As I was having dinner with my brother Jim and his family, Hunter was crying as Jim tried to burp him, Nathan was playing his Nintendo, and Gianna was crawling under the table. It was wonderful chaos. My little brother Jim is a father and our kids were playing together. Priceless. Same thing in Virginia watching Jeff and Nancy take care of Ryan. The look of exhaustion on their faces, the spit-up on Dan's shirt, this is the true meaning of family. We have reached the next stage in life and alles gut. The second thing that hit me is how the internet makes it feel like we see these people all the time even though we live on different continents. When we were leaving, we told Gianna that this just good-bye for now, say "see you on Skype". She was sad to go, wanted to see everyone one more time, but the trip was over. We coaxed her onto the plane with the expectation of seeing Bruno and her neighbor friend Niall. Before the wheels were up in the air, she was asleep. She woke up after we had landed and asked "America?" Sorry, it will be a long time before we return to America again. Now it's back to regular life in Frankfurt, the land of "hotdogs and big hotdogs" according to Gianna. Thanks for all your hospitality America!
The main purpose of this US trip was to meet my two new nephews, Hunter (11 weeks) and Ryan (3 weeks) and see the rest of the family in the process. We visited Ống Landis at work to watch him fix cars. After that, Gianna was pretending to fix toys for the rest of the trip. Since she also has a fascination with being a doctor, my brother Jeff let her use his stethoscope. Now she is begging to have one of her own. As an added bonus we had lunch with my cousin Dave and his family and stayed with some grad school friends, Greg, Alejandra, and Marcela in Richmond. All of these families have kids, so Gianna was never lacking for playmates. I expected she may be intensely jealous of the new babies, but there were only one or two occasions towards the end of the trip that she got upset that Bố was holding the baby instead of her. We never made it to the beach, but there were plenty of pools to swim in. Gianna went from a timid barnacle to a sea dog in the matter of a week. Check out pics of her swimming with her Hello Kitty swimmies.
Two things really hit me on this trip. As I was having dinner with my brother Jim and his family, Hunter was crying as Jim tried to burp him, Nathan was playing his Nintendo, and Gianna was crawling under the table. It was wonderful chaos. My little brother Jim is a father and our kids were playing together. Priceless. Same thing in Virginia watching Jeff and Nancy take care of Ryan. The look of exhaustion on their faces, the spit-up on Dan's shirt, this is the true meaning of family. We have reached the next stage in life and alles gut. The second thing that hit me is how the internet makes it feel like we see these people all the time even though we live on different continents. When we were leaving, we told Gianna that this just good-bye for now, say "see you on Skype". She was sad to go, wanted to see everyone one more time, but the trip was over. We coaxed her onto the plane with the expectation of seeing Bruno and her neighbor friend Niall. Before the wheels were up in the air, she was asleep. She woke up after we had landed and asked "America?" Sorry, it will be a long time before we return to America again. Now it's back to regular life in Frankfurt, the land of "hotdogs and big hotdogs" according to Gianna. Thanks for all your hospitality America!
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