A Year's Hiatus

For all of you who don't know, Ian, Sophie and I will be spending the next year in Europe. We have started a new blog to keep everyone up to speed on what we're doing over here, and so we're moving over to that blog for the next year. We'll start up again on Sophie's blog when we return to the US, so keep it bookmarked.

The new blog is http://wilsons-in-europe.blogspot.com.

See you there!

Passport-check! Mommy's Brain...Nowhere to be found!

So, we finally made it to the post office this morning with all of the required documents, photos, and people in tow. Ian, Sophie and I all had to be there for Sophie's passport. Last night, I thought I had lost her birth certificate, SS card, and our marriage certificate, but I drove to campus at 10:00pm and found that they had fallen behind my desk. Phew!

We completed all the paperwork and sent the passport application in (along with her birth certificate, which is required) only to realize in the parking lot that we'll be flying with her in about three weeks, and her only form of ID is her birth certificate at the moment! Aggghhh! No problem, I think to myself, in California, all you have to do is show up at the county clerk's office in the county you were born in and they'll print you off a copy in about five minutes. Not so in Kentucky. You have to order them online or by phone, and for $10 you can get it in 30 days. The only other option is the super-rush option which costs $45.50! I asked the lady if there was any other way to get it faster without paying so much, and after first answering "no," proceeded to tell me that I could drive to Frankfort (about an hour away) and request it in person, which takes about an hour and only costs $10. Hmmmm...I think I'll be taking a half-day personal day to make a trip to Frankfort. I just can't bring myself to pay $45 for an extra copy of her birth certificate.

Well, on the bright side, here's some adorable pictures of Sophie on the swing. My mom took these while she was here and says that she's holding onto the swing like a big girl because she saw some older kids doing it!

Sophie's (Mis)Adventures

We've had some adventures lately that haven't turned out like we planned. This weekend, we decided to take Sophie to Explorium, a children's museum in Lexington. Grandma and Grandpa Fine took her there while we were in Austria, and she seemed to like it so much that we thought we'd take her. We drove the hour it took to get there, and lo and behold, it was closed for a week for the installation of a new exhibit! So, instead of posting the fun she had this weekend, here's a picture from when she went in July:

We are also working on getting Sophie's passport since we'll have to start working on our visa applications soon. We got her picture taken a couple of weeks ago, but we found out that her head is too small in the picture! We went and had another one taken this morning, so keep your fingers crossed that the new one is okay! Here's a copy of the first picture:

Blast from the Past I: Early July

Returning from Europe has been tougher than we expected--jetlag seems to be harder everytime we experience it (though worse on the trip back now than on the trip over--we've been managing that pretty well for the last few trips). We've also been planning for trips (to Baltimore and Washington, DC and to North Carolina) and catching up on work.

At any rate, we've been slow to update the blog. So here's a brief video of Sophie from the beginning of July. She's hanging out with Grandma and Grandpa Fine here, dancing and even walking a little!

You don't get a sense in the video, of course, of what has been going on with Sophie since we got back. We returned to find her walking much more, and she's now up to many steps at time (6-7 at least), though she still prefers to hold onto a hand while walking. Her active vocabulary is growing pretty fast now, too (just yesterday she said "hippo" and "elbow" for the first times, I think). Grandmas and Grandpas will be happy to know that she also mastered those words in early July. She's been adjusting to her new daycare situation slowly, but it gets a little easier every day. I think hanging out with a bunch of kids who walk has helped motivate her to walk more. And she's getting at least one molar now. It was pretty rough on the day it really broke through the gums, but she seems to be OK with it now. More updates and pictures soon, though it may not be until we get back from DC next Thursday.

P.S.: For anyone who hasn't heard, apologies, but we're officially spending the 2008-09 academic year in Strasbourg, France, where I'll be directing Centre's residential study abroad program and teaching a few courses. We're really excited about the experience and look forward to keeping the blog updated with Sophie's adventures in Europe! If you want to get an idea of where we'll be, visit Strasbourg's tourism site or the official site of the city. It really fits us well--it's in France, so Mindy and I can improve our French, but it's also on the Rhine river, right on the border with Germany, which is only a bicycle ride away. (If you visit the tourism site, click on the British flag to choose the English-language site, then click on "Discover." After being shown a map of where Strasbourg is located in Europe, you'll see a photo of the old city center [the Grande Ile] featuring the cathedral in the upper left. If you move toward the canal further to the left and then down a bit, you'll see a very long building right on the canal. Move back into the city one block, and you'll be looking at the street where we'll be living. The apartment is not in that first block but the one closer to the bottom of the photo.)

Right click here to save the video above.