3 Years Ago...

Time flies and I just can't believe it. Julienne is three! Happy Birthday to our little angel!!!

For the longest time she has been reminding us, saying "I'm not a baby" (to the point of tears) every time we change her diaper or cradle her. It's hard to swallow it but she is right in deed, she is not longer a baby. The funny part is that "she is still in diapers" despite all of my efforts, and my mother's efforts to help her and teach her. After trying "everything" out there for about 1 year I decided to chill out and wait until she is ready. All children are different I guess. Now when we change her diaper and she starts whining about not being a baby, we say: "Oh, I'm sorry but babies wear diapers, so you're still a baby".

Here is a picture of "the happening" that lead me to decide to chill out and just wait for when she is ready. Lol. It was a day that I say "this is it no more diapers" and left her with underwear. She just kept playing and didn't even care.

We still call her "Monito" even though she has been maturing. She was such a hand full and mischievous. She has became now more like a sweet and very sensitive little girl with a much low percentage of hyperactivity/disobedience/curiosity. We have visited the Taiwanese ER just once in the last 6 months. Now she seems to remember what happened that day when we point it out because she quickly stops being so "monkey". She has now become Catalina's best play pal as they play so nicely together. Her nursery teachers have stopped asking me 'when is she going to advance to primary', and even better, they no longer come get me in the middle of Sunday School to go and calm her down.

She is just the cutest and her personality is just fascinating. Andy and I just enjoy and laugh at everything she comes up with. She is daddy's little girl. I'm still hoping to capture the moment Andy melts down every time he looks at her. She has the most cheerful spirit and the cutest smile. She also has the cutest temper tantrums and the cutest/funniest "rude" sayings. She loves pretending. She quickly memorizes random disney movie dialogues and songs and comes up the the funniest things that make us all laugh. Catalina really enjoys her goofy little sister.

Some of our favorite "Julienne sayings" are:

(when we are getting ready to go to church, or arriving to church) she says: "Yay!!! I'm gonna go to mursery!!!"

(when we go to the play ground or really any type of going somewhere) she says: "Yay lets go to the playground, buuurrayyy!"

We're still thinking about starting to correct her "nursery" and "hurray" but I want to wait just a little bit longer :).

We don't have our dog around that barks at strangers but we have Julienne with a very strong sense of possession. Very often when someone comes to the house or even when someone gets into the elevator of our building from another floor, she says: "Get out of my house/elevator right now!" She even did it to grandma a couple of weeks ago when we were getting into the car. Julienne said: "Grandma, get out of my car!" (It's actually pretty funny when you look at this face saying such a thing)

Last Sunday the 13th we celebrated Julienne's b-day with a few friends from church. We had a good time and ate a lot. It is amazing how this "gipsy-like" life we have has blessed us so much by being able to meet amazing people everywhere we go. Our friends surely and quickly do become our family.

Somethings have not yet changed. Julienne still drools. lol. Notice her drool as she gets closer trying to blow her candles. I just noticed when I downloaded the pictures and don't know who got to eat that part of the cake. Lol.

I just wanted to dedicate this day to our Monito we love so much. Here is Julienne throughout the years.

Julienne's b-day #1 (in Chile).

Julienne's b-day #2 (in Key West).

Julienne's b-day #3 (in Taiwan).

Wow, I just realized she has celebrated her three birthdays all around the world!!!

The Man I Love...

I guess being a full-time student (and only a student) has its advantages. During this time here Andy is under different rules and felt free to grow a big beard. So for the past 2 1/2 months Andy has gone wild, until last Friday when he shaved in preparation to visit the US embassy in Thailand next week and before we went to the temple. He decided to mow it all off. But we had to have some fun during the process.

Here is the big red beard.

Here is the Fu Manchu style.

Here is the greasy...uh I mean sexy mustache.

I'm in love with this goofy guy. Happy Valentine's Day.

Special Guests...

We have been living in Taiwan for 6 months now and had our first guests. Grandma and Grandpa DuBois finally made good use of their "virgin" passports and came to delight us with their visit. We had 19 days of non stop fun with them. We feel so blessed and are so thankful that they were able to come. The hard part was saying good bye :(.

Here is a brief list of all the places we visited together:

-The Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall in Taipei

-Sun Moon Lake, Taiwan (and The Formosan Aboriginal Cultural Village)

-Taroko Gorge National Park in Hualien, Taiwan

-TheNational Palace Museum in Taipei

-Taipei 101 (the 2nd highest building in the world)

-Taipei Zoo

-Maokong Gondola

-Shilin Night Market in Taipei

...And many different Temples, metro rides, long walks, etc.

We had such a nice time. We also gained quite a few pound eating a lot of enchiladas, beans, tamales, and so on (as they brought those ingredients we don't have here). But we truly needed to have some of that food and the fabulous New Mexican's taste we've been missing so much and those extra pounds are totally worth it.

The house is too quiet now. We miss having our family with us.

TAIPEI 101 AWESOMENESS

Our 2010 Highlights

2010 was a year full of adventures for our family. The year started with Andy’s deployment to Colombia. Fortunately, we were blessed to have Gaby’s mom come from Chile to help during that time. While Andy was gone and with an assignment to move to Monterrey, CA, we received unexpected news: Andy had been selected for the Olmsted Scholar Program. Our lives changed completely when we found out we were going to live in Taipei, Taiwan for the next 3 years.

Andy had to come back early from his assignment in Colombia. And during all the craziness we still managed to enjoy our first cruise. We took a Disney Cruise to the Bahamas with Andy’s parents and Gaby’s mom. We started to organize and pack for the BIG move and Andy’s mom kindly stayed with us to help with whatever we needed. For instance, she babysat for us for a whole weekend when we had to go to Washington DC to learn about “The Olmsted Scholar Program”. That was the first time that Gaby had ever left the girls overnight and for so long. She survived.

After college finals and graduation, passports, VISAS, military orders, document authentication, yard sales, the moving company, the storage company, house cleaning, 8 big suitcases, and very sad goodbyes, we left our Key West Paradise to start a new family journey. We spent 3 beautiful weeks visiting with family and friends and by the end of July we left the US and had

3 amazing weeks in Japan. We used our Japan Rail pass to the maximum extent possible. We went to Hiroshima, Nara, Osaka, Kyoto, Nikko and obviously Tokyo. It was all very fun and we learned so much about Japan.

When we arrived, Taiwan was not an easy place to live at first. In the first few weeks, a small hotel room became our home while Catalina started school and we went apartment hunting. We celebrated Gaby’s 30th birthday/moving day on Sep 2nd; and after the initial frustration of adjustment we can finally say “we love home”. We love where we live and love what we do. Taiwanese people are some of the nicest people we’ve ever meet. Our church ward is amazing and we have many friends. We truly are living the time of our lives. Andy is just a student but still gets paid. We have a lot of family time, so this is not just a big step in Andy’s professional career but also an amazing cultural experience for our family. We appreciate having Andy home as we pray and think of those service members who are far away from their homes this year. Andy has been away before and we always worried about him. We are so grateful for the time we have to share as a family right now. We recognize the Lord’s hand and tender blessing as we enjoy of this great opportunity, and we wanted to share it with you.

Catalina is five and attends Kindergarten at the Taipei American School. She loves her school, riding the bus (like a big girl), and recess to play with her friends. She is very responsible and has shown big academic progress in just 4 months. She is an innate artist and has a beautiful singing voice. Catalina is an amazing care giver as she takes the role of big sister very seriously. She loves anything that involves princesses, cooking, and art/crafts. She has a wide imagination and is getting smarter (almost too smart) every day.

Julienne is turning 3 this coming February. “Monito” (little monkey), as we mostly call her, keeps us busy and entertained 24/7 (not kidding). She is a fast learner and loves playing with Catalina. She also has a wide imagination and loves “pretending”. She has become very independent and is not afraid to speak her mind. She is very sociable and charismatic. Taiwanese people love her and she is constantly being photographed. We’re hoping she decides to move on from diapers this year.

Gaby turned 30 this year! She graduated from college last spring. She got an Associates in Art Degree with Honors at the Florida Keys Community College. This past Nov. she went through her first surgery ever (umbilical hernia). She is fine and enjoying every minute of our Taiwanese experience. She is very busy with Catalina’s school, caring for Julienne, and her church calling to work with teenage girls. She hopes to make time to also learn Chinese and to finish some craft projects she has been postponing throughout the years.

Andy somehow figured out a way to have the Air Force pay him to be a student again. He is very happy with his assignment and is probably a little bit crazy as he enjoys learning Chinese. Sometimes at midnight he is on the computer learning characters which he says helps him to relax. He finally finished his MBA from the University of Nebraska this year and is very grateful to hopefully never have to look at another finance formula again. Andy also completed the Taroko Gorge half marathon in November (one of the most beautiful places in the world), and looks forward to doing more. He is a dedicated father/husband and is truly grateful for this time to be with his family.

TOO MUCH MONEY!!!

We are not lottery winners, we didn't rob a bank or anything like it. Right after our arrival to Taiwan we started to look for apartments to rent. We decided on one that fits our needs of: space, neatness, near a metro station, relatively near Catalina's school, and of course in our price range. After 3 visits to the apartment and a whole week of negotiations we signed the rental contract last Saturday. We'll be moving into our new home on Sep. 1st. Well, here comes the funny part. Like most rental agreements, you have to come with F-L-S and that of course is always a lot of money. We don't have a bank here yet and the landlord doesn't have an international bank account, which makes impossible to make a bank to bank transaction. So our only option is to call our bank in the States and ask for a 24 hr raise in the limit of money we can take out of an ATM. The highest currency here in Taiwan is the $1,000 NTD (new taiwanese dollar) bill which is a little over $31 USD. So here is Andy holding, and sleeping on $160,000 NTD which is just half of all the F-L-S (do the math). Yes, Taiwan is a very expensive place to live.

We are alive!!!

I have opened this blog many times with the intention of catching up on stuff but I just feel overwhelmed with ALL the things I have missed telling. We've had some very hectic time this first half of year that I don't even know where to start from. I decided to just start blogging again and move forward, and when I have time move backward into our life. To my defense we have been traveling and moving from one side of the earth to the other. lol.