Happy 1st Birthday Maya!

Written July 18th.

She’s ONE!  Can you believe it?  I know I can’t.  We started counting in days, then months and now…years?!  While I always felt like the months dragged by, always waiting for the next exciting milestone, I cannot believe how quickly a YEAR went!  Maya has done so much over this last year it’s incredible.  Watching her learn & grow has been so exciting, and sharing everything we love with her has been just as fun.

This week we shared Plum Island with her and celebrated her 1 year while we were there.  We had mostly family get together (given the size of our families), we had sun, beach, food, cake…what more could a girl ask for?!  There are lots of great photos from this day – but here are a few highlights:

Maya's favorite food is watermelon!

 Strawberry cake with vanilla frosting!

The dress

 The dress didn’t last more than 5 minutes!

The suit

 The hat lasted about 2 seconds – just long enough for the photo…the suit lasted longer!

Presents

 Dad’s guitar gift was a huge hit!

mmm...cake!

Maya wasn’t so into the cake – eating it I mean…but playing in it was fun!

Family Photo

Finally a family photo from the actual birthday day.  She’s changed so much from the last year’s family photo…she just gets better & better!  Happy 1st Birthday Maya!  I hope it was a good one!

Ethiopian Birthday

For my birthday this year (and Amy’s too) Andrew & I went out with my high school friends for a fun dinner in Cambridge.  It was a new and interesting experience to say the least.  All those years my mother taught me to have good table manners, use my utensils, sit up straight…down the drain in one meal!

For those of you who have never eaten Ethiopian food, let me set the stage.  You sit in a chair, with a tiny block table in front of you, and something that looks like an upside down Mexican hat to the side of the tiny block table.  You wonder where in the world the food is going to go and assume you’re going to be eating very tiny foods.  You order a variety of food options to share, yet you have NO idea what you are really ordering, how much you are ordering, or where they are going to put it all.  Nevermind whether or not it is spicy or goes with all of the other food you’ve eaten.  You’ve heard something about eating with your hands, picking up the food with pieces of bread etc.  Well, this I have to see.  So after ordering they bring out huge trays (they put them in the upside down hat…it starts to make sense).  The tray is covered in a crepe/crumpet like substance…the bread.  Covering the bread are the various foods we ordered.  Unsure of exactly what is what…we dug in!  It was surprisingly delicious.  The boys managed to make the food disappear…their skills were impressive.  Overall the night was a blast.  While I’m not sure I’ll be eating Ethiopian anytime soon…the experience was priceless!

Birthday HatFinger FoodFood...gone!