Rosa turns ONE in Duck NC

It's July 4th... and I remember this night last year. We had a one-week-old baby, and I was amazed all the amateur fireworks exploding in our neighborhood didn't wake her up. I hope we're as lucky this year! Rosa's first birthday was a week ago, and on that day, my friend Zarah sent everyone in the band the original email Jeff sent announcing Rosa's birth. It had the link to the pictures we took in the hospital. We all looked back at those early pictures and couldn't believe how much Rosa has grown and changed in this year! I mean - she gained 10.5 inches in length this year - when else in your life do you grow 10 inches in one year?!? And looking at those pictures just brought me right back... how I called my mom and dad at 3:30 in the morning to say, "Mom, we have a baby girl!" It's making me teary just thinking about it. It's been an amazing year - and although I didn't grow 10 inches, I think I grew 10 feet in patience, endurance, and love.

Here's the Rosa tree. This tree was in full bloom on the day Rosa was born last year and was gorgeous again this year. We just learned this is a Jacaranda tree, native to India.

It's been a week now since we got back from our trip to Duck, NC. While we were there, Rosa had her first birthday! We spent the week with my parents and sister, my Kallaur cousins, and Jeff's mom, sister, and sister's boyfriend. Unlike our 52-degree Pacific waters, the Atlantic Ocean off of North Carolina was warm and swimmable, and we spent most of our days down at the beach. My parents got Rosa a kiddy pool to set up under the umbrella, and on different days, various grandparents, cousins, aunts, and uncles helped fill it with ocean water for Rosa to splash in, which she loved! Unfortunately, both Jeff and my hands were always full (or sandy!) taking care of Rosa, so we didn't take a single picture of her at the beach! Hopefully in the next few weeks, we'll get some pictures from some of my cousins who had their cameras at the beach.

For the rest of this post, I'll let my pictures do the talking!

Rosa was pretty darn good on the flights both heading out and coming home. We had a layover in Chicago on the way, which broke up the trip nicely. On the way back, it was straight from Washington DC to SF, so we had a full six hours on the plane. Rosa was squirmy, but didn't ever really cry. Luckily, she amused herself by reading (and eventually eating) the safety information card.

After the flight to the East Coast, we stayed with Jeff's Aunt Pat before heading down to Duck. Thanks for your hospitality Pat!

On the trip from VA to NC, we had lunch at the Digger's Diner - the home of the (apparently) famous "Grave Digger" monster truck. Monster trucks seem to be a big deal in NC!

We had hot sunny days and beautiful sunsets most of the days.

We also had a couple cool thunder and lightning storms - Jeff loves doing long duration night shots, and caught a couple good bolts of lightning!

Grandma Judy and Aunt Aly loved their time with Rosa

During our week there, we also re-celebrated my Uncle Costya's 75th birthday, complete with a parade of birthday signs from his grand-kids

Thanks to my cousin Dan for always remembering that we need pictures of all 3 of us together!

And now - some birthday party pictures...

Here's Grandma Lois showing Rosa the beautiful roses that Tanti Kira bought to make the house pretty for the party!

Tanti Kira also put up streamers and balloons...

and decorated the driveway so that everyone could see it was Rosa's birthday!

Here's Rosa with Aunt Aly and Tanti Kira

The cake, decorated by Grandma Judy...

and Rosa's face, decorated by the cake!

Rosa also got presents from Grandpa Frank and Nana Anita, including a stuffed animal puppy

Here's the group photo we took. It was a very bright, very hot day. We all look a little wilted.

And here's the group photo of just our house.

We had the good luck of bumping into (literally!) the Obamas in the Dulles airport!