It’s been awhile since our last post.  Over the last month during some of our visits and travels we found some time to find a new home in SW Portland, move, and begin settling in.

We are so excited to be in our new home.  The neighborhood is amazing.  There are 10 homes on a private cul de sac with 12 kids ranging in age from newborn to 6.  Luca is 1 of only 3 boys and has quickly drawn the attention of the other kids.  Upon arriving home the other day Kitty was greeted by three of the girls who immediately whisked Luca away.

It’s a nice home with plenty of room for our family to grow into.  Even though we don’t come close to filling the home Luca has found a way to take over two of the bedrooms and the dining room (aka the Lion room).  Luca is very active nowadays and spends sometime every day on his play structure in the backyard.

A feature we liked was the large walk-in closet in our room.  Luca on the other-hand views it as yet another opportunity to play his favorite game… Where’s Luca. I mean I’ve studied this picture for hours and still can’t find him.  Can you?

Luca takes a moment in his room to hug his monkey.  Every night he crawls into his bed to help his monkey go to sleep.  Of course he himself usually falls asleep in the process 🙂

Our little Bam Bam.  When not with his monkey or lovey Luca is often walking around with one of his baseball bats.

Luca has continued his swim classes and has progressed a lot.  He now loves going to class and can’t wait to get into the water.  The last few weeks he’s started to jump in and dive under the water on his own.  There were some earlier times when he just didn’t want to go or was upset when we got into the pool.  With him calling out for the foam noodles, splashing, applauding after coming up from a dive, and giggling throughout, I’m so glad we stuck with it and love seeing how excited he is at the pool.

We used to go on walks all the time back in Pasadena.  Now that we have settled in a bit more we’ve started to explore the parks, paths, and trails throughout our neighborhood.  There are at least 3 parks we’ve found that are within walking distance.  Once there it’s tough to get Luca to leave. He could happily swing, slide, and run around for hours. My latest entry for the father of the year award was from one of these parks.  Luca had successfully slid down an extra wide slide so I stepped away down to the bottom to let him slide by himself.  Of course his shoes caught, he went head over heels, and landed on his face.  No major damage but he busted his lip open so there was quite a bit of bleeding.  I gave him his pacifier which calmed him down, but it didn’t stop the bleeding.  Now imagine you’re out for a nice walk and here comes some dad pushing his child in a stroller with blood trickling down his face from behind a pacifier.  All I could do was acknowledge the horrified passersbys with a smile and a shrug that said “kids – what are you gonna do.”

That’s it for now.  There’s a lot more to share about all the visits with family and friends, 4th of July, and other trips, but I hear someone or something stirring up stairs… and by stirring I mean the sound of a plastic bat(s) crashing against walls, gates, doors, and anything that catches the eye of a 17 month old.