July? My last post was in JULY?

Gaack! How does time manage to fly by so quickly? This summer, with the interim MD role for me in the New York office, was definitely more harried than I wanted or expected, but still, it's difficult for me to believe that it's already fall.

Our trip to Europe was really nice - punctuated by the news that Jason had been selected to travel back to Spartanburgh, SC 5 days early to try out for the BMW North America GS Trophy team. I found out that he made it while on the summit (or very close to it) of Monte Stevo in the Dolomites!

Meanwhile, Kaia is growing by leaps and bounds. By the time we got on the plane for Europe, she was walking all over the place. She's incredibly inquisitive, and doesn't seem to have developed a fear of new people yet - she still walks right up to people and charmed her way across France and Italy. She slept the whole way over and was awake the whole way back - getting right back into a regular sleep schedule. It didn't seem to bother her to sleep in her pack and play the entire time we were there. She's still SO easygoing, and traveling with her was way easier than I had expected. That's likely to change as she moves into toddlerhood, I know.

We're still waiting for her to start adding a lot more words. Right now there's Mama, Dada, Daisy, Vroom, Uh-oh, Mmm (for food), and Hi (and she waves byebye). She clearly understands a lot - the other day we said "want to go for a bike ride with Papa?" and she greabbed her blanket and bottle and walked over the the door - reaching for the doorknob. It's like she was saying "let's go!" I imagine that she's going to start adding them pretty soon, probably surprising us.

Now she's practically running and is much steadier on her feet - not as many falls - plus she's climbing onto chairs (she can't get back down yet), and getting SO tall. She's reaching a lot of stuff on tables that I thought were safe.

Anyhow, Boo, I hope you had a nice time in Europe! We sure loved having you with us.