life before the little one

There have been comments the past week about our new blog. Most people are wondering where we will find the time to post. Short answer . . . we don't know . . . yet. I am not sure what got into me last week, but looking back on it now, I am not so sure why I thought I could pull this off.

I guess I am looking at this as the beginnings of some new discipline for us, making more time for family and more time to spend with our soon to be little one. You can see already by the date of this post, that this will be no small task. Couple that with my lack of technical skills and fear of the blank screen staring back at me and we have some big issues. (FYI - I realize that my some of my links don't actually link to anything - unfortunately, I haven't figured out what I did wrong yet)

Life now, as you may already know, is very busy. CB has been working for the last two years on an architecture exhibition with his research group, OSA. This work is on top of his regularly insane scheduled full-time job. The exhibition will be opening on October 29, 2006 - next Sunday. We are very excited as well we will be very relieved when it is finally open. You can see the link to the website for the exhibition here. As part of his full-time, day job, CB has been working on a lot of interesting architecture competitions in the past year, the latest being a large office tower in Paris, France.

I am currently juggling various hotel and timeshare design projects that seem to keep me on a plane every week lately. This month includes (3) separate trips to Hawaii, all complete with full accomodations for a one day visit and an all expense paid round-trip, red-eye plane flight back to LA. In the spirit of making "lemonade", I am considering this hard core mommy training for the late night wake-ups/ no sleep phases of parenting. This week I will be on a plane headed in the opposite direction, to Colorado Springs, CO. This week will be a three night stay, so I can settle in a bit - woo hoo!

Oh wait, but there's more! We have a serious deadline now to get this condo in order. Our list of renovation work includes many, many things, but we have narrowed down the list to the absolute priorities required before our girl arrives. This includes the "little one" room, new flooring throughout condo, new paint throughout condo, guest bath renovation, kitchen renovation. By the way, we are accepting any and all offers of visits and assistance if anyone is up to it!

So, back to our new project - the blog. We decided to use our waiting time constructively and for the past year or so we have been learning and experiencing as much of the Chinese culture as we can. It has been very interesting so far and we have thoroughly enjoyed this journey. We would like to use this forum to share our education with you. They say it takes a village to raise a child and we hope you will all be along for the ride.

room for one more?

Our lives are already full with family, friends, travel, work and renovation, but now we are adding a "little one" to the mix. Adoption, parenting, china culture and language are now suddenly on the list, too. Join us during our wait and preparation to become parents.

ps. I should probably add "blogging" to the list . . . peer pressure has gotten us to this point - so this is for all of our "faraway" connections (and those close by too). If getting this thing up and running is any indication of what we are in for - we are in big trouble (and I will really need to work on my technical skills) . . . so I apologize in advance, bear with me while I figure out how to say "hello" in html . . .

the rainbow

Yesterday, we saw a rainbow . . . in LA . . . a FULL RAINBOW - from one end to the other. As I was driving home from work last night, it began to rain. It was real rain with big, fat raindrops coming down all at once. I can count on one hand the amount of times it rains in LA in a year, and that is including the wimpy drizzle mist they usually call rain out here. I spotted the rainbow as I turned onto Santa Monica Boulevard only a few blocks from home and it caught me completely off guard. My second thought was of CB - I wanted him to see it too. (first thought - confusion, double-take, mouth open, awe)

Of course, after I parked the car, rushed up the stairs, called to CB and got him out to the front of the building, I slipped down three stairs and ended up on my back side in a puddle of water. Yeah, moment ruined. CB got me back upstairs, but by the time he got back out to take a another look, the rainbow was gone.

These are the little things I can't wait to share with our girl. I have only seen one FULL RAINBOW before this - it was in Hawaii (land of rainbows). I got a picture of that one . . . now let's see if I can get it posted on this blog.

*Doesn't look like Hawaii, you say? Well, let me assure you that on all my "glamourous" business trips to Hawaii, this is usually what I see.

By the way, I'm fine - bruised back, bruised elbow and strained muscle in the neck, but otherwise good to go.