today is a good day!

The big 11 month mark! Grace started walking 2 1/2 weeks ago and now that is ALL she does. Forget playing with toys except to fling them all out of her toy box, then all she does is cruise around the house checking things out, opening and closing doors and cabinets. Grace is feeling very generous these days, offering up her sippy cup of formula (yummy) for anyone near and sharing Cheerios with Dan and Baxter.

I am feeling pretty fine as I worked my last 3 days in a row at Methodist and finished yesterday. Huge sigh of relief- that was never my favorite job, that's for sure! We pack up this coming Monday and are on our way up to Austin on Tuesday. Dan will be up in College Station coaching his team's final meet, their long course champioship, this weekend and he'll officially be done as well. We are ready to move on from San Antonio and are excited to see what potential we'll find up in Austin for both of our careers as well as for our family/social life. We'll both have more normal hours and weekends off except for meets during the competitive season, and I won't have to work holidays anymore so that should be really nice.

Wish us luck with the move and still for the sale of this house and we'll update you when we make it there!!

Grace's future boyfriend??

and she's off!!

How did I get in here?

Oh ya, I was trying to get my ball Ok, not funny any more!!
Can't catch me now!!

Officially yesterday, Grace decided these little 3-step ventures between the furniture were for the birds and took off walking in no particular direction. She still gets a little top-heavy or her feet just won't go as fast as she's used to when she's crawling but she's basically figured it out.

I read that once they start walking they are considered a toddler. After watching her 'toddle' along I now understand where the word comes from :)

to the beach!!

The Parman side of the family converged in Gulf Shores, Alabama for what is turning out to be an annual tradition. It was so nice to leave SA, TX for a little while and not worry about packing up the house or the endless job of keeping it tidy for showings. Grace seemed to be intrigued by the gritty stuff on the beach and at first didn't like to touch it or crawl in it. By the second and third days she liked the sand so much she was eating it. I guess that's the benefit of not really having teeth to speak of- then you're not haunted hours later by another crunch of a granule of sand between the teeth. And apparently the taste of salt was just fine by her as well. She'd do her usual fingers sucking and didn't even flinch at the taste. Makes me shudder just thinking about it!

A tribute to Dan's Grandma. She passed away on Wednesday, June 24th. We left from Gulf Shores and headed up to Indiana to be with family. A little good that came out of a sad time was that we got to see both sides of the family all in one week. Grace with her Grandma Pat-Pat.

Grace was fascinated by her big cousin Cadan. She wanted his Cheerios every morning and was interested because he was more her size. She would try to follow him everywhere he went. He says he doesn't like babies "because they play with my toys and they're loud." Secretly I think he liked Grace.

Hmmm.. the world looks funny upside down

If you would have told me in advance that we were going to take what is normally an 18 hour drive with a 10 month old, I would have laughed and said, 'ya right!' We broke up the drive back from Indiana to Texas over 2 days and each day was nearly 12 hours due to longer and more frequent stops. I think Grace was somewhat blissfully unaware- at least she wasn't asking, "are we there yet?" every 5 minutes. She was a trooper until the last 5 minutes. We had just turned on to the last road off of the interstate to our house and she started crying this cry that sounded like, 'I just can't take it anymore!' For a little girl that is always moving and on the go, she did such a good job.