My first tooth!!

Guess what I got!! Guess what I got!! I got my first tooth! Mom and dad said it all makes sense because I've been SUPER crabby these past few days. But sure enough, I have a little white spot with my FIRST TOOTH erupting from my gums. Any day now I will get to pick my first solid food. Yippeeee!

Island of Tabarca with Tio Paco and Tia Christina!

Here are some pictures of our trip to the island of Tabarca, just off the coast near Alicante. We went with mommy's host Professor Paco Rodriguez Valera, and his wife Christina. They have an awesome motor boat. We got off the boat on Tabarca to go visit Tio Paco's father. He is such an interesting man! He is a painter and lives in a really old apartment that is FULL of paintings.

Our new house

Looking at our house from the street. It's the reddish one on the left, second story.

The front!
The courtyard!
Daddy got a guitar from Tío Paco. He serenades me when I get crabby.

Here I am in the living room. We really need to get a rug so that I can roll around on the floor.

Here I am in the kitchen
Here I am with mommy on our sunny terrace! It overlooks a busy street but we can also see the Tram stop, and it's really convenient to see when they come... and also really close so we can catch it easily!
The staircase is steep and kinda scary.

Here I am on mom and dad's bed!

We have two full baths and one half baths. The full baths have this extra funny thing that kinda looks like a toilet but not really. Mom says it's perfect for washing tired feet after a long day of walking around the city.


This is our guest bedroom! I am posing extra cutely so that you will be tempted to come and sleep in it.

This is my bedroom. Mom and dad won't let me sleep on the bed yet, though, because we have to get a barrier to prevent me from rolling onto the tile floor.

Getting settled

Wow, it took a long time to get everything together that we needed for renting our house. First we had to open a Spanish bank account so that we could link it to the account of the nice lady managing the rental (Nieves) (for paying rent). But then it took a few days to figure out how to wire transfer money from mom and dad's US bank account into the Spanish bank account, so in the meantime we had to find a way to get 2,800 euros in cash! This was tricky because the bank machines only allow 300 euros withdrawal per day. Mom got traveler's checks, but then we had to try 6 different banks over two days, and finally we went to a "Quick Stop" Western Union outlet that looked kinda shady and didn't have bills bigger than 20 euros. Anyway, in the end we had piles of money to give to Nieves. I really wanted to pounce on them and mess up the piles but dad wouldn't let me.

More around Alicante

Here I am with mom at the cafe near our hotel, called "Mon Cafe". We ate breakfast here every morning while staying in Alicante. Just 2.80 euros for coffee (con leche!), toast with jam, and orange juice.

Just feeling smiley and silly on the bed in our hotel.

Beach baby

Beach time! If you look close, you can see me sitting with mom in the center of the picture. Behind us is Alicante and the castle. This beach was just a 5 min walk from our hotel. Really convenient, but you can see it's very crowded on a Saturday! Lots of tourists from all over Europe.

I love to play airplane with daddy even on the beach!

I love the beach, but mostly I love sitting in the lounge chairs looking cute.

I'm not too sure about swimming in the sea yet. The waves were pretty big and splashed me in the face a few times. But the water is still super warm. Some day when I get taller, I'll go for a real swim!

Around Alicante

Here I am with daddy waiting for the Tram by the beach in Alicante. Behind us you can see the castle. We are on our way to mom's office in San Juan, so we can search for a place to live out there. Behind us you can see apartments in old town iAlicante, near our hotel. The ones facing the beach are pretty nice but we couldn't find any to rent. So we decided to live out in the suburbs instead, where it's quieter.


Here I am with daddy waiting for the Tram that connects to San Juan. Behind us you can see the castle from the back side.

Paella and Spanish ladies

I slept through my first dish of paella. I am so exhausted from the long trip! But I woke up just in time to play with some nice Spanish ladies. They sure do love babies here, which makes it fun for me! So much flirting to be done...

Leaving on a jet plane

Mom and dad needed lots of luggage to bring all my stylish outfits.

Days before leaving for Spain

Showing my Illini pride in our front yard the day we are leaving for Spain!


Here I am saying adios to Grandma McMahon! I will miss her and all my other extended family but I am excited for the trip!!

Urbana to see the fam

Next we went to visit Grandma and Grandpa Sauer in Urbana! Grandpa loves to carry me around the kitchen. Then he made me do some tummy time on the counter, which was really weird. I figured I should drool all over it just to make it like regular tummy time on the carpet.

Touring around before heading for Spain

I went to visit my friend Kanohi and we had a bath together. I love to kick and splash, and made a big mess. Plus I peed in the water twice. Ha ha ha ha!!

Here I am in Kanohi's toy bin. She was super generous and gave me all kinds of toys to play with. There were more toys than I'd ever seen in my life!


After staying with Doug, Michele, and Kanohi, we went to the Spanish Consulate in downtown Chicago to pick up our passports with our visas, so we can go to Spain on Sunday. We also stopped in at Millenium Park to see the famous bean! Then we went to Chinatown for dim sum, but we don't have any pictures of that....