The Ning's Eastern European Vacation

So, it’s been awhile, but it took us…I mean Simon, a little while to actually get adjusted back to the right time zone. Otherwise, he’s been a real trooper thru all the places that we took him. We had an incredible trip visiting 4 countries in 14 days.

Day 1-3: Budapest, Hungary
We arrived on Sunday. It was interesting in Budapest. The taxi driver was INSANE!! It was almost as if he was trying to impress us by how fast he could drive. We met the Salters just in time to watch them go to church. Jared had to give a talk and Kelli had to teach a class lesson. It gave us enough time to set-up a blow-up bed in their living room and crash for several hours. Kelli was nice enough to make us a roast for dinner and that was our first day.
The next day we went with Kelli (Jared was at work) to the market. It looks like a train station but it was a planned building for this type of commerce. We also walked down one of their fancy shopping streets.
On Tuesday, we went across the Danube and checked out Castle Hill. There really wasn’t a big castle up there, but there were some ruins of some and a long history of Castles being built there. Simon enjoyed the view.

Day 4-8: Istanbul, Turkey
Kelli found this cool hotel in Istanbul. It was so small, the ride from the airport, which comes with the hotel, didn’t know how to get there. It was at the bottom of one of the hills (Istanbul is founded on 7 hills, like Rome). Unfortunately, to get to all of the sites, we pretty much needed to get up to the top of the hill to get to anywhere. After the first day, it got easier and easier.This was the entrance to the Topkapi Palace. This was the home of the Ottoman Sultans from 1465 to 1853. The Grand Sultan would hang the remains of those executed for not conforming to his views at this entrance.

One of the courtyards build for the Harem, which means forbidden…meaning forbidden for others to see.

From this vantage point, during Ramadan, the Sultan would wait for the sunset.

The Grand Bazaar. I didn’t think it was going to be this nice. I don't think anyone really thought we would spend more than half a day there. We spun around there looking at great antiques and handcrafts. We haggled our way thru and spent several a little bit of time there each day looking for better deals on specific items.

It was nice having the Salter's there. Jared is ruthless when it comes to haggling. We also were able to get group deals when we were both looking for similar items.

The Egyptian Bazaar had a lot of great spices there. Oddly enough, it was a lot harder to haggle on prices there.

The Hagia Sophia was the largest enclosed building in the world for nearly 1000 yrs. It’s the 3rd largest dome currently. Originally constructed in 537 as a Christian Cathedral until 1453 when Constantinople was conquered by the Ottoman Turks and it was converted to a mosque.

It's hard to portray the imensity of the edifice. We tried to imagine what types of ancient Christian services could have been held here with such a large building.

The architecture was ornate, and very detailed. The amount of work involved to put this together was amazing to imagine. The age of the building also amazed us because of how well preserved and maintained it is. Simon enjoyed all of it.

The Blue Mosque is located across the street. We were all immediately identified as Americans, and a Turkish Rug salesman helped us beat the lines into the Mosque and guilted us into walking over to his shop to get a hard Sales Pitch. The only good thing about that was that he walked us by the remains of the horse stables of what used to be the Hippodrome of Istanbul.

Halfway thru the trip to Istanbul, we found ourselves doing laundry in our bathroom. I thought this picture pretty much portrayed how it was traveling with a 5 mo old baby. We used purified water to clean out all of our bottles as well.

Beneath the city was carved out a giant fresh water Cistern. When it was re-discovered, it was drained and became a great relic to the engineering history.

On our last day, we took a taxi further down the Bosporus River to city of Ortakoy. There was a hand craft market there. We took a quick family portrait at the port among the fisherman.

Day 9: Recovery in Hungary
We came back to Hungary for a day. Basically it was to do laundry. Oddly enough, the Salter's building was going under some gas-pipeline upgrades during the exact time period that we were visiting. So, in the meantime, their hot water was not available. One of Jared's good friends, 2 stops away, was going to be on vacation in Germany. We were able to stay there a night and do laundry. Everyone eventually went there to get hot showers.

Day 10-11: Vienna, Austria

We had a couple of days to spare so we took a train ride north to Vienna. We were constantly amazed that in a 3 hour journey, you can find yourself in such a different place. Vienna was one of most favorite spots during this trip. There were a lot of reasons why we liked it: the H&M store was like the US Banana Republic, the city was clean, and the place felt like it was frozen in time from the Renaissance.

We stayed at the Marriott in downtown (great hotel) and started off to the Schonbrunn Palace. We didn’t do any tours of the inside, but we did walk the grounds and do the maze. Simon enjoyed the view from the back of the property overlooking the palace and the city. Before heading back to Budapest on the train, we made a quick stop to the Hofmann Palace as well. We definitely need to come back to this place.

Simon enjoys a bit of CNN in the morning

The train ride home was fun for Simon. He enjoyed looking out the window and smiling at the border patrol as they came into the cabin.

Day 12: Pecs, Hungary

We decided to spend this day trying to save a little bit of money and buy some leather bags from their factory in Pecs. Our final destination was western Slovenia and we thought we had this plan down pat. Roads ran slowly and the store had the bags that we wanted but they were at the same price as the ones in Budapest. Jared did some haggling and finally got a hold of the owner of the factory and had them sell us a couple of bags at wholesale prices using Jared’s personal business name.

Day 13-14: Bled, Slovenia

After a very long drive, we ended up in the beautiful lake resort town of Bled, located in the north west corner of Slovenia. Looking back, we probably should have checked a bit on the weather and dressed warmer. We all could have had another layer.

Lake Bled is famous for its cliff-hanging castle overlooking a small island with a church on it. It was rainy but we toured the castle and took a boat ride out to the island. I insisted on having one of the locals row us out on a traditional boat to the island. That was great until on the way back, it took twice as long because of the headwind and the rain which was dumping down on us. Others on the boat lent us their umbrellas to cover the kids.

Day 15: Heading Home

It was a great trip…great to see the Salters and to see so much of Europe. Simon slept most of the way which made it tough to get him adjusted to the time zone shift again, but it was more pleasant for everyone else on the flight.

Elder Tay is home!!!

Well, the family travels again. This time we're headed Susie's brother, Tay, come back from serving his mission for the LDS Church. Susie had been counting down to this day for weeks. I'm not sure who was the most excited to see him: Susie? Brit? or the parents? He served 2 years in the Denver Colorado mission. Annie made the welcome home banner that was hanging out the balcony on their way in from the airport.

I highlighted the flight that Taylor took. He arrived a little bit early. I told myself he's the kind of guy that might take an earlier flight and just meet us all at the house in a cab. He told us afterwards that he had the opportunity but missed it by 5 minutes.

Sam was pretty excited to see his boy. The couple of letters from Sam showed just how excited he was to see his son strong in the gospel, and that one day we would experience that kind of joy with Simon.


Sam was the first to give him a hug at the airport. We nearly had to peel him away so others could get a chance.



Susan was just as glad to see her Taylor home. I don't know if you can tell from the pictures, but he got a bit taller, and his hair's a little bit thinner.

Getting closer and closer to look just like his father.

As you can tell, everyone was just really excited to see him. I saw that Sam took a camera, and everyone was poised with theirs, but I knew no one would be shooting off their camera as much as I would. So I made sure everyone got their fair share of hugs while I captured the moments.

We received a lot of congratulations from those standing around waiting also at the airport. Oddly everyone decided to gather around by the window where the bright Phoenix sun comes straight into the camera lens. :) Sam's camera also ran out of juice...so hopefully everyone gets a chance to see these photos.

Susie, Simon and Elder Tay get a chance to get reacquainted while Sam and Susan try to gather the troops together for a group photo.

You can see Grace at the bottom there, trying to help out as well. In all reality, I don't know who Grace was more excited to see, Elder Tay or Uncle Kelvin. She was really...REALLY excited to see Uncle Kelvin.

The final group all gathered together.

"I'm off to get my luggage!!"

Finally caught him on video...

When I was out on a work trip, I came home and Susie had bought Simon a jumper. We had always suspected that he would like it...because when you hold him, he always jumps up and down. I was mostly just worried about the floor real estate. But as you can see from the pictures...he LOVES to jump.
We tried so many times to get him jumping...but whenever the camera points he gets shy. We hop he outgrows that...

Parties and Cellphone pics

Simon Size update:
Physician Visit: August 22, 2007
Weight: 17 lb 4 oz
Length: 27.5 inches

So...it's been about a month now since the last update. The Nings haven't done much in terms of fun and exciting travel. We did have a couple of exciting things going on though. Simon had his first experience in the pool. Sadly, we didn't take any pictures of it. But a lot of friends (mostly guys) tried a lot of cool flips off the diving board. Here's Stu's brother, David, doing a back flip. He's trying to avoid hitting his head on the board so he ran pretty fast to get momentum away from the board. Yes, the pastey white guy is Jared trying to nail him with a nerf football.Cary also came up to help feed Simon. Maybe he'll place this picture up on his work computer to replace Simon's picture on the Bumbo chair.

One afternoon, I came home and met Susie and Simon at the beach. They went for a stroll. Simon really liked the beach so he fell asleep.

For "Men-richment" (Elder's Quorum Activities) we had an Iron Chef competition. The secret dessert ingredient was Oreo Cookies. Brad decided to make deep-fried Oreos which were awesome. We had to open the church kitchen windows to air-out the burnt smell...but they tasted good.

He kind of looks like Mr. Incredible. By the time I made the connection, his wife, Nancy, said people have been telling them that for quite awhile.

For awhile now, Susie's been taking pictures on her camera. Recently we bought a microSD card so we could pull the images off without actually having to send them to an email for retrieval. Susie got some classic shots of Simon in the meantime.

Simon the Frequent Flyer

Grandma and Grandpa Ning decided to come up and visit Simon. As new grandparents, they've decided to come up as often as they can to make sure they're his Favorite People to see. :)

Susie and I took advantage of the "free" babysitting and did something we hadn't been able to do in a long time: go to the Temple.

We even added some extra flare to the experience and had lunch at Zachary's Pizza afterewards. Definitely well worth the trip.

Simon had some words for Grandpa...he wanted to make sure he would be treated well.

Simon has been a bit fussy. We think he's teething. He's been a bit difficult to transfer. So Susie's here letting Simon take a quick well needed rest with her.

Simon has Susie's feet

4th of July we all flew to Jackson Hole Wyoming to visit his other grandparents. Grandma and Grandpa Robinson helped us in taking care of Simon as well.

A view of the Grand Tetons from the back yard.

A view of the 3 Creeks golf course from the back yard.

Simon's happy with Grandma Robinson

We had some problems getting home. Long delays thru Denver made us miss our connecting flight. Simon couldn't take it anymore and passed out. He's a great traveler.

Susie got a new cell phone which takes great pictures.

Simon's sitting in his Bumbo Chair.

Separated: Eugene and Ireland (Philly & Toronto)

June 18, 2007 Statistics:
Weight: 13lb 11 oz (+2lb 10oz in 1 mo)
Length: 24 inches (+0.5 inches in 1 mo)

So, in January and February, Kelvin had a lot of travel for work. A grand total of 40,000 miles on United Airlines in those two months alone. By the time March came along, we were blessed with no travel until after Simon was to be born. Since his birth, no one has flown anywhere and we've been blessed for the ability to have everyone stay together.

Now, it's all starting up again. In anticipation for Kelvin's week-long trip to Ireland for work, the McFarlane's accepted the invitation to have Susie and Simon stay with them. It was a great excuse to see them again (or have Tannya see Simon again) and provide Susie some company and help while Kelvin's away.

Everything was set for an 11am departure for Susie and Simon to Eugene and a 10:58am departure to Ireland thru Philadelphia. We ended up in different terminals but Susie managed great and Simon was very cooperative. Their flight was delayed 50 minutes but they made it up in the air and they landed easily at 12:30pm in Eugene. Simon stirred a little bit but made no sign of irritation due to cabin pressure.

Kelvin however, had a 30 minute delay which ended up being a 2 hour wait on the tarmac at SFO. he took-off at 1pm (well after Susie and Simon landed in Eugene). After doing a 1hour holding pattern in Philadelphia, he missed his connecting flight Ireland by 10minutes. No other flights that evening, and the same flight the next day was already full. He and about 15 other angry Irish people looked for alternative routes and places to stay. After 5 hours of sleep at a Best Western in New Jersey (yes, all hotels booked for miles) Kelvin's currently sitting at the aiport waiting for his connecting flight thru Toronto back out to Ireland.

Simon's having a great time in Eugene. First he went with everyone to Target to go shopping. Whitney decided for half an hour that she was "Tannya" and that Simon was "her" baby. "I'm Tannya and I'm shopping at Target."

Later that evening, Rob had his chance to hold Simon while Tannya took a picture. Most of the other pictures posted are of Simon laying down. He actually looks a lot different (cuter I think) sitting up. The fat on his face gets distributed a little bit differently. Right as the picture goes, Simon opens his mouth and lets out a "rope" of spit-up. Classic.

It's tough being separated, but it's comforting to know that the Lord provides for everyone. Friends are made to serve and support us when we need it. We are so grateful for the great friends that we have and the ability that we have to support them in their needs as well. We all miss eachother but there is comfort in knowing that all will be well.

Is he Big?

So, it's been this on-going question between the two of us, as to how big Simon really is. Relatively speaking, he looks rather proportional. His head is not really oversized compared to the rest of his body...nor is he super chunky. He is currently 7 weeks old and he's wearing 3 -6 months clothing. Some of his 3 mo clothing barely fit him length wise, and he can barely squeeze his legs and arms thru the holes.

We had some great friends of ours over last week. Their 6 mo old Sienna is a great little ball of joy. Jeff and I are both baby hogs. Sienna, like normal kids her age, feel lighter than Simon because she can hold her balance. Simon's more of a dead weight. We took pictures for the Salters in Hungary (hopefully they read this) when Cara realized the size of Simon's feet.

The following weekend we went out with them again and decided to take Simon and Sienna to their first movie. It was the Drive-in Theatre in San Jose on Capitol Expressway. Since it was Saturday night they already had the Swap Meet during the day and there were piles of trash pushed up against the wall (pretty ghetto). But we arrived early and noticed so many families gathered around doing tail-gate parties. We opened up the truck bed and put blankets and pillows everywhere and the 6 of us enjoyed Shrek. Simon slept during the entire movie and Sienna just enjoyed the company.

We had the great opportunity of helping Jane Dukes out with housing for a week while she was transitioning out of the Bay Area. She was pretty intent on getting a picture of Simon smiling which we enjoyed. I tried getting some earlier but it's tough to get the timing down right. Jane was pretty diligent and out of many attempts, got a couple which were pretty cute. Simon indeed is getting to be funner to play with now that he's starting to try to hold his head up and is tracking people. His smiles are unpredictable, but for now it's usually when he's done eating, right after he poops, or when he makes some cool sounds.