New Year

Well, we survived our Asia trip.

I still can't believe Mom and I willingly took Baby Burrito on a 15 hour flight to Taiwan.  It wasn't a complete disaster but it was extremely rough.  I won't go into detail because I really don't want to relieve the memory.  For two weeks, we accustomed BB to the chaos that is my aunt's house.  When it didn't rain, we hustled him outside with all my cousins' kids and had a great time exploring all the parks in Taiwan.  The rest of the time, my family and I ate our faces off.  

After two weeks, Badge joined us.  He hung out for a few days, and then we went to Bangalore (by way of Thailand) for Maya's wedding.  Sans baby of course.  Our first trip was a bust since I forgot my Taiwanese passport (only had my U.S. one) and they refused to let us out of the country.  Fail.  Luckily we were able to rebook our flights.  In Thailand, we got the royal tour during our 10 hour stop over.  Our friend, Christina, is half Thai and her father was kind enough to set us up for an extremely entertaining trip.  

In Bangalore, we had amazing time.  India itself is simply crazy with a capital C.  I'm still mind boggled by the driving there.  The food was amazing though - I would definitely go back just for that.  Maya's wedding was lovely and it was so good to see my college friends.  We decided last minute not to join everyone for the Hampi post-wedding trip, and flew back to Taiwan early.  Badge hung out a few more days before heading back to the States for work.  I continued to spend quality time with my child and Taiwanese family (and eat) until the 8th, at which time I flew back on my own. 

Fast forward two weeks and Baby Burrito is finally home (almost).  On Sunday, mom flew back with him on her own, a trip which was apparently even tougher than ours - eep!  Badge and I went to LA to pick them up from the airport and spend the day.  Though we missed him terribly, mom convinced me to let her keep BB in LA for the week so they can both recover from jet lag.  It was a tough sell, but ultimately the prospect of being woken up at 2am by a wide awake toddler won out.  You win mom.  So we'll be driving back up this weekend for the final pick up.  I guess it doesn't matter much since Badge is gone all week on a business trip (he was gone last week too!).  Though I miss my family terribly, it's also secretly nice to be alone.  I get to putter around, not worrying about anyone else but me.  

Tonight I made myself chicken katsudon with sauteed cabbage and chard.  I finally upgraded my iPhone to a 4GS (couldn't do a 5 since it's a company phone), so I'm no longer ashamed to post phone pictures.

And of course, no new year is complete without some resolutions.

• Get back to pre-pregnancy weight.  Over vacation, I gained 6 lbs.  Luckily I've lost 4 since coming home, but I've still got a solid 5 more to go before I hit pre-BB weight.
• Stop slouching.  Dear god, looking at the pics from my cousin's camera really made this one hit home.  I am an extreme sloucher.  I mean extreme!  So unattractive.
• Save money.  We did a lot of spending at the end of last year.  Time to save up!

That's it for now.  I leave you with this adorable video of BB chasing Fred back when he was first learning to walk.