This year was filled with an incredible amount of wonderful "firsts" for our family. From our first child and daughter being born, to Reba's first ten days away on a trip without me since we got married, to our first time living outside of the country, the year has been full of surprises and new experiences at every turn.
Reba took Summer to visit the Character Training Institute in Oklahoma she attended during her college years. They enjoyed time introducing Summer to old friends and Reba had the chance to help cook in the kitchen again she had worked in while attending there. Summer came back with some wonderful toys hand made for her while they were there.
This fall, one of the network/server administrators in our company took a short term disability leave, which gave me the opportunity to temporarily transfer to the Canadian office to fill in for him and receive training in our corporate standards and best practices for server and network management. During this seven week trip, Reba, Summer, and I stayed with a family from the office up there (their basement that they normally rent out was available at the time of our visit). We were there long enough to be able to celebrate Canadian Thanksgiving and still make it back in time for US Thanksgiving as well (two in one year!). Summer took crawling lessons from the one year old and two year old we stayed with and had days of fun sharing toys and enjoying all sorts of new tastes and getting to share a bed with Reba and me again. While there, Summer started crawling (with the proper motivation, a slice of pumpkin pie Reba would drag along the floor in front of her), pulling up on the bed (and any other furniture with good enough edges to grab hold of), and even took a crawl up one step while we were packing up the car the day we left to head back to Denver, Colorado before Reba found her and scooped her up. Reba enjoyed days of sight seeing and touring the town, while I spent long hours commissioning servers and upgrading network components at the main office location and colo across town. Victory (our 7 year old dog) spent the time with friends to avoid complications at the border crossing leaving and returning to the US. He was overjoyed to see us when we returned to pick him up.
Summer Sunshine was born March 2nd, and our lives changed. She has grown up much faster than we could have imagined, having learned to crawl just well enough to be able to get to a couch or bed to pull herself up and stand there, reaching for anything low enough to get her hands on. Just yesterday Summer took the bottle from me and decided to feed herself (with marginal success) for the first time. At a little over 9 months old, she has started to stand for a few seconds at a time unsupported before sitting back down, and will take steps when assisted. Victory has developed a look of fear and trepidation at "little sis's" new ability to chase him around the apartment on all fours, and grumbles every time she tries to use him as a support to stand up. He is getting tired of having to run away from her; his only safe hiding places are on the couch or bed when we don't have Summer up there with us.
Reba's parents joined the Coloradan Davidsons and Winsingers for Thanksgiving this fall and we enjoyed a big family dinner together as well as a chance for the men of the family to spend an evening at the shooting range together.
== More Edits Soon ==
