More pics (5 Weeks)

Afternoon nap and snack

After a really rough two weeks Arvesito finally started to turn around this last week. Unfortunately he has a bit of colic but medicine is making him feel much better. Poor little guy has been so miserable the last few weeks.

Arvesito is 1 Month Old

Arvesito was a little angel this first month. He woke up twice to feed at night and would go right back to sleep. My mom was with us this month which made the transition to being a family of 4 that much easier. Arves (Sr.) and I still had enough time to pay a lot of attention to our little girl and therefore she hasn't really been very jealous. Mama Mechi is surely missed and we can't wait for her to come back again.

Emily is in love with her little brother. She asks to hold him anytime she sees him. Whenever he's awake and she can see his eyes she exclaims "He's wake up! Can I hold him?" She loves to give him kisses including a loving variation she calls 'doggy kisses' followed by a good smile. The last few weeks Emily has been holding his hand to touch her face and gets super excited about it. Couldn't ask for a better big sister.

Arvesito is still unaware of what's going on around him; he only has eyes for food like any good Penangite!

My recovery has been amazing and we've been on the go since week 1. Nursing this time around has also been a lot less stressful. I pump twice a day and have a fridge full of milk already. Almost ready to go back to work!

Stats and Milestones
- This little monster gained almost 4lbs in his first month. He's now 10.8lbs! (More than Emily at 2 months)
- 54cm long, up 2cm since birth
- Sneezes 3 times like mami
- Already got his first cold thanks to big sister
- Before the month Arvesito was able to turn his head from side to side when on his tummy and was able to hold his head up for short periods of time

He's the perfect addition to our family; we are in love and couldn't be any happier.

Mastering the piggy

Youth Park at 2 Weeks

A few shots from one of our first outings with little Arves. He seems to enjoy the swings almost as much as his big sister Emily!  New baby = not much time for writing, but enjoy the pics!

 

Baby boy at 2 weeks old

 

Emily requests her sunglasses anytime she gets on the swings and wears them the whole time she's at the park.


Excited to see what's ahead!

 

More pictures are uploaded here.

1 Week Old

A few shots to share of little Arves on his first days.



Beautiful, but grumpy baby boy

The real baby Arves

Happy big sister and Daddy

Arves' Birth Story

Sometime Friday August 24 I started to feel different contractions to the Braxton Hicks I had been getting for the last week or so. I joked with a few friends at work that I didn't think I was going to make it through the weekend.

Saturday started with painful contractions/cramping but nothing regular enough for us to worry about or change our fully packed weekend plans.

I made breakfast and we all headed rug shopping at little India. Whenever I had a contraction it made me a bit sick to my stomach and I had to put Emily down if I was carrying her. 39 weeks pregnant and I still carry my little girl. She's still my baby and I'm not ready to give that up yet!

I put Emily down for her nap and had some pretty painful contractions while singing her lullabies but once again not close enough for me to worry much about. While she was taking her nap I went shopping at Gurney Plaza and got her a baby present as well as some last minute breastfeeding supplies.

By the time I got back home Emily was awake and we were off to another Hari Raya Open house celebration at our friend Nizam's house. While at Nizam's contractions got a bit more painful and regular but I still refused to time anything until Arves started to notice I was in pain. They were about 8 mins appart at 5:30. We left Nizam's at 6:30 to hurry home and put Emily to bed so we could meet some friends for dinner. On our drive back we briefly discussed whether we should go out to dinner but I refused to go to the hospital. I thought dinner would be a nice way to keep my mind off of it all.

At dinner contractions were VERY regular. Every 6 mins so I would have to stop talking and put my head down to work through another contraction for about a minute and continue chatting away. I wasn't able to eat much but conversation definitely kept my mind off of the pain. By the time we were done with dinner contractions had jumped to 4 minutes apart and we decided to give our doctor a heads up since I was planning a water birth and they needed time to fill up the pool. We walked home from the restaurant which was about 3 blocks away working through very painful contractions. Walking felt very good though.

By the time we got home I was in a lot of pain and we knew we had to go to the hospital so we asked our friend Tim to come home since he was going to stay with Emily while we were at the hospital. As soon as we opened the door to the house Emily woke up screaming my name as if she knew I was in pain. Arves went to put her back down while I worked on packing her bag while working through more contractions. I was in so much pain that I started throwing up after each contraction. Within minutes Tim was at our house and Emily was back asleep so we rushed to the hospital. This was the longest drive of my life and sitting in the car was misserable. Once we finally made it to the hospital I kept asking for them to "GIVE ME MY DRUGS", my desire of delivering without medicine was completely forgotten; crushed by the amount of pain I was in. They checked me and said there wasn't time for any medicine or pool; I was already at 10 cm and the baby was ready to come out. The doctor just barely made it in time and the baby was out in three pushes. I delivered in less than 30 minutes of arriving to the hospital; still in the dress I came in and the doctor didn't have time to change either; my water broke as the baby was coming out ruining the doctor's shoes.

Stanley Arves Stolpe was 7 lbs and 21 inches long.
Born at 12:07AM on August 26 in Georgetown, Penang, Malaysia

4-Day Adventure in Bali, Indonesia



At 33 weeks and taking advantage of yet another holiday we decided to go to Bali for our last trip as a family of 3. This was our first time traveling on Malaysia Airlines and it was a great experience, worth the little extra investment.

Bali is famous for its rich culture and friendly people. We were surprised to find temple after temple when driving around town. A lot of them are open to the public but most are a family heritage or are now in ruins. Everywhere we went people were very accomodating and were very eager to start conversation, maybe because of my big belly.

We stayed at the beach at the Breezes Bali Resort and SPA which was just a short walk from the beach and had plenty of good restaurants around. Emily loved playing on the waves and pretenting to be chased by them. She also still loves the sand; she was even able to drew rainbows after watching a Dora episode with rainbows; we were so surprised she remembered that and that her drawing actually was pretty accurate!


Loving the sand



Pure joy!

 Arves got to enjoy some surfing lessons even though we have no pictures to prove it. He enjoyed playing around in the waves and was exhausted by the end of the day.
The next day we decided to go exploring around the island and visit a few temples. We hired a driver for the day which is THE way to go, traffic is horrible and the streets are very confusing. Having a driver meant that we didn't have much to worry about other than a few translation issues. We went to Ubud and visited the famous rice fields and a few of the temples.

Emily loved running around at the temples

For some of the temples is required you wear a sarong so we decided to invest in one each and Arves has been wearing it ever since. I call it a skirt, he calls it a sarong; we all know what it is.

At the end of the day we visited the Tanah Lot temple which had a pretty cool setup although a bit too commercialized for our taste.

Tanah Lot Temple

Tanah Lot

The final day we enjoyed another relaxing day at the beach and hoped we had more time for just relaxing. Lesson learned - We realized how much we enjoyed playing by the water and decided it was not worth the stress to drive around to visit temples just because we felt like we had to.

The rest of our pictures are on Picasa at this link.

New Zealand

Hard to believe it's been three months since we went to New Zealand! Here is is a quick trip recap and some of our favorite pictures.

After an unfortunate 2-day-delay in Kuala Lumpur we got to enjoy 7 days in the south island of New Zealand. Overall the trip was great, we drove over 1800 kms and Emily did incredibly well.

Kuala Lumpur delay
We have learned some hard lessons about budget airlines; the last one being they don't do baggage handling like regular airlines do. When we made it to Kuala Lumpur for the layover to get to Christchurch we had just over 1 hour to get our bags, re-check them, and go through security. We got to the counter 55 mins before our flight and they wouldn't let us in; claiming we needed to be there an hour before our flight so it was already too late. After arguing with them for a bit and realizing there was NOTHING we could do we started to look at our options. We could either change to fly two days after or we could book a brand new ticket from a different airline. Despite our frustration with Air Asia we were committed and decided to stick with it. I was really impressed with how well we both handled the news so after our flight was booked we sat down and started looking for hotels in downtown KL to sped the two upcoming nights.


Two days in KL
What started as a horrible day ended up being a great success. Our hotel was nice and in a good location; we spent the day walking around town and taking pictures of the pretty buildings. We had a wounderful dinner at Bija, Malay restaurant, and ended up eating a little too much. The food and the experience was amazing. Arves and I had time to reconnect while Emily watched videos. We all had a great time.
Saturday started with  delicious breakfast at the NZ Garden Cafe. I love roti! Breakfast ended a bit abruptly since there was a  riot going on in town about elections. There were a lot of people and a TON of police and things got heated enought at some point that the restaurant started setting up a barricade. I freaked out a bit considering I was 5.5 months pregnant and we had Emily with us. Luckily we headed back to the hotel without  major excitement.
We spent the rest of the day at the zoo and had a great time running around. The animal selection wasn't that good but we got to see some Monkeys and Elephants which were Emily's favorites.
Headed home for a nap and then went for lunch/dinner at the Spice of India. Do not recommend it :)


New Zealand
We got to the airport with plenty of time and everything went well. Emily did great on the 10 hour flight!
When we arrived at New Zealand the people at the airport were great and everyone we ran into kept checking and making sure we were doing okay or where we needed to wait for our shuttle to get our car.
Town wasn't too far and before we knew it we arrived at our hotel, or so we thought. We had directions of where the key to our room would be hidden and Arves looked for about 10 mins unseccessfully. I then tried to find this hidden box without any success. We gave up and decide that even thought it was midnight we had to wake up the owner since we had no way to get into our room for the night. After a few knocks this old lady came down pretty frustrated and pointing at her watch. We explained that we were supposed to check in that night and that the directions to get our key didn't work. After talking to her for a bit we come to find our we were at the WRONG hotel. Ours was CentrePoint and this was CityCentre! We apologized and went on our way. It was just a few houses down across the street. Needless to say we felt pretty embarrassed  but  blamed it on how tired we all were. This time we found the key no problem and had a great night sleep.

Day 1 - Christchurch to Franz Joseph

Christchurch is a pretty small city and it reminded us a lot of Logan. We were surprised to find ruins from the earthquake back in 2010. There was a weird feeling around town that people were just waiting for another disaster to strike at any minute.
We had a delicious and expensive breakfast at Vick's Cafe, drove around town, and played at the Botanical Gardens where we found a playground. Emily had a blast.

After playtime we started our long drive to Franz Joseph which was about 7 hours away. The drive was beautiful and very long at times. We got to see sheep by the hills and a lot beautiful mountains. Despite the long day and battles around food Emily did really well.

Tired of the car  we stopped at  Hokitika for dinner at Fat PiPi's Pizza thinking this would help Emily eat a bit, plus this town didn't have very many choices at all.
The lady at the restaurant was surly and said they didn't have any tables but that we could sit on some couches if we wanted. We didn't think much of it and took a seat. Our pizza wasn't very good and Emily didn't want anything to do with it.

We finally made it Franz Joseph and our hotel was spotless and very convenient.

Day 2 - Franz Joseph to Queenstown

We started the day with an amazing hike to Franz Joseph glacier. Emily loves to ride on her backpack and was very happy the whole way. By the time we got to the glacier she was out cold.

Arves and I stopped for pictures and snacks and remembered how much we love being out hiking and enjoying each others company. On the way back Emily woke up and we let her explore a bit and play with rocks. She's going to be such a great little hiker!
After the hike we continued on our way to Queenstown stopping at Lake Matheson for sightseeing and Cook Saddle Cafe and Saloon for dinner. The views from the lake were beautiful and the restaurant was delicious!

The rest of the drive to Queenstown was very long but we finally made it in for a good night sleep.

Day 3 - Queenstown

This was one of our best days in New Zealand. The town is beautiful and worth spending extra time to enjoy it. We finally had time to relax and enjoy our time without driving. We found a great park at Queenstown Gardens which was the highlight of Emily's trip. Having Emily gave us a great perspective, no matter where you are in the world, swing is a swing and kids love them! As long as she had a park to play at she was happy.

We stayed at the Central Ridge Boutique Hotel and it was great. Once again the room was super clean and breakfast was delicious. They even made a special breakfast for Emily since they heard us complain that she had a tough time eating.
We got to ride up the cable car and found a geo-cash that our friends Jack and Diya left for us a few months earlier. So thoughtful and fun.

Day 4 - Queenstown to Te Anau
We took it easy this morning since we only had a short drive to Te Anau. The drive was beautiful and reminded us of Bear Lake area in Utah; quiet little roads crossing through little towns with beautiful sights of mountains and rolling hills filled with sheep. We stayed at the Radfords Lake View Hotel right in front of Lake Te Anau. They were super helpful and the room was very clean and comfortable. They also helped us book our Milford Sound tour for the following day. We got to enjoy a short hike to Frasers Beach starting from Pearl Harbour, Manapouri. This is where a lot of the tours to Doubtful sound start from. We had the beach all to ourselves and we had a great time throwing rocks in the water and playing in the sand.

Day 5 - Milford Sound
The drive up to Milford sound was not too bad although a bit windy. The sights were beautiful and the bus stopped at multiple places for pictures. Once we got to the bay we immediately got on the boat and headed out to the Tasman Sea. The views were amazing and although a bit chilly it was worth being on the top level of the boat. The hikes around these area are multi-day and taking the boat tour really worked out for us giving us a good perspective of what New Zealand had to offer even when traveling with a 1+ year old.
After the tour we got right back on the bus to head back to Te Anau. We wish we would have had time to walk around and enjoy the trails and sights with Emily. If we were to do it again we would take the boat tour but drive ourselves up to Milford Sound instead of taking the bus. After getting back to Te Anau we drove back to Queenstown to spend one last night at our favorite town.

Day 6 - Queenstown to Mount Cook
We enjoyed our morning playing around town and then started our drive up to Mount Cook. Had a nice lunch at Twizel and finished our drive to spend the night at Mount Cook National Park, Hermitage Hotel. We decided to stay here instead of Lake Tekapo since we wanted to do some hikes and enjoy the outdoors a bit. The park was beautiful - full of glacial mountains and lots of hikes. They also have several tours that looked fun for older kids but we couldn't do this time around. We had a nice quiet evening and enjoyed a short hike to Blue Lakes. Unfortunately we couldn't find the pretty lakes due to the time of the year; they were far from blue but the hike was pretty and we enjoyed throwing rocks at the water. Temperature dropped really fast as soon as the sun went down so we got back to our hotel. There is not much to Mount Cook area other than the park, they have several restaurants that are part of the hotel but that's pretty much it.  Arves took advantage of the full moon and went out for some night photography after Emily went to bed and came back extremely excited about hiking the glaciers the next day.

Day 7 - Mount Cook to Christchurch (through Lake Tekapo)
This was our favorite day since we ended up doing multiple hikes. After breakfast we did a short hike to Mueller Glacier which was really pretty and after headed to a longer hike to Tasman glacier. Both were easy hikes with very well marked trails. Emily enjoyed singing songs in her backback and we all had a great time. We finally started to head back to Christchurch, stopping for dinner at a restaurant with views of Lake Tekapo which was beautiful. We finished our drive back to Christchurch just in time to catch our flight back home.

Overall we were surprised of how small most towns were and how empty New Zealand felt. We ran into very little traffic through most of our travels. The biggest town we visited was Queenstown which still has a small town feeling similar to Estes Park. Food prices are very expensive, especially coming from Penang. I was surprised at how clean every hotel we stayed at was. The trip was great and traveling with a toddler has a lot of challenges and requires much better planning but it also makes it so take things easier and enjoy the little things.  We're looking forward to a return trip when Emily and Arvesito are a bit older and can go trekking with us :).

Most of our pictures are here: https://picasaweb.google.com/112374678122907083043/NewZealandSouthIsland2012?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCOKe2YSOqNGFLw&feat=directlink