17 months

Little Joe enjoying Paris in the summer

The last month has been an hot and exhausting month for us and little Joe.  It's been in the 80's and 90's for the last 3 or 4 weeks and without air conditioning it's been pretty tough on all of us, especially at night.  Fortunately for us it also means it's an opportunity to travel a bit more than we have been recently.  We all visited Paris a few weeks ago for Bastille Day and will be going to London this coming weekend to escape another hot few days.

I really do regret that Joe is not old enough to remember all of the things that we have been doing since we've been here.  By the time we leave Belgium we'll have visited at least 7 countries and I don't know that he will ever have that opportunity as an adult.  I surely hope he does, though, and will encourage him to travel on his own in the future.

Little Joe's been walking all over the place now and it's pretty rare to see him crawl anywhere more than a few feet before standing up and walking.  We've been spending a good amount of time with him outside lately, especially on base during my lunch breaks when we take him to a soccer field across the street from my building and let him run around.  One of the best things I've experienced recently is when Rachael takes the baby to pick me up from work and he sees me and calls out 'dada' and starts walking to me when I come out of the building.