Pittsburgh

Last weekend, we headed to Pittsburgh for a family reunion. I've said this to a few people and regularly gotten the reply, "I didn't know you were from Pittsburgh." I'm not. Our family is rather large, and all of us cousins grew up in somewhat different areas, so we don't go "home" for a reunion. I don't really know where I'm from. It depends on the day. Anyway, some of my cousins are currently living in Pittsburgh, and they volunteered to host the rest of us. So a bunch of us cousins, aunts, uncles, and so on gathered for a fun weekend.
We got there Friday night in time to have dinner. Ela even got to sit at the "big kid" table.

I think she was a tiny bit intimidated by all the kids, but she seemed to have a good time anyway. And she got to see Phoebe, who is one of her favorite people to see in pictures now, so that was awesome in her book. :-) She fell recently and gave herself a black eye, and over the weekend, Danny had a little spill and ended up with stitches, so we kind of looked like the walking wounded (or riding wounded?) as we wandered around on Saturday doing our sightseeing.

Here's our "look, we were really there!" shot.

After that, I kind of got caught up in chatting with people I haven't seen in forever, and forgot I had a camera, but we enjoyed a ducky ride (Ela enjoyed a ducky nap), and a trip to the science museum before dinner at the Hofbrau Haus (we're German and proud). Sunday we had to head on home to pick up the dog, but it was an excellent trip, and a great chance to see everyone!

What I Did on My Summer Vacation Part III: The Beach

So after a nice relaxing week with my folks, we packed up the cars and drove out to the coast for a nice, relaxing week at the beach! Zack met us there. We didn't take a lot of pictures, but here are a few highlights.
Ela's average day involved several visits to this lovely pool.

She'd play in it on the deck, or we'd drag it down to the sand and fill it with sea water. That way she could play in the sand and the water at the same time. Ela loved the beach. She couldn't wait for Mommy and Daddy to get ready to go down. So sometimes someone else would help her get down and we'd join her afterwards.

We had a nice set up down in the sand.

Generally, all the play would wear Ela out, so she got lots of good naps.

We had a really good time. Ela and her Daddy swam in the ocean. We took lots of long walks in the sand, and even got a few rounds of Bocci Ball in. It was an excellent week.

What I Did on My Sumer Vacation Part II: The Week in Raleigh

During our week in North Carolina, we mostly just chilled out. Ela spent some time in the pool.

We celebrated my birthday.

We got to see a few friends.

And of course, we got into a little trouble.

Ela and I also made a quick trip to Winston to visit Zack's folks, since Ela hadn't seen them. Mostly though, it was just a relaxing week.

What I Did on My Summer Vacation: Part I - Cruisin'

When we were in Japan, Zack had very few opportunities to use his vacation time. Now, he's got a ton saved up, so we decided to go on a cruise with his family this summer in honor of us coming back to the US and his sister graduating from high school. We dropped Ela and the dog at my parents' house, and hopped a flight to Miami. There, we met up with Zack's family, and we were off for our Eastern Caribean adventure.

Our first stop on the cruise was Half Moon Cay, in the Bahamas. This island is privately owned by Carnival. We took a kayaking tour around the bay opposite of where the ship landed and then chilled at the beach for the day. The water was perfect: clear and just the right temperature. It was a great way to start out the trip with just the combination of relaxing and activity.

Next up was a stop at St. Thomas, Virgin Islands. We started that day with a trip to a high peak on the island with a great view.

From there, we caught a taxi to the shopping district and checked out some fabulous jewelry. In the afternoon, the "kids" went on a snorkeling trip, while the "grown ups" took a trip over to St. John. The water was a little murky from rain the previous day, but it was still good to check out some fish and just float around. The boat ride out and back was quite nice, too.

This is where we snorkeled.

After St. Thomas, the ship took us to San Juan, Puerto Rico. I learned that originally, the island was named San Juan (by Columbus) and the town that grew up at the port was called Puerto Rico (Rich Port) and somewhere along the line they got switched, though no one said why or how. There, we took a walking tour of the historical district, which mostly showed us around El Murro, a fort originally built by the Spanish.

Then we walked from El Murro through the historical district past several older buildings. We got rained on, and I mean really rained on, but it actually felt good because it was quite hot.

Factoid: the cobblestones are actually large stones that ships used as weights on their way across from Europe. In the Carribean, they bought spices or sugar or what not and left the stones behind. San Juan had literally tons of the stones, so they used them as pavement.

After the tour, we grabbed lunch at a place recommended by our guide and set off for more shopping. On the way out of the port, we had another great view of El Murro.

Our final stop was Grand Turk. Here, we split up again. The girls took a snorkeling/beach trip, while the boys went for some more intense snorkeling. We all ended up at the same place for part of the time, and it was amazing. There were fish EVERYWHERE. It was really gorgeous. After that, the boys were taken to another good snorkeling spot, while the girls went to a private beach where we floated around and relaxed. When we got back to port, we had a little time to look around at the shops again, picking up any last minute gifts we needed. Unfortunately, this stop didn't lend itself to lots of photography, but here's a nice shot of our home away from home.

The whole trip was a great way to relax, but by the time it was over, I think we were all ready to get back. Zack and I were delighted to hear that Ela was good for her grandparents. We had a quick birthday celebration at their house for me, then Zack hurried back to DC, while Ela and I hung out in NC for a week.

Vacation Begins

Last week, Ela and I took a little trip to Deep Creek where we got to hang out with her grandma, granpa, an aunt and uncle, and a bunch of Ela's second cousins. They played at the lake almost every day.

We did a little hiking, too.

And while the other kids enjoyed a rocket display, Ela enjoyed playing Super Baby in the wind.

It was really nice to hang out with some family again, especially after so much time out of country. What a great way to kick off a month or so of serious vacationing!

What's in a name?

Ela is going through one of those wonderful phases where she's learning something new everyday... OK, she's always in one of those phases, but currently it's mostly language related. And since I recently finished a degree that focused in part on language development, it's my favorite part of her development to watch. It's so cool how kids learn! Also, it's cool that I have a blog where I can brag about it. :-)
Kiddo learns new words all the time. She's able to say her favorite foods, "Bro Bro" for broccoli, "Buu buu" for blueberrys and "Naaaaa" for banana. She points out things she sees every day "Dog" and "Dory", "Car" and "Dodo" for bird, though we still have no idea why. Way back months ago, I put a baby sign language app on my iPhone to keep her busy in occasional moments of desparation, and now she also signs lots of those things, which helps distinguish between words like "Ish" for Fish" and "Shh" for Shoes. It's remarkably cute (and I do realize that, as her mother, I would find it cute even if it really wasn't).
Even cuter, are the ways that she "talks" about what she sees. Yesterday we had visits from both a Plumber and an Air Conditioning guy. This caused Dory to bark incesantly for most of the afternoon. When I started to get annoyed, I'd shout "Dory!" By the end of the afternoon, Ela was telling me "Woof Woof" and then saying "Dory!" in the same tone that I'd shout. When we drive Zack to work, she repeats "Da DaDa!" all the way home in the same tone that we say "Bye Bye Dada!" when he left the car. She's starting to try to sing along with songs she hears regularly. When she wants me to sing the ABC's she sings "Ah Ah Ah Ah" like the begining of the song. She also does motions for the "hello" song we sing at story time and some of the Itsy Bitsy Spider song on occasion if she thinks no one will notice.
And did I mention how much she loves books? The child is addicted at least as much as me. She has her favorites, of course, and she's been turning to her favorite pages in her favorite books for awhile now. Now, she also says the titles when she brings me books. My favorites are "Go Go Go" which is her version of "Go Dogs! Go!" and "Ah Ah! Ah ah!" which is "Blue Hat Green Hat" (It's all in the tone, which matches how I read it.) The last time we ready "Mr. Brown Can Moo" she imitated almost all the sounds as we went through it. And her new thing is to read bits to herself. She'll turn to a page and say some of the words that are actually on it. It's so fun!
When we're not reading, we look at family pictures. She likes to look at herself, and I've been taking advantage of this to point out other people she knows, doing the signs of course. And it's starting to pay off now in words. She's trying to say names for everyone now, though she hasn't settled on what she'll call them all. Her Aunt Amanda is "AhAHah." Grandpa is "BaPa" and goes for both of them. Grandma hasn't settled into one thing, but it's getting there. Her Aunt Emily has become "Momomo". Aunt Minjee is "Mimi".
So every day, I'm enjoying listening to my daughter and seeing what will come out of her mouth next. And while conversation with a one year old is still not exactly intellectually stimulating, at least hearing what she's learning is very exciting.

The National Cathedral

A few weekends ago, we branched out and took a trip to the National Cathedral to check things out. It turned out to be a really nice trip. It's a beautiful Gothic-style building with great stained glass.


And Ela loved running up and down the aisles.


Plus there was the really cool view from the top.



We took a guided tour and enjoyed the atmosphere. Here's another picture.



While we were there, we saw signs for an organ concert on the 4th of July. So over the holiday weekend, we found ourselves back to hear some music.
We got there a bit early, so we took a short stroll through the gardens, listening to the bells.


Then we had a good time at the concert, which was beautiful. Lovely space, lovely music, lovely day.