Fun in the Sun!

Driving, driving, driving. We did a lot of driving. Adessa was a trooper, but was happy to be anywhere but in her car seat by the end.


Kissing baby Alex at our stop in Santa Monica. (Who's mom, Amy, is in labor RIGHT NOW (9:00pm, 7/29/08). We are excited to meet him and are praying hard!


Floating on the "Lazy River", part of our hotels water-park-complex-concentrated-fun-for-all-ages-extravaganza-spectacular-area. This photo captures one of the brief moments that Adessa wore her glasses.


Back at home, hooray! She's a walker, hooray! (July 24th she was using it as her preferred method to get around.) And another hip hip hooray for Adessa's first pony tail. Are you as suprised as she is?


Palm Desert was great, but... we learned many valuable lessons about vacationing with a child. It is interesting to see, though we've adjusted so much since leaving our old lives and becoming parents, there are still more paradigm shifts in store for us.

Our epiphany: Having a child is not relaxing. We didn't relax very much. Gone are the days (that we both somehow still expected) where we could sit by the pool under an umbrella with a book, jump in when it's too hot, get out and read some more. That was the previous definition of relaxing vacation for me. No time limits, long hours just reading and swimming, maybe a little snooze, some slight sun burn.
Not so with a kid. She didn't last countless hours by the pool, she could be depended on for about one hour, and then we were taking our chances. And the naps! At home, naps are wonderful respite, because she sleeps and we get stuff done around the house. In our (lovely) hotel room, however, she slept and we waited for her to wake up so we could turn the light on, or took turns at the pool or workout room, but always with a time limit.

Interesting. It left us wondering about our next vacations. Probably won't be going to 108+ degree temperature places any time soon. We've ruled out camping for the forseable future. We don't particularly enjoy trying to eat in restaurants with Adessa. Hmmmm... We might be enjoying our time off from home for the next few years. And I look forward to reading, care-free, when our kids are...in middle school? teenagers? married?

Tahoe Family Vacation 2008

Before we left: (We hadn't downloaded pics for a while, these are catch-up.)

Her blueberries are so bright, she has to wear shades.


Is she posing? Looks like she's posing, in a tree, in San Luis Obispo. (We went the other weekend for a friends wedding.)


Tahoe
At Moon Dunes Beach, North Shore:
Bathing beauty, see how she basks.


We love Tahoe!


She did great on the car ride, too.


We had a terrific time in Tahoe. Adessa had a terrific time, especially. She loved the sand, the beach, the water, her cousins and aunts and uncles, all the stairs to crawl up and down in our condo, the pool,the rocks and sticks, and the boats. She has two new words: boat and Noah, thanks to the exposure in Tahoe to both.

This is a big post, really. Today Adessa is 13 months, 1 & 1/12 years old. And sometime this week, she got up and walked. She started standing up on her own, and then it was a few steps towards someone, and now she's taking steps here and there all over the place and falling down in between. Her greatest amount is probably around nine or ten steps, and sometimes she prefers to crawl or be walked. Its cute to watch, her walk is very wobbly, with lots of pausing and balancing and almost falling over. But it's walking!!

Terrible Ones?

I'm sure it's not really terrible, yet, or as terrible as it could be.  However, we're having some shrill shrieks, some head-thrown, back arched, body stiff, all around tantrums. Hmmmmm. Interesting. Adessa's realizing she's separate from me, wants to be and doesn't want to be at the same time. She also realizes there's a wide world of pretty, yummy things, and she wants them all Right Now. So far our parenting strategy has been to watch with eyebrows up, bemused and slightly irritated. Mostly, I miss the sweet thing she was, really thought I had parenting sewn up. Not so much.

She's also progressing like mad, much more steady on her feet but still not walking. She says: ball, oww, eye, hi, mama, dada, Li-Jah (for Elijah), and barks for dogs. She signs: more, bird, milk, and all done.We're going to Tahoe next week and are so excited to hang out by the lake and let her play in the sand. We'll have lots of pics and stories. 8)

Watching the neighborhood.


Our favorite gypsy.


Bathtub fun.

Here are the teeth!