Touch a truck

To fuel Grace's fascination with trucks, we took her to a "touch a truck" event in a neighboring city. They had all kinds of trucks for kids to explore. Many, like the school bus, fire truck, and army vehicles, had people there in uniform to answer questions and help the kids. They were allowed to climb aboard, honk the horns, touch all the dials, etc. It was a hot, but really fun morning.

Grace loves the "yellow bus" so this is the first vehicle we tried!The red mat showed kids to stay safely 10 feet away
from the bus until the driver signals them to get on.
Kyle showed Grace how sometimes
the firefighters ride holding on the to back. I thought this tractor was one of the most interesting vehicles. For some reason Grace was very intrigued with
"Scrappy the Raccoon". She was pleased to get a photo with him
and followed him around for several minutes.

Silly Bandz

Did you know these shaped rubber bands are the craze right now with kids? Everywhere we go, I see kids of all ages wearing them on their wrists. Grace is no exception. Usually, I limit her to a couple on each wrist, but when she wanted to choose her own she spread them all out on the table, counted them (her newest funny number word is "eleventeen"), and then put them ALL on!

Je m'appelle Grace

Now, I know I have Aunt Susan and Aunt Jill's attention....They were both French majors in college!Tomorrow is Bastille Day and since Nana and Aunt Phyllis are in Paris right now, we thought we would share this photo of Grace with a French flag she made this morning at a French-themed story time . I think the woman who was reading the books just wanted to practice her French and use her Eiffel Tower rubber stamps! The kids learned to say je m'appelle, merci and bonjour. Grace is able to repeat foreign words pretty well for a 3-year old. She seems to be able to hear the phonetic differences in the languages. They say this is the time to teach another language. We work on Spanish here and there, but maybe I need to consider some lessons....

Blueberries for Grace

We went to a "pick your own" berry farm one evening this week to try our hand at picking blueberries. In case you didn't know, blueberries grow in bunches on little shrubs. This farm had rows and rows of them and they open for a couple of hours each day for people to come get fresh, organic berries to take home....or eat right there!
At first Grace did a really good job of choosing plump, deep purple berries. But it was hot out again (we're talking mid-90's) so after about 20 minutes she was ready to head back to the air-conditioned car! Dawson persevered a little longer but we were all ready to wilt by the time we headed back.
In the end, we picked about 1/2 pint of berries (about 1/2 the size of a normal container I buy at the grocery store). I think we are going to bake blueberry muffins tomorrow and buy the book Blueberries for Sal.
This 1947 Caldecott Award winning picture book is the story of a little girl, Sal, and her mother as they go out into the country to pick blueberries for winter, and a bear and his mother as they go to eat berries for winter from the other side of the same hill. Both pairs are collecting and storing blueberries for the winter....just in different ways. They are certainly surprised when they meet each other at the top!

Exploring the garden

On Tuesday, we visited the botanical gardens with our friends Kellie, Dawson, Becky, Greg, and Douglas. Our botanical gardens has a special children's garden with kids' activities every day.

Grace and Dawson - the Explorers

On Tuesdays, they allow the kids to make mudpies....basically, the kids make molded "pies" from the mud in a huge bucket and then use flowers, leaves, and grass from the garden to decorate.

Dawson, Grace, and Douglas waiting for their mudpies.Grace and Douglas

This was the reason we went, but after making her mudpie, Grace showed more interest in wandering around so I just allowed her to meander among the plants, rocks, and ponds.

Look at the fish, mom!

This play house had grass and wild flowers growing on the roof!

It was a REALLY hot day so we decided to go inside to see the butterfly enclosure. In there we saw this guy....

According to Greg it is a chameleon. I never knew they could get that big! Very cool to see in person.We ended the morning with a fun picnic under a huge tree where the adults could sit and talk and the kids had an opportunity to run around. They were sweaty and red-faced by 1:00 when we packed up to come home.

If you can't beat 'em, join 'em

How many dogs do I have?Yeah....I thought just one....until I turned around and saw this!Mmmmm....nothing like cold water from a hose on a hot day!

Slip slidin' away

On July 4th, Grace tried a slip-n-slide for the first time. She was a little hesitant in the beginning, especially since Kyle's nephews were so good at it and, I think, she was a little nervous about jumping in among the boys. But after everyone left, we took her back out to the yard and with a little coaxing (and modeling by Kyle), she got the hang of it. (Once again, I was behind the camera...sorry, mom!)As the day progressed from late afternoon to evening you can see how the sunlight changed in the photos. This one is my favorite. The light was just so warm and perfect.

Happy Birthday, America (and Dad!)

International travel makes you more aware (and appreciative) of your home country. I have always loved visiting different countries and learning bits and pieces of other languages and cultures, but it is also nice to come home. Our county has a lot of problems but overall it is a pretty great place to live. And, even though I have lived other places (Spain and Japan) and will live at least one other place in my life (Italy), I could never imagine being a citizen of another country. Holding my passport along with Grace's as we traveled last week was pretty significant for me. I am so glad that one of the things I was able to give her in the last three years is United States citizenship.Just because I like to look back and see how much Grace has grown, here she is last July 4th! After lighting some sparklers ourselves as soon as it got dark, we sat on the back deck well into the evening watching neighbors' fireworks and listening to Andrea Bocelli music playing inside. Grace calls it her "sleepytime music" because we have been playing it for her since she was tiny to relax her. Like Pavlov's dogs she associates this particular music with sleep. And most of the time, no matter how hard she tries, she can't resist and quickly falls asleep.

Favorites

We waited a lot on the trip back home from Punta Cana. A lot. We waited in line to check in with the airline, to go through security, to board our plane, for the plan to take off, 4 hours for the flight to land, to go through immigration and customs, and for the shuttle from the international arrivals to take us back to the main terminal. And, because I forgot that I had an apple in my bag as a snack for Grace (hardly an exotic fruit) we waited for the agriculture inspector. Like I said, it was lot of waiting. So we talked to Grace about the vacation and what she liked best. Grace declared her favorite things to be:

• the caballo (she now knows the word for "horse" in Spanish)
  
• jumping in the pool, and
  
• the choo-choo truck!

Since we are on the subject of favorites....this is my favorite photo from the trip. I just love the lazy, sun drenched look of it.

Turquoise waters

We are back from our vacation in Punta Cana, and I can say it was everything I had been looking for in a beach vacation. My goal was to relax (as much as you can with a 3-year old!) and hang out in the pool and the ocean all day. We did exactly that. Grace loved the water so much and it was unbelievably humid, that we HAD to be in the water. We watched Grace progress this week to start learning to swim without arm "floaties" and with her head under water. She figured out that kicking helps her get to her destination. Grace also jumped into deep water dozens of times each day and performed all kinds of acrobatics with Kyle's help. As, my Aunt Phyllis reminded me recently, there was a lot of holding my breath as I watched my little daredevil!The resort we chose was enormous. We knew that going in, and wanted that type of place so there would be a lot to do. But we really weren't prepared for how spread out everything was. You had to take these trams - we eventually called them "Choo-choo trucks" - to get from one area to another. This worked out just fine, because Grace loved riding the choo-choo truck and it became an incentive for her cooperation and good behavior....as in, "if you sit nice and eat dinner we can take a ride on the choo-choo truck later".
The hotel upgraded us to their Royal Service area which meant we had unlimited room service, had priority making dinner reservations and had access to a private pool, beach, restaurant, and bar area, . We took advantage of all of this, but we also liked one of the big, main pools (they say there are 10 pools - we didn't see them all!) for its kids' area and proximity to the beach which was close to perfect with turquoise waters and powder-soft sand. At first, Grace wasn't too sure about going into the water, but once she got used to it, she seemed to have a great time. She didn't like the salty taste, though! You should have seen the funny faces she made when some sea water got in her mouth!One of the most surprising things about this resort was the peafowl. Yes, peacocks and peahens and their babies. The first evening, three of them walked around the pool and I snapped a photo thinking this was a rare occurrence. Not so! They were everywhere. And, I also learned what their mating call sounds like....we thought it was cats the first night but soon figured out that it was the peafowl calling to each other!One of the males put on a show of his feathers every evening. People crowded around him to take pictures and I am pretty sure he felt threatened.We did so many other things that I didn't get photos of. I had too much fun just having fun and didn't think about capturing every moment with the camera. Some things like our sea kayak ride, walking on the beach at night looking for stars and the moon, the horse and carriage, and dancing at the disco will just have to be great memories.....