Rainy Day

Miami Vacation

In early October, we took a family vacation with city Grandma down to Miami for a week. We rented a gorgeous house with Nils (one of my co-residents), his wife Lisa, 3.5-year old daughter Carolina, 4 month old son William, and his parents. The house had 4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, a large open kitchen/dining/living area, a grill outside, and, most importantly, a beautiful pool.

This is the view at night from the big back windows of our house:


The pool was fantastic, with lights at night if you wanted to have an evening dip. Here is a video of Cecilia with Grandma, and Carolina with her grandma all playing in the pool:



Cecilia and Carolina had a ton of fun together.


Of course, we were also in the pool almost every day. For the first time, Cecilia learned to "swim" by herself... with the help of either a foam tube or inflatable ring.





We played a lot of hide and seek, read a LOT of Dora books, and colored and painted during the down times in the house.


Although we did not have beach front property, it was very very close. We went to the beach almost every day. Here are some videos of Cecilia and Carolina getting buried in the sand together!





Here's the whole progression in picture form:




Here's a video of Cecilia playing in the sand with Daddy:




The last day we were there, we happened to find Oleta River State Park, which had a small inlet/pool of water from the ocean. It was perfect for Cecilia - shallow, large, and no waves - with a nice changing room and picnic tables. Although we really only had 20 minutes or so to spare, Mommy and Daddy had to join the fun in the water. Here are a few videos from Grandma:





Here's a funny video where she is "trying to float" on her back, but is really just having fun sticking her legs up in the air out of the water:



The full set of pictures (which city Grandma contributed to) can be found here.

Soup

Cecilia is growing up so fast. Here she's eating soup like a big girl - using a bowl and a spoon just like Mommy and Daddy:

Legos!

For the past 6 months or so, Cecilia has really been into building certain things with her Legos. Specifically, she likes to build big playgrounds with all the Lego people standing on it:



A few more pics of the Lego playground:


She has also really been into building a "funny ice cream truck," which usually consists of a flat Lego board on wheels, high walls and windows built around the side, and all the people thrown in the middle along with some plastic ice cream cones. This particular ice cream truck looks more like a funny playground with all the people standing on top. Notice that she had me wheel it all the way from her bedroom into the hallway.

Scooter

Here is Cecilia riding her scooter down the driveway.

Tricycle

Cecilia has been really into riding her tricycle lately and has gotten good at steering. This is not actually hers, but it's a nice video we took in Ben's driveway.

Mendocino Album

The beaches in Mendocino were so incredible I went through the pictures from August and created this album