Vacation!

Hey folks!  I'm back from my big vacation to Grandma's house.  Mommy and Daddy are back from their vacation to Jamaica.  We had lots of fun on our separate vacations.  Last Saturday we went down to the cabin and had a fun day there.  I got to go on my very first paddle boat ride.  I thought it was great!  I kept wondering when Mommy and Daddy were going to leave so I could officially start my vacation though.  After supper we got packed up and I went home with Grandma and Papa and my parents headed off to their airport hotel to go to sleep.  They had to get up at 3:30 a.m. since they had a 6 a.m. flight.  Mommy can't remember a time when she went to bed at 9:00 p.m.!

On my vacation I got to do lots of fun things, like play with all of Steve's fun gadgets such as this big flashlight.  I also got to go swimming a couple times in "Grandma's pool".  It's not really her pool, it's the city pool, but it's right next door so it might as well be hers. 

This is me feeding some hungry ducks.  I like to call them "quackies".  I  know they are called ducks but I think "quackies" is way more fun! 

Grandma bought me my very own potty for her house so we could continue the potty training while Mommy and Daddy were away.  This is me being silly with the box. 

I made up this fun game where I would hide Grandma's retirement bell (I'm surprised she didn't have to give it back when she un-retired!!) and then claim it was "lost" and that we had to go find it.  I love making up little games.  They usually are Dora inspired.  I did something similar with my baby's bottle a few weeks ago.  "Oh no! It's MISSING!"  or "Oh no!  It's LOST!" 

I took good care of all the squirrels and birds at Grandma's house. They were well fed so that they would come to the window and I could watch them.  I had a lot of "inside time" since it was so rainy this week. 

Meanwhile in Jamaica, Mommy and Daddy were enjoying nicer, warmer weather.  It did rain a few times, but all of the mornings were bright and sunny followed by afternoon cloudiness and brief showers (except one day it down poured nearly all afternoon).  All of the evenings were beautiful like this. 

While in Jamaica Mommy and Daddy enjoyed dining out at some really good restaurants.   They got to eat 4 course meals at a slow pace and even got to talk to each other.  They also read several books on the beach-- lounging on comfy beach beds and chairs.  Most of all they enjoyed just relaxing and not having any responsibilities for a few days (I think the word "responsibilities" is code for taking care of me!).  They missed me of course, as I missed them too.  But we were having so much fun on our respective vacations that it all went super.  Mommy and Daddy got home really late (like 1 a.m. Friday) so Mommy picked me up Friday morning.  I got to see Daddy after he came home from work.  He had a lot of catching up to do since he was gone all week.  We were all really glad to be reunited although I did suffer a bit from what my mom calls a "Grandma hangover".  This occurs when I get really used to a LOT of attention, and then have to readjust to our lifestyle where Mommy can't entertain me 24 x 7 and sometimes has to accomplish things other than catering to my needs. 

On Saturday Mommy and I made cookies for our neighbors who looked after the kitties while we were all gone. I got really curious about the flour container so I stuck my face in it.  This was the result.  Luckily it wasn't full and I just got the flour from the rims on my face. 

This reminded Mommy of an old commercial for cookie dough--the kind where you just break it apart and put it on the cookie sheet and bake.  The commercial always showed the Mom putting a little flour on her face and shirt to make it look like the cookies were homemade. 

On Saturday afternoon a lot of Mommy and Daddy's friends and their kids came over for a BBQ.  Mommy's college roommate was in town so we had everyone over to see them.  It was wild with all of us kids and trying to corral us into sitting down to dinner.  But we did it and everyone was fed and mostly happy! 

I was happy because someone brought cookies with sprinkles on them.  I got to eat one because I actually ate a decent dinner (which is rare these days). 

I was really excited because Baby Addy stayed overnight at our house (and her parents too!). I love babies so it was a real treat to have one stay here.  She stayed in the extra bedroom next to mine so Mommy had to keep reminding me to be quiet so I wouldn't wake Addy up.  I forgot this and belted out in my loudest singing voice the "Happy Birthday" song while I was supposed to be falling asleep. 

This is me and Addy before she had to go home this morning.  I really liked making her smile.  And I gave her a biiiiig hug before she left. 

After our guests left and we got ready for the day, we decided to take an impromptu trip to pick strawberries.  It's only about 15 minutes from our house.  Strawberry picking was AWESOME.  First of all, I LOVE STRAWBERRIES!  Secondly, you get to just pick them and put them in a bucket.  I loved it!

At first I was being careful to pick only the red ones, but as I got more and more excited I got more aggressive with my picking and starting just picking anything.  At that point I got much more supervision and eventually got reassigned to the job of putting the picked berries into the bucket.  Mommy or Daddy would pick one, hand it to me, and I would put it in the bucket. 

MMMMMMMMMmmmmmm strawberries! 

They even had fun strawberry things to peek through!

Hi cow!

Then it was time to feed the animals.  They had goats, llamas, donkeys, and sheep to feed.  I kept saying "it tickles!" when they would eat out of my hand but I loved it!

Last I got to ride on the Moo Moo Choo Choo ride.  A tractor pulled the cow train around the strawberry patches.  It was so much fun.  The coolest part is that I got to ride ALL BY MYSELF!  Mommy and Daddy were a little nervous about this, but it had a good seat belt and I was pretty insistent that I wanted to go on it by myself.  I had a great time.  Daddy took some video below.  I'm pretty much fearless when it comes to rides so it shouldn't have been a surprise.  After the ride we paid for our strawberries and headed home! 

What else is new with me?

• I continue to intermix Spanish words into my everyday life.  The newest additions are "arriba" and "abajo"  (up and down).  One day I was walking around talking about different words and I'd tell myself "In English say ______"  or "In Spanish say ______" 
• I'm really into birthdays lately.  I sing happy birthday all the time.  If you ask me whose birthday it is, I usually say Nolan, as that is the last birthday party I went to.  When all the people came to our house on Saturday I was certain it must be for a birthday so I kept asking about the birthday cake.  Mommy told me it was no one's birthday and there was no cake.  I had a hard time believing that.  I seemed to get over it when I saw the sprinkle cookies.
• Mommy and Daddy brought me two presents from Jamaica.  I got a maraca and a Jamaica Dora shirt where Dora is none other than.....a PIRATE!  They were fantastic gifts.  I love them.  I have been shaking my maraca a lot.  I say "It's Megan's maraca!"  When Mommy and Daddy were buying it, they just got me one because it was sort of expensive.  Mommy commented, "I bet she will wonder where the other one is" because I always have a maraca in each hand at music class.  Sure enough, I asked "Other one maraca?" 
• When I realized we were almost home on Friday, I suddenly panicked knowing my time at Grandma's was over. I threw a bit of a fit wanting "More Grandma's house!"  Then I said I was hungry for a cookie.  Mommy said we didn't have any.  I said, "Go to the cookie store!"  Mommy said she didn't know where a cookie store was.  I said, desperately, "It's back there!" pointing behind us.  Mommy's not sure what "cookie store" I was referring to as we were no where near the bakery.  The only thing she can think of is that I saw Davannis and one time we went there after church for a social gathering and I got to have a cookie.  There was no cookie store in my future and we went home and I had a nap.  Luckily we made cookies on Saturday.  Homemade ones are better than the store anyway.

Now it's video time!  The first two are from our fun cabin time.  Then  you can see me riding the big "Moo Moo Choo Choo" ride and finish off with a funny video of me eating a cupcake and talking about birthdays.