June 3

This past week we were away on vacation with friends from college. We rented a house in CA, 2 hours north of San Francisco and we had a fabulous time. The girls did well with all the travel, even if they didn't like some parts of it. They even did well yesterday with our sprint through LAX, with each of us carrying a child. Amazingly enough we made our connection and even more amazingly, so did our luggage.

Due to the change in our normal routine we only got in half an hour of official Sarah-Rise time. We still have many wonderful moments to share.

On one of the flights to get to San Francisco, Sarah told Carl that her ears hurt (a first to communicate this on a flight). Carl told her that drinking water would help. She held her sippy cup up to her ear and had a joking gleam in her eye. Then she did drink some water and it did indeed help.

For our rental car we were using National, which Carl uses for work enough to have the membership where you get to just walk down a row of cars and pick the one that looks good to you. As we were discussing what might make sense for us, Sarah went ahead and decisively climbed into a white car. On the drive to our friends' house where we stayed for our first night, Carl and I were talking to Sarah, telling her how nice it was that she picked out the car. She replied "got in." We erupted with laughter and she was clearly pleased with herself. Her response was perfectly timed, perfectly pronounced, had the correct tense, and was adding to the conversation instead of repeating anything that had been directly stated. Fantastic!

The house we were renting had a private beach and a canoe. We attempted to canoe for about 2 minutes but the girls were ready for naps and lunch and did not want to canoe. The delightful result of our 2 minute outing was that Amy experienced the wonder of the life vest. For the remaining days of the trip she would periodically indicate that she wanted to wear it and would toddle around the house looking very important in her red life jacket. So edibly adorable!

We have been getting together with this group of friends for the past six years. The first year, Sarah was still only breast-feeding so eating was not an issue. Every year since then has been stressful in terms of Sarah's eating or lack thereof. This year there was no problem! We were still gluten-free but she ate good amounts and good things.

The first few nights Sarah wanted to go to bed early or at her normal time. The last two nights she would try to go to bed but then wasn't tired and would come out to join the adults. She really wanted to join us. Both nights she climbed onto the couch next to I., who had the best shorts to discuss. She clearly enjoyed being the center of the attention and made good eye contact as she said all of her contributions. We asked her if I. should keep his old job or take a new job. She responded with whichever choice we mentioned second, until she decided that he should have Dr. M.'s old job (you might remember Dr. M. of ear-looking fame from when she had pneumonia). This sounded like "da-da m--s l-oh-d dob."

It was a lovely week and we are also glad to be home.