dia 25 - playa

Orient Bay – St. Martin

While on vacation, we fell in to a predictable and comfortable routine.  Mornings we would wake up and oftentimes Emilia and I would take an early morning walk either around the property or out on the beach, letting poor Marcus get some much needed rest (he had been working 18 hours days the entire week prior to our leaving).  Upon returning we would make breakfast in our little apartment and sit outside eating on the deck.  Then it would be time to change in to our suits and hit the beach…by 9:30 at the latest every day we had claimed our spot.  The hotel had super comfy beach chairs and terrific umbrellas free for the residents so it was just a matter of finding a spot you liked and plunking your stuff down.  We tried to stick with spots that were a little more removed from the general public – mainly because we didn’t want Emilia and her wild sand-throwing to annoy any of the other patrons.  Despite the copious umbrellas and entire bottles full of sunscreen we used we’re all tan (and now peeling).  I’m so grateful Emilia didn’t get burned.  Most days she wore her hat happily (picture above, she’ll only wear ball caps ‘like Papa’) but inevitably at some point in the day it would be a struggle to keep it on her head (hot I guess?)

please note that she’s wearing her ‘aretes ‘fines (delfines)’ to go with our beach theme – beautiful gift from tia talu and tio esteban.

Obviously around noon we’d stop for lunch.  On this particular day (our first full day at the beach) we had a light lunch of some leftover pizza from the previous night, along with yogurts, sandwiches etc.  There was a little ‘plaza’ for lack of a better word accessible from both the beach and the hotel.  This plaza was home to a fabulous little supermarket (full of totally gourmet stuff), the pizzeria, an ice cream shop and 5 or 6 really delish restaurants.  After lunch we’d go back to our apartment for naps – post nap it was time for round two of the beach!

 love how the yellow of her swimsuit matches the yellow of the umbrellas/chairs – thanks grandpa!

 can you see the sand on her face?  she looked like she had been dipped in powdered sugar.

Papa and Emi done for the day at the beach.

More day 1 coming up…

dia 24

It had been a VERY long day getting to St. Martin and we pretty much had Emilia in her pjs the second we arrived.  (Our flight down we had a layover in Philly… the way back we had a direct flight which was much nicer of course).  We hung out in the back patio area of our condo snacking on some delicious pizza we bought at a nearby pizzeria in Orient Bay.  Delicious.

dia 23

from the night before we left – it was a LONG night and we had to be up at 4:30 a.m. to catch our flight.  brutal.

dia 22

A few last pictures from before our trip.  

In the evenings, Emilia loves to play “gol” with her Papa.  Generally this consists of them throwing the ball in the playroom, though sometimes there’s some soccer involved.  I finally managed to get a couple pics of them in action…

look at that technique!

girlfriend needs to keep her eyes on the ball!

de viaje

We’re outta here peeps – it’s family vacay time and we’re headed to the island of St. Martin in the Caribbean for the next 6 days.  Emilia is so hyper I’m not sure she’ll ever sleep tonight (yikers – we've got a VERY early departure tomorrow morning!)  See ya when we get back!

dia 21 – gardener/mani-pedi

This week I have been on Spring Break while Emilia has been in school.  It’s been great having the chance to run errands solo right before our big trip on Thursday.  When I picked her up on Monday from school, Emilia noticed I had gotten a pedicure and was MESMERIZED.  She really wanted her nails painted… unfortunately I’m not the best at this (and the only color I have is like a burgundy – not exactly little-girl appropriate – but whatever.  She was just delighted and has shown off her mani/pedi to one and all.

Monday evening when Marcus came home Emilia helped him water some patches in the yard that we’ve had re-seeded.  Of course this warranted wearing her raincoat.

i love these three pictures – they so love each other.

dia 20 – fireman birthday

Sunday Emilia was invited to her friend, Ian’s, second birthday party.  Ian LOVES fire trucks so his parents arranged for a ‘smokin' hot party’ complete with a stop from their local fire department so the kids could ‘ohh and ahh’ over a real live fire truck.  Emilia normally loves a good fire truck as well – she’s constantly on the look-out for them when we’re in the car, but of course she was a total crank monster for the party and wanted nothing to do with much of anything.

checking out the fire truck (and finally perking up at this point).

the birthday boy – looking a little confused, but look at that outfit!

doing her ‘cheers’ with papa.

enjoying some yummy fire truck cake!

Happy birthday Ian – we hope to see you when you visit from Mexico!

dia 19

Saturday Emilia and I went to the Curious George Live show with our friends Ozlem and Alara. The girls had a blast. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to take hardly any pictures because of the angle and plus, Emilia was so caught up in the show she was getting annoyed at me for sticking the camera in her face. Oops. The best part is that Emilia survived the whole show completely dry. The potty training is terrific. At the intermission she needed to go to the potty, but the line was horrific of course. I asked her if she could hold it (I couldn’t possibly bust to the head of a line full of moms with kids who were all doing the pee-pee dance). So I raced her to another, practically abandoned bathroom, praying the whole time she wouldn’t have an accident. After she successfully went to the potty she said, ‘whew, mama’ – poor baby – I guess that was a close call!

dia 18 – dinner with ‘yrie

Friday we were fortunate enough to have ‘yrie over for dinner. I had promised the girls pizza, but Marcus ran late so I had to substitute with a different dinner. Just as they were finishing, Marcus arrived with the pizza and so, round 2 of dinner began. Emilia was thrilled to have her buddy over and Ky was an absolute angel.

toasting with some juice.

dia 17 – my foodie

Since birth, Emilia has been an eater.  She’s definitely gone on little hunger strikes and such, but basically she’ll eat just about anything.  Faves are pollito, arroz, broccoli, hummus and pita, falafel, and any kind of fruit.  Having said that, she also loves Chinese food, has dabbled in Indian food and can polish off more Vietnamese food than some adults I’ve seen. 

I attribute her good eating-ness to Marcus.  I was a TERRIBLY picky eater as  a child (my mom swears I lived off of ice chips and Cheerios) and I was pregnant hadn’t eaten beef in years and never really ate cheese.  I mean it was torture feeding me.  Marcus on the other hand, as we say in Spanish, would eat stones if you put them in front of him.  It’s a pleasure to cook for him because he so enjoys whatever meal you put in front of him.

One of her all time faves is “sopa” or soup.  I’m confident it’s the Ecuadorian genetics because in Ecuador we have a soup every single day with our lunch (the main meal of the day).  When we’re in Ecuador Emilia eat soup every single day and she loves when I make soups at home (typically I do this on Sundays – just a tradition we kind of fell in to b.e. (before emi) but last night I made Italian Wedding Soup – full of delish veggies (including carrots which are NOT an Emi fave) and little baked turkey meatballs.  She devoured it, of course.

dia 16

how we start our mornings.

Typically, Marcus will bring Emilia down to our room when she wakes up (provided he’s still home).  She still insists on drinking her soy milk in a bottle (yes, I know, she should have given up the bottle like a year ago… I’m a bad mother) and curls up in our bed watching a cartoon and cuddling with (in this case) her Taggie blanket (bebe chiquita/little baby is there too).

dia 15 – catch up, once again

The weather FINALLY warmed up this week and while we were still home, convalescing, it was so nice to be outside for lunch.

enjoying one of her favorite lunches – hummus on pita and sliced fruit.

because sometimes even cholita likes a little hummus.

dia 14 – pneumonia

Emilia has been battling a bug for the past week.  Today I took her to go see Dr. Walker who diagnosed her as having lobal pneumonia (lobal meaning it’s contained to just one lobe of one lung – bottom right).  Frankly, I’m not super surprised.  As a kid who’s battled every RSV, bronchitis, and bronchial infection pretty much since birth and has asthma to boot, it really was just a matter of time.  Dr. Walker had nurse Tara give Emilia a shot of fast-acting antibiotic and we are to return tomorrow morning to get a confirmation of the diagnosis and a possible chest x-ray to boot.  Whew.  When it rains it pours I tell ya!

thankfully the weather was finally nice today so we were able to get outside and get some fresh air which never hurt anyone.  it also gave us an opportunity to practice some biking skills.

instead of really ‘riding’ her trike emi walks it – seems super awkward to me.  makes me think we should go for a scooter.

also worked on our bubble blowing skills taught by the wonderful Ms. Jean at the Y (also credited with teaching Emilia how to blow her nose into a kleenex).

told you she was obsessed with the gnomos – wearing her ball cap and my sunglasses.

my sick, pensive baby.

So we’ll be laying low this weekend, but I promise to continue snapping away!

dia 13 – pj day

Wednesday was PJ Day at Emilia’s school.  Basically it was a chance for the kids (and their teachers) to come to school dressed in their PJs.  So cute.  Emilia was super excited by it but was a little confused and kept asking if it was Halloween (I guess because she felt they were in costumes?)

the rainboots were not part of her school look.

As you can see she was feeling pretty rotten at this point… but never rotten enough to miss out on some valuable play time with her Papa.  The current fave game is “caballito” or horse rides.

total bliss.

dia 12

This month we were charged with making green play-doh for Emilia’s preschool class.  (Each month a different family has signed up to make play-doh.  They use it during their ‘discovery centers’ that are set up when the kids first come in during the mornings.  It wasn’t nearly as hard or as messy as I thought it would be and Emilia loved giving it a test run with some of my cookie cutters.

am kinda thinking i should have made it a little greener – looks kinda minty instead of green green.  oh well.

dia 11 – sick day

Emilia was a little under the weather yesterday afternoon.  I had to go in and wake her from her nap at 4:30 – when I did I noticed she was drenched in sweat.  Taking her temp a little while later we learned she was running a 101 fever.  Tylenol and a couple of ‘shows’ to the rescue.  It was the perfect excuse to cuddle under her favorite blanket on the sofa.

all shiny-eyed and icky feeling.

She’s pretty much fine now – was a little feverish this morning but by this afternoon she was running around like her usual self.

dia 10

 

Sunday started off perfectly – a cool but bright Sunday morning lounging around in our PJs (and someone rockin’ her “pampuflas” from Fafa) while she and her Papa made breakfast outside on the grill.  (Marcus had the genius idea of doing sausage on the grill – thus eliminating the smell in the house!)  The rest of Sunday was a blur with a zip up to IKEA but it was so nice to be outside for a little bit and enjoy the sun!

dia 9

Saturday we were fortunate enough to have the Cankurtaran’s over for dinner.   Emilia and Alara played beautifully together and while they destroyed the playroom (as is to be expected), there was no fighting and in fact, very few tears and only one injury (Emilia bonked her forehead on the corner of the bookcase in the living room – a corner which has since been covered.  Oops.

emilia insisted they had to eat in the living room because that’s where they ate the last time they were over (for Thanksgiving).

partial view of the shredded playroom…

this was hilarious – so it was the end of the evening and we had put the pjs on the girls when I told them “okay girls, time for bed!” they both climbed in to emi’s bed and then emilia put the covers over them and alara started sucking her thumb.  suddenly emilia was a little confused…

then thrilled.

snuggling under the covers.

 

good night kisses.