Visit with Friends

This posting is about a month old, but better late than never! We got to visit again with the Suitt's and Curtis' to get the girls together and catch up with our China travel friends. We are so lucky to live so close to get to see these families with whom we shared the most important time of our lives.

As we've been home longer, it's fun to see the changes in the girls. Not only are they getting taller, more filled out, longer hair and just plain more beautiful, but their little personalities are blossoming. They are all at such a fun age where they are exploring language and imagination and interacting with each other more and more. When we first started the get togethers, they mostly played independently of each other. Now, Amelie looks forward to seeing Abby and "Toria".

When we saw Abby and Victoria, it was pretty typical of 2 1/2 yr. olds playing together. There was a lot of interacting, sharing, giggling, imitating, wanting to do what the other was doing and, yes, arguing. At one point, we could hear a rising kerfuffle coming from Abby's room where one of the girls adamantly yelled "Share!" as two of them were grappling for the ever popular baby stroller.

At one point, Amelie bumped her head on something so we gave her some ice wrapped in a paper towel to nurse her wound. Once that happened, each of the girls had a boo boo that needed to be nursed and required ice. So, the 3 girls sat on the bench in Abby's room nursing their wounds, but really just eating the ice.

After dinner, each of the girls got a yummy cupcake with plenty of icing. Each of the girls shares a love of icing. There was a Seinfeld episode where Elaine proposed selling only muffin tops since no one seemed as interested when they got to the main body of the muffin. This sentiment seems to be shared by the girls when it comes to the icing. As far as they're concerned, you may as well just sell the icing. When Abby was finished, she asked to be excused and said she was all done. She then went to the bathroom to get cleaned up and go play. Amelie saw that there was still a lot of icing on her cupcake. This seemed too good to be true. Abby clearly indicated she was all done to the point of even cleaning up afterwards. But, Amelie still thought this could be a trap, so she wanted there to be no doubt as to the availability of the icing that remained. She looked at the grownups "Abby all done?" "Yes" we replied, "She's all done". "Her cleaned up?" "Yes" we replied, "she cleaned up". "Her going to play now?" "Yes" we replied once again. "I can eat icing?" "Sure" we replied. She still very slowly picked up the cupcake with the precious icing looking at us the whole time to make sure she wasn't going to get in trouble. After her first lick, she felt safe and cleaned it up for Abby. Allen and I were very impressed with her reasoning.

Other stuff:

This weekend we're going to see a Chinese acrobatic show in Sarasota with some friends. I've been telling Amelie about it to get her excited. She told someone the other day that we have to go to China this weekend.

This past weekend we went camping at Kelly Park. Upon arriving, we realized quickly that raccoons are no longer nocturnal animals as I had set a bag of snacks on the picnic table as we were unloading the car. A raccoon quickly came and knocked over the bag and got into Amelie's canister of raisins. "Oh no!" Amelie yelled, "that raccoon is eating my raisins!" The park ranger came by later in the weekend to make sure we were having a good time. Amelie quickly piped in with "A raccoon ate my raisins". I guess assuming this was the guy she needed to file her complaints with thinking maybe he could do something about the little thief.

Amelie is always thinking and is quite the negotiator. When I tell her that she can't have any more of a certain snack, she'll ask me if I want some. I know this trick though, as soon as I get one, she'll just "borrow" some of mine. So, now I tell her that I'm on to her.

I usually bring Amelie to Ging's house on Tuesdays so I can get yard and house work done. In the morning before we leave, she'll tell Allen "We're going to your Mom's house".