Nap Time

Maybe she's praying before she goes to sleep...

Seashells

When we were on the beach down at Cox's Bazaar, we collected a few shells. The other day we washed them and set them out to dry.


Later in the day, we put them in a jar. The jar is meant to sit on Ellie's windowsill and to be looked at... at least that's what my intention was. Ellie loves picking the jar up and shaking it, and persuading her daddy to let her open it, leaving a trail of seashells throughout the house!


And more and more, my little one loves to dress up. She'll come into the room with a hat on, with a necklace on, with way-too-big shoes on, or with an orna on. This day it was her daddy's hat.

Sidewalk Chalk

When we were out of the country this year, we bought some sidewalk chalk. Then we had visitors from England, and they brought us more sidewalk chalk because ours was almost gone.
We don't have any sidewalks that we use the chalk on, but we do have the walls of our front veranda.
Ellie used to just tell me what to draw... it used to just be shapes "circle", "square", "triangle"... then it became "big circle", "small circle"... and then "small circle here".
Since our vacation there is an occasional "peacock" thrown in. :) ... and flowers, and stars, and "my name--Eliana"... as though I'd forget her name.


Ellie not only likes to use the sidewalk chalk on the wall, but I also catch her using it to decorate herself.


(You all know that I REALLY posted these photos so you could see my awesome art skills! Check out that peacock!) Hahaha.

A day I don't want to forget

Ellie went to the store around the corner with her daddy today. She brought me home a flower! I feel like I'm queen of the world!

No longer 31

I woke up this morning next to a 32 year old. How on earth is it possible that I am married to such an old man? :)

A lot has happened since Franklin turned 31.

We've had a million train trips it seems. (I love how Franklin is playing with Ellie's feet in this picture.)

We've carved out time to relax together as a family. This Raj Bari and its grounds was one of our favorite places last Fall.




Franklin's read more children books than probably ever before.


He worked on his arm muscles (and entertaining a little girl).



He continued a great past time.


He moved into our first apartment together as a family and has used the coffee mugs I got him for our anniversary (or Christmas?) almost every morning!


He had fun in Thailand with Ellie.




He received a million kisses from his little girl who ADORES her daddy.


He became a marvelous cook... here he is grinding beef by hand for spaghetti sauce that I made. But, this year he has perfected making home made pizza, and he has made us hamburgers and steak.... not to mention Solomon food. And he is a master at Maggi (Ramen) noodles!


He has taken Ellie to the zoo a ton.


And, he let Ellie push his head underwater.

It's been a busy year. :) I'm looking forward to the memories that will be created this next year with the man I love.
Jeepers, a year from now, I'll be waking up next to a 33 year old!

On our table

We are keeping healthy snacks on our table to munch on in the middle of the day. Today we had carrots (a special treat brought from the capital), pomegranate, pomelo, cucumbers, and pineapple. Yum.

Jewelry

Ellie was playing with our house helper the other day. Ellie kept touching her nose ring. Nose rings are very common here. So, Ellie came back with a teep, a nose ring, and ear rings. Below, Ellie's showing you where her teep is.

Cooking a Peacock.

Hahaha. I bet you are wondering what that picture has to do with cooking a peacock!

Last night I was trying to read a book, and Ellie kept going on and on and on about wanting to cook a peacock. She was showing me how she would hit it with her wooden flute, then how she'd put it in a fire, and then eat it. (Just in case you think I teach my daughter weird things, I should let you know that this is probably a combination of her seeing the peacock at the zoo and reading the book The Tawny, Scrawny Lion... we don't really kill peacocks with wooden flutes and then eat them after cooking them over fire.)

After the fifteenth time of getting these enthusiastic directions, I propped up Holly the cat, who I figured had nothing better to do, to receive these very important instructions.

Just to let you know, though, if you are ever in need of learning how to cook a peacock, Ellie can help. :)

Cox's Bazaar

As promised, I know bring you the long awaited pictures from our trip to the beach. Cox's Bazaar, the world's longest natural beach, was just an hour's bus trip from where we were staying for our vacation, so we just took a day trip to see what it was all about.


I must say that I was pleasantly surprised. It could be because I had pretty low expectations, but I had a really nice time on the beach. I think I am just wired so that when I hear waves or feel the breeze from the sea, I relax. (Unless I am on a boat feeling those things, and then the waves and breeze results in the opposite of relaxation...sea sickness.)

Anyway, we hopped off the bus and headed straight to the beach. It was about 10:30 in the morning in the middle of monsoon season, so it wasn't too busy. Plus, we weren't near the resort hotels, so the beach was not busy.


We walked quite a ways. We weren't moving very quickly because we kept stopping to pick up shells and anytime the water came close to Ellie's feet she would run away from it. It was so pleasant!


After a while Ellie got tired of walking, so her daddy carried her.


Franklin took some time to show off his amazing rock skipping skills. (Did you know people can skip rocks on water with waves? I thought it was just on smooth surfaces... until I met my husband, the most awesome rock skipper in the world.)


We had lunch at one of the hotels in town, and then walked out to the tourist-y part of the beach on this beautiful boardwalk. You would call this a boardwalk, right? It's got boards and you walk on it...


So, if you don't mind a few beggars and some hawkers interrupting your time at the beach, grab one of these chairs.


We only stayed about 15 minutes at this part of the beach. I was getting sunburned and it was hot. Plus, we wanted to go to a Burmese market in another part of town before we headed back.

My thoughts.... I am glad it was a day trip. I don't think I would want to do a full vacation at Cox's Bazaar. However, next time I will prepare for us to actually swim there. Women don't wear swimsuits, they just wear their normal clothes, but I think it could still be lots of fun. I don't think I would want to hang out near the tourist-y area, I would be happy down the beach a few kilometers where there were less people.
Something we didn't do there, but we saw, was renting three wheelers. That would be fun... zipping up and down the beach.

So, that was our day at the beach. I would say that our favorite beaches are still the ones in the Solomons and on the Sunshine Coast in Australia.

An Interruption

I'd like to interrupt the regular programming (my next post should, of course, be the pics from the beach since I promised them a million years ago) to present to you the most amazing thing in the world, my world that is... and it's really not the MOST amazing thing, but it sure is high up on the list.
Check it out! My daughter's hair can go into a ponytail!

... well, kind of. :) So, if I understand the rocket-science behind hair growth, the hair should just keep getting longer and longer. Which means this little ponytail will just keep growing and growing, right? Yay!

Well, I'm excited. Ellie isn't quite so sure what she thinks...

Safari Park

Some people go on vacation to have an adventure, but our main goal on vacation was to relax. We went on two outings during our vacation, though. The first place we went was a Safari Park that was just down the road from where we were staying.

Check out this beautiful peacock.


Ellie got to see an elephant for the first time. She wasn't too thrilled about turning her back to the elephant to have a photo taken.


We saw a bunch of bears that had just been fed pumpkins. One advantage to learning the language here is that we were able to understand our guide telling us that one of the bears had climbed in a tree. He fell off the tree, broke his arm, and later had to have it amputated.


The glorious Bengal tiger. We were staying at a hospital compound. When we got back we were chatting with some of the doctors, and they told us a story about these tigers. Apparently, they spend a few hours a day in the cage so they can be seen by tourists, and then they are let out to run in their larger space for the rest of the time. They are kept on a schedule. One time the zoo changed the schedule, but the locals weren't informed. Unfortunately, a poor lady and her son had snuck into the tigers' land and were trying to steal wood for cooking. The lady and her son were mauled by the tigers, and then taken to the hospital where we were staying. The lady didn't survive, but the son did. Sad.
While we were there the tigers just laid around.


The highlight of the trip for us was getting to see the hippos.


Just in case you weren't aware, hippos are HUGE.


In the middle of the park, there was a 10 story tower we could climb. Because I learned well from my dad the skill of stair counting, I can tell you even now, over a week later, that there were 182 stairs... just in case you were interested.


Ellie was more interested in me than the view.


And I thought it was fun to see how small the bus looked from the top. Hahaha. You'd think I'd never been in a tall building or an airplane before.


At the entrance of the park there were some statues of animals. We had a slightly pushy, very-eager-for-a-tip guide, so he made sure we got pictures of Ellie on all of the animals, whether we wanted to or not.

So, here she is on a peacock...


on a lion with, yes, a dinosaur in the background...


and on a tiger. Can you see how thrilled she is to be doing these pictures?


Did you see the yellow flower in Ellie's hand? As we were walking through the hospital compound to go on our adventure, I picked it up off the ground for her. She held it the ENTIRE trip!

On our way home, it started to rain. I walked under the umbrella, but Franklin and Ellie enjoyed the cool rain.


The next day we were hoping to go to the beach. As we neared the guesthouse, I asked Franklin if he still thought we should go the next day.... he said as long as his pants dried (he's a light packer). You'll be glad to know that we did go to the beach, and hopefully you'll get to see those photos soon.