I needed a hike with Fern several weeks ago so Alisha and X were good sports and decided to join me. This was Fern's first walking hike outside of the Ergo. I had to carry her through the steeper parts but she was more than willing to walk herself.
in awe of the giant hole that is the cave.
having a snack and a chat with her Auntie Alisha.
Alisha and Xavier
The big girl carried her own gear.
Rehydrating before the return hike. :)
And running down the trail as fast as she could! She ended up on her face here. Did she cry? nope. not Fern. She's one tough cookie.
(We took this video on her actual birthday...apparently she had some reaction to the sunscreen they put on her at daycare, which is why she looks so splotchy and ill! )
Fern turned two a couple of months ago already. It makes me kind of sad to see our baby growing out of toddlerhood and into childhood, but things are definitely getting more fun. Her vocabulary is exploding and she is putting sentences together. She says things like "I'll help you mama" and "I jump real high!!!!" She loves to sing songs from start to finish, especially her "a b c's", "apples and bananas", "twinkle, twinkle little star" and "go to sleep my baby", a lullaby that we played and sang for her day after day when she was a baby. She just switched from a crib to toddlerbed (yikes!), she still eats dirt, and she loves to dance. She asks to swim and/or swing every day now and she calls them both "swimming". She still uses a pacifier and drinks milk from a bottle at night, but she is the bravest girl I've ever known. She loves her stuffed animals as much as her babies now, swaddles them and feeds them. She still dislikes TV (yay?), she loves play food and tea, and has a hard time sitting through an entire book during the day. She loves gardening and talks about how the plants are "growing" and "drinking water." She is at her best when she is 'helping', she flitters about from thing to thing, and she has ALOT of energy. She gets frustrated when she can't do what she wants to do and can throw on heckuva tantrum. :) She is very independent. She loves "noonles" and avocados. We love her to pieces and can't wait to see what this year will bring.
We celebrated her birthday (twice!) when we were on our trip with the grandparents. When I was little, making ice cream was a tradition on birthdays. We intend to keep that tradition. Homemade ice cream is the best and Fern seems to agree:
Yummy salty ice.
Grandpa and Grandma make the best vanilla ice cream! Grandma makes the mix and Grandpa freezes it. {I have memories of the freezing process taking 'all day long', but in reality it takes less than an hour. It's crazy how time gets shorter as you get older}
Mas, por favor.
Another birthday tradition we started is breaking the piggy bank to see how much money Fern saved up over the year. We are trying to teach her (very early on) the importance of saving money, even the pennies. She has a piggy bank and Allen always drops his pocket change into her bank. Over the last year, Fern collected more than 50 bucks in change! We dumped it out (this one doesn't need to be broken) and Fern had much fun putting the coins into the little paper rolls. I actually took some photos of her doing just that, but they seem to have disappeared. :(
My mom had asked me to take a picture of Fern in a velvet red dress that I had when I was 2. So I did. Below is a picture of me in the dress, next to Fern in the dress, next to Al when he was 2. What do you think? Does she look more like Al or me? I think Al might win this one.
Very late, I know, but I thought the grandparents would want to see Fern on her very first ferris wheel! We went to the carnival, had some delicious Vietnamese street food made by a co-worker's mom, and then played some games like 'pick a duck out of a pond and you get some junk!' Some junk was smaller or bigger than other junk, but it was all big fun and I would do it again a million times over because Fern loved it. (Most of it as you shall see) She emptied our wallets with ride ticket purchases. I would have never guessed that she would go on these rides with Ska, without me, but she did. I was definitely more afraid than she was. And then... the tantrum. She threw the biggest tantrum ever. I rode with Ska on the Octopus (which left me spinning and nauseated) and she wanted to go, and couldn't understand that she was too small and felt betrayed that I would ride with Ska and not her. I could hear her through all of the screaming on the ride. In the end though, Ska was beaming, so it was worth it. At 9:15 or so, we watched an AMAZING fireworks display. A couple of times I said 'this must be the finale!' and it wasn't, so it was much better than I thought it would be. Fern called them 'flowers' in the sky and said a whole lot of 'whoa's' and 'oh man's!' and 'boom's'. Pretty funny indeed. And I got to catch up with a friend to boot. It was a good evening, that's for sure.
First, we had dinner at Abuelo's to celebrate abuela Hambrick's 70th birthday! Then we took a walk along the riverwalk and Fern saw her very first ducks.
Once he was on to me, I got things like this....(holding a fenceboard in front of his face).
I have a feeling Fern might be the same way in a few years, so I am snapping away while I can! She is already starting to give me those sarcastic smiles when I ask her for a smile. Or she will just completely ignore me. It's a nice reminder to put down the camera sometimes. :)
When Fern began to say her first words, she called stars 'twinkles'...I suppose because we sang 'Twinkle twinkle little star' to her every night as we laid her down to sleep. She eventually began to call them 'twinkle stars', and now she just calls them stars most likely because we unintentionally correct her by calling them stars ourselves. But when I asked her what this was in the picture, she said it was a twinkle and it made me so happy.
And here are a few more from the other day. This is what I get when I ask her to smile at me:
And another lovely smile:
Trying to open the water bottle with all of her might and then some... she already knows how to exaggerate. uh-oh, we're in for it! ;)
It's sad to think that you probably don't know how much you are appreciated. I should tell you more often. Thanks for being the best dad you can possibly be. Fern is one lucky kiddo and I can tell from these photos that she agrees. :) From the bottom of my heart, Ginger
When I was little, I would go feed the ducks with my musical kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Strobel. She really liked mushrooms and owls. They were all over her house. I have a feeling that we would have much in common these days now that I am all grown up. I was only three when I knew her, but she has left somewhat of a lasting impression with me. I think it has something to do with nature's impact. It is so powerful for little ones. And absolutely necessary I think. I don't know how many times I went with her to feed the ducks, but I remember it like we had been hundreds of times. Maybe we had.
There are no ducks in Guam, that you can feed anyway, so I was really looking forward to taking her to the Duck Pond in Norman while we were there. And we got to go with Aunt Greta to boot. Most of the ducks have been replaced by geese, so I'm sure they have left an impression on Fern. (They could be a tad intimidating to a 2 foot tall person.) If not, she'll have this video to remember them by. And the bazillions of photographs of course. :)
Another picture at the farm. Blowing dandelions. This particular one wasn't quite ready and she was having a pretty difficult time getting those seeds to disperse. :)
Wow, I am slowly getting through more pictures of our trip to the mainland. I was hoping to post about the trip while we were still there, but we are already back and I am still going to be posting about the trip a few more times. Anyway, here is a sneak peek from our visit to the farm to see Uncle Kenny, amongst others. Sadly, it was raining most of the time we were there, so I didn't even take that many pictures. I think our farm is one of the most beautiful places, EVER. Every time I go back, I am astonished by the beauty found there. I think it must come from living in the tropics and never ever seeing big oak trees. In fact, most of the trees in Guam are quite puny, due to the typhoons. I am totally going to freak out when we go back to the northwest someday...at least to visit. Those are some big trees. I can almost smell them just thinking about it.
Calling the cows with Grandpa. Her first real live cows!
Oh, and here is the watermark for my new logo. so exciting! Isn't it cute?
in awe of the giant hole that is the cave.
having a snack and a chat with her Auntie Alisha.
Alisha and Xavier
The big girl carried her own gear. 
Rehydrating before the return hike. :)
And running down the trail as fast as she could! She ended up on her face here. Did she cry? nope. not Fern. She's one tough cookie.
