Eléa: Independence....and cherry blossoms of course!

I apologize for the barrage of pictures, but it has been a busy April. We went on a trip with tia Ariane to Shirahama, a beach town on the Kii Peninsula where white sand has been brought in all the way from Australia. We were drawn to the location's beautiful coastal scenery and its cliffside onsen (hot spring) overlooking the ocean. Eléa really enjoyed the beach and the ocean. She was a somewhat violent futon companion for Papi, punching and kicking him in the face throughout the night...perhaps her way of expressing affection nocturnally. The highlight for Eléa was a trip to Adventure World, where she got to see live pandas, penguins, elephants, giraffes, lions, etc. She loved the dolphin show and every time a dolphin leapt out of the water into the air she pointed to herself to remind us that she, too, can jump now.

She also payed a visit to Nara with tia Ariane and Papi and LOVED feeding the many deer. She was so excited that every time she gave a deer a biscuit, she ran in place for a few seconds out of pure joy. Eléa has been doing her share of sightseeing and enjoyed the beautiful cherry blossoms. She continues to love the Roman alphabet (check out the video below) and counting. The word for the month is independence. Eléa wants to, and shockingly can, do everything by herself. She can go up and down our steep stairs unaided. She wants to, and does, go up the ladder to the slide alone. She won't sit on our laps for reading anymore and prefers to have the book on the floor so she can flip all the pages herself. That she has a personality is very clear, though we are choosing to describe her as independent-minded rather than bossy, at least for the time being.

She has mastered the two-legged jump off of ledges and will climb anything she can get her hands and feet up on to. Recently she became fascinated with a huge digger at a nearby construction site that is digging dirt out of the ground and putting it into big trucks. She "talks" about it for hours after seeing it, with appropriate hand gestures to boot. She continues to love seaweed and I even had to bribe her to eat macaroni and cheese by offering her pieces of seaweed.... only Luke's daughter would have such taste buds! This month brought a few sleeping hiccups, but we seem to be (fingers crossed) on the other side of that.

Unfortunately we had to say bye to tia Ariane, as she left to go back to Texas. Eléa (and the rest of us) were very sad. We had sooooooooo much fun and will miss her tremendously! Thanks for visiting us and for all the help, play and company!