Winter in Ventura

Fiona says “uh-oh” and said “quack-quack” when looking at a duck. She makes other animal noises too, and recognizes and can point out lots of animals and then relates pictures of animals to her favorite dolls. She knows her dolls by name (my dad asked her about a doll and she went and picked her up), dances around like she is tapping, and tonight made a 7 block tower out of her wooden letter blocks. She started with three and the fourth fell over, so she started again and it fell over when she put the fifth block on. She continued until she was able to get seven blocks stacked successfully. She was determined and her smile got bigger and bigger as our excitement grew. Unfortunately, when I tried to leave the room to get a camera, she wouldn’t let me, so no photos. Sorry.

Here are some photos from a recent trip to the beach. It’s the middle of February and you can see how much we are suffering.

My two favorite people:

We saw tall ships. I called them pirate ships and my suspicions were confirmed when we heard cannon fire:

 

 

Daddy and his favorite daughter:

   

 

I call John “Fiona’s personal giant” because he is sooooo much bigger than she is.

She was hesitant to go in the water at first, running in and then running out again. The water was cold (something has to be, it is the middle of winter after all). After a short while, Fiona’s love of waves and water won and we couldn’t keep her out of it. She got really, really wet. The water level was pretty deep in spots, but she didn’t really care that much. Good thing we were there. She has no fear.

 

She had a blast running on the shore and splashing in puddles:

  

 

The photo above and to the right is my favorite of the day.

The two following photos were taken from the jetty near where the car was parked. Fiona walked to the jetty in the far background and back. 

 

Fiona has a lot of energy.

On development front, she loves her tide pool book and one that has a lot of photographs of animals. She looks at them for long periods of time, flipping through the pages, points to everything and wants everything named (including all the pictures of her blocks).

I hope everyone is enjoying their winter and happy Tu B’Shvat (the holiday in Israel when everyone goes out and plants trees)!