While in Miami, Grandma took the girls and I to the Miami Seaquarium. Despite the hot day we enjoyed looking at the fish and mammals exhibits.

Each girl had sunscreen and hats to protect them from the sun, but nothing but the water misters could do anything about the heat. We let Emily play in every water mister that we walked by.

Julia took a ride for most of the day under her sunshade.

We watched several animal shows and feedings. The most fun was the whale and dolphin show. The show actually kept Emily’s attention more than I expected. We were sitting in the dry seats although it appears that we were plenty wet from the heat and misters.

The jumping was amazing, but it was also fun to watch the large white bird that hung out by the coolers of fish that the trainers were feeding the animals for rewards. Every once in a while the bird would snag himself a fish from the open cooler.

The Seaquarium has a beautiful view of downtown Miami.

The manatees were a lot of fun to watch swim and come up for oxygen. They had two manatees that were mated and had several little ones, but because of a ban on breeding of manatees Romeo and Juliet have been permanently separated. While this is sad story it prepared Juliet to foster orphaned manatees that are brought to the Seaquarium. She has now raised several new little ones.

The girls seem to have an endless supply of hats to shade them from the sun.

Sometimes the best toys are common and inexpensive. Julia will play with any drink bottle that I give her. This one kept her busy during the wait for another show to start.

Here are more photos from our family photos. They include photos with Grandparents, Uncle Philip, Aunt Jen, Caleb and Nathaniel. I have the photo release and will have them printed. Because there are so many, if anyone wants a copy, please let me know what photo you would like and what size you want.

We are enjoying a simple vacation to Miami with a little spoiling. Daddy didn’t get to come on the trip, so the girls are getting to enjoy all of the fun. Julia was just introduced to pool and loved it. It was fun to watch a little one who has no fears of the world when in safe arms.

Emily has been really cautious in the water. She wants to be held by an adult while she is in the water, even though she was wearing the floaties. Yesterday she allowed Uncle Doug to jump into the water while holding her. She loved the ‘safe’ fun. Today when we went out we introduced the circle float, Emily found that floating on her own was actually fun. She would kick her feet to move around the pool and even ventured into the deep end. She did so well. I was pleased that she was enjoying her freedom and the pool.

Tomorrow will bring little cousins. It will be busy and fun. Hopefully Julia will enjoy the extra arms to hold her and Emily will want to imitate the boldness of the big kids in the water.

Emily is introducing Julia to one of her toys. Julia is really impressed and watched it spin for a short while. Then she decided that it needed the taste test. Emily didn’t quite understand why Julia was taking away her toy. It was sweet of her to share her toy. Emily is pretty sensitive to Julia’s need for a toy in her hands at all times. This is really taxing for her Mommy when Emily is sick and Julia and her toys are off limits to Emily.

Emily is wearing a shirt with Sebastian the Ibis on it, a gift from Papa. Sebastian is the official mascot of the University of Miami. We have taught Emily to call this shirt Ibis. Some days she will call it Sebastian, but most of the time Ibis. I’m afraid that we taught her to say Sebastian before we taught her to say Smokey. That makes me a bad fan! We will fix this first thing tomorrow when she wakes up.

Before anyone thinks that we have neglected our school, we will point out that baby Emily met Smokey personally. I’m sure she remembers the introduction.

Eight months seems like such a long time. Julia has been doing really fun things lately and changing so quickly. It is hard to believe that this baby will start to sit, crawl, pull up, and walk all in the next four months.

This month she finally started to enjoy being on her tummy for any length of time, she mastered rolling over and uses the technique to get around the room to get things, she started eating solid food with a variety of success, she moved out of the cradle to the big girl bed, she is now sharing a room with her big sister, we got a bumbo so that she could enjoy sitting on her own more, we all went went camping, she made her first trip to the pool, and she is interacting with the world in a physical and verbal way.

She has enjoyed freedom of movement. She has rolled herself to Daddy’s electronics, into tight spots, to toys, and even into a toy bag (no worries, no danger of suffocation with this bag). The movement gives her the ability to follow Emily around the living room and get her stuff. Emily hasn’t grasped the consequences of giving things to Julia to play with – you don’t always get them back when you want them. Julia is willing to take anything that you have in your hands if she can get to them. This means that she can’t be held while eating and cooking without playing tug-o-war. It also gets your hair and earrings pulled with consistency.

One of my favorite times of the day with Julia is when we go to get Emily out of bed. Julia wakes up earlier than Emily and gets her first breakfast meal. When Emily wakes up, Julia and I go to the door and knock. Julia waves her arms up and down like a bird taking to flight and tries to ‘knock’ on the door herself. Then we go in and Julia’s face lights up into a smile if she hadn’t started it at the door. This smile is mirrored by Emily and her excitement to see Julia. Every morning Emily invites Julia to play in her bed with her. I didn’t know how much I would enjoy just watching the girls take such enjoyment in each other.

Julia talks a lot with little noises. She knows that if she makes noises she can get the attention of others. One day we were playing with some other kids and heard a child shriek. Within 30 seconds out popped Julia’s matching shriek. Luckily we don’t hear that every day. Julia’s will have a conversation of ‘ba, ba, ba’ with herself or the thing she has in her hands. When we are in the car I will hear Julia and Emily sharing the ‘ba, ba, ba’ conversation. It usually is followed with Emily announcing to me that “Sister said, ba”.