Julia was a great sport on this trip. Of the little freedom she has, she didn’t get to exercise it much. I think one of her favorite things to do on our trip, other than eat snacks, was getting into the front pack and going. It meant that she was with a parent, her legs were free to kick, and there was lots to see.

One of the must-dos for our trip was to hike in Bryce Amphitheater. There is a fairly steep hike in and out, but once at the bottom you get to hike between the amazing rock formations. Julia got to ride in the front pack with Mommy kind of out of default, because there was no way I could carry Emily on her back for 3 miles. Carrying Julia is a bit like being pregnant again, you can’t see in front of you and your feet are lost again. We went down slowly so that we could both enjoy the views and make sure we had good footing. This portion of the hike had really cool trees that were growing up around the the rock formations.

Julia was the entertainment for all of the other hikers. She had lots of smiles and sweet words from other hikers. She would kick her feet and wave her arms at the other hikers like she was thanking them for their attention. My favorite example of this was the bus full of retired French tourists. While we know no French we heard a lot of ‘Bébé’ and ‘Oo-la-la’.

Daddy had the pleasure of carrying Julia out of the Amphitheater. It was a good change of pace for his back. When we were done we had a well deserved snack of apples, cheese, and crackers. Julia snacked and then crashed in the car for a nap.

The first stop of our trip was in Glenwood Springs, Colorado. We met our friends Becky and Sharick for an evening of fun and dinner. We rode the gondola to the top of the mountain for the views of the valley. We haven’t seen Becky and Sharick since our last trip out to Colorado, so we were able to introduce them to the girls.

At the top of the mountain, they had several activities setup as a tourist trap and most were not friendly for our little ones, so we skipped them. Lucky for Emily, they didn’t charge extra for the activity of playing in the gravel. She had quite a collection of little stones and would have filled her pockets if she could have.

We talked the guys into riding a rollercoaster that took you down part of the mountain. The novelty of it was that you had control of your speed by the use of a break. They seemed to enjoy it a lot and were glad that they had gone.

We are just home from our marathon family vacation out West. We did lots of great things and had great moments. One of these moments had to do with rainbows. Emily has been a fan of rainbows for a while – she loves the song ‘Over the Rainbow’ and has two rainbow nightgowns. While on our trip she found out that she can find rainbows in the sky. We found a double rainbow that reflected to the ground on both sides as we drove in Utah and another one in the Grand Canyon during a rainstorm. Both of these rainbows caused a lot of discussion about them. She announced to every person along the Grand Canyon rim that there was a rainbow.

There seems to be a lasting effect of this discovery. One is that she found a faint rainbow as we drove home. Another is that she also has started arranging colored things. The alphabet letters on the fridge were arranged in like colors and then arched in a rainbow shape. She also arranged her crayons in similar colors and all lined up. She put the yellow together next to the orange and so on. It is so much fun to see Emily grasp concepts and then apply them in her play.

(19 months) Emily has several ways to communicate with her outside world. I thought that it would be good to document what she is doing at this point.

Actions – Emily has several ways to comunicate with us through actions. If she wants us to do something with her she takes our hands and leads us to the location of what she wants. She will sometimes get Mommy out of a chair and then get Daddy and take him to a baby gate expecting Mommy to also follow. Emily will also bring books and toys to you when she wants to play with you. Lastly she loves to dance to music. She dances when encouraged, but also on her own when inspired by the music.

Sign Language – Emily will sign to us to communicate her needs and wants. Some of the words are based on our expected response or just to tell us information. The signs she is using right now are: juice, milk, please, baby, and more. She also nods her head yes and no. Her head noding is more accurate than her choice of ‘yes’ and ‘no’ in words. Her favorite request is to ask for juice.

Words – Emily has been talking for quite a while and has more words than we can understand. She loves to babble, but I think there are real words imbeded in her babble that we just do not understand. When she doesn’t have her pacifier in her mouth she babbles even more. The words that she uses fairly often and are understandable are: thank you, OK, Da or Daty (Daddy), all done, yes, no, hi, shoes, bye-bye, think-think-think, and oh boy. As much as I would enjoy it she hasn’t added Mommy to her daily language. ‘Think-think-think’ is a phrase used on the Pooh and Tigger cartoon. ‘Oh boy’ is a phrase used on Mickey Mouse Clubhouse by Mickey. She uses ‘oh boy’ appropriately, but only uses ‘think-think-think’ when the show is on.

(18 months) We visited the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, MI on our trip to visit some family. Emily was a great sport and was an angel while we visited the Rouge Production Facility and the Museum. She took one nap in her stroller, ate a great lunch, and didn’t fuss as long as we were moving. One day we will take her back and let her explore when she is big. This trip was for Mommy and Daddy. This photo was taken while we waited for the bus to take us to the Plant.

Lombard Street, originally uploaded by Robby Edwards.

Emily visited San Francisco. (So did Mommy and Daddy.) She had fun seeing the sights around town. She liked watching the sea lions at Pier 39. She even got to ride the famous cable cars twice. She was very good for us on the plane flights, and got many compliments from our fellow passengers.

We drove down Lombard Street, then parked the car and I waited as Emily and Rachelle hiked partway up the street so I could take a photo of them.