This is a little late, but I wanted last month to be all about Eli turning 1. Anyway, in June we went to Lake Texoma for a Nease family reunion. Evi had soooo much fun. There were so many cousins her age and they played until she just couldn't function any longer each night. She loved going out on the lake. And thank goodness for the swim lessons. It would ha
ve been an entirely different experience if she had still been afraid to get her face w
et! On the way down, we went to Turner falls and swam at the falls. Eli was white trashin' it, being butt naked in the water. (we didn't have our suits on originally because we weren't sure what to expect) We ended up going down river a little and sitting on rocks with the water flowing around us. Eli loved it!Our next stop was the Arbuckle Wilderness drive through. We fed the animals which both kids enjoyed. Although the camels & llamas were a little pushy. At one point a yak came up to Scott's window while Eli was in his lap. Once Eli saw the y
ak, he couldn't back pedal fast enough. But as long as the windows were rolled up, he was very brave!At the end of July we went to Frisco, CO with Scott's family. We had a wonderful time and it was a nice break from the Oklahoma/Texas summer heat. But boy do you burn quick when you're a li
ttle closer to the sun! Scott and Evi went a couple of days early, which meant I had a couple of days with just the boy. It was quite nice, and my house was pretty clean! Back to Frisco...We did the Alpine slide in Breckenridge, and Evi was able to do the bungee trampolines many times. She even accomplished a back flip! She had tons of fun with 
her cousins in her bounce house that we sent from home, and shopping the farmer's markets. One night, in the middle of the night, she asked me if we could move into the house we were staying in when we move someday... I'd say she enjoyed the vacation. Poor Eli was just along for the ride, literally, in his stroller. And made the vacation a little exhausting for his parents. It's just hard to vacation with a 1 year old who won't walk alone and can't communicate yet. All he wanted to do is climb the stairs where we were staying. We worked really hard on walking while waiting for our flight in the airport. But even still his legs and tops of his feet looked like he was another ethnicity! They were so dirty.But finally success!!! Eli is walking! Not so much walking as running really. He still prefers crawling if he'
s in a hurry. When he first took 15+ steps, he was like a ping pong ball bouncing off the walls of our hallway. Then he went face first into the wall. Wasn't too happy about that one! I almost worry that he enjoys the sensation of falling just a little too much. He likes the rush! (there is a video of him waking on the blog site if you get this in email)And he can say "Hi". He puts any phone or phone-like-object up to his head and says "Hi!".
Conversations with Evi:
GiGi: Girl, you're a broken record, and you don't even k
now what that is!EVI: I KNOW WHAT A BROKEN RECORD IS GIGI! IT'S WHEN YOU GET A TROPHY!
(and there is no arguing that logic, you do get a trophy when you break a record!)
