April 11, 2010

Well, Spring Break is coming to an end. It’s been great to be off and to spend time with Grace. Greg took the week off as well, so we were all together!

Last Friday was an absolutely beautiful day! It got up to 80 degrees, almost unheard of for the first part of April in Michigan! We decided it was a great day to spend at the zoo. Grace just loved seeing all of the animals. Believe it or not, I think her favorite was the horses! It seemed that most of the animals were napping and not very active. But the horses were up and running around. We could hardly get her to leave the farm part of the zoo. Here is a picture of Grace by the fountain at the Zoo.

We spent Easter with my parents. I am the substitute organist at my church back home, and I was on for this Easter. I played at the Sunrise service and the regular service. Here are Grace and I at the piano afterward. Then we went back to my parent's house for our annual Easter Egg Hunt. There were 110 eggs hidden altogether. The photo shows Grace with one of them. After a lot of hunting, 104 were found. There are still 6 more out there in my parents’ yard somewhere!

My parents gave Grace a tricycle. Now, that is all she wants to do. Rain or shine, she is asking to go ride her bike. She pedals like a pro and loves to go fast! The photo of Grace on her bike was taken at a very nice park we found in Grand Rapids along the river.

On Monday, we drove to Grand Rapids. We stayed at a hotel with a water park, so Grace (the fish) could “swim”. On Tuesday, we went to the Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park. There is a butterfly exhibit there now. Grace loved it. There were thousands of butterflies! One landed on my arm and Grace was so excited! Luckily, it stopped raining and we could venture outside into the gardens a little bit. It was still a bit chilly (upper 50s) and misty rain. Grace didn’t mind. She was running around and touching every sculpture and trying every hands-on thing there was. The picture shows her by one of the sculptures there. It was the first time that Greg or I had been there and we definitely want to go back this summer when the weather is better.

Saturday was a pretty nice day. It got up to about 65 degrees. We decided to head to the Farm at Kensington Park. There were tons of baby animals. Grace pet a baby goat and a baby pig. We saw a sheep being sheared. Grace was pretty intrigued by this. We talked about it later and Grace said, “Sheep kicking and kicking. Sheep said baa, baa, baa.” Again, Grace loved the horses. She really wanted to pet one, but they wouldn’t come close enough for us to touch. The last photo is one of Grace at the farm.

Grace continues to grow and thrive. Her vocabulary is amazing. She is now using full sentences with words like probably, attention, and comfortable. With help, she can count to twenty. She misses a few along the way, but overall does really well!

When we are done counting together, she will say “Oh, I missed seven!” I don’t know why she says seven, because that’s one she usually gets! I guess she just knows that she missed something! She is singing more and more songs with the ABC song being one of her favorites. The l-m-n-o-p part is still tricky. It sounds more like lellolello-p. Oh, well, close enough for now! When we are in the car, I usually have the 60s on 6 st

ation on from XM Radio. They play a lot of Beach Boys. Grace loves the song “Barbara Ann”. She will just start singing it when we least expect it. It is so funny hearing a two year old sing a Beach Boys song. Another one of Grace’s favorites to sing is “Bushel and a Peck.” I have been singing this song to her since we met on our first trip, so I shouldn’t be surprised that she knows it. But it’s still funny hearing a two year old sing it!