In the summer heat...

Right after our trip we headed to Granpa's and Grandma's house. There was a little family reunion of the Franke side of the family. It was the first time in our 7.5 years of marriage for me to meet PJ's cousins and their families.



Ophelia loved the reunion for this reason:



She is such a little water bug!

Then we made a trip lake Buchanan and Ophelia went on a boat ride for the first time in her life. She did not want to keep a kiddie life vest on, no matter what we said, but her floatie swim suit worked for the time being. A new word entered her vocabulary: "waterskiing". She still talks about mama and papa going waterskiing on the lake. Grandma already made sure to get a pair of kiddie skiis for when the time comes for Ophelia :)

All that was back in June actually and now it's July and I realize I haven't taken that many pictures at all. Ophelia and I have been going to the NRH2O water park about once or twice a week. We do it in the mornings, before nap time, before it gets too hot...which is a relative term, because it still is incredibly hot. With each time we go there, she gets braver and braver. Today she went on a long toddler slide all on her own! I am scared to take my camera there, because inevitably Ophelia will want to look at the picture just taken, and water just doesn't go well with cameras. But it's a fun place and I am happy to have the season pass to just be able to go for a little bit at a time.

PJ is gone to Mexico this week. So...Ophelia is in charge :) Here she is taking a picture of us :) Doesn't she look like "the boss"?

Actually she really has been getting into coloring or "drawing" as we call it. It's pretty amazing to see her being completely occupied with it for 20-30 minutes at a time. She makes sure to have a crayon mark in every corner, in every white spot she can find! Today I did have to teach her that we ONLY draw on paper, not on the white walls, or the table, or mama's face...

PJ has been practicing his Spanish a lot down there. He gets to translate for his parents and some more americans who came down there to help out with summer Bible school for the kids in the poorest neighborhoods. Sounds like he is loving it, but we sure miss our papa a lot! Ophelia asks about him at least 4 times a day and today when I was putting her to bed, she gave me a kiss and said "bus'ka papa", meaning "a kiss for papa". So sweet! But I had to tell her to save it for later. We were going to go to Mexico at first, but just didn't feel like 110 heat and no a/c is the best place for Ophelia and me...