California...part deux

We couldn't bring many toys with us on the plane, but we could fit in a lot of books. Marianna loves books and loves to read them herself, turning the pages and babbling to herself. She also loves it when someone reads her a book. It got us through several hours on the plane!


As I mentioned, we have a lot of pictures of her on the balcony looking down at the golfers as they would pass by. There we also a lot of ducks that would wander below that we would feed...that was wildly entertaining to Marianna!


Here we are at Marianna's first fine dining establishment..Arnold Palmers in La Quinta. She felt right at home at the head of the table, by the wine lockers!!


Jack loves the camera and will ham it up for me quite a bit...he's the best!


Our mornings would always start out with some balcony time...


I think the way Marianna sits now is so cute!! I love it when she sits like this..



(Marianna always liked to be part of the action...especially wanting to play with anything Jack was playing with!)


This morning was spent feeding the ducks...this was a big deal to Marianna!







This evening, DJ and I were going out to dinner and my parents babysat Marianna. I think they were heading over to the lobby bar for a drink here.

The hotel entrance is full of flamingos and ducks!

Marianna (the nature girl....) loved it. Here are some family shots on our last day.

At the lobby bar later that night...

That's it! She napped and slept great, loved being with her cousins, and even went underwater in the pool (about 12 times on the last day!). We had a great time and can't wait for our next trip to California!

Update: Marianna starting taking her first steps by herself right before we left. She takes about three steps before she slowly lowers herself down. The other day, she took about 7 steps and that was the most ever! Still though, she does a lot of free standing and now stands for several minutes by herself before taking some steps and trying to balance herself. Now that the weather is nicer, we have been going outside a lot with the walker and pushing it in the street. Marianna loves to watch the kids in the neighborhood play and ride their bikes. She also has 8 teeth now (4 top, 4 bottom) and is enjoying all kinds of table food: avocado, turkey, green beans and peas, sweet potato, grapes and pasta w/ red sauce are some her favorites! She might end up by default being the healthiest eater ever because of her allergies. I still have to be really careful about any added preservatives in food and end up cooking all of this fresh for her. She also did really well at all the restaurants we went to so now DJ and I feel more comfortable taking her out more now that we are home!