May 10-16, 2018 - 3 years 10 months - Kachemak Bay Shorebird Festival

To break up the drive, we stopped for a few hours at the Soldotna playground… where we discovered that Bucky enjoyed going down the slide as much as Kadin! 

A nature walk along the docks, exploring all of the sea creatures there.  Kadin loved it!  This one is an ochre sea star.

An "Otters and Eiders" boat tour where Kadito and a kid he met on board get to sit in the captain's seat.  (The Captain is pictured to the left).  Lots of otters, lots of running laps around the deck.  No eiders (a cool sea duck). 

Kadin slept through it, but I awoke to the crunch of underbrush and chomping of leaves right outside of the tent.

Awww!  Love this shot of Kadito and Bucky… best of friends whenever Kadin has either food or a ball in his hand!

April 2-15, 2018 - 3 years 9 months

Yay!  Spring is (sort of) here!  Warm weather and lots of daylight… some snow to play in still but also some open dirt, water, and pavement to run and bike and boat in!  Good times…

Video:  We went biking in the woods with his Strider bike (no pedals) and stopped at a fun snowy hill to play with Bucky.  Kadito is often fairly conservative with risks, but not today!  He also often cries and gets mad when he falls, but not today!

We made newspaper boats, just like in the Curious George book, and floated them in an icy puddle.  It was Kadito's idea to tie a "rope" to his so he could pull it along. 

After the boats got soggy and sank, we met up with another little boy named Cruz, about a year younger than Kadito and they raced back and forth on their bikes.  Too cute!

Video:  Kadito's first day on his bright green pedal bike.  He still needs a bit of a hand getting started and then… off he goes!  He's too fast for me to walk with so in the future, I'll have to have my bike with me too.

I tweaked this photo a bit to bring out the wispy hair and baby-red lips.  I just can't stand how adorable he is and it reminds me that he is still so little (which is hard to remember when he is racing around on a pedal bike or climbing giant hills or getting into things he shouldn't!)

Video:  I broke down and got Kadito a little remote control car that was on sale.  Of course, he loved it, but what was even funnier was how much Bucky loved it too!

Video:  One more video, especially made for Abuela Baiba (BaBa).  

Lunch at the Flying Squirrel Cafe and Kadito is always serving up yummy muffins, ice cream, and pizza.  We were biking before this and once his helmet is on, he never wants to take it off…

January 30 - February 1, 2018 - Isla Mujeres, Mexico (3 years 6 months) – Last 3 days.

Kadito has already learned to never turn your back on the ocean!  Either that or he just really doesn't want to leave.

Kadito enjoys a strawberry liquado (smoothie) at the beach-side restaurant.

Laughter is such a beautiful thing.  As is that cute little "tickle button"!

He is pointing to some boats in the ocean, I think.  This was when we took the golf cart around the island to check out some other sites.  

At the turtle sanctuary, we saw turtles of all ages getting prepared to be released to the wild.  This is the second stage – outdoor pools.

We bought a little baggie of turtle pellets to feed them (and the gulls).  You can see one little pellet at the edge of the pool between Kadin's foot and the turtle.

This is the final stage for the turtles before they are released – an enclosed part of the ocean.  Lots of fish and gulls and there was even a catshark in there which you can get a quick glimpse of at the end of the video.

We went out for lobster for our last dinner in Mexico and Kadito was the Lobster Monster.  Grrrh!

And Abuela Baiba was the Lobster Eater!  Yum!

Our ferry ride back to Cancun to get to the airport and start the long journey home.  He's such an awesome travel buddy.

January 26 - January 29, 2018 - Isla Mujeres, Mexico (3 years 6 months) – First 3 days

On the ferry crossing from Cancun to Isla Mujeres

At our hotel, there was a perfect little pool with a long strip of shallow water where Kadito could run, swim, and play without me holding onto him.  See video below for the live action version – "Mama, watch this!"

Arrrgh!  Inside a shark's mouth on one of the piers.  We were having a blast, pretending to be scared, and just as I was about to take the photo, of course, he covers his eyes… ¡No fotos!

The hotel had a (somewhat sad) little tank of slider turtles and Kadin loved watching them.  One waiter let us pick up the littlest one but the next day another waiter said we couldn't because one of them bit a kid once.  They aren't mean turtles so I suspect the kid wasn't handling him properly, but oh well, no more picking them up.
I love Dito's wispy hair, necklace, and bare foot in this photo. 

We had a day of rain on the Island and so Kadito and I went to the bar to play some pool. We must have spent over an hour there.  He loved hitting them, of course, but he also loved listening to them go down the tubes and running the tray to pull them out again.

At the beach… popcorn was our favorite snack.  Kadin would walk up and down the beach looking for the popcorn vendors.  I love that in Spanish, popcorn is "palomitas" which means "little doves".

The waves weren't very big on Isla Mujeres, but big enough to still have fun!  I left Kadin's blue life jacket at a bus station by mistake and found this inflatable one at a mega store in Cancun.

January 24-25, 2018 - Playa del Carmen, Mexico (3 years 6 months) - THE CENOTES

Kadin started to get a bit of a sand rash from his sandals so we switched to flip flops!  It took him a bit of practice to walk in them but he would NOT switch back and just kept on practicing.  They have Dora la Exploradora on them.

Speaking of flip flops, Kadito found this one at the cenote and it instantly became a boat… you can see his lips going Brrrroom like the motor.  He almost didn't let me throw it away afterwards - wanted to keep it as his toy boat!

Kadito was amazingly drawn to this girl.  He wanted to play with her and would follow her around the Cenote, asking me, "¡¿La niña, donde está la niña?!" (The girl, where's the girl?!)  Finally, they sat down and Dito could show her all of his toys.  Her name was Anuk.

I was supposed to pick just one of these four photos but just couldn't decide.  So now they are a collage of my little swimmer boy happy in the water.

Kadin is swimming like a champ!  All those Wednesdays at the pool in Wasilla are really paying off.  

There are these little fish in the cenotes that like to eat your dead skin.  Kinda gross but really, more than anything, kinda fun and TICKLISH!  It was hard to not laugh/giggle the whole time!

Our last night in Playa we went to a restaurant that was built within a cave (Restaurante Alux).  We didn't eat there but explored the cave and had a lot of fun.  This video is a bit dark, but Kadin was rockin' out to the music!

Ooops… forgot a photo… my version of a "volante" (a flyer!)… Jumping off the 20' cliff at the Cenote.  Kadito stayed on the pier with Anuk's mom and loved watching me jump.  The first shot is a close up of the second one.

January 16, 2018 - Mahahual, Mexico (3 years 6 months)

Morning walk along the beach.  He would comment on every boat, especially if it had two outboard motors instead of just one.
He would run out to a pier by himself sometimes, so I made him wear his life jacket!

Kadin is really into learning his letters right now – especially O, K, J, and S – and was practicing in the sand.  I love that sometimes he calls me "Jota", which is the letter J in Spanish.

Kadin met two twins, Sebastian and Tristan, at our campsite beach and LOVED playing with them for hours.  We even hopped on their golf cart for a final ride before they got back onto their cruise ship and left.  As they left, he cried and every time he saw a cruise ship he mentioned them.  I realized it's kind of hard on him to meet kids for just a quick playday and then never see them again and it renewed my quest to find a more permanent community to go to every year.

More cool discoveries… I think he's asking me what made all the holes in the sand.  I believe it's little clams in there.

Later on, we met up with a few more kids and they all started collecting these teensy clams.  Kadin was proud to show the girl how many he'd found.

Video:  Kadin playing in the water.  "Mi mano bote" = my hand is a boat!  "Big bote bajo aqua" = it's a big boat going under water!

January 8-11, 2018 - Tulúm, Mexico CAMPING at PANCHO VILLA (3 years 6 months)

Our new camp was a huge area right on the beach with lots of shade from the palm trees.  My little monkey felt right at home!  

So here, Kadin LOVES his shrimp and wanted me to take a picture of it but wanted to close his eyes and hide his face.  Grr.  BUT HE IS SOOOO CUTE!!!

We took a boat ride out to a reef, so that I could go snorkeling and Kadin could be on a boat.  I think he was more excited than I was!

Kadin watches me in the water, as I come up from snorkeling to check in on him.  He was as happy as a fish in the sea!

Kadin preferred staying closer to shore where the breaking waves were but would occasionally swim out beyond the breakers and just float around.

Hard to capture the view from our tent in a shaded grove of palm trees right on the beach.
No naked monkeys to be seen (I think he was asleep).

Yay!  Coatis playing at the entrance to the Tulúm ruins.

Kadin was tired and possibly bored for most of the exploring of the ruins.  It made a lot more sense that night when he fell asleep at 7pm with a fever.  Fortunately, he was back to his energetic self the next day.

Definitely, the iguanas were a favorite at the ruins!

October 1 - 15, 2017 - 3 years 3 months

We went out for sushi and Kadin did a great job with his chopsticks!

ARGGH.  He LOVED the calamari.  He actually ate everything but wasn't too excited about the raw salmon.

As a surprise reward for being so good in the restaurant and in Value Village, I let Kadin pick out a toy and he is super excited about his new pirate ship!

It even has little mini wheels so it can smoothly sail the concrete seas.

Soleil's Birthday Party!!! Soleil is the girl to the far left.  

Mr. Monkey Acrobat in the bath.

In aerial yoga, this would be the orangutan pose.

Throwing rocks and sticks and leaves and watching them sink or float down the coast like a pirate ship.  (Everything is a pirate ship these days!)

It took Kadin over an hour to finally work up the courage to approach Sparky, the fire dog.  Sparky was quiet and patient and eventually Kadin wanted to show him all of his toys and art.  He even started to "read" the fire activity book to him!

We visited Wendy for a lovely tea and biscuits and a fun romp with her dogs.  Kadin found a feather on her window sill and he let me put it in his hair.  I love his facial expression in this picture for some reason.  

Yes, he's still running around naked.  But the awesome thing is that he had watched me mop the floor a few minutes prior to this and then immediately picked up the mop, mopped the floor, and used the squeegie thing to get the water out.  Kids' amazing ability to watch and imitate never ceases to surprise me.