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.

September 16 - 30, 2017 - 3 years 2 months

Grandma Baiba and Grandpa Butchie come to Talkeetna for a visit!  First stop… Twister!

While the grandparents are resting, Kadin and I wander through the railroad station and Kadin enjoyed his time behind bars. 

Butch shops the local "produce" while Kadin races around on his bicycle.

Weeeeeee!!!

I had to stop into the VFW to meet up with a friend and Kadin was instantly fascinated with the pool table.  He watched every shot, gave recommendations, and waited for the ball to travel from the pocket to the storage underneath.
Physics scientist or pool shark to be? 

Finally, a break in the rain and we get to be back on our bikes.  If you can see how muddy his legs are, on this trip we went looking for all the big mud puddles! In fact, he had a communication melt down when I went onto the bike path… yelling, no, no, bdda, bdda, (or something like that) and pointing across the street to the dirt trail.  I wasn't thinking in English and it took me forever to figure out he was saying "Puddles!  Puddles!"  I confirmed it with, "Oh, ¿quieres charcos?" Yes!!!!!
We turned around as soon as I figured it out and had a muddy fun time.

Fun little BBQ and bonfire at Sarah's place with Sarah, Drover, and Franny.  Kadin and Jorie ran around like crazy, ate hotdogs and roasted marshmellows, and then finally chilled out by the fire.

Silly times with bubbles.  Somehow Mom stopped this video just before Kadin ran after the bubble and came back telling us there were Trolls behind the building. 

addendum after Baiba's comments:

Kadin's beautiful and silly and wonderful Grandma Baiba…. Alaska's cold in September!