20 months

Gavin is 20 months old today!

 When he wants me to sing the ABC song (so he can dance along), he says "AB, AB."

Gavin regularly (several times a day) walks up to a seated person, pulls on their hand, and says "up, up." He doesn't have the vocabulary to tell you everything he wants to say, so he takes you there. Sometimes the lack of words is frustrating for all of us.

He does say trampoline--it sounds like dapple.

I mentioned in last month's post that Gavin loves climbing.
This month he's taking it to new (more dangerous) levels.

displeasure needs no words

Sweet things are, of course, Gavin's favorite. Anytime he wants a snack, he uses the same word.
It's a cross between cookie and cracker that sounds like kah-koo. 

climbing into the sink

A few new favorite words are: button (bu-tee), owie, yellow, and eye. He's also regularly using phrases, sometimes with and adjective after the noun, like in Romance languages. For example "car Daddy" (for Daddy's car) or "book yellow." His favorite phrase: "more cookie please."

When he wants to, Gavin can really pack away groceries, and not just the sweet stuff.
Below: he's eating lots of pizza; I promise he had some fries with all that ketchup on his face (and shirt and chair); and he's eating peanuts.

Being this cute (and BUSY) is pretty exhausting.

Purple field

 This field of beautiful purple flowers is near our house. Any idea what they are?

Aunt Jennie and Uncle Superstar

We've been lucky to have Jacob's sister Jennie and her husband Adam visit for a few days. As I mentioned when he visited last autumn, Adam goes by Uncle Superstar. We're so glad they got to visit and are sad they're leaving tomorrow. :(

goofy Uncle Superstar

showing Aunt Jennie how he prays 

did I mention goofy Uncle Superstar?

lovin' Aunt Jennie

gelato

I can't accurately describe how hot it was on our trip to Croatia. It doesn't seem adequate to say it was 95F (36C) and 75% humidity with zero clouds in the sky to shield us from the penetrating sun. It may be sufficient to say that our (at least) daily dose of gelato kept us alive. Finding good gelato really was a matter of survival. And we ate LOTS of it, mostly in refreshing fruit flavors like lemon, blueberry, cherry, lime, strawberry, kiwi, pineapple, mango, green apple... you get the idea.  

This guy was a fan.

Isn't she gorgeous? 

This guy was also a fan.

He was being silly, so I was giving licking instructions.
He thought I was giving pointing instructions. 

Not sure if you can tell from this photo, but Gavin cleverly folded the cone down around itself
so he could get to the rest of the gelato. 

Dalmatian vacation--south (Dubrovnik and Korčula)

Dubrovnik is the city in Croatia we heard the most about before we went, and its beauty didn't disappoint. The old city, surrounded by 2 kilometres of wall, was like stepping back in time. 

a city of stairs (not so friendly with the kids)

We also spent a night in Korčula, which is a tiny town with adorable little streets. It's also one of the locations that claims to be the birthplace of Marco Polo.

in front of the Marco Polo house

adorable streets

Hvar

We spent 3 nights on the beautiful island of Hvar, Croatia. 

You can see the castle on the hill above the city.

 It was really hot, so we spent lots of time in the cool, clear water. (And eating gelato.) We rented a boat to visit some of the neighboring islands, and that was a fun day. 

The neighboring islands are beautiful. And their shape creates lots of coves for swimming.
(Obviously not my photo--source linked)

We anchored the boat wherever we wanted, then jumped off and swam, usually to the shore of an island (we floated the kids alongside while we swam).

This photo is an accurate summation of the experience of riding in a boat with Gavin.

Here's a photo of Jacob pulling Gavin to shore from the boat, which was anchored well away from shallow waters.

The rocking boat put one of the kids to sleep.
Too bad it wasn't mine...Isn't she precious?

There were no sandy beaches. People either swim from rocky beaches or from big (treacherous) rocks on the shore. Everyone definitely needed their water shoes! (Gavin's are pictured above on the boat.) Swimming in the Adriatic was a new body of water for us too.

Probably my favorite photo of the whole trip. 

Hvar harbor at night--a very beautiful place!