Guppy Guppy Guppy

We enrolled Eli at the Y for swimming lessons. Much to my dismay, she is fearless. I thought that she'd be at least slightly apprehensive about dunking her head under water. And she was. At first. She overcame that hurdle rather quickly and is now taking flying leaps off the side of the pool into her Daddy's arms (and sometimes not). She is also pushing off the wall and can swim a short distance -- using mostly momentum, but unassisted nonetheless. We call her Brave Princess Eli. She rather likes that title. For this fearless attitude and athletic prowess, I can take no credit. Stephen religiously takes her to the pool every Friday and Saturday and she is maybe a week or two away from swimming, he reports. Kudos to Daddy. Here's a little video clip of our little guppy jumping into the pool.

Ski Bunny Eli

During our weekend getaway at The Sider B&B, we ventured to Ski Roundtop with two goals: Eli gets on skis and Stephen and I try our hand at snowboarding. With a late start, we were only able to accomplish one ... Eli got on skis and she loved it! She had a few spills, but she got back up and wanted to keep going.
We're looking forward to the next ski trip. We figure a couple more times on the East Coast and then we'll be ready to join Aunt Betsy and Uncle Roger in Colorado to ski the Rockies. Breckenridge? Vail? Aspen? What fun we'll have! And until then, I'm not giving up on learning how to snowboard ...

Belated Birthday Wishes

Only a month behind ...

On January 17, Eli turned three. We celebrated by throwing a birthday party for her friends (and ours). We had a great turn out of friends and family and Eli's table of presents was simply outrageous. We appreciated everyone heeding the $10-we're-in-a-recession guideline (with the exception of her godparents, Jeff and Mitze, who apparently went on a Groovy Girl shopping spree). It was wonderful to see everyone, especially those we don't get to see too often, but most of all, Eli was just thrilled to be able to run around and play with all of her friends and "cousins." See below for a few photos (I only had time to take a few). I should've delegated that duty to someone else.