Sorry for the terrible title and the lack of blogs but since summer is now officially over here's a rundown of our summer.
We started off summer witha road trip to Phoenix to meet Ali's new cousin Gavin. Jesse had to stay home and work but Nana came with us (actually we tagged along with her). It worked out really well - one of us drove and the other one satin back and entertained Ali and she was so good! It was WAY too hot in Phoenix at the endof June but it was so nice to be there to see Gavin in his first days!
We came home and celebrated the 4th of July with a hike and BBQ with friends.
We also took the opportunity to take Ali on her first camping trip. We were only about a half an hour from home but the great thing about where we live is that still put us in the mountains. Ali did great and loved being outdoors for 24 hours straight!
The following weekend we drove to Illinois for the White family reunion. We drove through the night this time and Ali did great again! Ali loved Jesse's cousin and everyone was so happy to meet her.
It was August before we knew it but things weren't slowing down! Lake's Gymnastics was in the Carnation Parade so Ali came along and rode in the wagon.
Every summer my grandparents make the drive from Indiana out of Colorado to visit and this year was no exception. We spend the last weekend of August in Fort Collins for the Mihelich Family reunion. Ali and Gavin were both stars and it was so fun to see everyone.
Ali is such a little person these days. She walks and climbs. She feeds herself and definitely has her own opinions about what she should be doing at any given moment. She still signs a lot and that has been such a help but she is quite a chatterbox these days too. I counted her words at 18 months and there were over 60! She also has a least as many signs (some doubling up with words and some signs that she doesn't have the word for yet). She loves being able to communicate her wants and needs but is definitely in toddler territory and gets very upset when I don't understand of when her wants/needs are not meet.
She loves animals but horses are probably her favorite right now. She's lucky Nana watches her once a week and takes her to see some of the horses that live close to us. She also loves heavy equipment. They were doing some work at the end of our street for a while and she was always so excited to go outside and watch them! It did make it very hard to get her into the car though.
