The Land of Enchantment

New Mexico was a lot of fun! The plane wasn't scary at all (I slept most of both ways), and I got to meet a lot of family that I hadn't seen yet and a lot of friends that until this trip I'd only exchanged e-mail with. All my aunts and uncles were awesome, and I finally met my Grandpa Moya, my other great-grandpa, and my great-great-grandma! It's pretty remarkable that I'm so lucky to have all this family and heritage alive to talk to me.

The friends were something else altogether. I haven't really had a lot of chances to spend time with kids my own age since I've been big enough to sit up and hold my own, so it was pretty fun playing with them. I met Ally (who was really nice to let me share her rocking chair), Hannah, Rachel, Fiona, Gage, Vincent, and Abran. Well, only two of those kids were very close to my age, but I had fun with them anyway. And that's not even mentioning the dogs and cats.

Let me tell you something -- when you're used to Florida, New Mexico is cold. It actually snowed on Friday after Thanksgiving, but not really enough for me to play in (if I was even actually big enough to enjoy it). Grandma was awesome and got me a big, fluffy snowsuit, so I was prepared for the weather, especially when we went out and saw the River of Lights at the botanic garden on Sunday night. By the end of the stay, though, it had warmed up enough that a sweatshirt, a hat and the pretty scarf Nona knitted for me did the job. Obviously, I won't need it in Orlando (Dad says the only times he's gotten his coat out are to go to New Mexico for Thanksgiving), the snowsuit will be good for when we go to Canada and see Auntie Lourdess.

We did a lot of stuff over our trip. We had three Thanksgiving dinners, went to Sadie's twice (because it's Mom and Dad's favorite restaurant), had a birthday party for my great-aunt, saw the lights, had a tea party (which one of the guests called a "baby viewing") at Nona's, went to three family houses and four friends' houses, and played a lot. I came ever closer to crawling, and I learned that it's fun to grab people's faces even if it's not necessarily nice.

The big thing that came out of our trip developmentally was my first word: "dada." I started saying it when we went to Santa Fe, but Dad said it didn't count if I didn't know what I was saying. Finally one night at dinner, I had to grab his finger, look in his eyes, and say it just one time without repeating myself before he got it. Next we're working on "mama" because it's only fair. (Dad hopes I don't accidentally say "puppy" first.)

Now we're home, and it's a good thing -- the dry climate didn't really agree with me. I had so much trouble breathing at Nona's that Mom and Dad bought a humidifier for the room. It was nice to get back to the moister air of Central Florida (don't tell Dad I said that), splash with my turtles in my own tub, and crawl into my own bed again. But even though I was all clogged and snotty, I'm looking forward to going back and seeing everyone again in May.