Alenka

We have had a special guest the past two weeks and today we said farewell to her. Alenka is Helen's cousin who lives in Switzerland and came here to practice her English. She stayed with us for 2 weeks and we had such a great time with her. Of course the kids thought it was wonderful to have another person to play with. It was cute to see them interact with her because they speak so fast that she didn't understand them a lot of the time, but they would just carry on with their jibber jabber. She was a pleasure to have and such a sweet house guest. I was thoroughly spoiled by having an extra set of hands; I don't know how I will adjust back to doing it all on my own! :)
I don't have a lot of time to type all of what we've been up to so I will do some bullet points of the highlights:

-Diego learned how to swim! He had his first swim lesson last Monday and on that day he swam the entire half length of the pool, unassisted. We were amazed! I knew he was super close since he had been so comfortable in the water with his water wings, but I didn't think it would be that fast. He had a total of 4 lessons and by the last lesson (this past Tuesday) he jumped off the diving board and swam all the way to the stairs in the shallow end. Such an athlete!

-We hosted a going away party for Aaron and Helen two weeks ago which was a blast. We served French and American food, French wine, lemonade and sweet tea. They are moving to Paris, France in a few weeks and we are going to miss them soooo much!

-Marco is cruising around furniture now. He will pull himself up and then take small steps to walk along side things. It is really cute!

- I didn't have my camera along much the past two weeks, but we did take a lot of pictures on our day of hiking which was Alenka's first day with us. We went to Sweetwater Creek and then to La Fonda for lunch - it was a great day!

The lil' pink hiker

Alenka and the kids

It was a very hot day and by the time we made it down to the river and finished our picnic lunch, everyone was HOT. Ricardo and Alenka took the kids down to dip their toes in the river which turned into a full body dip. They stayed down there for at least 30 minutes and had an absolute blast. I was so thankful that Alenka was with us, otherwise the kids would not have been able to experience it since I couldn't go in with Marco.

This picture does not capture it, but Ricardo held Diego's hands and Alenka held Alexia's hands and they swayed them back and forth through the ripples of the river. It was fun just to watch!

When we weren't riverside taking pictures, we were up on the deck area keeping busy. Can you see the family off in the distance?

This little step kept this little guy busy!

Love the look of mischief!

He fell asleep on the walk back to the car and literally woke up as Alenka was snapping this shot. Sweet baby boy.


Before Alenka's departure I wanted to get a picture of her with the kids. This was the best one. Alexia was grumpy and said she didn't want to smile. So she didn't.

We miss you already Alenka!!