...to the extent that it's absurd

a few things els can do.
she can say "ball" and "teeth." she says "teeth" in reference to brushing her teeth, which she loves. actually she just loves sucking the toothpaste off of the toothbrush. occasionally there's some brushing involved.

while elsie has the ability to walk, she chooses not to. she walks on her knees. i hardly ever see her crawling anymore. as such, all of her pants and tops of her shoes are totally worn out. she knees through sand and gravel at the park, grass, hard wood floors, scratchy carpet, whatever. she can stand up by herself and walk, but usually she won't do that without us urging her to. someone at the library told me she looked like she was on a pilgrimage. elsie is just really spiritual guys.

els loves to dance. she also does that on her knees.

we've been to the pool a few times in the last week with mandi, blaik, and blair. elsie looooves the pool. she also loves the park. last week, she climbed to the top of the slide contraption and went down by herself. as in i was sort of across the park watching her. she's pretty brave. she flew down the slide and landed in the sand. since no one was around to react, she just got up, and kneed her way back over to the stairs to go up again.

a couple of weeks ago she went on a hunger strike, eating close to nothing everyday. recently, she's taken a liking to eating again. she loves strawberries, bbq chicken, graham crackers, grapes, toast with cream cheese, and pizza. because pizza is one of the main food groups in our family.

elsie is pretty affectionate. she loves to give kisses; she will occasionally cuddle for a second or two.

around other kids she's pretty shy at first. she usually kind of sits and observes them for awhile before jumping in to grab a toy she can play with by herself. i think she likes to be around people, but she likes to keep her distance until she's comfortable.

songs with hand actions are the love of her life. just last week she started doing all of the actions to popcorn popping.

she also loves books. or at least turning the pages of books.

blue's clues is still her favorite show. she'll hand me the remotes, and point at her hand ("put it in the notebook").

about an hour after elsie goes to bed i start to miss her. she is so fun and funny. wes and i keep saying we think she'll reach her pinnacle of cuteness and kind of level off, but everyday she just gets better.

we're leaving for turks and caicos (!!!!!) in a few days. because weston has worked at amangiri for a year, we get 5 nights free at any aman in the world. amans are no joke, guys.

our "room" looks like this

the beaches look like this

wes and i have never taken a vacation together, much less a trip to a place where they have people walking around the beach just to wipe off your sunglasses and bring you ice cold coke (right??). els will stay with my parents, because they are saints. while i'm stoked about the idea of being able to sleep in as long as i want and only having to worry about entertaining myself on the plane ride, we're going to miss els something fierce. she would really dig the ocean. and the chocolate covered graham crackers in the minibar.

i just realized that as of today, we've lived in page for a year, which seems insane to me. i have to say this creepy little town has grown on me. we've made the best friends here (some soon to leave us. MANDI.) and we're so much happier here than i ever could have thought we'd be. while i hope our stint in page isn't one that lasts too much longer, i know it's a stint i'll look back on fondly.

... and when we get back from turks, these nerds will be living here.