Favorite Parts

As I said, this was the best vacation ever. Each trip gets more fun as Sophia gets older, having lots more opinions and ideas about what to do. Since we went with pretty much every idea she had, we all had more fun. Spoiled a little, maybe, but we had few arguments. The ones we did have were usually because she was exhausted, and when she got a little rest in the stroller, she was as good as new.

All that to say, we each had different favorite parts of our trip.

I loved each aspect of this trip: swimming constantly, dancing, shopping, eating and playing. Still, my favorite part was a brand new tradition that I started our first night just to keep Sophia entertained for a couple of minutes.

Each night, as we wound down together in our room, we took the camera and looked through the day's pictures. That mostly involved Sophia saying "It's me! What am I doing?" But it was still a perfect way to end each day. After we looked through the pictures, we always took a family self portrait like this one:



After the family shot, Sophia got a chance to take a picture or two with the camera. That whole little routine was definitely my favorite part of our vacation. I hope that is a tradition that will stick, but I know her interest level will decrease as the years go along.



Erick enjoyed each part of our vacation too. His very favorite part was swimming with Sophia and watching her be so proud of herself for doing big girl things. She had no fear in the water and would just jump right in there. The first night in the pool, she insisted that she could do it herself. In a 4' pool, that wasn't an option, but the thought was endearing.




Sophia and Daddy really did have a lot of fun together in the pools over the week.



Sophia's favorite part is a little harder nail down. When I asked her what it was, she replied, "The airplane ride," and we all know how that ended. So I can hardly take that seriously. After that, I began giving her choices, and each time she picked the last one. For example: the airplane or swimming? Swimming. Swimming or dancing? Dancing. After a while, we caught on and began asking other questions. Erick: Who do you like better - mommy or daddy? Daddy. Of course I followed it up with the reverse and was rewarded with a "Mommy." So I guess we'll just have to take our best guess.

I think it was dancing. In Downtown Disney, which was a few blocks from our hotel, there was a stage with a dance lesson each night. One lady directed all the kids in their steps on dances. Sophia loved this. It was so much fun to watch. The first night, we just stopped the stroller at the back to check it out. Before we could say anything, Sophia had hopped out and walked up front with all the kids.

She paid attention and kept up as best as she could. I was pretty impressed with her ability to follow dance instructions.



She was one of the littlest ones out there, especially on the first night. She definitely stuck with it longer than any of the other little ones. She also stuck close.



The next night was the same thing. She had been asking about dancing all day. So when she got down there, she concentrated and listened carefully.



Then jumped right in.



Here's a little sampling of her talent...