Cousin Claire

Reese's first cousin will be arriving soon! She's been practicing saying Claire, and I know she'll be thrilled to meet her. After our trip to Iowa, Reese attended a baby shower for Aunt Kate at Grandma Bailey's house. She loved the baby game favors and helped Grandma Bailey during The Price Is Right Game.

Iowa Adventure

Like last spring, Reese and I spent a week in Iowa to visit her great-grandma and extended family.

Traveling with a year and a half year old was a MILLION times easier than traveling with a six month old, and I now consider myself insane for my attempt last year. From the beginning Reese was thrilled by the sight of planes and trucks at the airport. She didn't fuss on any of the flights (even the return flight from Dallas to San Antonio where the airplane broke and we endured a three hour delay), and kept herself busy and happy playing with her grandparents (who flew in the seats next to us), the window shades, the tray tables, and the emergency evacuation cards. Since our return she's checked out an airplane book at the library and she continues to tell me about how planes "go fast, fast, fast" then "up, up, up."

While in Iowa Reese visited with her great-grandma daily. She and great-grandma played patty-cake and Reese even took a ride in her wheel chair. Reese was a hit at the nursing home and wasn't intimidated by the new people or the equipment that was around. Great-grandma even taught Reese the "Here is the church" rhyme,which Reese repeated continuously.

Reese also got to visit with her second cousins from Houston and Minneapolis while we were there. She adored them instantly and couldn't stop giving them hugs and kisses whenever they were around. One of her favorite activities (which she is STILL talking about) was playing Ring Around the Rosies with her cousins in the pool. Even now when she plays the game with mommy or a friend she tells me "all fall down in the pool with cousins."

Grandma and Grandpa Righter took lots of photos during the trip, and I will post them as soon as I get copies.

Rodeo Austin

The blog has been on the sidelines for the last few weeks while Reese and I traveled. (Following our great Iowa adventure she, of course, ended up sick, so we had to tack on some recovery time as well.)

The second weekend in March we took Reese to the Austin Rodeo. I regret to inform you that we forgot our camera, so we don't have pictures to post and re-live the experience with. We thought the rodeo would be a huge hit with Reese since she loves Kim and Ehren's chickens and she can't get enough of farm animal books and noises.

Within minutes of entering the fair grounds at the rodeo, we began to re-think our adventure. The first animals we saw were two longhorns. Reese was in her jogging stroller and as soon as we approached the fence near the longhorns, she began screaming and trying to crawl out of her stroller. (The buckles hindered her progress which made her even more hysterical.) She didn't stop screaming until she had her arms wrapped FIRMLY around daddy's neck.

We left the longhorns and thought we'd check out the milking exhibit...more crying and hiding from animals. We skipped the petting zoo and went to the stock yards to walk around.
Unfortunately since it was the opening weekend for the rodeo, the only animals around were the goats and a few horses.

With smaller crowds around and LOTS of baby goats to admire Reese finally calmed down and began to enjoy the animals. She loved watching the goats and watched several rounds of junior equestrian events in the arena.

With her fears slightly assuaged, we took Reese back to the petting zoo. She and daddy spent almost twenty minutes petting the goats, deer, and llamas while mommy watched. On second examination the longhorns turned out not to be as scary as she first thought, although she never warmed up to the Borden cow from the milking demo.

All in all, I think her favorite parts of the visit were climbing on piles of hay and inspecting all the tractors. We'll see how things go next year.