Since we arrived back to our home Ella has grown so much. She is almost 16 months old, she finished teething about 2 months ago, she has many words, she began walking at 13 months and now she only runs everywhere she goes. It took her about 2 months of walking to lose one pound and she is holding at 28 pounds. Her favorite words include zapato, banana, ball, Gordo, aqua, and leche. She has other words like pajarro but she says it differently each time. It's amazing to see her take in what I say and what Jason says and do exactly what we ask even though we speak to her in two different languages. She loves feeding Gordo and other people. She then says "yum yum yum." Her other favorite things to do include playing ball, going for walks in our neighborhood, hanging out at fish lake, greeting people with her Hello and Hi and big smile and wave, throwing things away in the trash and turning on the washing machine. She pretty much spends the entire day talking and calling for Gordo. Currently, we are working on finishing with potty training. Ella is doing really well!
I've had a great season so far teaching Zumba at the Talkeetna Alaskan Lodge and at Church on the Rock. It has been great to have a job that takes up very little of my time and where I can work out. Actually, Zumba has provided me with a physical and mental workout. I look forward to doing it again next year! I've also been able to make a better connection with several of the moms in town that have helped with taking care of Ella and she has loved all the social time with her friends. She just waves bye to me when I leave her at her friends' homes to play. It is great to see that she is comfortable.
We had a great first Church BBQ during a Live at Five evening. It was Summer Soltice. The weather was perfect and we served over 240 meals to the community. It was something that I had been wanting to do for a while and it actually ended up being a lot bigger and more popular than I expected. We raised over $700 for it and we were able to buy great food and we had enough to last over an hour. It was so popular everyone wanted to do another one but it required a lot of planning and prepping for me so I decided to only doing once a year. I know next summer's bbq will be even better.
I've also been volunteering and helping the Food Bank get volunteers signed up. We have a huge need here in Talkeetna.
Jason has been having an extremely busy year at work. The weather has overall been good for flying this summer. It hasn't been as hot as last year and we have had more rain as well but its been good for flying.
