Travels: Part 3

A couple of leftovers -- a (sideways) giggling/spitting video (two of Eytan's currently preferred activities) from a few weeks back, and a leftover photo from our visit to the aquarium in Seattle.

Meanwhile, lots of stuff going on here: Travels, new Eytan tricks, new goat tricks, and a couple of extra odds and ends:

Travel

At the end of January, we went to the Dominican Republic because Mike's cousin (who he had long ago introduced to her now husband) had a "destination-wedding" at the beach.  Now, Mike and I are not necessarily huge all-inclusive-resort-vacation types, but we wanted to be there, and were somewhat curious to check out a place and a style of travel we otherwise would probably not go to on our own.

And it was nice, different than I expected, I think.  I expected to feel a strong (and uncomfortable) contrast between a posh resort and a poor country, but the road from the airport and the set up at the hotel was such that we didn't actually see the country at all, poor or not.  As such, it was almost like an outsourced vacation -- aside from the staff at the hotel and airport, who said they were Dominican, we could have been anywhere in the world.  Like, we could have been in Florida -- there are nice beaches there too...  But it's probably cheaper to build and run a place, and to offer "more" to tourists for the same amount of money, in the DR than in the US.  And in Florida we may not have seen as many people (big, stern security guards included) dancing around saying "Hola baby, hola baby" to Eytan to try and make him smile.

Other unexpecteds included a slight feeling of being trapped, of not really being able to go very far without constant supervision -- which either makes me stereotypically American or easily stir-crazy, or both; a "spring break" culture -- i.e. a whole lot of foreigners on the beach and in the swimming pools with all-you-can-eat buffets and all-you-can-drink bars milling around in a crowded "paradise" -- maybe that means just I've lived rural for too long; and a Disney World-like staffing model -- where (like the young people from around the world working summers at Disney) the resorts hire Dominicans from all around the country, pay (in this case) pretty high wages and room and board, and provide transportation home every few weeks. 

In any case, it was a nice quick few days of sun and an opportunity to see lots of Mike's relatives (this couple had 50 people at their wedding, despite it being in another country!)

Watching the wedding

Watching all the random bystanders on the beach watching the wedding

Eytan acting tropical

"On the way" back from the DR, we stopped in Minnesota to visit more Mike relatives, including a bunch of grandparents and great-grandparents.

We had originally planned to go to Minnesota in the winter because Mike was hoping to get in a good dose of sub-zero cold and snow.  Of course, this winter was mild in Minnesota, just like it was in Wenatchee (except for the 2 feet of snow that fell right before we left).  Nevertheless, we managed to squeeze in a little skiing on the frozen lake up in Northern MN, which at least served to approximate a cold winter visit.

New Eytan tricks
Eytan has been super excited about cups and water bottles, specifically about grabbing them and bringing them to his mouth to try and drink.

This is his current strategy (which works if the cup is full or if we tip it back for him).


He has also developed an affinity for playing with pacifiers and specifically turning them backwards or sideways and sucking on them that way...

...and to screaming loudly (kind of just because he can), rolling over (a little, front to back), grabbing his feet (especially on the changing table),



going to a little baby swimming group at the Y (which he seems to really like, at least if the amount of hyper-excited splashing is an indication), eating rice cereal,



and smiling a lot, especially while bouncing in this bouncy chair a friend gave us (which we started using after a failed attempt with a different loaner -- one of those ones that attaches to a doorway -- which ripped a board off our ceiling rafter and sent the whole thing tumbling (Eytan was fine, albeit a little shocked)... Note that we had to take a lot of videos in order to capture smiles for you, as Eytan smiles easily at people but, understandably, not so much at little metal boxes with flashes.

New goat tricks

Ernie and Bert are escape artists.  Kind of.  If you recall, they recently went to live with a nice family with four kids.  This family loved loved having them, but anytime anyone went into the yard, the goats bleated and bleated and yelled at them.  And that didn't work for the neighbors.  So Ernie and Bert came back, and after a bunch of head-butting to re-establish pecking order, have restored the goat pen to its previous energy level.



Odds and ends
1. Every few years, I've been a volunteer alumni interviewer for Yale.  So high school seniors who apply to Yale get to have an interview in their area with an alum, and the interviewer (in this case me) gets to meet some high school seniors thinking about college.  I did a few of these interviews in Minnesota, and never particularly enjoyed them -- the students I met were nice, but quiet, and getting them to talk was hard.  Last year I volunteered to interview in Wenatchee, but didn't get anyone -- I think there may only have been one student in all of eastern Washington who was accepted (apparently because very few applied).  But this year there were eight applicants, and one other interviewer in the area (class of 1956), and so I got to meet four high school seniors... and they were all super cool.  Three of them especially were just really fun to talk to.  And perhaps it was also more interesting knowing the community here (and knowing that applying to college on the east coast is kind of an unusual move).  So now I'm nervous-excited waiting to see if any of them get accepted.  I guess finally I understand the appeal of alumni interviewing.

2. Back in the fall, Mike and I met a social worker from Brooklyn and her Israeli vet husband who work in Seattle but recently built a house in Nahahum Canyon, two canyons down the road from us.  And last weekend we went over to their place for lunch... They live at the top of their canyon, kind of like we live near the top of ours, but they are on kind of a small side road off the main canyon road, which isn't really plowed.  So we parked our car at the start of that road and they came to pick us up in an ATV to ride up the side of the mountain to their house (which is halfway embedded in the hillside, with the other side full of huge windows looking out at the hills -- super pretty).  I think I can call it my first snow-ATV-mountain-house-riding experience.  And it turned out that they lived right above where the forest fire that almost came to our canyon two years ago (but didn't) started -- small world.

So that's it for now. One more cute picture, til next time.