It IS a small world after all!

This story is just too good not to put on our blog. As you know, Kara's middle name is Nickeise. Brian and I went to Belize for our honeymoon six and a half years ago, and this is where we got the name. We were staying our first night in a little hotel in town, and we got to know our bartender pretty well. His name is Brian, and he had told us that he had just had a little girl, and named her Nickeise. I told him that I loved the name, and asked if he would write it down, so I could see the spelling. He wrote the name down, and he also told us that it meant "First born baby girl." When I was pregnant, we decided that if we had a girl, we would give her the middle name of Nickeise. After all, Brian still had the piece of paper that Brian our bartender had written the name on.

Fast forward 6 1/2 years later, and wow, I have found Kara's namesake. As I often do, I was googling the name Nickeise to see if I can find anything that says the meaning, or Brian and his daughter for that matter. Well this time, I hit the JACKPOT! I googled the name, and scrolled down a little ways, and found a blog that had the name Nickeise in it. The person writing the blog had this written in her blog "He has the most intelligent little seven year old named Nickeise" I looked a little closer, and I e-mailed her to see if it was in fact Brian, and Nickeise. Well, it WAS!!!!! Veronique has sent me pictures of herself, Brian, and Nickeise! I can't believe that I have found Kara's namesake! We e-mailed a few times, and I know that Brian and I will someday have to take Kara to Belize, back to San Pedro Island, so we can all meet the little girl that we named her after.

I was so pleased that she sent us pictures, I can't wait to someday share these pictures with Kara. Nickeise is so adorable, and I am so glad that Brian and I had a chance to meet Brian, and get our daughters middle name! I have included pictures of Nickeise, and one of Brian, Veronique, and Nickeise.

It really is a small world after all!

Kara laughing, the sweetest sound!

Phone Call

Here is Kara chatting on her "phone"

Toy Diving!

Diving for Toys......

Kara has figured out how to get herself into this little toy bin all on her own! It is REALLY funny to watch her! She just figured this out this morning, and has been doing it all day long! Here are some pictures of her in the bin, and we will have a video to follow..... Only Kara!

Dare Devil!

Kara received a shopping cart from her cousins Aiden and Ava for her birthday, however, she thinks it is one like we use in the store, and tries to climb in instead! She is such a little dare devil, shades of her mother are shining through everyday!

Christmas Dress

Here is ONE of the Christmas Dresses that I bought for Kara. My mom had mentioned to me around Easter time that JCPenny's has cute little girl dresses for very reasonable prices. Well, I went back for Christmas, and boy did I get a deal! This one is more casual than the other, but SO cute! I had a work party on Friday, and brought Kara along with me. Aunt Julie dressed her all up for me, but of course she would not keep the bow in her hair. Anyway here are some pictures of her in the dress, I had already taken the tights off at this point. It was also REALLY hard to get her to stand still now that she is practically running everywhere!

Toy bins

We bought a shelf of bins for our living room to keep all of her toys organized. Kara loves to take them out, and sit in the bins. Too cute!

Cutie Pie

Here are some pictures of our little cutie pie, Kara! She is growing up way to fast. Her vocabulary is amazing, she now says:
Shoe - picks up a shoe, sock, hi, bye, mama, dada, papa, nose, no, mouth, baby, good girl, moo, meow, mine, car, uppie, down, and tickle, tickle, tickle. We think that she is the smartest baby on the planet. She also knows sign language for more, all done, and hungry. Not too shabby for 13 1/2 months!

Thanksgiving

I know that we are a little late with the Thanksgiving update, but better late than never. We had a wonderful Thanksgiving at Aunt Julie's house this year in Brentwood. We had two wonderfully cooked turkeys, and all the best fixin's! After dinner, Kara was chasing her cousin Aiden all around, trying to kiss him. This was the cutest thing ever, she would run after him, then corner him, and kiss him! I don't know that he was totally fond of it, but we all got a kick out of it! Here are some pictures of her trying to kiss Aiden.

More Monterey Aquarium

More Aquarium

Aquarium

Monterey 2

Monterey

Brian, Kara and I went to Monterey for the weekend, and had a ball! We needed a family get away, and thought Kara would enjoy the Aquarium, which, of course, she did! Brian booked a fabulous room with views of the bay. It was so nice to go to sleep at night listening to the waves breaking outside. Kara thought the hotel was a blast! She was jumping all over the bed, and running around like crazy. Brian and I thought it was nice that it seemed like Kara felt as though she was on vacation too. Brian and I did do a little wine tasting and bought two bottles, one red - for him, and one white - for me. We thought that when Kara was napping, and after she went down, we would have a chance to sit on the balcony and enjoy a glass or two!

The first night, we just checked in, and went to dinner. The weather was not all that great, and we wanted to go to bed early for an early start in the morning. The hotel brings breakfast to your room every morning, so we requested it at 8:00. Once we ate, we got ready to go to the Aquarium. The aquarium was about a 10 minute walk from our hotel down Cannery Row. It was a nice walk, as we could go to all of the great little shops along the way.

Before we started out our journey, we went to buy our tickets at the front desk. The woman working asked if we were planning on going tomorrow as well. We told her no, and she handed us some tickets that were good for the day. Apparently someone had two day passes, but only went on Friday, making the tickets good for Saturday as well. We gladly took them, and thought how lucky we were to try and buy our tickets at the front desk!

When we got to the Aquarium, I don't know that Kara knew what hit her!!! Stimulation overload!!! She could not get enough. As soon as we took her out of her stroller, off she went. She had SO much fun. We started off by the Kelp Forest tank, and went from there. Kara just loved looking at all of the fish, and certainly had no fear! Brian and I just loved watching her laugh, smile, and take it all in.

Upstairs in the Aquarium, they have a great kids area. Kara played in the water, walked on a water bed, crawled through a tunnel, (mom not far behind - thank God I am short), and had an all around blast!

We left the Aquarium to go have lunch up the street at a place called "Archies" it was nice to just have a small break from the crowd, and I can only guess, pay half of what they would charge in the Aquarium. When we went back we decided to check out the "Seahorse" exhibit. It was AMAZING!!!! Kara couldn't get enough of the Seahorse statue, and just had fun looking at the silly seahorses. Right next to that, we went into the million gallon tank room, and Kara could not get enough of the "BIG" fish.

I think that Kara's favorite part of the whole trip was when she got to get her hands on all of the kelp, starfish, and other animals of the sea! She had a great time getting her hands wet, and checking out all of the sea life. Like I said, NO FEAR!!! Brian and I also had an opportunity to touch a bat ray. I haven't done that since I was a little girl. They felt like velvet to the touch, pretty neat!

On our way back to the hotel, Kara was very sleepy. We put her down for a nap, and enjoyed a glass of wine on the balcony. We then got ready for dinner. We went to a great restaurant - The Fish Hopper. I had the most AMAZING clam chowder EVER! Brian had some Abalone, Prawns, and Scallops. This was Brians first time having Abalone, mine as well. It was sooooo good, imagine Calamari, but 100 times better!

Our last day we woke up had some breakfast, and then took another stroll downtown. We went over to the outlet shops, and I bought 3 new pairs of shoes. We then ate at "Bubba Gumps" before heading back home. All in all it was a GREAT family vacation. The room was the right size for all three of us, and we all enjoyed our time together as a family!

Going for the gold!

We have a tub in the living room for Kara's toys to keep them out of the way. She can't quite reach the bottom of it, but boy does she try!

Uppie!

Kara asked Uncle Pauly for "uppie" even though he was already holding her. This is the ending result! Kara got even more "Uppie" than she was to begin with :)