New Years, Friends, and Starts

On the 27th of December we welcomed our friends from Vancouver Rob, Paula and Nate. (I'm not sure who the woman with the braids on the left is!) They joined us for six days of surf and sun, and helped us ring in the New Year. It was wonderful to get to know them better and share some laughs. It was also fun for Lucas to have a friend to play with...although at this age playing seemed to consist of toy-stealing and crying for Lucas! Nonetheless the boys were laughing and interacting by the time Nate left. It was really great to re-connect with Paula, get to know Rob, and see how much Nate had changed.
We also shared some wickedly-competitive games of Pick Two; our newest game obsession. (Thanks Santa Justine!) New Years was rung in amongst shouts of "pick two!" fireworks, and gunshots, of course. Quite exciting.

Quite likely due to Nate's older-boy influence, Lucas has begun to really put the push on developing his linguistic abilities. He is now grunting a little less and trying to form some "real" words beside his current repetoire of mama, dada, aba, dog, and mangled versions of car and truck. Yesterday it was ball and boat that he was obsessed with. He went to bed talking to himself happily. I was a little worried that he was talking in tongues and we were dealing with some sort of a religious prophet until I remembered that Logan did much the same thing at this age. Phew...

Pics: Enjoying Troncones with the Gills.

Sadly we said goodbye to everyone, including Mom, yesterday. The house has seemed quiet and I'm finding that morning nap is not quite the same without mom to distract me with food and conversation. Lucas dragged me into her room to play "Abuela games" this morning, and seemed a bit miffed at me for what I suspect was the fact I was playing them wrong. We hope she has a great visit in Vancouver and look forward to her return in February.

A new circus has arrived in town, so we are off tonight to give it a whirl. We'll see how long Lucas lasts! Tomorrow Scott is arriving to spend a couple of weeks with us. He thinks he's coming to lay on the beach... but Lucas may have other plans for his uncle, I see the cars are all lined up for some sort of a derby?!