Our summer in New York has come and gone and we're back in Puerto Rico ready to start up school again tomorrow. Benjamin arrived by surprise on July 8th. He had his internship interview that morning and flew in that evening. We knew he was coming...we just didn't know exactly when. We were all so excited to finally see him after over a month. Vivian was a little shy at first and didn't want him to hold her for about half a day. Sylvia was too groggy when she first woke up but warmed up fast once she was awake. All in all it was a great two months. Sylvia really beefed up on her English vocabulary. She said the words 'sword', 'fight', and 'superhero' at least a dozen times a day by the end of it. She enjoyed being with her cousins Ethan and Aidan even if they didn't like being with her so much. We coordinated a lot of rides such that all the kids could get to where they needed to go in a car seat and so that Shawna/Mom could driver her own car since the other one had a manual transmission and she doesn't know how to drive it. We went to the park a lot, swimming at the free community swimming pool (high taxes in NY but free swimming), parties at Ben's cousins, BPO concerts, the zoo, Niagara Falls, evening walks with the red wagon (lots of bickering there), Hill Cumorah Pageant, Church sites, Ethan's baseball games, movies, ate lots of ice-cream, played scrabble and marbles, ran down the slip-and-slide, and had Family Home Evening. It was nice not having to worry about school (although I should have been studying anyway). I originally went so early so I would have an opportunity to do some nursing job shadowing...but I didn't really follow up on that so I didn't do it. But I got some good parenting advice in the process. Sylvia was very excited to come back to PR. You would have thought it was Christmas morning the night we got home. She was so excited to rediscover her toys. With Aidan and Ethan it was always a struggle with the toys since she was always playing with 'their' toys. Vivian is talking more and now says 'wawa' for water. It's still mostly babbling but she understands most everything we say and shakes her head for 'no' and nods once for 'yes'. The girls love playing and laughing together. We have really been blessed with a great family on all generational levels.
