75 weeks old…
Friday, July 18th, 2008
Hi there. We’re back and now are playing catch up. So buckle up and enjoy the ride. Here is our little Ava as a 75 week old.
Ava’s week started off with a bang. She was running to one of her daycare teachers with a toy in her hand and tripped. She hit the floor and the toy went right up her nose. 
She got up and cried for Mama as blood trickled out of her nose. It still hurts writing about it, especially since I was not there to help make it better. But Ava got lots of love from her teacher who put a clean blood-free outfit on her. Check out her sweet bruise mustache.
We hosted a birthday dinner for Nicole this weekend at our house. Dan and Nicole, the chefs, made a fancy smancy dinner for a group of our closest friends.
While they were preparing the food, Ava and Grace had a lot of time to play. And when play time is involved, so are shoes. Since Ava only has one pair of princess shoes (oh the horror), Ava got to wear her pirate shoes. She didn’t mind. It was a nice change to be a pirate princess.
And speaking of pirates, here is Ava’s words of the week: Arggghhh (for pirate), E-Ah-E-Ah (for donkey), Nigh-Night (for sleeping time). She also has renamed Uncle David from Day to Dee. And she still insists that we play Dee’s CD whenever we are in the car. After each song ends, she claps. And when the next song begins, she waits for the singing and then says Dee and claps. Talk about having a #1 fan. Geez. Dee will need a restraining order soon.
The two princesses got enjoy their fancy smancy mac ‘n cheese with green peas together.
But when desert came around, Grace preferred to transform into a bridge between the chair and the ottoman.
To make room for everyone, we had to move the dining room table into the living room. Ava was a bit perplexed at first but quickly realized that this was the best tent I had ever made for her.
Before we left town for our vacation, Ava wanted to make sure she spent lots of quality time with Yoda. And the only way that would happen was if they were trapped together. So here they are together in Ava’s crib. Sorry Yoda.
On Monday we dropped off Yoda at Nicole’s place and then on Tuesday we were at LAX. Croatia, here we come!
We got to LAX extra early to ensure we got the bulkhead row so we would have more leg room and room for Ava to play on the floor. The one thing we didn’t realize was that the arm rests of these seats don’t go up. So, I don’t think I can say that the pros outweighed the cons for my ‘plan’, especially since Ava did not play on the floor once… because I am a scaredy cat on planes and there was enough turbulence to get my mind spinning. Sleeping on the plane was rough. We booked a flight that correlated with Ava’s normal bedtime so she would sleep for the majority of the 9 hour flight. That part of the plan worked pretty well. She slept through most of the flight. She even slept through the landing. Lucky girl. But having a 27 pound baby sleeping on your lap for 9 hours straight is not too fun… but the $1000 dollars I saved on her plane ticket sure bought us a lot of cevapcici. 
Once we arrived at London Heathrow, we had a few hours to burn so Ava entertained herself by eating a lot of snacks…
… and watching Mike giggle like a little girl as he read his book….
… and looking at airplanes…
… and more airplanes.
Now we had only two more short flights in order to get to Split, Croatia… our final destination. The amount of room we had on Croatia Airlines was a treat when compared to Virgin Atlantic. I think Virgin took away a few inches in economy in order to install the full-service bar and beds for the lucky bunch in first class.
On each flight, Ava wanted to make sure that she knew where her Nona was… so she would stand on her tippy toes on my lap and scream “NONA! NONA?” until she saw her Nona. It was cute at first but then got a little embarrassing, especially on the Virgin Atlantic flight because very few people understood what Nona meant.
And then we were in Croatia. Welcome Ava. Oops. I mean Dobro Dosli Ava.
As soon as we got there, our bodies were not used to the heat and the humidity of an European summer. Dan was sweaty as usual. Mike thought he would have to go back home early. Nona, Dida and I had smiles on our faces. And Ava? She thought she looked good with her comb over.
After a long day of traveling, Ava was craving some play time as soon as we got to our apartment. She took her wooden toy horse and tried to ride it around the living room. Silly Ava.
Riding a miniature horse grew old pretty quick. Thank goodness one of our best friends in Split got knocked up and had a kid who was close to Ava’s age. Here is Ava with her new friend Noah. He drove her around in his cool Jeep…
…and let her play with all of his toys.
The apartment my parents bought was pretty bare when we showed up. Here in the states, when you buy a house, you have to leave it as it looked when you sold it… light fixtures, plants, and all. But no so in Croatia. The little old lady they bought the place from took everything with her, even the kitchen cabinets. Here is Ava helping her Dida with his long To-Do list.
Since bringing the Pack ‘n Play with us on the plane was really out of the question, we brought this baby tent with us instead. Ava practiced sleeping in it before we left for our trip and we had high hopes that it would be the perfect solution. What we didn’t consider is that the AC guy would be really busy and we would have to sleep in the heat for a few nights. Heat and high humidity don’t mix well with a tent. We put Ava in there for a few minutes and watched the sweat bead up on our poor little baby.
So, it was off to Plan B… sleeping on the bed with us.
Since this is Ava’s blog, I really shouldn’t write about non-Ava moments too much… but if I don’t blog about it here then I will not blog about it ever. So Ava’s blog is now going to be Ava and her peeps’ blog… for now. So… here is night one of our trip. Zivili!!
Our night began at Martin’s bar, Quasimodo, as we watched the EuroCup. Who was playing? Not Croatia, so who cares. We then made our way to a bar that resides within the palace walls. Here is Martin, Dan and Mike causing trouble in the palace.
I guess I should introduce Martin. He is one of my best friends in Croatia and the father of Noah… and Ava is terrified of him. Lol. She hasn’t been that scared of anyone since she saw that fake scary guy at Victoria’s Pub a few months back. We thought it might of been his beard so he was nice enough to shave. Did it work? Nope. Lol. Now he was just a beardless scary guy. Maybe he should of shaved off his eyebrows too. Maybe next time.
Alright, time to help Dida make this old lady apartment more kid friendly. See you soon for the continuation of our Croatian adventure. Bog!
