Joya woke up at 0645 this morning and woke me up, too.  I grabbed her out of her crib and made her a bottle and a cup of coffee for me.  While we were having our respective morning drinks, I turned on EWTN to see what was on.  It was the Chaplet of Saint Michael.  We listened to the prayers as we finished our drinks, then Joya jumped down and started running around the house.  The Chaplet went off and a commercial came on of all the different hosts on EWTN saying “thank you” for contributing to keeping them on the air.  We taught Joya how to sign “thank you”.  Each time one of the hosts would say “thank you,” she would sign “thank you” back to them.  It was very heartening to see.

It was beautiful outside so we had to get out of the house.  You have to take advantage of the weather before it gets unbearably hot.  I wanted to go to a park with enough room for Joya to run around to her hearts content.  We had taken her to Timucuan Preserve before, when she was two weeks old, so I thought it would be a great place to go back to.  There are a couple of trails and Fort Caroline is there.

We started out at the Ribault Monument.  Joya attempted to walk up the stairs, but there were far too many of them — well, she could’ve done it I just didn’t want to wait the hour it would’ve taken.  Instead we walked over to the wheelchair ramp and she walked all the way up to the monument.  There were a couple of people already at the monument and Joya ducked around a tree first, peeking around it at them.  When the saw her and said “hi”, she shrieked and ran out from behind the tree to the monument.  I did the best I could to get pictures of her on the monument, but she didn’t want to look at the camera.  We left the monument and went to the preserve and walked down to the Fort.  Joya didn’t want to walk down the trail to the Fort, so I had to carry her.  Once in the Fort, she got down and ran around — I mean ran around.  There was a guy there walking his dog and she kept pointing at the dog and ran over towards her.  I told her to be careful and the guy told me that his dog was friendly.  I held out my hand, the dog sniffed my hand and I scritched her ears.  Joya got close to the dog, but wouldn’t touch her.  She just kept pointing and smiling, but never pet her.  When the dog left, Joya took off and climbed up the stairs to the rampart.  I managed to get a couple of pictures of her on the stairs and sitting on a rampart.  Joya kept trying to walk down the hill, but I held her back so she wouldn’t go tumbling down (if you look at the pictures of the Fort on its website, you’ll understand).  When we left, she walked about halfway back up the trail then I had to carry her the rest of the way.

When we got home, she ran around, drank two sippie cups of water, and climbed up on my lap like she was trying to get something off the back of the couch.  She lay her head on my shoulder and within two minutes she was asleep.  I put her in her crib and she slept for over three hours.

I had originally planned to grill a steak for Conni and a salmon steak for me and make some green beans.  Sitting here waiting on Conni to get home and Joya to wake up, I decided I didn’t want to cook.  When Conni got home, I proposed that we go to Whataburger for dinner.  Conni was more than happy to take me up on that.  Unfortunately, Joya was still asleep and we eventually had to wake her up at about 6:30pm to go to dinner.  Joya ate french fries and part of my cheeseburger.  We order her some chicken bites, but she didn’t like them as much as McDonalds’ Chicken McNuggets.  We finally got her to drink some of her milk, but she was ready for a bottle when we got back to the car.

We stopped by Publix on the way home to pick up some milk and halos.  The bakery gives kids cookies and Joya got a sugar cookie.  When the bakery worker handed her the cookie, Joya leaned down and looked through the bakery case at her.  They played peekaboo that way for several minutes with Joya laughing the whole time.When I gave her a bite of her cookie, she was done with the game.  It didn’t take her long to eat the cookie (if only she would eat regular food with that same gusto).  When we went through check out, the cashier, Brandon, got her a pink helium balloon and tied it to her wrist.  She started screaming and crying and Brandon felt awful.  I hit the balloon and it hit her face and she let out a scream of happiness that everyone in the store heard.  She was in high heaven playing with the balloon, and Brandon was relieved that he didn’t make her keep crying.

Joya loves baths, would take one twice a day if we would let her.  I promised her a bath today after we went to the park.  She went to sleep so I couldn’t give her a bath, so when we got back from dinner and Publix, I gave her a bath.  She played in the bath for about half an hour before she got out and got dressed for bed.

Today ended up being a great day.  It was beautiful outside and Joya loved playing at the Fort.  She loved the trip to Whataburger and she always likes going to the store (all of the cashiers know her).  We are going to the Museum of Science and History (MOSH) tomorrow to see the exhibit on Anne Frank.  We’re looking forward to The Next Great Adventure!