Behemoth

I hate getting behind! You go somewhere for a couple of weeks and all of a sudden there are about ten different posts you wish you would have uploaded in a well-spaced and timely way. Instead, if you're me, you just cram it all in to a rambling, over-sized post that your average reader would never finish. Anyway, if for posterity's sake only, here's a big one.

As advertised, a few pics from when we went to the Natural History Museum about five years ago. Camille was enraptured the whole time.


Once we let her walk around it was impossible to get a photo of her, she was moving so fast from one diorama to another.


We stopped on Park to smell the tulips.


On the way home.


The next weekend we went to breakfast on the west side, a one hundred-year-old restaurant called Barney Greengrass. Great bagels.


Then we went to see a Dan Zanes concert at the Met with Camille's best friend in New York, Ana, and her mom and dad, Laura and Sean.


After the concert we played in the park for a while. Ana shared her snacks with Camille.


These girls are so sweet together! Notice how Camille apprehended the snack trap. I'm hoping Ana's giving nature will rub off a little on my hedonist.


Then it was cousin time...

We all went to LaGuardia at the same time, and Remi went one way (to Chicago for business) and Camille and I another (my parents' house in Georgia). He had two business trips back to back, Chicago then Paris, so Camille and I decided to go hole up with Mimi and Pops, and clock some time with her cousin, who also came to visit.


Awkward family photo, this one won't make the Christmas card.


Julia is a character, look at those eyes!


This girl is obsessed with her Mimi and Pops. Mostly because they let her go wherever she wanted to, whenever she wanted to.






They made her laugh.




And she made them laugh.






They installed this awesome baby swing for her and Julia.


Aunt Jami was also a big hit.


And Uncle Andy.




Oh yeah, and I was there too.



One highlight of the trip was seeing Camille's Great Grandfather and his wife.


My Granddaddy won her over (he has a way with women).


Also we took a little road trip to visit my close friend from college, Chrissy.


These are her sweet kids, Sierra and Ranier. Ranier is just a couple weeks older than Camille.


We spent a lot of the trip playing in my parent's basement, it's a kid-heaven. One of the most beneficial aspects of such a long trip was Camille's exposure to English every day. She picked up about ten English words, putting her vocabulary ratio at about 10% English, 90% French. Not bad for only a couple of weeks exposure. We're hoping that having overheard Remi and I speak English to each other will give her a leg-up for learning to speak it herself. Basement is by far her most hilarious English word ("base-ah-mint") and blueberry is next, it comes out something like "bleebulee".