Rocking out.

Willow’s Bubbie and Zayda bought her a guitar for her second birthday, which she adores. She especially likes to play it late at night, her right knee bent and leg cocked for stability, looking for all the world like a budding rock star.

One of Willow’s favorite games to play with Daddy is the “hideseekgame.” Her unique version is that she wants us both to hide at the same time and then count together. After we get to 10, nothing much happens.

We had a great trip to Vancouver Island this summer, where we were surrounded by gorgeous vegetation, tall trees, and animals galore. Willow was introduced to several critters new to her on the trip, both wild and domesticated, including bald eagles, Pacific white-sided dolphins, seals, Beluga whales (these at the Vancouver Aquarium), goats galore, ponies, pigs, sheep, cows, bunny rabbits, chickens and mules. As a family we voted Long Beach, just south of Tofino, the best Canadian beach we know. Below is a video showing Willow enjoying some of Vancouver Island’s natural wonders.

Willow had her end-of-preschool-year picnic yesterday at the “train park” in Santa Fe. She wasn’t in much of a photo-taking mood, but I did manage to snap one shot of her with her marvelous teachers Amanda (on left) and Patricia, to whom we are so grateful for offering Willow a great first school experience.

We were all recently in Montreal for Willow’s Auntie Sharron’s birthday party. We were all very pleasantly surprised how attached Willow became to her grandparents Ralph and Clara. It was the first time Willow called them “Bubbie” and “Zayda,” the affectionate Jewish names for grandmother and grandfather. Willow loved going to the park and blowing bubbles with Bubbie, and watching TV and playing catch with Zayda. They adore Willow as much as she does them.

Willow had her first swimming lesson yesterday at the Genoveva Chavez pool. While initially slighty rigid and reluctant, she soon relaxed in the water quite a bit and, as you can see, quite enjoyed herself. Many thanks to instructor Jim Kemper for teaching me and Gong how to help make her comfortable. We think she’s going to become quite the otter.

We took Willow to see “mama’s warse” (mama’s horse) today in Taos and while there Gong snapped some lovely shots of Willow in her super cool pink cap and snazzy 70s-era jacket. This one is my favorite.

Willow had her first snow day from school today. We had about a foot and a half of snow in our backyard, so I got her a $14 plastic toboggan (she picked the color) from the local hardware store. We had a blast in our little backyard with the dogs tearing around while we sledded. Check out our athletic Waylon (dark brown chocolate lab mix) at about 0:48 into the video. And, no, those growls aren’t anything to worry about – that’s just our young pit bull Bailey just playing really really hard. We’re still working on the snowball thing, though…I love winter.