El Día del Padre

Just like El Día de la Madre, El Día del Padre isn’t celebrated on the same day all over the world. In Spanish-speaking countries, it is even celebrated on diferente días. Some celebrate el 19 de marzo which is actually the día to honor José or the earthly padre of Jesús. Others celebrate the third domingo en junio like in la USA.


In honor of el padre de Sofía, we gave him cards, had an asado (cookout) and ate icecream cake. Sofía loved showing her lengua azul to people more than actually eating the cake!

This was the first time that she was actually able to say, “¡Feliz Día Papi!”

Disney World: Un Parque Chévere-Epcot Día II

Epcot has an atracción where you can go and meet all the personajes at once and take pictures of with each of them separately.  It is kind of nice.  You wait in line and pass from one to the other and you can take fotos and they also have one of their fotógrafos taking fotos also.  I was really impressed with how much time each personaje spent with Sofía and really made her feel like she was the only child they had seen in years!  I was also impressed with how they all (at every park) seemed to understand some Español.  This experience was BY FAR the most enjoyable for Sofía as you can see from her cara.  As we waited in line at 8:30 PM, she was tired and really didn’t grasp the concept of what we were going to do.  We told her that she was going to get to meet Mickey and Pato Donald, etc…but it just really didn’t click….unitl….she rounded the corner.  When she saw Mickey Mouse, she squeeled and RAN to him.  She sat in his lap, she hugged him and couldn’t stop smiling.  This definitely was what Disney World meant for Sofía and by far her favorite, “Parque Chévere!”

Pluto is a big fluffy fur ball!

Minnie gave Sofia lots of hugs and love!

Tribilin is really, really, tall!

Sofia gives Pato Donald un beso!

Disney World: Un Parque Chévere-Epcot Día I

In Marzo, I commented about Sofía’s obsession with Ratatouille and wanting to go to París for dinner.  Well at Epcot we were able to do both those things!  We ate dinner at a French Restaurante in “Francia”.  This particular restaurant was home to ……. (hear the drum roll?) ¡Ratatouille, El Chefcito!  Needless to say, Sofía was ¡dichosa!.....¡estática!

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Disney World:  Un Parque Chévere-Epcot Día II

Disney World: Un Parque Chévere-Magic Kingdom

For those of you who have just tuned in, I’d like to reiterate that Disney World is the most efficient, organized, and clean place I have ever been to! You can even go online and map out what atracción you would like to experience. Best of all, you can indicate that you would like to see what is available for certain age groups. ¡This was fantástico! So we knew ahead of time what atracción we could take Sofía on and were able to eliminate things that we didn’t think she would like. ¡Claro que her atracción favorita was el carrusel!

The other cool thing we/Sofía enjoyed were the short “sporadic” parades and dance shows. I call them “sporadic” because you don’t need a ticket and you don’t need to stand around for hours in a line and actually enter any building. You can be walking along somewhere and a show or parade will pop up. If you are skilled like my esposo, you know WHERE these “sporadics” are going to happen (and what times) and can at least plan to be in the general area.

Sofia has a great view of the Dance Party at the Castillo.

Next Post:  Disney World:  Un Parque Chévere-Epcot

Disney World: Desayuno con los Personajes

Another thing about Disney World that really amazed me was how much attention to detail they took in creating EVERYTHING about the environment.

On our first day we went to Animal Kingdom and thought we would TRY to get in to have desayuno with los Personajes. Another perk about staying at a Disney resort? You get to enter earlier and stay later at the parks than other people. Pretty slick deal when you are trying to get in to the more popular atracciones.

I took these fotos of the restaurante where we had desayuno. They incorporated cracks in the building, exposed wires, and random clothing hanging from makeshift clotheslines. I have been to Maruecos, only one country in Africa, and I felt like I had returned. (Of course it could have also been a plethora of places in Latinoámerica also!)  There is more below the fotos.

 

Since this was Sofía’s first experience with the personajes, she took a while to warm up to them. You will see in a later post how she loses her shyness. The desayuno was a gigante buffet loaded with anything you can imagine including the most popular dish, Mickey Mouse shaped wafles! During desayuno, each personaje (Mickey Mouse, Tribilín, Daisy, and Pato Donald) will come to greet you at your table. You will also get to participate in a jamming parade lead by one of the personajes. We actually got to participate in two dancing ditties – we truly are Latino eaters taking our good ole time!

As you can see by the look on Sofía’s cara…..she thought the desayuno was ¡¡CHEVERE!!

Next Post:  Un Parque Chévere-Magic Kingdom.

Disney World: Awesome Safari Hotel Kidani

Disneyworld has resort hotels. There are many perks of staying in these hotels. They are closer to the parks. The shuttle buses take you directly to the front door of the parks and they offer a meal plan that saves you big bucks if you are planning to stay a while at the parks and eat there or in the hotels for that matter.
We stayed at a resort in Animal Kingdom. The theme was Africa. This means that all the decorations and food themes are African. The food themes do not change from night to night. That is the only bummer. I guess they think people will eat at different places during their stay. The thing we loved about the hotel? The view from our rooms. Whenever we looked over the balcony we could see jirafas, cebras, and much more. Sofía LOVED it. I really liked this resort for Sofía’s age because it was quiet and calm. Sofía could take her nap during the day without obnoxious music or party-goers and easily sleep early at night also. In fact, nowhere in any of our experience did we find obnoxious, boisterous people out of control. We really liked that!

We think that during out next trip we will stay somewhere along the boardwalk just to have a different kind of experience. The other thing I really liked about Disneyworld? Everyone knew just a little bit of Español and that really added to the language rich environment in which we try to engulf her.

Below are fotos I took with my iphone.  They are not the best quality...but you get the idea.  How maravillosa is it to wake up and see THIS in the morning?

¡Stay tuned for our Desayuno con los Personajes!

Disney World: En General

My husband presented at a conference in Orlando, so Sofía and I tagged along to for a little vacación de familia. I had never been to Disney World, or La Casa de Mickey as Sofía calls it. (Last year we went to Disneylandia but really there was no comparison.) I’m a convert now. I LOVE Disney. I could spend hours of time explaining how amazingly organized, efficient, clean and family-friendly the joint is, but I won’t unless you ask me to. We will definitely be returning many times in the future. I always thought it was just an amusement park and IT IS NOT. Sofía really learned who Mickey Mouse was last year at Disneylandia and has been in love with him since. But it really didn’t all come together for her until this trip. So the next couple of posts, I will share some of our vacaciones.


The first and most important point of our viaje was that we didn’t need to bring a carseat. We stayed at a resort hotel that offered incredibly efficient bus transportation to anywhere we needed to go. So we took a much happier Sofía on the avión with a harness instead of a car seat. She may not look very happy in the foto, but don’t confuse tiredness with the placer of being able to stretch one’s legs and have moving room.

Up next….our AWESOME Safari Hotel!

Un Pez Hecho en Tiza

Sofía and I were playing with chalk on the back patio.  She pulled on my arm and told me that she drew a pez (fish).  I went to look and sure enough…she drew a pez!

Fotos de 2 Años

Por fin we went to take our fotos de 2 años.  We actually went in Marzo, so we were still in the acceptable time frame to call it a 2 Años foto.  This time we went to Sears Portrait Studio and I am much happier with them than the Picture People.  There was no wait, no line, a big spacious area to hang out for the proofs and most importantly, a fotógrafo that knew how to deal with toddlers!  Sears always has good bargains on their website for free fotos and the overall cost isn’t outrageous either.  They continue to send me additional coupons so I feel confident that we will be visiting them again for Navidad!

Abril

Much of Abril was spent doing the same things over and over again.  Sofía is a two-year-old after all.  She discovered that she now DOES like the swings, los columpios, and so wants to go and play on them EVERY DAY, ALL DAY LONG.  She is also very, very, very into the movie, Ratatouille, and it’s DVD case which she carries with her everywhere.  We put the case in the stroller for a spin, in the cuna to sleep, and below you can see that Ratatouille also has a love for the columpios.

Where has the time gone?

Wow!  Have I ever been MIA!  I feel like I have been busier than ever…which is no excuse to rob my Gatita of her hopefully-to-be-cherished memories.  Slowly, I will catch up and get up to date!

Libro de Gatitos

Sofía’s Tío and Tía Kathy gave her a Little Gato book for her cumpleaños. She read it to me the other day while I changed her.  It went like this:  “Algunos gatitos dis. Amén.”

Vueltas

Before I left Sofía with her abuela this morning, I told her that I had to go and “hacer vueltas” which means to run some errands. Litteraly, a vuelta is a circle as in to move oneself in a circle, like if I wanted you to turn all the way around so that I could see your outfit, I would use the word vuelta. When I returned and we were eating our almuerzo, Sofía was telling me what she and her Abuela did while I was gone. She told me and then said, “Mami vueltas.” and made circles with her pointer finger. I laughed…. “si, Mami hizo vueltas”.

Dos Manos

“Dos manos Mami”  Sofía tells me as we are driving down the road.  I kind of shake my head in bewilderment and think I didn’t hear what I thought I heard.  But again, Sofía tells me, “Dos manos Mami.”  I was indeed only driving with one hand at the time.  I put both hands on the wheel and asked her if she wanted me drive with two hands on the wheel.   “Si, dos manos Mami.”  I of course tested it out and each time my second hand came off the wheel, I heard the same cantaleta, “Dos manos Mami.”

Los Elefantes

Every year Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus comes to the metropolitan DC area.  When they arrive to the city, they parade the elefantes from the train station to center of town where the circus is held.  Sofía and I skipped nap time and went downtown to see the spectacle.  I thought that there would be a LOT of people, but there weren’t.  We waited for those elefantes right on the sidewalk next to the closed off street.   I was probably more into the entire fuss than Sofía.  There was a small parade of clowns and acrobats and various animales.  It was really quite cool to see elefantes walk down the middle of a street. 

The entire parade lasted no more than four minutes.  We had waited over an hour and half because we arrived early in case there was traffic or road closures etc…(None of that happens by the way.  When the police hear the elfantes coming, they close the road and the cars must wait for the parade to go by.)  While we waited, we hung out in the outdoor park at the United States Botanical Gardens.  It was a beautiful day and Sofía really enjoyed it.  In fact, she tired herself out so much that by the time the parade came around, she was almost comatose!  Sofía’s favorite part of the parade was not the elfantes, but the payasos (clowns) which I didn’t get a foto of!