Bermuda Cruise

What a wonderful way to celebrate Mark's first Father's Day by setting sail to Bermuda on a seven day cruise. When we initially booked this cruise people thought we were brave by taking Piper on a cruise. At first we thought, why wouldn't we take Piper on vacation with us. People warned us that we wouldn't be able to stay out late, or enjoy our time spent at the multitude of bars. Our response was since we became parents we haven't done any of that.

So after spending a small fortune at buy buy baby and babies rus, we were ready to set sail. Now on everyday trips to stores strangers come up and ask us how old Piper is, and awww she is so cute, but it felt like everyone on the ship was in love with Piper. Within the third day most of the wait staff in the restaurants knew Piper's name and would say "Hi, Piper" every time we would sit down to eat.

Piper had lots of fun on the ship in the Under 2 Zoo, they had fun activities like drawing, painting story time and dance party. Here are a few pics of her time there.

                                

When we docked in Bermuda this was our view from our balcony.


On our first day in Bermuda we decided to explore Hamilton to get to Hamilton we took a ferry these are some shots I took while waiting for the Ferry.

Once we got there Piper decided she needed to nap, and Mark decided it was really important to make a phone call.

On our second day we ventured on the bus, which was a very scary experience, to Horseshoe Bay.

This was Piper's first visit to the beach where she could go into the water, it was a little too cold for her when we did the Polar Bear Plunge in Feb. But our little water baby enjoyed it, playing with the sand splashing in the "waves".     

After all that excitement it Daddy and Piper need a nap, but couldn't wait till we got back to the ship. 

The last day in Bermuda we walked around the dockyard area, before heading back poolside to chill out.

 All in all we had a great time, Piper's first vacation was a success! Now that we have been home for a few weeks, I wish another vacation was coming up.

Thank Goodness For Summer!

I feel like I keep making empty promises of keeping everyone updated on Piper and what she's getting up to and into. Now that it is summer I will actually be able to keep this promise!

So a quick update...
Piper started Swim lessons with her Daddy, she loves splashing her arms and kicking her feet. She hasn't gotten the hang of blowing bubbles, (she prefers to eat the water).

Piper has had a lot of fun at Day Care making beautiful pieces of artwork and new friends. The first week in May was Young Child Appreciation Week, each day they had different fun events. They had a Pajama day, they had pony rides another day and finished the week with a magician.

I celebrated my first Mother's Day with Piper and my mother, we had my parents over for a nice dinner.
and had to take the three generations photo.

We opened our pool for Memorial weekend and had some great friends over, Piper loved her new pool float and jumping in with Daddy.

 

As the weather has gotten warmer we have started our weekly friday grill nights with our neighbors. Piper has enjoyed being taken care of by Kaia. (Kaia is practicing for her new sibling coming in Sept.)

Now we will be going on our first family vacation on Sunday! I promise I will post where our travels took us and how Piper enjoyed it. 

Making New Friends

To celebrate Piper's 7 month birthday, we went to the Trisomy 21 new parent reception at CHOP. After being stuck in some unwanted traffic due to an accident and the Penn Races, we made it to the reception a little late.
It was really nice for us to meet some new families with children who have Down Syndrome. After listening to a few speakers we were able to introduce ourselves and share our stories. We met families who knew their child would have down syndrome during their pregnancy to parents who were surprised the day they were born. We met families where their child with DS was their second or third or even fifth child. We also met families where they were the only one. We met a family who had a set of twins with DS and a family who had twins where one had DS and the other didn't. We also met a family who had two 5 years apart who both had DS.
I guess my point is that there were all types of families and what I really took from this was that no matter what makes up your family, as long as you have a support system and love you can conquer anything life throws at you. Also that when ever you are feeling low all you have to do is look at the smiling face of your child and all those worries melt away. It was great to hear other peoples thoughts and feelings and know that there were other people feeling the same way.
At the end there was an informal time to chat with other parents, Sara took that time to see how many babies she could hold. Here is a picture of our new friend Sara "holding" Piper.