Avery is Walking!..and More Vacation

As a continuation of our vacation travels update, we also went to Las Vegas and Arizona.

Vegas
We went to the venetian, which was pretty darn cool. I wonder how much the Gondola singers get paid. What a cool job that'd be.


This floor does some funky things with my eyes:


We went to this fun store with a bunch of costumes and masks. The costume on display was a man's suit and woman's dress for $5,000 each. Pocket change, right? It was this beautiful, ornate, fancy-looking, white material with gold trim for both costumes. The man's costume even came with a cool top hat. But, we weren't allowed to take a picture of it, so we didn't.

Here's a really cool dress in the shop. You get the idea, eh? They had a bunch of them.




The Venetian


We went over the Hoover Dam, too. They're in the middle of constructing a new bridge for traffic, and here you can see the big concrete bridge in the background. It's much larger up-close. From what I heard, the longest legs on the bridge are the length of a football field.


Arizona
In Arizona, we went to visit our friend Dana, who used to be a nun during her teenage years in a Buddhist temple! She showed us her wooden fish (a hollow block) that she rhythmically taps on with a mallet during meditation as she recites sutras. The bell is to signal the end of meditation. Avery loved it!


Dana's mom, who only speaks Chinese, enjoyed babbling with Avery on the phone while Avery played with the Wooden Fish.


Dana also took us to a meditation center that she goes to and we got to meet some really nice people. We even got to participate in a session.


Our Survival-of-the-Fittest Baby
Before we headed back to Utah, we stopped at a grocery store to get some produce. I put the bag of produce in the back seat, next to Avery. After we had been on the road for about an hour, she got a little fussy, so I was about to go back and feed her, but then she stopped, so I just stayed in the front seat. However, when I got out to fill up with gas, and checked on her, she had some red stuff all over her face and clothes. As I looked closer, I saw the little core of a tomato. She had pulled the bag up to her lap, got the tomato out, and eaten it like an apple! It was so funny!

I decided to move the rest of the edible produce away from her, except for the bananas, because she didn't know how to peel them. Again, about another hour later, she got a little fussy, but then stopped. She only had drunk a few cups of milk thus far. Well, when we pulled up to our driveway, imagine our surprise when we saw this:



I have no doubt now that if we lost her in the jungle, she'd have a pretty good chance of surviving. :)

She also started walking last week! She has been able to stand on her own for a month or two now, but refused to walk without holding on to something. One afternoon last week, I set her down to get something, and she was just standing there. I offered my hand to her about a foot in front of her, and she took some steps to grab it. I moved back further and further until I ran into the wall! She took like 20 steps all at once!

This video is about 1 minute after she first walked up in our bedroom. I had to bring her downstairs to show Nathan.