FINALLY! We were off to our Caribbean Cruise! We went to Jaimaica where we enjoyed the beach and the sun. The girls LOVED playing in the sand and how great it felt to swim in the ocean. Below is a picture of John and the girls enjoying the warm waters of Doctor's Cave Beach.
Then we were off to Grand Cayman to swim with the Stingrays and Joana loves talking about the "Raias graaaaaandes" (Biiiiig stingrays) that she saw but would not touch. Our last stop was Cozumel, Mexico, but we decided to stay on the boat because John and I had already been there and the girls were already sunburned enough and quite tired from the two previous days. They loved the big boat experience and had a great time with Vovó, Vovô and Dampaw. Here is a picture of Dampaw with his girls and of us enjoying the pool on the boat. 
Below are some formal pictures taken on the boat that we thought you would all like to see. I found out that Joana loved to pose for pictures so we enjoyed the modelling session that came with it. Quite a few people stopped to see her pose and we had a good laugh with all that she was willing to do to look good. Julia wasn't not enjoying the attention as much so we had to bribe her with a lollipop to stay still and we had to play "Peekaboo" to make her smile. But, hey, it worked!!
Julia is now 13 months and is doing really well. She is very active, likes to play by herself, watch T.V. and dance in front of the T.V. She also likes to pretend she is a puppy and sometimes we hear her bark randomly at the house. Vovô taught her to shake her head to say "No" so that is now her favorite thing to do. She can also say "Ozzy", "Mama", "Papa", "Iulia", "Aua" (I think that is "agua" which means "water"). She is very particular about what she wants to eat so, if she is not paying attention to the spoon she will point to the item that she wants you to feed her. Pretty interesting. lol. She has started to watch "Your Baby Can Read" and is already immitating some of the sounds and gestures from the video.
Joana started her first week of school on September 1st and loved her first day. She didn't even cry! Unfortunately, she didn't realize she was going to start going there everyday so the crying started on the 2nd day and it hasn't stopped. According to her teacher, though, she is fine after I leave. When I ask her if she had fun she always says "Yes!" and she wants to go back the next day, but once I arrive at the school the crying starts again. LOL...oh well.
