From England

Cora and I are having a nice, relaxing time with Nanny and Pop.
Today, Wednesday, we played with the Partridge girls, Lindsey, Chelsea (3) and Charlie (1). Cora did well sharing her blocks at Nanny's house before we went to the big park in Martock, or "Rec," as in Recreation Ground.

There, Cora and Chelsea had a nice conversation on the swings about animals - their favorite zoo animals, animal noises, and their cats. Cora called Somer by her proper name - a change from what she called her for many months ("Suh"). Interestingly, she pronounced it "Suh-muh," which sounded a bit English, rather than the hard American "er" at the end. We'll have to wait and see how her accent turns out.

And, in other Cora speech news, she seems to have given up her longstanding pronunciation for orange. It was "eee-ah" for some reason, for a very long time, but has changed to "oh-wejz," if that makes sense. She is a definite chatterbox these days. If she is playing by herself, it is especially fun to listen in. While I was getting her ready the other day, she said to me, "Stop it. Don't do that on purpose!" Today she properly used the word "remembered" for the first time. I'm now getting used to hearing six- and seven-word sentences.

In the afternoon on Wednesday, we joined Nanny and Nan on their weekly shopping trip in Yeovil. Cora was a very good girl, and we loaded up on English grocery items to take home.

Cora does her best to keep everyone entertained. When we visited Nan at her home Monday evening, she started wildly dancing while singing many verses of "Old MacDonald." It was wild, I tell ya, with headbanging and lots of spinning.

She also held court Tuesday evening when we visited Dean and Jenny. We had a lovely evening in their conservatory (a glass-walled addition common here) as the sun set, and Cora sang and played catch with Dean with Jen's Tigger stuffed toy. Cora also enjoyed chasing the rabbit around the garden - er, yard.
On Tuesday morning, we went to Rug Ratz, an indoor play center, and Cora had a great time. I think she'll go there again before we go home!

We plan to visit with family on Thursday, and Stace lands Friday! It will be really nice to all be together again.