Lucky Little Lucky

While we were in Florence this summer, Kaelia unfortunately lost her favorite stuffed animal, Lucky, from the 101 Dalmatians.  We told the girls they could each take one item with them from South Africa to our summer travels;  Taelyn chose her blankie while Kaelia chose Lucky.  Lucky went everywhere with us in Itally until we woke up early in Florence to head back on a train to Rome and could not find him anywhere.  We checked our camera to track where we had last seen Lucky the night before and then had the hotel call around to all of those places, but no one had Lucky.  Justin even ran around that morning to check some of the places himself while the girls and I waited in route to the train station.  We were all devastated that Lucky was gone.

A few days later, we stopped by an IKEA in Rome and found a new stuffed dog for Kaelia, hoping to ease her pain.  She called him Brown (because he is brown) and was very excited, but of course, still missed her Lucky.  She knew, though, that Lucky was lost in Italy forever.

Ironically, a few weeks later in Michigan, Justin got an email from the hotel in Florence saying that they found Lucky behind the dressing closet in our hotel room.  So they mailed Lucky back to us in Michigan, and we got the package just a few days before heading back to South Africa.  Kaelia's little Lucky certainly is lucky!  Here is the video of Kaelia getting her Lucky back.

Cross Country Racing

While playing at Grandma and Grandpa Pepera's house, the girls decided that they wanted to race, so we set up a little cross country course in the trails for them to try.  The entire race was probably about 300 meters long with a little hill in the middle.

During the race, Taelyn took the early lead and never looked back.  She ran the entire distance and crossed the finish line with a huge smile on her face.  Kaelia, however, had to face some difficult times and needed some perseverance during her race.  She got a little tired and even took a walk break when she got to the hill.  With about 100 meters to go, she didn't think she could even finish the race.  But Taelyn stepped in like a good big sister and went back through the trails to run alongside Kaelia and cheer her on.  I also joined in, and the three of us led Kaelia to the finish line.  The girls did a great job and had lots of fun!