"Daddy, Ewi love Ella."

A few days ago Eli and I got to see Ella and Tracey. Tracey generously squeezed us into their crazy four day visit from Hawaii. We met at Chick Fil-A for lunch and to watch the kids play in the indoor playground. It was really nice to see them -- it's been two years since they moved to Hawaii. And, it was so fun to watch Eli interract with Ella. He was hilarious. He's usually a little shy when he meets people, but I had been preparing him for Ella and Ms. Tracey. We look at their blog and had spent some extra time that morning looking at the photos and video clips. When he first saw her, he was grinning and almost blushing! In this first picture he looks considerably shorter than her. She is taller, but as you can see in this next picture not quite as short as he appears. In that first picture he was hunkering down and leaning against her. I think he was flirting! We actually had to rescue Ella. And, poor girl had just woken up from her nap.



Here are a few pictures of the last two times that we saw Ella and Tracey, in June and July 2006, when Eli was one and two months old. They come courtesy of Tracey's blog. I have similar pictures of the same days, but some of our early pictures are temporarily trapped on our old dinosaur desktop computer.




We had a nice lunch, ice cream and a chat. But, of course, there's never enough time.





After we ate, they temporarily closed the playground so that they could clean up someone's accident. We let the kids play on the booths next to us since we had the back of the restaurant to ourselves. We drew the line at getting on tables, then we looked up and Ella was laying on the table, and Eli of course had to copy his mentor (Ella is a couple of months older than him.) We got them off the table, but not before snapping a few pictures.




When it was time to go, Eli did his strange leaning trick again!?! I was hoping it was a one time thing. I guess we'll have to work on proper ways to show affection. It reminded me of Elementary School and how the boys that "liked" you were the ones who chased and teased you relentlessly. Poor Ella probably had no idea what to make of him.



Today, while talking about Hawaiian shirts, Hawaii and who lives in Hawaii, Eli said matter of factly to Scott. "Daddy, Ewi love Ella."