Fever

Avery's sick
Avery has had a fever for the past two nights. We bought some infant Tylenol at the pharmacy in town yesterday, but failed to buy a thermometer (doh!) I'm pretty sure it's a low grade fever.  She's not throwing up and is drinking enough water. Plus, I keep giving her popsicles. I don't want her dehydrated. I know the hospital here in town is good and has English speaking doctors, so I'm not worried about being out of the country. If we need to take her to the doctor, we can. I'm just frustrated that we didn't buy a thermometer yesterday.

I've implemented sick rules this morning, so she's glued to the TV at the moment.

Henry & Avery
The great news for this trip is that Henry and Avery are getting along fantastic! There hasn't been a single big argument between them. Even small ones have gone like this:

Henry: "Avery, get in and I'll push please."
Avery: "No, thank you."

Seriously. They're so damn polite with each other it cracks me up. Henry is very good at honoring Avery's "No, thank you!"s.  I'm very impressed. He doesn't quite understand why Avery doesn't want to do something, but he's good at honoring it and either just continuing to asking without forcing her, or moving on to asking someone else. Yesterday, at the pool, Henry wanted to push Avery around in the floaty chair. Avery said, "No, thank you." So Henry decided to get Damian - who was swimming with his iPod - to get in the chair. First Henry starts to drag the lounger chair on the cement. Christie said something to him about that not being good, he asked Avery to help, Avery said "no thank you", I told Avery it's nice to do teamwork when people ask for help, she grabbed the other end and helped him carry it over to the edge by a deeper part of the pool. Christie and I didn't know what they were doing, so we just watched. Henry then pushes the chair into the pool. They both stand there watching it. After about five seconds, Avery says, "Uh oh." It cracked Christie and me up since it was such a delayed reaction to the obvious. Then Henry reveals his plan by yelling at the top of his lungs to Damian, "WANT TO GET IN THE CHAIR? I'LL PUSH YOU!" Damian, of course, couldn't hear, though I'm  quite sure everyone else at the pool did. But it was still hilarious. I'm not relaying this story very well. But trust me, it was funny.

Last night the two of them had a broccoli eating context (Henry won hands-down,  but Avery did not shame me).  They also had a milk drinking contest, with Avery entering the competition well behind Henry's start and coming in for the tie.

Casa Updates
Our new locks were installed yesterday. This means we won't use the key cards anymore. I am surprised at how much of a relief that is. Not having to remember the dang card is nice! The locks do have keys, but they also have a code you can punch in to unlock the door. That'll be what we use.

We bought some additional decor to get some color into our very neutral living room. I can't find my phone at the moment, so I'm going to post this without pictures, but I'll take pictures before we leave. We bought a new piece of art for a wall in the living room, a vase with paper flowers to go in it, and some watermelon "sculptures" to go on the top shelf of our new shelves.

Community Updates
Things are chugging along in the community with many steps forward and a few steps back. Within walking distance, forward steps include:

• fresh produce available at one store; milk, bread, baking products, etc at another
• two coffee shops 
• one wine bar
• three places for lunch, not including the wine bar or coffee shops which may have food (?)
• two places for dinner
• exterior modifications being done on the two large structures that are unfinished near us. They'll remain empty, at least that's my understanding, but the company that bought the common areas of our community at least agreed to plaster and paint the buildings so it looks better. I'm happy enough with that.
• rental facility for bicycles, four wheelers; it's also a place to book boating activities, etc. That's nice to see. D rented a bike. We're bringing our bikes down next time. Times I've used my bike since we moved to Portland: 0, so I'm not too worried about where it'll get the most use

Steps back:

• This isn't so much a step back as it is a bummer. An understandable bummer, but a bummer nonetheless. The hotel has finally started to charge the homeowners for the use of their facilities. That's fair enough, but who likes to pay money to use things that used to be free? It's now $5 a person to use the pool, the palapas or loungers on the beach, or the gym. I don't have a problem with the fee, but I do wish it could be applied toward a food/beverage credit as long as you spend maybe $25 at the pool or bar. Something like that. But, like I said, it's fair. 
• The restaurant that opened by the pool (not the pool restaurant, but another) seems to have closed. It's always tough to tell these things because they're not well signed when they are open. Maybe they just pulled the tables for some reason, but it looked closed to me. That's no big loss for me since they had pizza and pasta. The salad I ordered was so small I couldn't even make it through the meal without getting hungry again, so it wasn't truly an option for me.