I know, I know ... I've been neglecting the blog again . The last few weeks have been incredibly busy, but I think we're coping okay now - Ewan is sleeping far better than I remember Isobel doing at the same age, and has even slept right the night through a couple of times. Not enough to get our hopes up just yet, but it certainly gives me a chance to catch up on my sleep here and there!. He's changed so much already - he no longer has that grumpy-little-man face, his features have filled out a lot and he's a very smiley kid. We've even managed a couple of giggles out of him - apparently he's ticklish already. Even Isobel will reach under his arm and say "tickle tickle tickle"!

Isobel is adapting really well to being a big sister - she'll often jump up on the couch, grab the boppy pillow and put her arms out asking to have a cuddle. She still gets distracted pretty easily though, so these cuddle sessions don't last longer than a couple of minutes. It's still a huge relief to see her actually interested in this new little person, especially when he takes up so much of Mummy's time during the day! Ewan watches her every move with interest, and Isobel is pretty gentle with him - it's pretty amazing to watch the two of them interact. I hope they continue to stay this friendly towards each other as they grow up

Isobel's vocab has increased in leaps and bounds in recent weeks - she looks so pleased when she can make herself understood now. It's certainly made mealtimes much easier, we can now give her a couple of options and improve the chances of success. It's also funny to watch her sitting on the floor with her books, babbling away and reading to herself. She'll even use the same vocal inflections we use when we read to her, right down to sound effects and dramatic pauses. It can be very difficult to keep a straight face sometimes during reading time.

She is also absolutely infatuated with Elmo - we'd bought a couple of interactive cloth Elmo books for her months ago, not realising the franchise character imprinting starts very young. One morning she made the connection between Elmo on her books and the little red monster on her nappies, and yelled "El-mo!!" - and now we have to be very careful walking around book shops and toy shops ... just in case she spots an Elmo-something (books, toys, furniture ... he's on everything!!). Of course Mum and Dad took the opportunity to feed the addiction while they were here, buying a couple of DVDs for her - but that's what grandparents are for .

We popped up to the Evergreen State Fair on Sunday, hoping to show Isobel some animals up close now she's a bit older. I'd entered a couple more of my handiwork this year - a crocheted afghan, and a couple of pairs of knit socks. We found the crafts hall again, and saw my Hexagon Wheels afghan hanging on the wall with a blue rosette! My socks had also been judged highly - the Annetrelac socks had a blue rosette and a 'special award' rosette, and my Bayerische socks had a blue rosette and a 'best presentation' rosette. My Annetrelac socks were made with yarn from a local dyer - Yarn Pirate is based not far from us in Everett, and she spotted my socks in a Flickr group for her yarns. She was even kind enough to feature them on her blog today!

I also spotted an entry from one of the other ladies in my crochet guild, who'd been awarded Grand Champion - a lovely crocheted capelet with a pineapple motif (she does love her pineapple stitch!). The number of afghans seemed down a bit this year compared to last, but the display cabinets had lots of smaller pieces - I feel pretty proud to have done well in a state-level competition like this.

The weather has been a bit average for the last few weeks - summer has definitely been a little underwhelming this year. The first Pumpkin Spice Lattes of the season have reportedly been spotted at Starbucks, which means the end of the year is approaching quickly!! Next thing we know the holiday season will be upon us, and we'll be heading back to Australia - but there's a pile of administrative paperwork we have to do before then. Needless to say I am not looking forward to an international removal with two kids underfoot, but any moves we do after this one are going to be a piece of cake in comparison!

Summer has arrived in Seattle, and I'm very grateful that I'm not still pregnant in this weather! Ewan is a little thermonuclear generator on his own, and it was rather uncomfortable last night trying to rock a hot little baby to sleep against my chest. I tried dressing him in a lighter onesie, but abandoned that idea after he kept waking up every half hour and complaining rather loudly - once he was back in his long-sleeve footed onesie, he slept through the rest of the night without a murmur. One day I'll learn  ...

Mum and Dad are home again safely, and sent us an email reminding us of the cold weather we'll be enduring this time next year. We're completely (de-acclimatised? un-acclimatised? mal-adjusted?) not looking forward to returning from a Seattle winter to our first Australian summer in four years ... we feel so wimpy by wilting in the relatively mild summers here!

But at least  the houses at home have airconditioning - we are completely reliant on electric fans here, which are next to useless once the house gets up to temperature - it stays hot for days, and is worse upstairs where the bedrooms are. The trees in the backyard make a big difference - Ii hate to think how bad it would be without the afternoon shade they provide!

Andy's away tonight for work, so this will be my first night alone with the two kids. As long as I can keep them out of sync, so they don't both need feeding at the same time, I might just make it .

Ewan had his 4wk 'well child checkup' today. Mum & Dad were amazed at how much bigger he looked when they arrived back from their trip last week, but it wasn't that obvious to us - we see him every day!

After all the issues we had with Isobel at the same point, I was a bit nervous about the visit - was I doing all the right things? Would the doctor give us a passing grade?

Apparently we're doing something right - he weighed in at 11lbs 10oz, nearly 3lbs up from his birthweight! I think he would've been even closer if I'd had time to feed him just before the appointment. He took his HepB needle pretty well, and was back to sleep by the time we were home again.

So now his weight gain is on track, I can graduate to demand feeding overnight and hopefully get some more sleep . Although not having to pump-and-freeze-and-defrost-and-sterillise-and-wash-bottles this time around is already making a huge difference in my 3am morale levels .

We've been amazed at the variety of wildlife in our backyard during our time here. Not just the run-of-the-mill stuff like squirrels and robins, but also bigger anmals like racoons, ducks, andd even a deer last year.

We've established the critter eating our blackberry patch is a mountain beaver, thanks to some photos from Andy that showed the tell-tale white spot behind the ears. Pity we don't know how to get him to invite his mates around to visit - they're doing a better job on the blackberries than our gardening service!

Today, however, took the cake - we spotted two young coyotes on the hill near the side fence this morning. Andy was out shopping, so we grabbed  the camera for documentary evidence, or I suspect he wouldn't have believed us! Mangy looking things too, probably moulting - but still pretty scrawny. I was surprised theey were bold enough to come into the bacckyard too, which means they're probably hungry enough to overcome any fear.

The most surprising thing to us is the ambivalence most people seem to have about their appearance. I thought we'd be able to call the City and have someone come and trap them, but we'd have to pay for a private contractor instead. Neighbours seem to think the kids would be okay, but pets would be in danger - I've seen cats that are bigger than Ewan is just now!

Needless to say we won't be letting the kids play in the backyard for a while ... hearing a nearby pack of coyotes howling in chorus with passing sirens is a bit unnerving  .

A few weeks ago I was contacted out of the blue by a travel agent in Massachusetts, looking for a local yarn shop to host a visit by Prudence Mapstone - she had a free day in Seattle before heading off to teach on a fibre cruise to Alaska the following day. My friend Laurie had recommended me as a local 'expert' ( in that I lived a bit closer to Seattle than she did!!), so after asking around some folks in my two crochet guilds we came up with a short list and sent it back for consideration.

Today was the day of the visit so Ewan and I headed into West Seattle to Seattle Yarn, who were hosting the event. This was my first 'solo' with Ewan - Isobel was home with Mum & Dad, taking her afternoon nap. I found a chair in the corner and positioned myself for a quick getaway - in case Ewan decided to make himself heard half-way through the presentation. There was no need to worry though, as he was sound asleep in his capsule and slept through the whole thing!

Prudence was just lovely - her pieces are so inspiring, and it was incredible to have the opportunity to see her work in person. So many different components, and yet they all fit together like a jigsaw to form the finished garment. Prudence explained how she creates her garments, from cutting a basic pattern in newspaper, making yarn and colour choices, making the component scrumble pieces and then stitching everything together ... and having the faith to 'just do it' and trust in the look of the finished piece. She even showed us the technique for making her signature 'bullion' stitches!

It was also great to finally meet Laurie, after 'meeting' her on Ravelry last year and being invited to help moderate her Crochet Liberation Front group. She lives an hour or so north of us here - after missing a couple of opportunities earlier in the year to meet up, I wondered whether we'd cross paths at all before we head home at the end of the year! I forgot to bring a camera in my rush to get out the door on time and in one piece, but Laurie has a couple of photos on her blogs (here and here).

Seattle Yarn was a fun shop too - I would've loved to stay and browse a little longer after Prudence's talk, but Ewan had woken up by this point and announced to the whole store it was time for us to go! I did have time to pick up some beautiful bamboo/wool yarn for a little jumper for Isobel - small enough for me to work on when I have a spare five minutes at the end of the day.

So I need to change the name of the blog again....

Ewan James was born this afternoon (just) at Overlake weighing a very healthy 8lb 13oz. Mum and baby are doing well.

Seattle officially made 90F today! It broke a 52 year record high for 17 May...

Of course, I hd to take advantage of such great weather...I headed out for a nice paddle around the Washington Arboretum in the kayak that I acquired last year. Beautiful weather for a paddle there - but very dangerous for anyone paddling on snow melt fed rivers. At least twopeople are missing...with many more rescued on rivers in full flood and vey, very cold water (90F day and 40F water make for instant hypothermia!).

There's a few photos from my paddle in the May 2008 album.

We made it! After our disappointment last year having to cancel our trip Out East with only a week to go, we managed to find a spare week to try again this year. We caught a red-eye from SeaTac, hoping Isobel would get some sleep overnight and we'd be ready to go on arrival in Boston around 7am ... but she was up for most of the flight, only falling asleep about an hour before we landed. Bugger. We were lucky to be able to check in when we arrived at the hotel, so we unpacked and found our bearings, then headed off for a walk into the city to check things out.

Andy had a bit of a check list of things to see while we were here, and the big one was the Freedom Trail - a big red path that traces all through the city linking up a lot of the historic sights. We picked up a guidebook from the Visitor Centre in Boston Common and started off ... Isobel wanted to walk the whole way herself, and certainly made her annoyance known when we had to strap her into the stroller to pick up the pace a little!! The guidebook had lots of detail about the stories behind each of the stops, and it was interesting to see a few of the places we'd only read about before then.

Little did we know we'd arrived over the Patriots Day weekend, which meant Monday was a public holiday and the day of the Boston Marathon! Our hotel was a little way out of town, so we weren't really affected, but we saw a lot of runners wearing their commemorative spray jackets and finishing medals around town that evening. We took the ferry over to the USS Constitution only to find it was closed on Mondays, so we picked up the end of the Freedom Trail again and finished the sights we'd missed on Sunday, returning back through the city and stopping into the Hard Rock Cafe for dinner. We were seated under a tour jacket from New Kids on the Block, who were originally from Boston - scary to think that was nearly 20 years ago!! Isobel enjoyed her hot dog, and giggled away at a young boy on a nearby table. He was enthusiastically bopping along to the music playing on the TV screens around the room, and Isobel thought he was hysterical.

We also managed to stop into the Children's Museum and the Aquarium during our trip - Isobel is getting old enough to need some separate entertainment, and she had a ball at both places. The Children's museum had a special section for under 3s, and once she got past her initial shyness she was racing around all the different toys and having a great time. A few of the kids in the room were being randomly selected for a learning study by some MIT students - we were asked if Isobel would participate, but when put in a small room with two strange people she clammed right up and clutched Mummy and Daddy pretty closely. Didn't want to play with the offered toys at all! Hopefully the students get something from her reaction, anyway .

After three days in Boston, we jumped on a train for the seven-hour trip down to DC. Thankfully we'd booked business class seats, so we had a bit more room for Isobel to climb around - we'd brought a few of her favourite books with us, but they only last so long. She flipped through all the magazines and safety cards, watched out the window for a while and finally fell asleep for a quick snooze towards the end of the trip. We're realising that she needs to be somewhere dark and quiet to get a good sleep - there's just too much to look at otherwise, and she'll force herself to stay awake!! Very funny to see her trying desparately to not fall asleep ... stubborn little thing, don't know where she gets that from .

Last week was rather busy - Andy was dealing with some contractors who'd flown in to Seattle, which meant a lot of meetings and several late nights during the week. Isobel seems to know when one of us is away - she doesn't play around quite as much during bathtime or bedtime when there's only one person doing the baby-wrangling! Makes things much easier.

Pete and Libby invited us around to their place for lunch on Saturday, along with Darren and Cathy and their two kids. Isobel had a good feed of sausages and meatballs for lunch, and then she and Luke kept everyone amused for the afternoon with their antics - Luke's about a year older than Isobel, but they still get along pretty well. Isobel did really well for not getting her afternoon sleep ... which worries me a little in a way, I really don't need her to give up her one remaining sleep just yet!! Early next year would be just fine, thankyou very much ;-)

We popped into Bellevue Square on the way home in an attempt to find me a frock for the Ball in a couple of weeks - we sorted Andy out on Friday by getting him a tux, but guys are always easy to organise in that regard! I had a very naive idea that I'd be able to wander into the maternity shop, walk up to section with evening gowns and pick something off the rack ... er, apparently not. Apparently April is not "evening gown season", so apart from the clearance rack (which was all cocktail length, not full length dresses) there was not much in the shop. Oh dear. We had a quick look through Macys and I tried a couple of dresses on there - no maternity sizes, and I couldn't even size up a couple of dress sizes because they didn't zip up over the Bumb. Crap!! Still, they at least recommended a bridal shop not far from home that might be able to help out.

So on Sunday I drove over to the bridal shop, and was directed to the 'special occasion' dresses. I found a couple of nice styles, that would have suited if they'd actually had maternity sizes ... to my horror, the shop assistants said special orders were a minimum 3 months and then tailoring would be additional time again. We leave for DC in two weeks - not helpful!

I had one last shot before throwing myself at the mercy of online shopping and hoping for the best. We bundled Isobel into the car and headed down to Southcenter, after calling ahead to see if they actually had anything that would work for me. Again, we were directed towards the 'special occasion' dresses, which were on sale and in no particular order - trying to find nice styles from the catalog and then locate them in the racks was a challenge all its own. Finally I wandered around a different corner and spotted ... maternity gowns!! OK, so there were only four dresses to pick from, but beggars can't be choosers ... two were near enough to my size, and after my experiences shopping for this dress so far I wasn't going to quibble! I tried them both on and settled on one - a periwinkle-blue colour, not one I'd have normally picked but it didn't look too bad considering how stressed I looked at that point! I made an appointment for Tuesday to come back for the fitting - only about six inches of fabric to take up on the hems, but that's normal for me - and was surprised to see the price that came up on the register, the dress was marked down about 70% ... so I can afford to get matching shoes and a bag now!!

I also had my 28wk appointment with the OBGYN last week - I'm at the point where they do the test for gestational diabetes, so I had to drink that horrid sugary stuff and then have more blood taken. I'll get the results in a couple of weeks. I'm still progressing well, bub's heartrate is good and strong and I can't believe I'm in the third trimester already ... where has the time gone?! Reminds me I'd better make a few phone calls this week - have to organise the "blue book" (Australian immunisation schedule) for the baby, plus find out what's happening with the new nursery furniture we're supposed to be getting soon ...

So, here we are...two days from the start of baseball season and what do we get? Snow! It didn't accumulate yesterday, but tonight we have almost 2 inches on the ground and it's still going!

I'm glad the furnace got fixed yesterday because after twothree nights this week without central heating I don't think it would have been nice to be in the house with no heating while its snowing outside!

BTW have your ever tried to buy a small electric heater at the end of winter/start of spring?

Since our last update, we've had a couple of falls of snow ... this season is turning out to be the best for many years up at the ski resorts.

Andy ended up with a snow day, after coming home early a couple of weeks ago - he tried making it into work, but the end of our street was slippery and the main roads were covered in black ice. He made it as far as the turn-off to the freeway, and called to say he was coming home again - there were too many idiots on the road trying to push themselves and their cars too far. The snow lasted most of the week, with near-freezing temperatures through to the weekend ... and our unique little backyard that seems to block out the sun in the winter months.

Last weekend we finally decided Isobel had enough hair to warrant a haircut ... or at least a bit of a trim! Her fringe was getting a bit straggly, and she had lots of floaty bits around her ears that needed taming. Our nearby shopping centre has a kids hairdresser, so we popped in on Saturday and made a booking for the afternoon. Isobel was not impressed at all ...she didn't want to sit in the special airplane seat, or the other special fire engine seat. Andy had to sit her on his knee, and even then we ended up in tears as soon as the hairdresser started misting her hair with water.

We tried distracting her with toys, books and the contents of my handbag ... all to no avail. The hairdresser managed to get a few snips in here and there, and after what seemed like only five minutes she was done. They put a few snippets of Isobel's hair in a clear envelope for us, with a printed photo on the front of Isobel bawling her eyes out ... just to remember the occasion . And how much for all this??!! $25. That's more than Andy & I pay for our haircuts We joked afterwards that we received a $25 photo with a free haircut, but we were still a little surprised at the cost. Moral of the story ... ask first!! Either that, or don't mention it's a first haircut .

I had another appointment with my OBGYN on Friday, I'm about 19wks along now. Baby is doing well, and my doctor says I'm doing better this time than last time ... at least I know what to expect now! We'll be back this Friday for the mid-term ultrasound, and with a bit of luck the peanut will cooperate and let us know whether we need a whole new wardrobe or not .

On Sunday we headed into the city for the Seattle Mariners' Fanfest - a chance each year before the baseball season starts for fans to get up close and personal with the local MLB team. You can get autographs from players, tour the facilities, have a chat with coaching staff and generally wander around at Safeco Field without the usual throng of people you usually get on a game day.

One great thing about the Fanfest is the focus on kids - there are 'stations' all over the baseball field where kids can go out and throw a ball around, have a bit of a hit, and run around the diamond between first and third bases. Isobel's still a bit young for playing with baseballs and gloves, but she does enjoy a bit of a walk ... so we made our way to the appropriate line and waited our turn. We took a bit of a wide line, as there were a few school-age kiddies intent on setting speed records and we didn't want her bowled over. She took her time, toddling along in the clay with a huge grin on her face . We finally made it to third base, and quickly swept her up and out of the way before the next wave of speed demons came in for a sliding finish. We grabbed a couple of photos down in the dugouts, and then wandered through the team rooms to finish the tour. Isobel had a great time ... and we had a bit of fun too . I'm glad we managed to get to one of those fan weekends while we were here - pity Isobel wasn't a bit older, but she can still say she's run the field at Safeco.

We had another couple of inches of snow overnight - beautiful fine powder where we live, but much less coverage a mile or so up the hill towards the nearby shops. After ducking out for a bit of shopping during the day, we took Isobel for a walk down to our communal mailbox - she kept letting out little yelps and squeals of delight, and it was so funny to see her little footsteps in the snow alongside ours! The little hill between our lane and the street is a bit steep with the snow and slush, so we carried her along for that part ... but by the time we got back to our laneway she was much more confident. She even started picking up chunks of snow and carrying them over to Daddy for him to make snowballs.

We have more snow forecast for tonight - maybe another couple of inches if the conditions are right . Of course we have our fingers crossed ... this might be the last snow of the season!

It's not supposed to work this way!!

Yesterday we had lovely sunshine, even if it wasn't particularly warm. Today I had to call Andy at work and suggest he make his way home early, as it started snowing here just before 4pm. (Last time that happened, it took Andy four hours to get home!!)

We've had more than an inch since then, and it's going to be colder overnight so everything will probably ice over. Might be a late start in the morning for Andy ...

We've had a quiet couple of weeks at home - Andy's back at work now, and Isobel and I are getting used to weekdays on our own again. Seattle bombed out of the NFL playoffs again yesterday, and Washington had a tornado rip through near Vancouver during the week - closer to Portland than us. The preselections are in full swing for the Presidential election at the end of the year, and every news report has one candidate sniping about another. We haven't quite hit the point where one party starts sniping at the other - they're all too busy taking each other apart at the moment. Ten months to go, ten months to go ...

Isobel is getting more expressive and more emphatic about things - great big hand movements, and the VOLUME!! She squeals a lot when she gets excited about something, not so good during bath-time in an echo-y bathroom upstairs. Her appetite has increased significantly - she now has cereal and a banana for breakfast, and a couple of slices of bread or toast for lunch. Haven't quite converted her to Vegemite yet, but she loves our crock-pot concoctions for dinner ... when we remember not to put too much chilli in them. Oops. Its getting harder to convincer her to lie still on the change table in her room, and she's started to put up a fight with clothing too. First it was just the jeans or overalls ... now it's sometimes the shirts as well, putting her hands over her head to prevent me getting it on. At least the house has decent heating, so she can still run around in a nappy and not get cold at this time of year.

The bedtime story routine has also changed a bit in the last few weeks - no longer is Isobel content to just sit on my lap and turn the pages in the book as I read to her - she has to be on the floor now, pulling books out of her bookcase as the mood takes her. I've taken to just reading through a couple of the 'regulars' while she does this, sometimes she'll come over and turn a couple of pages for me.

I know there's at least one book she listens to as I read, regardless of what she's doing at the time ... her "Goodnight Room" book which I've been reading to her each night for over a year now. One line gets repeated a couple of times during the story, "goodnight to the old lady, whispering 'hush'", and I've always drawn out the 'hush' to be more of a 'ssshhhh' when I read to her ... in some vain attempt to get her to calm down and drift off to sleep in my arms (ha!). Lately she's started joining in with the 'ssshhh' for this line when I read, and it's a bit difficult not to laugh when she does - because she's usually leafing through her bookshelf, pulling her collection of Dr Seuss books from the shelves at the same time!

We had our first bit of sunshine today in AGES ... so after Isobel woke up from her nap, we bundled her up and headed for the park near our house. She gets so excited when she gets to go for a walk anywhere - her whole face lights up and she giggles the whole way. The little shortcut past the back of our street is a bit much for her yet, but apart from that little stretch she walked most of the way herself.

Several other families had the same idea as us, so there were lots of kids in the park when we arrived. Two little girls ran up to Isobel as soon as we sat down, asking if they could 'hug the baby'. Ummm ... no. Especially not when you're sporting a cold sore the size of Texas on your top lip . Thankfully their parents came and whisked them away shortly afterwards. There was a group of older girls loudly playing 'Locksley Castle' nearby (too many Kevin Costner movies, that lot!), and the combined noise was a bit much for Isobel at first ... a few animal cookies and a bit of juice killed some time until the older girls moved away to another part of the park. Once the local noise died down a bit, Isobel perked up considerably and the grin returned - she had great fun in the swing, on the slides and even managed to figure out how to climb the stairs up to the big slide ... with Daddy by her side on the structure, and Mummy at the bottom of the slide to catch her.

She ended up trying out all three slides in the park - a little shallow kiddie one to warm up on, a corkscrew slide and a 'big dipper' style slide with a 'pause' in the middle. The corkscrew was definitely her favourite, she worked out how to slow herself with her feet and hand to stay upright and controlled. No problems at all with diving down the slide and not having me in sight at the bottom - she always had a huge smile on her face as she came around the last curve at the bottom.

We headed home after the sun dipped below the horizon - still pretty early here, about 4.30pm but we managed a good hour or so after the initial tears on arrival. More rain forecast in the next few days, but hopefully the weather will turn soon and we can start spending a bit more time down there during the week ... it certainly makes a difference to her leftover energy levels in the evenings!

I had a 'night off' last night, for dinner in West Seattle with the other board members for my crochet guild. This is my second year as secretary of the guild, and each year we have a couple of 'board meetings' to plot out the calendar for the year, plan workshops and charity projects. I feel so lucky to have been welcomed into the guild by everyone, and it's nice to have an opportunity to put something back into the organisation side of things. I'm teaching another workshop in March, and I've been working on arrangements for a guest instructor for our meeting in February - there's a big craft conference in Tacoma the weekend before our regular meeting, and I was able to contact one of the crochet instructors and have her stay on an extra night to teach a couple of classes for our guild.

It's taken a bit of to-ing and fro-ing to set up ... from first checking whether we had enough funds in the guild treasury, to extracting class preferences from all the guild members so we could decide on a couple of classes to do. But we're getting very close to finalising arrangements now, and I'm really looking forward to seeing it all come together! These little opportunities are the sort of thing I won't get the chance to do once we're home - that 14hr plane trip makes it difficult for little side trips like this once for our instructor, and the wealth of knitting and crochet classes offered by 'celebrity' instructors at these craft conferences just aren't available outside the US. I will really miss my crochet buddies when we finally head home!! But I'll be able to leave knowing I've contributed as much as I've taken away over the three years or so I've been involved with the guild.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, everyone!! We've had a very relaxing week at home, just the three (and a bit) of us .

Christmas was a special day - Isobel was a bit more animated and involvedthis year, but still doesn't quite get the whole present-thing yet. She did enjoy pulling ornaments off the Christmas tree at every opportunity though! Every present under the tree was for her, apparently. She is definitely enjoying her spoils this year - lots of wonderful new books to read and some special ones for bedtimes, plus a toy piano from Mummy and Daddy. Santa even brought her some little toys and books, as well as a mini-'magna-doodle' pad so she can draw without putting crayon on the walls .

Craig and Teena invited us to post-Christmas drinkies at their house during the week - it was nice to catch up with some friends again, and hear how everyone's holidays were going. Isobel was her usual shy self to begin with, but soon warmed up to the other boys and girls and was off playing happily. It's nice to have her at an age where she can 'play' with other kids, but she's still learning the concept of sharing ... and allowing other kids to have a turn with the toy she wants RIGHT NOW without just taking it from them. Playgroup with Isobel is going to be a challenge for me for a while, I can tell .

We watched the New Year celebrations telecasts in three timezones - fireworks on the Sydney Harbour Bridge, dropping 'the ball' in New York, and 'New Year at the Needle' here in Seattle. The local event was a bit of a fizzer this year - lots of hype leading up to the night about a new and improved fireworks show, set to movie themes as a tribute to the 80th year of the Academy Awards. It all looked good until a couple of minutes into the show, when the fireworks suddenly stopped ... and then started again ... then stopped ... then started again. By this time they were completely out of sync with the music, and the last three minutes or so had no soundtrack at all. Apparently the computer system controlling the show crashed and had to be restarted - twice. Very ironic that a computer glitch ruined the show in the home town of companies such as Microsoft and Nintendo .

Andy has another week off before returning to work next week - we have all the Christmas decorations to take down and pack away, and we should start some planning for our visit home in the next few weeks. Not looking forward to arriving home in the middle of summer - we're well and truly acclimatised to the colder weather here, and it's been a long time since we've suffered through 40degC temperatures!!