Bit of a wild week on the weather front this week - Seattle has recorded it's wettest month ever, with more than fifteen inches of rain during November. Apparently Nov 25 was the only day it DIDN'T rain ... or snow ... or sleet! Needless to say the ski resorts have all opened early and are enjoying good patronage - we might try to do some tag team skiing later in the season when Isobel's a bit older ... means we'll only need one lift ticket!!

Isobel's been quite the social butterfly this week - now that Thanksgiving is over, we're well into party season here. Friday night was the office Christmas party in Seattle, which also doubles as a last farewell for the folks heading back to Australia in the next few weeks. Same venue as we had last year, although it was a bit of a different dynamic for us with a baby in tow this time! Unfortunately we'd forgotten there was a basketball game on that night as well, so the freeway from our place over to Seattle was chockers, even with three of us in the car and using the HOV lanes it still took us nearly 90mins for what's normally a 20min trip. We were a little late, but that just meant we could make a grand entrance with bubba in her party frock. There were no shortage of friends willing to hold Isobel for a cuddle during the night, and she amazed everyone (again!) with her quiet demeanour - even falling asleep on Mummy's shoulder for a while, in the midst of 100+ people all talking loudly ... she's quite a star. The wives pronounced her the best dressed girl at the event, she didn't have any pearls on but made up for it by wearing velvet!! It was very special for us to be able to bring her along and introduce her to the rest of our work friends, especially those heading home - we'll probably catch up with most of them when we head home next year, but Isobel will be so much older and completely different by then - we won't be able to carry her around the whole night like that again!

She got a bit stroppy towards the end of the night, her frock looked gorgeous but was terribly impractical with lots of scratchy tulle underneath, so we changed her out into a onesie for the trip home. We managed to get her to sleep pretty quickly, and she was out until about 6am ...

Saturday was the Family Christmas Party, another annual event organised by the wives for the various children to get together, with a visit from Santa to hand out some presents to good boys and girls. Santa looked a little familiar this year, remarkably like Steve who'd hosted us for Thanksgiving lunch last week! Isobel had been such a good girl that Santa had a gift for her too - a little lion to match her favourite Turtle.

After we got home she had a nice long sleep, and then she slept for about 12 hours overnight - sh'd had a big weekend already, so a long downtime was expected. Mummy was glad when she finally woke up and fed again though!!

The tree is up, the lights are going back on the house and the mantle looks a little different with three stockings this year. We've started the advent calendar countdown already ... not long now!!