It must be springtime - baseball is back again! Seattle started their season this week with a couple of wins against their nemesis Oakland, which was a big difference from last year.

Andy arrived back from his latest trip to Australia in style - another upgrade! Never happens when I fly with him . Isobel was a bit hesitant at first, but soon gave him a big smile ... she loves surveying the world from Andy's height!

On Saturday we packed up the Durango and headed north to Whistler for a last-ditch ski trip. Isobel travelled really well, playing happily in the back seat with her toys and dozing off now and again. The drive was surprisingly quick for a weekend, and we soon found the hotel and unloaded all our gear into the room. Isobel didn't appreciate having her cot upstairs away from us, so we brought her back downstairs to the main part of the room - not before we heard our neighbours commenting about 'the crying baby'. Yep, we're now that family! We eventually managed to get her to sleep, but she was up a few times during the night.

I grabbed my skis and headed to the lift on Sunday morning, only to find that I couldn't get my ski boots to lock into the bindings ... I thought I'd used them last season, but Andy told me afterwards he'd forgotten to adjust the bindings before we left home. After spending 20mins trying to snap my boots into the skis, I gave up and trudged back down to the village - the ski shop in the hotel was able to adjust them, but by that stage (and after a long night) I was pooped! Caught up with Andy and we met Tubi and Claire for mornos at the french bakery nearby ...

We had a great dinner at the Old Spaghetti Factory that night - after waiting about 90mins for a table! Luckily Isobel had managed a nap beforehand, so she was reasonably fresh. She sat in a high chair on her own for a little while, but the chair didn't have a waist strap so she was able to wriggle around a lot - so we took turns sitting her in our laps and holding her rusk until dinner arrived. Isobel then managed to zap a hand out right into my spaghetti as the waitress was setting it down on the table - she's very quick!! She also seemed to like the grated carrot from my salad, ranch dressing and all - but it ran out pretty quick.

Sunday night was worse than Saturday night, there was something about the portacot or the hotel room that just didn't work and Isobel spent most of the night up crying. Rather shocking to be up most of the night when you've got a kid who has been sleeping well for months! On Monday we decided to pack up and head home, as the weather was pretty average and another night like that would not be fun. We did stop into the outlets stores on the way home for a bit of retail therapy, so it wasn't a complete loss - we got away from home for a couple of days and caught up with some friends, which was the main aim anyway.

With our unexpected spare day on Tuesday, we finally picked up some babyproofing stuff. We've now fenced off the kitchen and the hallway, put foam padding on the bricks around the fireplace, and rearranged everything to try and keep the non-baby-stuff away from inquisitive fingers. Isobel's crawling is much more confident now, and she's getting quicker ... she's hearing a lot more "NO!"s, too!