A busy week for us this week - summer finally feels like it has arrived, and Andy took a couple of days off work to get us a long weekend.

Isobel is ten months old already, and has really amped up the volume in the last couple of weeks! There's a lot of "baa-baa-baa-BAA-BAA-BAA!", with different tonal inflections and volume levels. She has taken to peering out the window in the dining area near our kitchen, where she can see out into the back yard - we have a robin that appears regularly to dig for worms, and a little rabbit that is making the most of the long grass towards the back of the yard. The bottom part of the glass is now covered in teeny tiny handprints and nose grease from pressing her face to the glass - I also caught her doing a blowfish against the window during the week, where on earth did she learn that from?! .

The 'Latte' roster has switched to summer mode, so we now meet up in a different park every couple of weeks. This week was at the Newcastle beach, which we've driven past so many times but never actually visited. We had a nice bit of shade under a large tree, and I was able to catch up with everyone and talk about our travel adventures from the trip back to Australia. I made sure to lather Isobel up in sunscreen, but headed home when the older kiddies started dropping hints to respective parents about going for a swim. Isobel crashed in the car on the way home, and I even managed to get her to have a bit more of a sleep once we made it home ... excellent!!

This week was also the July 4th holiday, and like last year we had an invitation to Mark and Nichole's house by the lake for a BBQ and fireworks. Andy stopped off at a fireworks vendor on the way there to stock up on supplies, after a poor showing last year - he was determined to make a bigger impact this time!! Mark and Nichole have a beautiful house by a lake in the Maple Valley area, and Mark had built his own water bomb slingshot for the jetty to compete with the neighbours' efforts this year. We had a wonderful afternoon - Andy took a couple of the older kiddies for a ride in his kayak, right out into the middle of the lake which they thought was great fun. We dressed Isobel in her little rashie set from home, and she got to paddle in the water with Daddy for the first time - the initial shock of cold water set off a few tears, but after that she seemed pretty comfortable and had a bit of a splash around while sitting on Daddy's lap. She didn't seem to like floating, but was OK if her feet were on the pebbles or something else solid.

Once again, the soundtrack for the afternoon was provided by Mark's neighbours - who seemed intent on setting off fireworks throughout the whole day, even during daylight!! I was surprised that Isobel didn't seem fazed by the noise, and hoped it would bode well for the evening. She wasn't interested in taking a nap with so many people to look at, and she didn't sleep in the car on the trip to Mark's house from our place like we'd hoped ... so I wasn't really surprised when she started crying after the first few fireworks were set off after dark. I tried reassuring her and wrapping her in a blanket on my shoulder, but I think the percussive 'boom' from the explosions was the final straw - as well as being tired, everyone was cheering and in the end things just got a bit much for her. I retreated inside for the duration, and we were able to watch most of the display from a downstairs window - she seemed much happier indoors away from the noise.

Andy finished off his collection of explosives , and was much happier with the results than last year's efforts. We headed home, and Isobel dropped off to sleep in the back pretty quickly. We were able to transfer her into her PJs and her bed without too many problems.

Andy took Thursday and Friday off from work to give us a long weekend, so we headed into Seattle on Thursday to take Isobel to the Woodland Park Zoo. We'd visited there a couple of years ago, and thought Isobel was now old enough to get something out of a visit herself. The budgie aviary was a big hit - Andy was one of the few people inside that were tall enough to reach the branches where the budgies were sitting. He managed to entice one onto a seed stick, and carefully brought it down for Isobel to have a look ... she sure can wriggle when she wants something!! It was all Andy could do to hold her far enough away so she couldn't grab the poor bird - a few more inches of reach and the budgie might have got a shock . We also spent some time at the petting zoo section, which had a few goats and a bunny - Andy had to hang on pretty tight to keep Isobel from launching herself at the goats in her excitement! She still hasn't quite got the hang of 'gentle' patting yet, but luckily the animals seemed pretty placid and didn't mind being grabbed too much.

On Saturday we headed back into Seattle to visit the Aquarium - we hadn't actually been here ourselves yet. They've recently opened a big 'Window on Washington Waters' display, a huge 120,000 gallon tank with a large glass window to look through. Most people were nice enough to give us a bit of room to let Isobel look at the fishies - she was much more animated than last time we looked at a fishtank! She seemed to have a great time, and also provided a lot of entertainment for some of the other visitors ("Aww, look at her, isn't she cute?!"). We won't bother getting a fish tank here, but we might have to get one when he head home again!!