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!!