Where I Poke My Head in and Say 'I'm Back'!

It's hard to sum up the last few weeks in a single post, so I won't try. What I can say at the moment is that the trip was amazing and spending time with family and friends over the holidays was simply the best gift we could have received.

Even better was watching Miss K interact with family. She was so happy to have them around and let's face it, all that extra attention and affection.What 3 year old wouldn't soak that up?

I made the decision to not bring my dSLR camera with me so I would actually relax and not spend the whole time behind the lens. We did bring a small digital camera with us but it blurred so many images inside we didn't end up using it much. In a way, I'm not upset in the least as we really did participate in the trip rather than me watching it from a distance.

All in all, it was a very relaxing trip. We spent time in two cities where our families are, and one day in between in Vancouver, where we used to live. We had a couple large get-togethers so did most of our visiting with people then and therefore didn't spend the entire time rushing around trying to visit. It was such a change from how it often was at the holidays.

The flights were... interesting. It actually went very smoothly, but three different planes, a long 9 hr flight over the Atlantic and over 24 hours of travelling each way was exhausting. Miss K did pretty well with it, all told, except for that slight problem where she had discovered how to do up and undo her seatbelt buckle and refusing to leave it on during take off and landing. When we insisted, she'd erupt in a huge tantrum and hubby would have to lean over and hold her with his hand over the buckle until we reach elevation and the seat belt light went off.

Fun times.

One of the biggest changes in recent weeks has been her vocabulary. She is repeating words like crazy and it's amazing how many she comes up with! Furthermore, we are noticing her trying compound words (like pineapple) and using more than one word (apple juice). No real sentences yet, but the improvement inspires hope that she will need little intervention in the end.

There's much more to say, but for now I wanted to say that I'm back and catching up!

Happy New Year. I hope this year brings wonderful things for you all!