Happy New Year!

Well, we survived. That's about all I can say for our trip to New Brunswick. I was planning on doing a post talking about the trip, but the idea of it just exhausts me and it's more than I can do. So, let me just say that it was great to see the whole clan out in NB, and they seemed thrilled to see the girls. But, honestly, I would never recommend travelling with two 18-month olds. I can't tell you how many times DoT and I vowed "never again". E and A don't travel well at the best of times, but with completely mixed up sleep schedules and routines, and both being sick for the whole trip, let's just say it wasn't the best experience we've ever had. We were glad to see everyone, and everyone went out of their way to make it as easy on us as possible (a huge 'thank-you' to Aunt K, who loaned us her house for the week), but I'm glad to be home and settling back into a routine. We'll have to wait and see how quickly the memory fades before we can predict on when we might be making that trip again.

I have a couple of pictures that we took during the trip...


This first one shows the girls in their new chairs which they got from Grandma C & Grandpa G. And right between them is the "Baby Grand Piano" they also got. They both enjoy it a lot, and I think it will be the cause of some fights as they battle over who gets to play with it.

This next one shows the girls with second cousins Dylan and Aiden. It's too bad about the Oilers caps and t-shirts, but we still let the girls associate with them. :-)
















Then finally, these next two show the girls with my friends' (S & D) kids -- Marta and Jacob. Youngest son Daniel was just a bit two small to hold them.

















I was about to end this post, but before I do I think I should relay one short story. When we were leaving southern Ontario to drive back to Ottawa, DoT had started the car to warm it up a bit so we wouldn't all have to be bundled up in our winter coats on the way home. So that meant that DoT's keys were in the ignition. When I loaded E into her car seat, my keys were in my hand and she, seeing them, decided she wanted to play with them. So, fine, I gave them to her. I then started to run back into the house for something. DoT shut the back car door and before he was able to open the front door, E had pressed the lock button on the key fob and had locked us out of the car, with her and her sister inside and the car running. Ugghh. I had visions of waiting 45 minutes for CAA or a tow truck to break us into our car. By which point both kids would have been screaming. Anyhow, E was still holding the key fob, and with DoT and I both standing outside her door and encouraging her, she started pressing buttons on the key fob. Her thumb was poised right over the unlock button, and we kept begging her to press the button, which she did over and over again... just not hard enough to open the doors. Until, after about 3 or 4 minutes (which felt like a lot longer), she pressed it hard and the doors clicked open. What a relief! On the way back to Ottawa, A was playing with my keys* and she unlocked the car doors about 20 or 30 times, which made us think that maybe instead of trying to get E to open the door we should have just convinced her to hand over the keys to A. :-)

* Note: yes, you'd think I'd have learned my lesson and would not be handing over my keys as a plaything but, trust me, after listening to a whole lot of screaming in the car you'll hand over just about anything if it means a couple of minutes of silence.