Both the flights to and from Canada went really well, with Clara sleeping on Tanja for most of both legs of each of the trips. This was helped in part by having the long haul flight be in the evening in both directions! It was also helped by this great children's play area in Heathrow terminal 5:
I intensely dislike flying through Heathrow, but these play areas that they've installed are really fantastic! It gives kids a chance to blow off a lot of steam and tire themselves out before their next flight. The two huge problems with Heathrow for parents with small children are first that they don't announce your gate until shortly before your flight (some of the gates are quite far away from the main waiting area) and second, for both of our BA flights they didn't do pre-boarding for people traveling with small children or infants. Oh, and third, the standing in line and the frenetic and unnecessary connecting passenger security screening at Heathrow really doesn't help parents keep their kids calm. Oh, and fourth, to satisfy their "security theater" demands I had to taste Clara's sealed bottles of baby food and the water in her sippy cup.
We arrived first in Calgary where we spent two nights at my aunt's place. Aunty had borrowed a number of toys from a friend, and Clara seemed to have a great time there!
On the first night at my parents house Clara met three of her cousins for the first time. We have never seen Clara take to someone so quickly at first sight as she did with her cousin Amy! I think the first photo below was taken within about a minute of Clara meeting Amy, Clara was just immediately comfortable with her! Clara was also very quickly interested in Samantha and Steve, and she had a great time playing with them. It was really great that the kids were so able to entertain each other so well, and that Sam and Amy are responsible enough to watch over Clara - giving us a chance to catch up with the adults!
The weather in Alberta was fantastic for almost all of our entire trip! Despite being above zero for much of the time before we came and while we were there there was still a lot of snow at my parents house. Clara seemed to like it a lot (she would almost fall asleep in the sled), and we made the most of it!
Shortly before the wedding Clara's two remaining cousins, Erica and Sophia, arrived. All the cousins got along really well, and one afternoon we all took advantage of the snow:
We also obviously needed to take a "family photo," I think this little strip captures the essence of what the much larger wedding photo shoot was like!
Clara's cousin Sophia has a prize-winning smile, and loves to show it off! This photo of her is just awesome!
Sophia is closest in age to Clara, and they both enjoyed having Grandpa read them stories:
That's it for part one! Clara starts daycare tomorrow, so this is sure to be a blogtastic week.
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