Annabel Bamford, International Baby of Mystery (and Clara, Domestic Toddler of Knowledge)

Annabel took her first international trip last month: our annual rendezvous in Whistler, BC. Annabel and Clara are now old pros at cuddling up together in the Chariot while Greg gets in his work out, pulling them while skiing. Our family receives quite a bit of notice (and comment) from fellow skiiers, much of it of the jaw-dropping, "holy cow!"-uttering variety.

Annabel's first trip to Canada almost wasn't; the night before we were due to leave, Greg realized we had no birth certificate for Annabel. I completely forgot we were supposed to ORDER the darn thing ahead of time. So the morning of our departure day, the girls rode the bus with me downtown and patiently waited at the birth records office for Annabel's "i.d." to be issued. They were incredibly good sports about it.

The wait was ultimately worth it, as our family enjoyed a great vacation of skiing in Whistler, and taking in the sights and tastes of Vancouver. We had a great dinner at a Japanese restaurant where we enjoyed sitting in traditional style: shows off, low table, seats on the floor. We went to Stanley Park where we looked over the fence at the closed-for-the-winter (boo!) children's farmyard and continued our tour of North American Aquariums. (Vancouver is Clara's third aquarium visit in as many years, after Shedd in Chicago and Seattle's; it was Annabel's second in as many months. No aquarium visits planned this month, however; I don't see us keeping up that pace!)

In other firsts, Clara had her first day of preschool this week. She's going one morning a week to a home preschool run by a former kindergarten teacher. Clara loves it. Her preschool has princess costumes, Spanish lessons, and chickens in a coop! What's not to love? We plan on her going to the school until June. We are touring other preschools this week to apply to for the fall. We're only applying to preschools attached to elementary schools to try to secure a spot for kindergarten, such is the competition to get into a good elementary school. Based on our experience applying to the co-op preschools this year, I'm leaving nothing to chance. Such is the state of Seattle schools. Don't even get me started!