Sylvia is 19 months old

Today, we're flying home from our trip to Victoria. We'll get an official chair picture when we can, and we'll have height/weight stats soon. In the meantime, here is our very modern baby on a layover in San Francisco

Victoria in February (again)

When we visited last February, Victoria experienced a unique sunny spell, and all of Sylvia's rain clothes that we had bought especially for the trip remained completely dry. We've been making up for it this week!

On Monday, it hailed and then rained. On Tuesday, there was some snow. I've seen snow on the ground a few times, and I once saw a few flecks of snow fall from the sky, but this sight of a small layer of white stuff on the ground was very novel to me:

Jayne said that she hoped the snow would accumulate enough for the kids to play in it, but the weather reports assured us that it was not to be.

The next morning, we woke up to this:

And it was steadily falling through the morning and into the afternoon. We were brave enough to take the kids out briefly. Sylvia was concerned and suspicious - but OK as long as I was holding her. Kurt and Maria, on the other hand, were perfectly content.

Before the snow, we did manage to get the kids out and about every day. Here's Super Mom/"Aunt" Jayne taking all 3 kids to a playground:

And more evidence that the children did actually make it outdoors a few times:

Unfortunately, the snow hasn't been the only encumbrance. To varying degrees, most have us have been sick. Sylvia has been hit especially hard. She's had a fever for over a week now, and though she seemed to only be slightly bothered by it for the first several days, she was a very sad and pathetic baby for a while. We brought her to a walk-in clinic (despite being foreigners with no local health insurance, it was a 30-min wait and $65 charge for us see a very nice and apparently capable doctor). He checked her out and said that he didn't think there was anything to be worried about -- she probably just has a virus. She seems to be doing a lot better, and hopefully she'll be fully recovered just in time for us to leave tomorrow.

In spite of the combined efforts of germs and weather, we've had a lot of very good times. We've laughed and eaten and watched funny TV and, of course, played with the kids. I think the kids have generally enjoyed each other and having so many extra adults to shower them with attention. And, boy, have they been cute!

There are many more pictures of snow and cute babies which I will perhaps put together and post another time. But for now, I only have one more day here in the beautiful northwest with my very beloved friends, so I'm going to hit "publish post" and put the computer away.