The first thing worth mentioning is our trip to Arizona. At the beginning of September, Ryan, Sophie and I took a vacation and went to Mesa again. Janae, Ryan's sister, got a teaching job and has moved down there so our trip was not only to get away, but to visit with family as well. While we were there, the average temperature was 40 degrees celcius so unfortunately we didn't get to spend a lot of time outdoors. We did make sure that we got plenty of pool time in; we would visit the pool first thing in the morning and then again just before dinner which made the weather enjoyable as long as you didn't get out of the water. When Sophie wasn't napping, we went shopping, visited the aquarium or hung out with Aunt Janae. Sophie was great on the plane, both there and back. She is a great little traveller. To see pictures from our trip, click here.I also started teaching a Saturday class in September at my old school for beginner students of French. It is a two hour class but with driving and prep time, I am sometimes gone for up to four hours. The first couple of times I left were hard, since I haven't really left Sophie for much more than an hour at a time, with just a few exceptions. She would cry as I was leaving, but quickly got over it after I was gone. Now I tell her I have to work and after saying good bye, she tells me she loves me and to come back. No more tears! I think that both her and Ryan have enjoyed this father-daughter time and it has helped them form a closer bond.
Sophie had really blown us away with her language skills over the last few months. She has learned to string 3 or 4 words together, making short sentences. This has made it so much easier to communicate. It has been so much fun, listening to her and understanding more what she is thinking. It truly is amazing how quickly children pick up on things. I don't spend nearly enough time speaking to Sophie in French. We read books and listen to French cds, and she will repeat some of the french words she hears but I don't think she really understands them quite yet.
Our next big event was Thanksgiving. Equipped with our new dvd player for the car, we finally made the trip to Medicine Hat with Sophie. She managed to stay fairly entertained in the car which made the trip bearable. We had Thanksgiving dinner at Nana and Papa's house with Uncle Warren, Aunt Ave, Ally and Grace. Sophie enjoyed visiting with her cousins, as well as eating her first piece of pumpkin pie. More Thanksgiving pictures are found here.
Halloween was a lot of fun this year. Sophie dressed up as a strawberry and after her friend Emily came over in her super cute smurf costume, Sophie was excited to go trick or treating. We only went to five of our neighbours' houses but that took at least a half hour. While we were out, Sophie saw plenty of the neighbourhood kids dressed up in their costumes, which she quite enjoyed. For more Halloween pics, click here.
