Sunny Utrecht....

A very quick flight from Aberdeen to Amsterdam and then a short train ride and we arrived in Utrecht. Everything is so close in Europe. We stayed in a little apartment with a lovely courtyard for the week. Fortunately the weather was perfect all week and Freya enjoyed pottering around the courtyard most afternoons, occasionally getting a visit from the owners friendly Bernese mountain dog. Mum and dad kept her busy in the mornings with visits to the Mifi museum, playgrounds, swimming and shopping. On my afternoons off we also made it to the botanic gardens and on a canal boat trip through and around the city.

Picnic at the botanic gardens, Freya with Nagymama and Nagypapa

Boat trip around the canals of central Utrecht

Although I had managed to make it to one day of the local New Zealand geoscience conference last November...this was Freya's first conference. She crashed the ice breaker and ate a lot of Dutch waffle biscuits and was introduced to many of my international colleagues (and friends) at lunchtimes and afternoon drinks. She was so fascinated by it all....constantly looking around and trying to take it all in. There were a few other babies and children there... But conferences are definitely not the most fun thing for a small child to be dragged around. I will try not to drag you to too many conferences in your childhood! 

It was a bit of a juggling act between trying to catch up with colleagues I needed to talk to about different projects, going to talks and trying to get around the many posters....as well as trying to spend a bit of time with Freya and mum and dad, who did a great job looking after her. Definitely not my most social conference....but I'm glad I made the effort to go and catch up with the world of paleoceanography! 

It's a long way to "Aberdeen".....it's a long way to go.....

I really didn't think I would get funding from work to go to my favourite triennial conference in holland this year. So when I did I was surprised and also very nervous about flying all that way with a 15 month old on my own as Aaron couldn't get enough holiday to come with us the whole time. Unfortunately freya is too big for a bassinet on the plane....so we had to buy her a seat.....or I would go insane with a wriggly girl sitting on me the whole way. With very low expectations of how well the trip would go....we set off. Fortunately freya did great and slept more than I thought. Delayed flights meant she didn't get much chance to run around at the airports where we had to change planes...so we did have to run up and down the aisles a few times. Freya turned on the smiles and got lots of attention from surrounding passengers and crew, and only screamed a couple of times and only briefly. I managed to keep it together until Heathrow when I almost lost it, when going through security for the 4th time on the trip, they confiscated the baby paracetamol...then I had to carry all my bags between 2 terminals as trolleys were not allowed to go on the train...and no one offered to help. Anyway we made it from wellington to Aberdeen ...very tired and jet lagged.

We had 6 days in Aberdeen catching up with Freya's cousins...and for Freya to become familiar with her grandparents who had volunteered to look after her the following week during the conference. Unfortunately the trip seemed to coincide with a new clingy phase for Freya....very unlike her normal adventurous and happy self...so this made it a little harder and frustrating. 

 At the playground with her cousins....

Making music together ;)

I shouldn't have been surprised, but the summer weather in Aberdeen was rather disappointing...but Freya had fun playing with her cousins toys and going to the winter gardens at the park, playing in her nagymamas garden, seeing real pigs, cows and sheep at the petting farm...although she was pretty scared of them all except the chickens. 

 Nagymama feeding the sheep....

 Playing in Nagymama's garden

Learning how to be a monkey from her cousins!

 

Great to catch up with the family and over the space of a week we were mostly over the jet lag. 

15 months

Well we have reached another milestone. Freya had a check up and another lot of her vaccinations. In fact we ended up having the measles and chicken pox ones early as there are several cases in wellington at the moment. Freya continues to thrive and is following the 91st percentile curve for weight...a very healthy 11.22 kg, and the 75th percentile for height....78cm. She is certainly getting very good at eating. A month ago she was eating more than me at each meal....must have been going through a growth spurt. She seems to have gone back to a more reasonable amount of food now. 

Unbelievably we have continued to teethe....she now has 16 teeth and it appears she is still teething....at least there is plenty of drool and lots of chewing on her fingers. I can't believe she is getting her last 4 molars already....surely not! Please can we have a break from the teething for a few months. 

Freya can now walk really well and having mastered going up stairs a while ago she is now learning to climb up ladders now. She loves the playground, but I think it is as much about watching the other kids as it is about playing on the swings and slide. She now wants to play with the big kids and on the big kids stuff..... She is enjoying her tricycles...but doesn't last very long on them yet. Her favourite game that she doesn't seem to get bored of is dressing and undressing teddies and dolls (the latter they have at crèche). Aaron's comment the other day was "never in a million years did he expect to be putting a dress on a teddy bear!". She also loves to help around the house brushing the floor....helping with the washing....packing (and unpacking) bags. 

Please can I go on the big swing! 

Helping? With the washing by destroying the drying rack.

Helping to wash the windows...well playing with the bubbles anyway! 

She also is a big fan of books. She loves to make the animal noises of the creatures in the books. She has got a pretty good tiger growl, and lion roar, monkey noises and dog woofs! She understands a lot, but isn't talking, and although she uses dada and mumma...they aren't always in context. This last weekend she started to say "uh oh". So I'm sure a few more words will be coming soon. 

Weekend in Christchurch

We haven't been away for ages....so time for an adventure. We headed down to Christchurch for the weekend to see Dan and Charlotte. Time to test out how Freya would go on a flight now she is a little older. We had thought we might go to the snow....but there hasn't been much and it involved taking even more stuff with us. So instead we went to check out the new playground they have just finished - the Margaret Mahy playground. 

There were lots of really cool slides....which Freya loved. She also enjoyed the trampolines and she would have enjoyed the water park if it hadn't been so cold and she had been allowed to get wet....As Always she enjoyed the swings.....but wasn't such a fan of the flying fox. Unfortunately the tower and the cargo nets were a bit advanced for her....maybe in a couple of years time. 

Bouncing on the trampoline

Playing with the water

View of the playground from the top of the big slide

We also went to the beach and for a couple of nice walks in the port hills, and around the suburbs to visit several other playgrounds and to fly Dan's drone. We also got to meet dan's nephew Max, who is 6 months younger than Freya, she didn't know quite what to make of the younger baby and was not impressed that he was getting more attention than her, or playing with the toys. 

Aaron flying the big kids toy.....drone.

The drone hovering 

It was great to get away and to catch up with friends.  Thanks for having us Dan and Charlotte. 

Teething trouble....

No idea where the last couple of months have gone.....well actually I do. They have been filled with illness and teething......just before freya turned 1 year she started to get her first molar.....it took about a month to come through. This was followed by number 2 molar....and then 3.....and now 4......and at the same time a canine as well....lots of drooling and grumpiness and not a lot of sleep some nights. On top of this Freya got very sick with flu (or a bad cold which included a high fever) and then a chest infection, which lasted about a week. So it has all been a bit of a blurrrr....

It was time for a new blog as Freya is changing so much. She is walking very confidently now...just struggling on rough ground. But the biggest change (at least from Aaron and my perspective) is her increasing understanding of words. She can't really say anything yet...except "at", which means cat....but also "ooof" which means woof for dog...and funnily enough despite the fact that we have no snakes in New Zealand, she can hsssss when she sees one in a book. But she understands so much.....and is communicating what she wants very effectively. Her eating has also changed a lot...and at the moment she seems to eat a lot, for someone so little, and be almost constantly hungry. Her favourite foods are cheese, yogurt, pancakes, Vegemite on toast....pasta is also pretty popular, along with mashed potatoes. She has also started to eat bananas....after months of finding them disgusting...

She still loves getting out on walks....we are making the most of the probably limited time we have left of her happy to be in the backpack. She especially loves walks where there are people and animals to see. She gets very excited when she sees a dog. Today we went along the south coast, out to red rocks (this was her first ever walk about a year ago). This time we made it out to sea the smelly, fat, seals lounging on the rocks. She also enjoyed having a little play on the beach.. checking out the shells and throwing rocks into a tide pool with her dad. 

In the backpack at red rocks a year after Freya first went there. 

Playing on the beach....

Lazy smelly seals

Walking the new escarpment track

A few weeks ago a new section of the Te Araroa (the track that goes the length of New Zealand) along the Kapiti Coast opened. It traverses along the coastal range with great views out over the Tasman sea and Kapiti Island. With great weather forecast, we decided it was time to check it out before the end of summer and before Freya gets too heavy to carry, and wants to walk for herself and not sit in a backpack for several hours. The nice thing about the track is that this particular section starts and finishes at a train station. So the logistics of doing a through walk were easy. 

On the train causing mischief 

As a result of this the track starts and finishes along the train lines, personally I didn't find this particularly exciting. But in the middle it climbs up the steep escarpment, well above the road and rail below, with great views. Lots of steps going up and down, and a few token swing bridges were fun. I quite liked the short sections through the bush which gave you a bit of shade and change from the exposed track. 

Walking down lots of steps

One of the swing bridges

Aaron and I took it in turns to carry Freya as it was hard work carrying the pack. While Freya enjoys riding in the pack she did get a little bored and frustrated just before we stopped for lunch at the top. Freya certainly enjoyed the bus and train rides, as well as watching the trains and people go by on the walk. Not sure she paid much attention to the scenery! 

A nice day out from wellington and big adventure for our little one. 

1 year

Well we made it to the 1 year milestone. 366 days, 2 mothers days and 2 Christmases and a round the world tour. So Freya has crammed a lot in to her 1st year. She also took her first independent steps a week before her birthday. Since then she has been practising, but mostly takes a couple of steps and then dives for mum or dad or a piece of furniture. She unfortunately missed the side of the doorframe with her hand and hit it with her head, so is currently sporting a massive lump and scar on her forehead. Learning to fall😢 she has also now got the hang of both her tricycles, the indoor plastic one and the outdoor one. So she scoots around the house to get places, or uses her trolley, which she can now steer where she wants to go. She is in to everything....so some serious baby proofing has been needed. 

Climbing into and pulling everything out of cupboards! 

We had a nice little afternoon tea for Freya on Sunday before her birthday (Mother's Day). She didn't quite know what to make of it. But she cruised around and enjoyed herself. Between us we made her a pretty cool bear cake...I baked the cake and Aaron made the vanilla cloud frosting and built and decorated it. A pretty impressive effort for our first attempt at a children's birthday cake. 

Bear cake 

Family Birthday photo

She got lots of lovely birthday gifts from family and friends.  Books, clothes, a couple of sets of crockery and cutlery, and a few toys, including a digger and an 80litre tub of duplo, on loan from our neighbours for the next few years. So we are looking forward to lots of hours of fun reading books and playing with diggers and duplo!  Thankyou for all the gifts! 

Birthday girl in her party dress with a balloon.