Afternoon Sun

Wooo hooo - I got me some more sunflare! And this was taken last Monday with my Canon G10 (the point & shoot)... which just goes to show, it's not all about the equipment (although it does help... :)) Bizarrely, I think this is one my much better attempts at capturing sunflare... I do think so much of it is related to the time of day... I wish I had my 40D with me this day, but we'd ridden on our bikes on that day, and I don't want to risk putting it in the back of the Croozer and I'm too unco to ride a bike with my camera gear (and too paranoid, that'll I'll take a crash and damage my gear!)

I'm sooo tired today... went to a great park this morning with our playgroup friends... Elizabeth was sooo excited about seeing Skylar and Veronica again... We're having erratic sleeping patterns at the moment too... some days we have day naps... other days we don't... yesterday I tried to force her to stay up while we were at the shops and she ended up falling asleep in the stroller for 40 mins(which if you know my child, is a rather infrequent event)... some days we go to bed at 7:30pm and wake up at 7am ... other days it's 9:30pm and wake up at 5:45am (which was what happened today!) I think I'm getting over my frustration of her not sleeping and beginning to just take it and go with the flow... She's incredibly happy and incessantly chatty regardless of her sleep pattern, so it's not affecting her at all.

Preparations for San Diego are going well... I've made a gazillion lists, because I'm forgetful and paranoid... it's one of my compulsions, which all my family are aware of ... I've started packing Elizabeths "entertainment" bag for the trip... so far it contains:

- 2 sticker books
- colouring book & pens (I got the special invisible ink ones for the less mess
factor!)
- playdough
- more stickers (she's obsessed with them at the moment)
- little post-it notes (she finds them fascinating),
- 2 new Mr Men books (Mr Tickle & Little Miss Whoops) to read
- a cheap imitation $3 my little pony with a brush and comb (hoping the novelty of
it being new will entertain her)
- a toy camera
- finger puppets
- little magnetic board with stick on pieces
- a gazillion snacks

Phan also bought a new little netbook (one of those miniature laptops, about 10" in size)... it was partially funded by a voucher he got given for his birthday, plus he haggled them down to a great price... it has 6.5 hour battery life, so we're preloading that with Playschool episodes and some of her favourites movies (Finding Nemo, The Little Mermaid, Monsters Inc, Elmo's World), we've also got our portable DVD player and the ipod video for backup... We gave her a trial run of using the ipod with headphones the other day... she didn't like wearing the headphones at first but after about 5 minutes, she'd figured out how it all worked and became completely mesmorised in it!

Sounds like we have a lot to keep a child preoccupied doesn't it ... but it is a 13 hour flight, which is a loooong time for anybody, let along a 2 year old! If anyone thinks I've missed anything, let me know! :)