Monthly Archives: November 2007

Thanksgiving 2007

Photo of Claire in a very cute red dressWe just returned from a five-day Thanksgiving trip to Oklahoma, where we visited my sister Eileen, her husband Abbas, their daughters Sara, Sophie and Susan, Abbas’s sister Hediyeh, my sister Mona, and my Uncle Mike and Aunt Lou Ann. We enjoyed exploring the new house Eileen and Abbas just built, cooked a lot of food in their deluxe kitchen, watched a few movies, ate dinner out at a great steakhouse, and even visited a fascinating exhibit called Our Body: The Universe Within. We missed my parents, who couldn’t join us at the last minute, but thought of them often. Click on the photo below for a slideshow of pictures from Abbas and us.

Thanksgiving photo of the whole family

Also, here’s a 90-second video of Claire in Oklahoma practicing her conversation skills, including gurgling, finger-chewing, and laughter-induced hiccups. Click on the triangle “Play” button in the image below to start the video.

Halloween 2007

Claire had a ball with her first Halloween, trick-or-treating around the neighborhood and going to dress-up day at one of the moms’ groups Katherine attends. She also had her four-month check-up and she passed with flying colors. At 25 1/4 inches she’s at the 84th percentile and at 14 lbs 6 ounces she’s at the 66th, so seems on track to have her mother’s proportions!

Click on the photo below for a few Halloween slides.

Claire in her hallween costume as a chicken

Wales

We ended our UK vacation with five days in Northern Wales around Snowdonia National Park. We stayed in a cottage called Cefn Bwlch on a farm near Llanberis, a village on the Western edge of the park in the shadow of the highest peak in Wales, Snowdon. Our routine was similar to the Lake District, with only a few changes as our cottage was down a 200-yard lane too narrow for our car. Highlights included taking a train up Snowdon (Claire loved the view), enjoying tasty Indian food, more fish & chips, beers at a famous hangout for British mountaineers, and seeing many, many words without vowels. We particularly enjoyed sunset at Portmeirion, a surreal and lovely Mediterranean-style resort village Anne and Peter recommended on a beautiful estuary of Cardigan Bay on the Irish Sea.

To wrap things up, we headed back to London via a quick, windswept, and rainy visit to Stonehenge. The return flight home was surprisingly straightforward and Claire was, as usual, an angel.

Click on the photo below for a slideshow.

Llanberis pass