October

The month of October was a busy one. Granny came to visit for about 10 days. At the same time, Nagyi and Papo came to visit, and are here for a month. So Clara spent a week surrounded by grandparents, which was so good for her. A bit scary, perhaps, from her perspective since she wasn't quite sure what was going on or who they were, but she got used to them quite quickly. It's the downside of living overseas, I suppose, that she doesn't really know her grandparents or remember them yet from visit to visit. Hopefully she'll remember a bit the next time.

This picture was taken one day when we all went for a walk at a nearby park. Clara had recently discovered chestnuts and was picking them up everywhere. For some reason, she kept trying to balance them on her head?!

After Granny went on to Scotland, we went on a trip to Mallorca, Spain, for a week with Nagyi and Papo. Clara missed her usual 2 hour morning nap with all the excitement and activity, and fell asleep upon landing at our transfer as we were taxi-ing to the gate! She slept on Papo's shoulder in the Frankfurt airport.

Clara had her first encounter with the sea and waves - which she loved! She squealed and laughed and spent ages throwing handfuls of sand from the beach back into the sea. We dug tunnels in the sand and she sat right in the middle of them and waited for the waves to come and run up the tunnels to her little bare bottom!

She proudly carried her own backpack of toys.

Back home again, we went to the Hallowe'en 'Trunk or Treat' held at school. Since the expat community is so spread out and trick-or-treating isn't a custom here, the school PTA organises a 'trunk or treat' instead. People park their cars in the school parking lot and open up the trunks, which are all decorated for Hallowe'en (very impressively, I might add!). Then the kids go from trunk to trunk to do their trick-or-treating. Clara was a monkey for Hallowe'en - not much of a stretch, really!

She got to eat dinner at school with the 'big kids' in the cafeteria. She has only had french fries 3 times now, but she loves dipping things in ketchup!

Not quite sure why her little bum is up in the air here, but it makes me giggle. It's so like her!