Weekending

The past weekend we visited some friends at their family's lake house on Alberta's Skeleton Lake, a did all those wonderful "lake" things: picking and eating fresh fruit, knocking back a couple of cold ones, and eating and eating and eating -- all in the view of breathtaking scenery. I can't tell you how much I love it that we finally have friends in Edmonton (and that they have a lake house). It's always hard to develop a new social network after a big move, but it's been particularly hard for us this time around, since we have a young baby now--and no regular babysitter.

Fortunately, our friends have a young baby, too--a nine-month old little girl. In fact, that's how we met: at a group for new momsin the neighborhood. Only later did we discover that we all work for the same employer and in similar fields. It's been really nice getting to know people with whom we share so much in common -- including our stage of life as first-time parents. It's been even nicer that their baby is the older of the two: Colin can look up to her for new baby skills, and we can crib a couple of parenting queues from our friends who've already been there, done that. Why, after just a day of watching Miss N. (who is quite a skilled crawler), Colin was already rocking himself back and forth to get on all fours! And after just a day of watching N.'s parents feed their daughter all sorts of exotic solids, we decided to give it a try. Who knew that a six-month old would eat avocado -- all buy himself?!

It was a great, friend-filled weekend all 'round. It addition to good friends and good food at the lake, we went to another friend's wedding, while yet another friend of ours kept Colin for us. I can't remember the last time we had such a busy social schedule. But I think we're going to need another weekend to recover from our weekend.