A new week is here

Yesterday we took Charlotte to the Glenelg Christmas Pageant. To most Canadians, a pageant would conjure up ideas of contestants in flowing evening gowns talking about how they want to achieve world peace, but here in South Australia, it refers to the annual Christmas parade. Most of the "floats" were not really floats at all, but instead groups of people walking down the street in Halloween-type costumes. Lots of fairies, Spidermen, angels, pirates, etc. Not really Christmas-y, but it still seemed to entertain the little ones. Santa did make an appearance at the end of the parade / pageant, but we didn't stick around to meet him - by that time Charlotte had had enough and it was time to go home for a nap.

We've had a few weeks of cool weather recently, but finally today the sun is shining, and even though the breeze is cool, it's warm enough to spend some time outside. Charlotte and I took advantage of this fact and spent a couple hours down at the beach this morning. She ran along the water's edge and was delighted when the water came up to meet her feet, stopping every now and then to pick up a rock or shell to hand to me or to chase after a bird. She ran along the whole length of the beach and was quite tired out by the time we got to the end. She happily retired to the comfort of the Chariot and was quiet and mellow for the entire walk home. Once we got home she helped me vacuum the sand out of the stroller (whereby her assistance entailed climbing on top of the vacuum and giggling).

Yesterday I took some pictures of her while we were colouring. She wanted to get in to the shoebox that we keep the crayons in, as you can see. She was also more interested in putting the crayons into and out of the box than actually colouring with them.