The Montreal Jazz Festival

Last year we took MiniM.E. to the Montreal Jazz Festival right after she started crawling when she was   8 1/2 months old.  Remember this post?  I was terrified to take her to a hotel in Montreal, but we all had a great time.

I was a little less apprehensive this time around, though I was a little worried MiniM.E. would be bored to tears, require us to carry her all over Montreal, and would only be happy doing things like climbing stairs or playing in mulch.  

Just like last year, MiniM.E. was a fantastic traveler and my worrying was for nothing.  We all had a great time.

Last year, MiniM.E. loved the hotel.  I have to say, between petting the fuzzy ropes at the check-in desk, climbing the stairs in the lobby and taking everything off the shelves in the gift shop, I'm pretty sure it was still her favorite part of the trip.

2012: Loves the bed

2013: Still loves the bed!

MiniM.E. enjoyed the festival a lot more than last year because she did a lot less napping and a lot more running, playing, listening, climbing, and jumping this year.  

The Festival had a really cute play area for kids that MiniM.E. LOVED and asked to go to the whole time we were there (we stupidly brought her there pretty early on the first day... from then on, it was "play the piano" and "go to the sandbox")

When we weren't at the kids' area, we saw a few concerts and walked around a lot.

2012 transport

2013 transport

We went to see a Canada Day Parade (which lasted more than 2 hours.... we lasted about 90 minutes...)

Played on the benches

Ate lots of snacks

Threw pennies in the fountain

And had some down time in the hotel

Even though there was so much to do outside, MiniM.E. still wanted to swim in the pool... multiple times a day...

2012: swimming with daddy

2013: swimming with daddy

And of course, the best part of the Festival was getting wet in the fountains.

2012

If this was an indication of a successful trip last year:

We succeeded again:

Catching...

Here's a catch up post for you... because apparently at our house, we're really good at catching things.  As in bugs.  The sick kind, not the crawling kind.

MiniM.E. was sick for a week or so, had a few days of feeling good, and then got sick again.  Then Bob got sick.  Then I got sick.  And we're all still a bit under the weather.

And if I thought it was hard to find time to make blog posts with a healthy baby, it is infinitely harder with a sick baby.  Especially when she's up a million times a night.  And I'm not feeling good either.

So even though we're both still a little under the weather, I finally feel like I can stay awake during one of her naps and write a post longer than three sentences.


Exciting news!  Someone took her first steps!! We're on our way to walking!

In other, less exciting news, we've been spending most of our days outside.  I think I have a budding gardener on my hands.  (Or at least a budding mulch-eater).

We've been to the park to feed the ducks a few times

We celebrated MiniM.E.'s 11-month birthday by buying her a musical walking toy.

Of course, the best part is the box it came in.

The second best part is playing with it sitting down.

She also likes to crawl behind it.

We haven't really gotten to the walking part yet...

We also took her in the wagon to the playground near our house.  It's a pretty awesome playground.  Unfortunately it's sort of geared more towards big kids, but we played for a while and MiniM.E. seemed to have a good time.

Yesterday we went up to Lake George for the Jazz on the Lake jazz festival.  We were all still a little under the weather, but fortunately it was pretty relaxing.

Molly's favorite part of the day was petting a couple great danes we ran into.

The other thing she really like to play with were the trees.

Between the dogs, the trees, the jazz and not feeling so great, we must have really worn her out because she fell asleep in the car on the way home and slept until this morning!