Fredericton, part 1: Juniper meets new people!

OK, it's been an embarrassingly long time since we've posted. It's my fault, really - I offered to let Clark be responsible for the Fredericton blog post. Obviously, a big mistake - one that I now have to rectify. Fredericton seems like eons ago now, and there are so many other interesting little things to chat about that have happened since then, but I will take a deep breath, back track, and try to fill in the details somewhat chronologically. For those patient (and some impatient!) people who follow this blog on a semi-regular basis, I do apologize for the silence, but the upside is that there will be a bunch of posts in quick succession, I promise.

So, Fredericton. I'm sure most people know this, but Fredericton NB is where Clark and I grew up, and where most of our immediate and extended family members live. It is a beautiful city, and it's always lovely to visit, but it can be ridiculously crazy to try and fit everything in, and to see everyone we want to see, especially around holiday season. I couldn't even fathom trying to do this and add Juniper into the mix as well. However, we knew it was important to make a Fredericton visit, especially because there were a bunch of people who still had not met Juniper, and were not likely to get to Halifax in the next little while. So we strategically planned a visit around a plain old ordinary week - no holidays to work around, no multiple dinners and gatherings to try and juggle, no stressing about presents and such. Just trying to make sure everyone who needed or wanted to got to spend time with Juniper.

There are many interesting things about this trip to talk about, so I think I'll break it into sections. Perhaps this first one will purely be a quick and dirty photo montage of all the new and important people that Juniper met while she was there.

On my side of the family, my sister Kelli and her family (Jamie, her husband, and their three kids, Sawyer, Ethan and Ali) were especially excited to meet Juniper. Unfortunately, both times we went over (once for a lovely dinner/birthday party for Clark, and another just random evening visit), Juniper was a *bit* of a cranky pants. But at least she let everyone hold her (albeit very briefly, in some cases!)

Also meeting Juniper for the first time was my brother Paul's family (Linda, and their kids, David and Taylor). Unfortunately, Paul was away on business, but everyone else got some quality Juniper time. Lucky for them, Juniper decided to be a perfect angel for this visit, and happily let Linda hold her for a nice long time.


Another first-time visit from my side of the family was my cousin Maria and my aunt Annie, who came by to meet Juniper. I have to give props to Maria, who sent me an email very shortly before Juniper's birth, predicting a little red-headed girl. She was right!

Finally, we took Juniper to visit my grandmother, Doris. I wasn't sure how this visit would go, as Doris is in very advanced stages of Alzheimer's disease, and certainly would not know who I was, let alone understand who Juniper is in relation to her. However, when we got there, Doris was absolutely delighted to meet Juniper, and was very very interested to see her and to hold her, and repeatedly commented on how lovely she was. Clark was even able to snap a quick 4 generation photograph. Even if Doris does not remember the visit, I am thrilled that Juniper was able to meet her great-grandmother, and to provide even a few minutes of happiness in Doris' day.
On Clark's side of the family, there were only a few people who met Juniper for the first time on this visit. The first was Patrick, Elizabeth's husband (ie, our brother-in-law). Although it took a few different tries at a few different gatherings, we finally got Pat to hold Juniper ;) As it turned out, they got on famously - Juniper seemed fascinated with him!

Also of import was a trip we took to Oak Point, which is where Clark's paternal grandparents live, on their huge, beautiful farm. This was the first time either of them got to meet Juniper, so it was really lovely that we had the time to go down for a nice long, leisurely afternoon. It's pretty amazing that Juniper has so many great-grandparents!

More than just family members, Juniper also met some of our good friends when we were down. We had a lovely visit on Sunday afternoon with our friend Christie, who invited the three of us over to her house. Juniper was obviously a big fan of Christie, as she happily hung out in Christie's arms for most of the visit!

Our friend Meghan also came by to meet Juniper while we were home, which was wonderful! Altough she wasn't able to snag as much one-on-one time (she was in direct competition with both my mom and Clark's step-mother, Barb), she at least got to have a nice extended visit over supper.

Finally, Juniper got to meet a whole load of people all at once right before we left, as Sue McLeod, one of our oldest and dearest neighbours, threw Juniper a spectacular shower. More details on that later, but certainly it was the most new people Juniper had ever met before all at the same time. I'll post more pictures later in a picasa album, but here are a couple of samples from the party - one with Sue McLeod, Cathy Baker, and Kathy Hicks (all neighbours of my parents for as long as I can remember), and one with Kati Koller (mother of Zsofi, Kata, and Agi - and of course, my second mother growing up, as I was over at the Koller house all the time!)


Whew - that seems like an incredibly long post, and I only just scratched the surface! But at least I got to post a lot of the "new people" shots that I had been wanting to. More to come soon!