"At Easter, we went to Adelaide"

Our Easter Adelaide Holiday

So for the Easter weekend (Thurs-Mon) we went to Adelaide. We decided to drive which given it is 740km from Melbourne could have been viewed as foolhardy with our 3-yr-old and 1-yr-old passengers…
We even declined the offers of loans of in-car DVD players, preferring to keep Maddie of the belief that it is impossible to watch TV inside a car.

I did wonder if this was a big mistake especially when the first “Daddy, when will we be there?” came from Maddie after 1hr 10mins. And the second after 1hr 11mins.

However the journey went very well, although a touch boring at times with scenery a little limited apart from the local wildlife:

















All up the journey there took a shade over 10 hours, including stops for breakfast, lunch and fuel. On the way back we also had a good journey but we stopped for lunch, long run around in a park and dinner, making it an 11-hour trip! It was fine, but if we drove again I think we’d take the more scenic 930km coastal route and stop overnight halfway in Mt Gambier.

Maddie did get a bit confused about how far we had gone though and kept talking about home as “when we get back to Australia”!

We stayed in a 2-bedroom cabin in a campsite on the river right in the centre of Adelaide – the city centre was walkable and best of all the zoo was only maybe 10 minutes’ walk along the river too.

So, Good Friday saw us heading to the zoo (about the only thing open!) for opening time to beat the queues to see Adelaide’s most famous residents – Wang Wang and Funi the Giant Pandas!



These are both Wang Wang as he was getting out and about more.

Maddie really enjoyed the Pandas and had to have her photo taken on the way out of their section:
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She made up a little “Wang Wang and Funi” jingle/song and must have sang it about 30 times a day over Easter, it was very cute.
After the Zoo we walked through the centre of Adelaide where Maddie “appreciated” some sculptures
…and Sam despaired of his crazy sister!

















To finish the day we made our way to Glenelg (the only palindromic beachside suburb in the world?) which was great due to two firsts: Maddie having a go on this ;
and running along with Maddie watching a dolphin swimming right along the beach in the shallows for the whole length of the beach! Fantastic.













On Saturday we stopped off at Maddie’s “treehouse” (on the edge of the botanic gardens) which she wants to go and visit every time she goes to Adelaide!

















We then went for a little bike ride along the river and bumped into a huge Concours event for the Australian MG Owners Club. As you can see Sam was particularly interested in having some full-size cars to play with!














Saturday afternoon we went to Semaphore which has this carousel, which was unexpectedly fast – so that the only decent photo I got was this one after it stopped!
. Maddie and Toni then had a run around in the park which she loved – can you tell?

















For Easter the kids had a Bilby (the Aussie version of the Easter bunny) from Haigh’s, South Australia’s biggest/oldest chocolatier.


The two little Bilby chocolates were very popular!!


Yum












It’s twice as big as my mouth! But I’ll manage


Don’t take my chocolate away from me…















And then we went up into the Barossa Valley for some adult holidaying (wineries and ‘foodie’ places like Grant Burge and Maggie Beer)…mmmm!

Til next time which will probably have all the happenings of Maddie’s “Princesses and Pirates” 4th birthday party next weekend!

Dom

Painting and more painting

Not much to report this week, seems like all I have done is work and paint!

Just about finished painting the living room (largest room in the house), tomorrow night should be the last of it and then just enough time to tidy it all back up before

I wanted to get it done because Toni and I both bought each other artwork for Christmas - mine will arrive from the UK tomorrow (long story) and we have just gotten around to framing Toni's present for me. So...after 3 months they will both be ready to go on a wall. Added to all the other paintings/prints and pictures we have more or less been waiting since Feb 2009 (when we moved in) to put up, there are a lot of good reasons to paint the living room so we can get things on the walls!

Anyway, sorry for dull update this week. Next week will be better because on Thursday we're off on a road trip to Adelaide (about 8 hours' drive including mandatory kiddie stops) for Easter, so holiday snaps and stories when we get back!

Dom

Tired but happy

We've had a busy week, seems like we haven't stopped!

We all went to the Hawker's Market at Queen Vic Markets on Weds night. This is part of the Food & Wine Festival which finished today, basically 30 of Melbourne's asian restaurants set up food market stalls and your entry price gets you 4 dishes.

Maddie and Sam did very well with the food (Maddie is quite a fan of most asian food and really likes Sushi).


They also had cookery demos and asian dancing which kept Maddie entertained - giving us time to actually take the food and atmosphere in on an adult level.

Friday daytime Toni took Maddie to another Food & Wine Festival event, "Mini Chef" or "Medium Chef" as Maddie wanted to call it "because I'm not mini"!


Friday night Toni and I went to see La Roux, which was fantastic even if we were about 10 years older than the average punter!

Then Saturday night and tonight, as a total contrast, we have been painting the living room ceiling. Rock and roll.
Actually the house & garden is looking a lot better after the last week, we've spent a lot of time in the evenings (before the clocks change at Easter) tidying the garden. In fact it is becoming a community effort - we're borrowing next door's ladder for our ceiling paintint & our neighbours opposite even came round to help prune the roses today! (The roses in our front garden are a bit of a longstanding legend in our street it seems.)

On top of all that I even managed to get out for 90km on the bike this morning (back by 11am to go to a Kindergarten open day, no rest for the wicked!).

OK time for some well-earned flopping on the sofa in front of the TV...

Dom

Hello again. See, I really did manage to update this only a week later!

Toni and Maddie are at a craft market across town, Sam is asleep and I have come to a halt in my current DIY job of fixing the cooker door as I need to go and buy 2 new springs, so he can help Daddy with that when he comes round. (I would post a picture of our oven so you could share Toni's dismay at its sheer age and lack of style/ergonomics/function, but it is so old there are no pics on the internet and I'm not getting the camera out to take photos of it!)

Last weekend was labour day weekend in Victoria (so a Bank Holiday Monday for those in the UK who understand the term). In fact it was just like a UK Bank Holiday because it bucketed down rain almost the entire weekend! We were lucky over where we are though because most parts of Melbourne had the storm of the century!
We did manage to get out up into the Dandenongs on the Monday though - missing the rain, just - and walked around William Ricketts Sanctuary then had a decent lunch up there. Sam behaved amazingly even though we had to wait an hour for lunch to arrive!

Earlier this week we had our crepe myrtle tree dramatically trimmed and as a result the entire area of our back garden (apart from the kids' play house, trampoline and the BBQ) is covered in branches and leaves. I can only just squeeze my bikes out of the shed. Unfortunately progress on clearing it has been a little 'slow' (perhaps if it had actually blocked access to my bikes it would have all been taken to the skip by now...) and I have subcontracted to the neighbours' son + mate to chop it all up and bag it. They have been going for an hour and a half now (he types, drinking his cup of tea!).
The tree looks a lot better for the trimming though.

Next big DIY project is the kitchen which will be a big one but we hope to get done in stages through this year. Got to plan it first though!

This afternoon I'm hoping to get Sam onto the baby seat on the bike for his first ride - it is a beautiful day here, 27 degrees and it's going to be even better for the whole of next week! Summer is hanging on for a little longer.

Photos next time. Hope everyone is well,

Dom

We're still here...

Sorry for the looong break in updates to this blog! I do plan on updating this weekly from now on.

Too much has happened since the last post in May to try and recap so I am going to start with recent highlights.

Maddie was flower girl at Nadine's wedding in Thailand - we stopped off on the way over in Singapore for a few days to see George, Ching-Yi and Alexandra. We had a fantastic time there and it was a great start to the holiday - Maddie and Alexandra got on very well as you can see!



Here Maddie is being the flower girl at the wedding:



And here's Sam, Daddy and Grannie. Doesn't he look smart!

















Spot the difference in this one:












Since then, Sam has been getting bigger and is now climbing up everything in sight in our house. He is a human wrecking ball sometimes and also seems to be able to run at Usain Bolt speeds whenever your back is turned!

Anyway, getting late here so until next week...

Dom

Maddie is 3!

So why not have 3 parties?? One on Sunday ("the fairy one"), one at nursery on her birthday, and a tea party at home with Mum, Dad, Sam, Granny and Granny Mave. The above photo was taken after the Sunday party during present & card opening. There were too many presents to get through on the Tuesday so we let her open her party friends' presents 2 days early.

Anyway, back to party #1 - Williamstown Scout Hall, Sunday 3rd:

Cakes arriving from home



Riding around waiting for everyone to arrive



Gus having his face painted by Daisy & Tom's Mum (Sarah in the adult world - thanks Sarah)



Waiting for my sparkler to finish burning so we can all have a cake!



Check out this technique for opening a wrapped up hula hoop - she ends up inside the present somehow!



Pirate girl (well, just being a Rainbow Fairy would have been too boring!



Parties 2 & 3 are going to have to wait until I have more time to blog - the photo uploading takes too long on this!

In other news - we have our Australian Citizenship tests tomorrow! Here are some example questions - answers on a postcard please:
In what year did Federation take place?
What date is Australia Day?
Who was the first Prime Minister of Australia?
What is the first line of Australia's national anthem?
What is the floral emblem of Australia?
What is the population of Australia?
In what city is the Parliament House of the Commonwealth Parliament located?
Who is the Queen's representative in Australia?
Australian Citizens aged 18 years or over are required to enrol on the electoral register: true or false?

I'll leave you to ponder those Earth-shattering questions. I'm off to revise (ha ha - it is a multiple choice test!).

March already...

...It's amazing how quick time flies when you have a baby and move house all at the same time! We are all doing very well here, thanks for the messages and enquiries last month, but we were not that close to the fires. That said they were still only 40km away which when you have a 100km/h wind isn't really that far.

It has been an emotional few weeks here with nearly everyone knowing someone who had relatives or friends affected by the bushfires. Now though (as of last night) the threat has been declared over thanks to a couple of days of cooler weather and rain. In fact in a rather cruel irony they even had snow in alpine Victoria today (one of the gateway villages to the lower snow resorts, Marysville, was completely wiped out by the fires).

On a happier note, we are now in the new place which has felt like home almost since the moment we walked in with all our boxes. We are slowly getting unpacked. We have had fitted wardrobes put in the bedroom & I have ordered my shed (very important!).

It's great to be on a nice quiet street, lots of other families around and a park at the end of the street too. Maddie even cycled there last time we went, almost on her own! (Only needing a little bit of help to keep straight - she can't pedal and steer at the same time yet.)

As I type it is raining again, 4th day in a row that we have had some rain which is very good news seeing as it had been I think 30+ days since we had any before that.
We still aren't getting enough, it never sets in. Funny to think after leaving the UK we would one day be hoping for it to start raining!

Anyway, time to go to bed now. I will try to post more often!
love from us all
Dom