Sundays in my City #71 – Out and About along the Creek

Today the sun was shining and it was the perfect day to be out and about.  First stop was to watch girl-child play soccer before heading out to visit friends to help celebrate the 2nd birthday of their daughter.  Of course you would think that with 4 kids running around the yard there would be plenty of photos to take, but taking photos would involve moving from my sunny perch on the deck so sorry, no pics of cute kids happening today.

Once we bid our friends farewell, we thought we would so some exploring in their neck of the woods, an area that we really haven’t explored before.  We found a few geocaches that needed to be found and headed off to find them.  All three of them were along a walking track by a creek, in fact the same creek that we spend hours by in our neighbourhood, the same creek that is flooded and not very creek-like here!

A girl on the bridge.

This is how you cross a bridge, right?

Enjoying the view (from the bridge railing!)

Of course with new adventures comes new playgrounds to explore.  The boy folk loved this vomit inducing spinning thing!

Spinning

As an added bonus, the 3 caches that we set out to find were all found.

 Head over to Unknown Mami and check out some of the adventures others have had during their Sundays in my City.

 

Sundays in my City #71 – A Day Out in the City

I have had a wonderful, indulgent weekend.  Today I met up with friends in North Melbourne for brunch at the Auction Rooms before heading in to the city to wander a bit exploring the streets and laneways before joining more friends for afternoon tea at Chocolait.  Talk about a great day and awesome food overload – YUM.

Enjoying Brunch

Recycling - Green Printing

The perfect afternoon tea!

I have spent more time in the city this past few weeks than I have in what feels like forever.  It has made me realise just how much I love Melbourne, wandering streets and laneways, exploring shops and loving the pleasure of a quiet day out with no obligations other than having fun.  As an added bonus, all of the walking we did today, from North Melbourne in and around the city and South Bank then back home was about 11km – surely that would have worked off some of the calories from afternoon tea!

 Head over to Unknown Mami and check out some of the adventures others have had during their Sundays in my City as I head back out in the cold to pick up the kids from the party!

 

Blogopolis and Chasing Rainbows

As I wasn’t going to Blogopolis until the very last minute, I didn’t have time to do the usual stress-the-hell-out and panic, kind of like the first day at a new school.  There were so many things that I could have freaked out about and more; what to wear, who would I talk to, what if no-one liked me, what if the ticket wasn’t transferrable, what if I just freaked out completely and ran out and hid.  Even if I had time, there was no need to stress.  There were amazing people everywhere I turned and I am happy to say that the crowd was super supportive and interesting. I had a great time meeting new people and sharing ideas.

There were so many things to learn at Blogopolis that I could fill a post or three about it but that has been done already and done really well so I will post a few links to my favourite wrap-up posts.

KeepCateBusy, Maid In Australia, Writing Out Loud and a beautiful post by Seven Cherubs.  Or for an amazing summary of key all the points, check out The Blog Stylist.

I will instead write about what I missed out on when I was there.  Sure there was the typical Saturday stuff – ice skating and kids birthday parties as well as last minute shopping for birthday presents but it seems that there was also a liberal dose of spontaneity.  The rainbow that we all saw from Birrarung Marr, my guys decided to chase.  Starting near where they left the birthday party, they ended up in Williamstown, following the most circuitous route, to stand under the rainbow.

Taste the Rainbow

Boy-child was pretty excited to taste the rainbow but girl-child was happy too.  To have her say that it was the best day of her life made me feel as if I had missed something special.  I may have missed something special but then I remembered that I had a wonderful day (and night) too, surrounded by old friends and new, learning and having fun.

 

Kokoda, Again

When I went to Kokoda last year, one of my colleagues said in a semi-threatening tone, “This place, it gets under your skin, you won’t be able to stay away for long!”  He was right.  I loved my journey last year and this year it was even more amazing.

The people I trekked with, both from here and from PNG were fun to be around.  Their smiles and the laughter were contagious.

Playing with the local kids

I spent most of my time smiling and laughing, having fun.  Sure the walking was hard but the company and the scenery were so amazing that you don’t notice the sheer physicality of the journey.  We celebrated every step of the way.

A walk through the jungle

It is more than the trek itself, it is also the program that I am a part of.  I have seen first hand the changes in the people involved.  Watching young people mature and grow, becoming aware of a world bigger than their own.

The sense of achievement at completing the track was overwhelming.

Happy to have finished. Sad to leave.

If I am given the opportunity, I will go back, over and over and over again.

 

Girls Night Out

Last night I went on a girls night and as a result I may have just been a little tired and grumpy today.  I am sure I wasn’t the only one.  You see, last nights girls night out was a little different, it involved 2 seven year old girls and a trip to see Miley Cyrus in concert at Rod Laver Arena.

I hadn’t told girl-child that we were going, only that she would have to miss soccer practice and would be allowed to dress up.  I was thinking that dress up would be something pretty, or even something a little funky but she took it literally and wore a costume!  We were going with her oldest friend in the world, who was also wearing a costume.

It wasn’t until she was dressed and ready to go, when her friend (and her friends mum) arrived and handed over tickets to the show that she realised where we were headed.  I couldn’t tell if she was shocked or didn’t actually realise that they were tickets for the show, but she didn’t show instant excitement about going.  Fortunately by the time we got to the train station a few minutes later both girls were giggling away like, well giggling like girls and were super excited.

Is this our train?

We had time in the city to have a play in Fed Square before heading to the concert.

bouncing

We made it to the venue with enough time to spare that the girl was able to sit back and read the souvenir program and admire all the beautiful costumes.

reading

Finally, way past bed time (for both the girls and for me) the show began.  It was amazing!

Miley in action

I have to say that the show was amazing.  When my friend asked if we would like to join them at the concert I thought “Why not?  I don’t really know any of her music but I liked that movie she was in!” I haven’t done anything special and completely out of the ordinary with her in forever, it should be fun.  Of course I then promptly forgot all about it until this week.  I had to secretly prepare us for the show so started playing Miley tunes each morning before school (hooray for iTunes).  It was enough for me to be familiar with the songs.  To be honest, even not knowing all of the music it was a great show, supported by great dancers.

I had a great night out and so did the girls.  We really should do girls nights out more often.  It doesn’t need to be as extravagant as going to a concert, just heading in to the city, wander about and enjoy all the amazing spaces to explore.

 

Celebrating Australia Day

Do you celebrate Australia Day?  We do.  Traditionally it is a day to hang out with friends, overindulge and listen to the Triple J Hottest 100.  Today was no exception.  Our fun day of celebration, the people involved and the food eaten was a true reflection of our community and Australia in general.  We spent the day relaxing in the park with friends old and new from many countries of the world including Hong Kong, England, America and Indonesia eating some delicious food.  Naturally we had snags on the barbeque but they were accompanied by chicken satay, Thai coconut salad, pesto and bocconcini pasta, coleslaw and Somali rice.  For many, the food was washed down with beers and wines from all over the world.  For those a little more energetic there was cricket to be played, kites to be flown, trees to be climbed and skates to be skated but for those of us a little more sedentary there was plenty of great music to sit around and listen to.

My Aussie Princess

I hope everyone else had a fantastic Australia Day celebrating the diversity of our amazing country.

 

Sundays in my City #43 – Wandering in Werribee Gorge

The kids are still at my parents having an absolute ball;  playing with their friends, swimming, dancing in the rain and naturally being spoilt rotten.  With them away, I have continued to work crazy hours all week long and then enjoy the weekend.  After yesterdays day of sloth I had to get out of the house.  In fact that I ‘rested’ so much yesterday that I was wide awake at 5am and unable to get any more rest.  Eventually I gave up on trying to sleep and went for a run.

When the rest of the house woke we all went hiking at Werribee Gorge.  We had a fantastic day, hiking 10 or so km through the gorge.

Walking through the grass

The perfect place to rest

A flower, for me?

I am looking forward to more hikes in the bush, with friends and with the kids (although we wouldn’t hike 10km with the kids just yet!) and especially with my crazy hubby.

For more Sundays in my City fun, head over to Unknown Mami’s place.

I am finally up to date with my Sundays in my City entries and if you want to see where I have been here, check them out;  Searching for Clues and Christmas.

 

2011 – The Year of the Drop In

I think I am a little superstitious in regards to the beginning of a new year.  It is almost as if however I herald in the new year is an indication of the year ahead.  As a result, I hope to spend my new years eve with family and friends doing very little other than enjoying each others company.  It is almost as if the vibe for the new year will continue throughout the year so I want it to be a good vibe.  I must be careful, the pressure to try to make it a great new years eve is too much and one can easily be disappointed so I normally opt for the minimal fuss option.

Last night, New Years Eve would be a typical example of an ideal New Years celebration.  We stayed home and had a few friends over.  We played Michael Jackson on the Wii and Dance Central on xBox and then wandered down to the river to watch the fireworks over the city at midnight.  Super casual and pleasant and a fantastic way to welcome the new year.

I also like the house to be organised at the end of the year, all ready for the new year hoping that the house will remain tidy for the rest of the year.  It is a tall ask but worth aiming for!   Ideally I try to begin to eat well, moving on from the copious amounts of chocolate eaten in the Christmas haze but if there is still chocolate lying around, as there was today, well that has to be eaten eventually.

For me, the week between Christmas and New Year is usually a slothful time where I consume my body weight in chocolate and do little more than shuffle from the house to the park over the road to relax on the grass in the shade.  This year was a little different, I alternated insane work days (10+ hour shifts) with slothful days of nothing.  Unfortunately the traditionally bad eating habits of this time of year continued yet the great exercise habits of the past 6 months went out the window and other than work up a sweat playing Dance Central in 40 degree heat, I have done exactly NO exercise and that needed to change!

If today is any indication of the year ahead, it is going to be a good year.   We didn’t make much mess last night, and the little mess that was made was predominantly tidied up last night.  I did the annual ‘Christmas is over it is time to pack up the tree and all that goes with it’ tidy up (sure I know most people leave their tree up longer but for me Christmas finishes with the end of the year so it was time to pack it all up).

Once that was complete, there wasn’t much to do so we did exactly that, at one stage we ended up sitting on the couch and watching Gidget!  Friends dropped over and we all wandered over to the park for a skate.  A friend of these friends also dropped over and we ended up sitting around chatting.  Next thing you know our house mate was making pizza dough ready for dinner and the friend of a friend was assisting to stretch the bases ready to cook.  There was plenty there so they all stuck around and we shared a delicious dinner.

Before I knew it, it was 9.30pm and the kids were still awake!  I quickly shipped the kids off to bed knowing that they would be up early in the morning to go to work with me (hooray for alternate days of work madness and no holiday bonus pay).  I however was wide awake and full of energy.  I sat down to blog but ended up going for a run (What?  Don’t you get sudden bursts of energy at 10.30pm and have to go for a run?).

Anyway, the point of this post it that I declare this the Year of the Drop In.  I know that I am probably in the minority here, but I love drop in visitors.  I love not having to clean the house because I know guests are coming to visit, instead I prefer guests to just drop in and expect the insanity of a lived in mad-house.  I love impromptu entertaining and barbequing.  There is no meal that can’t be stretched to feed a dozen or pizza ordered in to fill up any still hungry tummies.  I realised that with the madness of 2010 we didn’t have much time for the drop in.  Perhaps it was because we were out so much or that others felt as if they were imposing but the drop in just didn’t happen often and I missed it.  We are off to a great start having a drop in dinner on the very first day of the year, it is a sign of great days still to come.

Happy New Year blog folk, I hope that whatever you declare this year to be for you and your families that it comes true.

 

Sundays in my City #21 – the Gathering of the Clan

My Sundays in my City this week is the family day we went to yesterday, known as the Gathering of the Clan.  For years now, our extended family has been getting together for an annual catch up.  This year it was hosted by my cousin and her family in their ‘humble abode’ near the Dandenongs, just outside of Melbourne.  It is such a shame that it takes a formal reason for us to all come together, especially as it was less than an hours drive from our house to theirs.

 

This wasn’t one of the biggest gatherings we have had in recent years, but it was still attended by more than 40 of us!  Mum is one of 8 kids and each of them had kids.  Mum was the least prolific breeder with only 3 kids, other siblings had 5 kids each so I have dozens of cousins.  Most of us now have kids, mostly neat and tidy 2 kid families creating plenty of second cousins.  We haven’t quite hit the next generation but I think it will only be a few years off!

It didn’t take the second cousins long to reaquaint themselves and start planning adventures in the playground tucked away in the yard, behind the swimming pool.

Second Cousins Conspiring

There were plenty of places for the kids to explore in the acre that my cousins call home.

The Side Garden

Even some nice rocks for a tired and temporarily grumpy bunny to rest on.

Enjoying the Peace and Quiet

Once the shadows grew longer, the air became quite cool.  It was the perfect excuse to light the fire cauldron.

Relaxing by the Fire

Once the fire was burning the kids had a chance to toast marshmallow.

Toasting Marshmallows

We had a fantastic time catching up with our extended family.  I would love to think that we will catch up in the mean time, but the reality is life is busy, life with 2 or 3 kids apiece it is even busier!  There is always this time next year to catch up at the 2011 Gathering of the Clan.

Oh and just because I feel like the last few months the photos have been predominantly of girl-child, here is a pic of boy-child.  He is notoriously difficult to capture as he loves to pretend he hates having his photo taken!

I Won't Smile!

To follow along and check out some more amazing Sundays in my City, head over to the wonderful Unknown Mami.

 

Bullets of Exhaustion

Monday morning, the start of my holidays and I was hoping to have a fantastic girly day with girl-child but it appears that we are both tired and grumpy, with one of us being particularly fragile. Here are just a few of the reasons that we are struggling today and considering the delicate state of affairs around here at the moment, I am resorting to bullets to fill in the gaps;

Saturday

• The happiest day of the year has been and gone, however it appears that it wasn’t actually the happiest day of the year, more like a painful day with no outcome so we will have to relive a Grand Final Day Extravaganza again next weekend.
• Aforementioned Extravaganza involved being organised and preparing for an unknown quantity of guests. I think there were around 50 people here during the day, with more coming and going at different times.
• Over catering is what I do and we have bucket loads of food left over.  Apparently salads aren’t a necessary accompaniment for many people eating barbeque 3 times in one day!  Said over-catering means the fridge is overflowing and I don’t know where to begin.
• Following a long day of entertaining, I took the kids and a few friends in to the city to watch a preview of Hairspray.  The show was amazing.  Boy-child was exhausted but managed to stay awake, just.  He tried to deny enjoying the show but did wriggle to the front of his seat for big numbers.  Girl-child sang along with most of the songs and danced in her seat entertaining all around her!
• Returning home from Hairspray to a house full of loud and in many cases inebriated poker players preventing sleep until they left to go to the casino and then being woken upon the arrival of man-child from the casino at the ungodly hour of 5am.

Sunday

• Drifting back off to sleep around 5.30am only to be woken at 6am by a phone call, then no more sleep for me, I had to contemplate getting up and going to work.
• Procrastinating about getting out of bed, feeling like I had a hangover despite not drinking and feeling dehydrated again.  Realising eventually that I was hungry (the first time I have felt hungry in weeks) as a result of being surrounded by food but having not eaten since brunch the previous day.  Of course by this stage I was running late and didn’t have time for breakfast.  Crossed my fingers and hoped for drive-thru on the way to work.
• Leaving for work at 7.30am on a Sunday morning is wrong I tell you, all wrong.  Being trapped on a bus instead of the luxury of a work car meaning no easy escapes for real food or even drive through crud.
• Add to this I was at work for 13 hours instead of the expected 8 – 10 hours and I am a little tired, even if the day was spent supervising ‘playing in the park’ with 160 other people.
• Did I mention that the park was home to a particularly ferocious magpie?  It was and I bore the brunt of its pissed-offedness.  I was swooped a number of times trying to protect kids.  Twice I was hit, the first knocking my sunglasses off my head, the second scratching the lens of them.  Very glad it was the glasses that were hit, the girl that he connected with ended up with a nasty beak gash on her head.
• Being surrounded by gluten-laden food all day at work, still feeling hungry.  Eating little bits and pieces and regretting it when my stomach started going nuts.
• Getting home from work after 9pm to find that the house still in a state of disarray but being too tired to even care.

Monday – The first day of my attempted holidays

• Double checking the packing that should have been done yesterday in preparation for boy-child to go to camp this morning only to find he didn’t have enough socks or any pyjamas packed.  I didn’t check his entire pack, fingers crossed he has all he needs.
• Doing the drop off to wait for the camp bus, only to find the bus was late.
• Enjoying snuggles with the boy as we waited for the bus.  The poor boy is exhausted before he left, I hope he has a great time.
• Listening to the girl-child sob hysterically as the bus departed.  Apparently she misses boy-child already and nothing I can do will make it better.
• Canceling a catch up with a friend to allow girl-child a chance to regroup and recover.
• Contemplating cleaning up the mess that we call home but really not wanting to, therefore I am procrastinating.

I really should make the most of the almost peace and quiet as girl-child plays on the computer but this (hibernating online) is much more fun!  Hopefully we will get a chance to something fun together later in the week.

(tired) Snuggles as we wait...