Tepee

For Luca’s first birthday we made him a tepee. He loves to hid in small spaces (usually between the wall and the couch), we saw a smaller version at the Paddington Markets in Sydney a few months ago and we decided to give it a try. It took a big longer than I expected, multiple trips to the fabric store and hardware store and lots of fine tuning to make it work just right. There are two matching pillows for the inside. The tepee is not perfect by any stretch, there is a tiny spot of blood on the white fabric (pin prick) and the last few weeks while I’ve been working on this it’s been very hot, I’ve sat at the sewing machine sweating and sewing, sweating and sewing…my own little sweat shop. I am glad I put the time into this…something tells me the tepee may up in the living room for the next few years…-kel

Meet Santa ...

Luca officially met Santa for the first time today. There was a bit of sizing up going on but generally the little man got along with the man in red very well and even managed to crack a smile. Being such a good boy today we said he can have what ever he asked Santa for ... knowing that he can only say "Mum" and "Dad" it was a deal I was only too happy to make!

Year 1

Luca celebrated his first birthday on Wednesday. Unfortunately he had a bad cold and a fever and was in no mood to celebrate. He opened a few gifts and then was in bed early, coughing and sneezing. Off to a Santa visit this weekend, so we hope he is feeling better. Photo of Luca with Mark's parents, Graeme and Margaret (this was the only photo we took that he actually smiled). Amazing how quickly a year has passed! -kel

Yogurt?

We had a fantastic weekend, birthday-Christmas party for Mothers group, swim in the ocean, swim in the pool a few sausages, lots of singing along to Christmas songs and an afternoon at the pub to celebrate a good friends engagement. Christmas is quickly approaching and we are getting ready for all of the madness. Luca has recently started to "feed" himself. Photo of him this morning with is yogurt. We miss you all and wish each of you could be here with us during this festive time of year. Cheers! -kel

apple cup 2007

It’s been 6 days, no phone call, no email, no text message, no letters, no postcards nothing. I don’t like to think about it, and I cringe to think that we came so close. Seriously haven’t heard a word from Tiff about the Apple cup, as this is so completely out of charactered for her, I can really only come to one conclusion…she has learned another fantastic life lesson from me and switched sides as she should have long ago to support the DAWGS! (oh and for the record, I lost the annual bet with Mark, and will be changing nappies for a full weekend and doing 10 laps in the pool in the buff, in the dark of course!) Picture of Mark and Luca this morning, Mark’s been participating in Movember, today was the final day, thank goodness! -kel

another year

Family photo this morning…do you know how hard it was to get a picture of all 3 of us looking at the camera! Mark and Luca made a very special birthday morning for me with presents in bed and American bagels and cream cheese for breaky. I can’t believe I am 30, living in Australia (finally a summer birthday), with a beautiful home, great friends and the most amazing husband and son who I love with all of my heart. Not a day goes by that I don’t think about how fortunate I am and how thankful I am for those around me. I am the luckiest girl ever! –kel

Oh and yes Mark is doing “Movember” hence the moustache!

Luca photo's

We are walking…

Luca took his first steps last week, his confidence has grown at now at 11 months he is officially on the move! (Picture from Gunner’s Barracks, where Mark and I were married and our favourite picnic spot) -kel

ladies who lunch (with their children)

Luca and I attend a Melbourne Cup day lunch with our mothers group yesterday. Melbourne Cup is a big horse race in Melbourne that “stops the nation”. It was good fun, fancy dress, hats, lots of snacks and champagne! -kel

Red Sockies!

Sitting in the office crunching numbers with ESPN Gamecast on is not exactly great atmosphere but the emails I am exchanging with friends watching the game live in Seattle, Boston and one lucky mate sending messages from his Blackberry at Coors at least make me feel somewhat connected. No 86 years for the little man, Luca didn't even have to wait one year to see the Sox win the World Series (granted he would be expecting me to be calling them the red sockies and would be more interested in stealing the remote than watching the game).

Cheers.

Fenway dreaming

It doesn't register with people in the office, a few perplexed glances but otherwise they get on with their work when I start celebrating a game one victory at 1:30pm on a Thursday.


The emails are flying to friends in Seattle and Boston - game one goes our way as will the series - much confidence down here.

I thought I was far away watching in 2004 in the bar at the Met in Seattle, I've definitely trumped that this time - there are no geographical boundaries to the Nation - Go Sox!

Cowboy

One of Luca’s favourite things to do when Mark and I get home from work is play on the bed. In particular he loves to put on Mark’s cowboy hat and then throw it off. I attempted to capture this on film yesterday, with some success. -kelly

I'm Seeing Double

Mark's mom brought over his baby book this week. Everyone, including me, always says how much Mark and Luca look alike, however when I saw the baby photos I was speechless. They could be twins! -kel

Tokyo

This week I am in Tokyo for work (I know, crazy travel lately). I was lucky this time and had two free days before my meetings began to explore Tokyo. I’ve been doing lots of sewing back home, I had heard that Tokyo was the place for inexpensive yet very cool fabric. After a bit of research I found a number of different fabric stores and spent most of Sunday and Monday on and off the trains into different neighbourhoods looking for fabric. Was a great way on foot to see the city. Photo of some of the fabrics I bought.

Last night for work we also took a bus tour at night and got to see some of the amazing sights in Tokyo. This city is unlike any I’ve ever visited, full of people, neon, and tons and tons of shopping. A few more days of meetings, then one more free day and back to the boys! I hear Luca’s been rocking out to Neil Young while I’ve been gone. Can’t wait for family sing-a-long when I get home! -kel

Greetings from Shanghai!

I am in Shanghai this week for work meetings, really not that exciting. Outside of work however has been a bit more interesting…so far I’ve experienced some CRAZY and I mean CRAZY Taxi rides (by far they are the worst I’ve ever driven with), lots of people taking my colleagues and I out to very bad American food (why when in China would they think we want American food? We want Chinese!), a very cold hotel room, a frightening plane ride on China Eastern Airlines (AVOID at all possible costs), a beautiful park filled with dancing, Tai Chi and music, lots of funny looks while walking on the street and a few snapshots with random people who stopped to take our picture! Missing the boys at home tons! (photo of my colleague Talia and I on a bridge overlooking the Bund (river that runs through Shanghai) on our way to dinner last night) -kel

Welcome to town W - we're off to Forster

Sydney hosted APEC and to ensure there were less people around to demonstrate all of Sydney was given a day off - an extra public holiday and an extraordinary good tactic. The Fergusons were off up the coast to Forster on Thursday afternoon to make the most of it.

We arrived in darkness and didn't realise until the way back that all of the hairpin turns and going up and down hills were accompanied by great views of the lakes in the area. The area is known as the Lakes region of NSW but as we found out there are also awesome beaches.

Luca's godfather, Mark, provided the accomodation. A reletively new, huge condo a block from the centre of town and a block from the beach. Luca loved the condo with all of the new places to explore and the coffee table was the right height for him to stand and practice walking (he did 52 laps of the coffee table over the weekend).

Forster had many good suprises for us and Friday morning provided the first when Kelly stumbled across a fabric store that stocked some of her favourite designers at prices cheaper than they go for in Sydney - we made two visits to the store over the weekend and Kelly now has a return visit to Forster high on her priority list.

Of the suprises from the weekend the one I could have done without came while we were eating meat pies down on the jetty in Forster - I was my usual undisturbable self while eating and Kelly with a mouth full of pie suddenly started freaking out so I turned behind to see what she was looking at and came face to face with a huge pelican about two inches from my face - he/she was eyeing off my pie which if you know me and my love of the pie is a total waste of time.

Luca absolutely loved the beach - not the surf just the sand. He didn't eat the sand which we had half expected but was happy to crawl around for hours messing up any undisturbed sand he could find. While we were there Kelly spotted a dolphin playing around just off of the shore. The whole beach visit really made me look forward to getting Luca to the beach and in the water this summer.

As we usually do Kelly and I did a lot of exploring around the area and found some great spots - Bluey's beach and Seal Rocks were our favourites. From the Australian bush to China all in 24 hrs - Kel is off to Shanghai tomorrow and Milko, Robin and I will be drinking beer and eating pizza!

Cheers - M

Ferguson Pool in Print!

Our pool was recently part of the cover feature for Atomic magazine. The photographer used our pool to photograph a computer being thrown in the water for a story on water cooling. So not quite the interior design feature I was hoping for, but hey even if it was just the interior of our pool, a Mark & Kelly design was published!!! -kel

Luca photo's

Sussex Inlet

A weekend I was looking forward to very much started when I took Luca to his weekly swimming lessons - I wish I could do this every week - although I need to brush up on my Hokey Pokey.
After swimming we headed down south to Sussex Inlet for a reprise visit (see our "Windy Winter Weekend: South 2 Sussex" blog from June 2006) again with our friends Sam, Christy and Jemima. We stopped in at Berry on the way down for a bite and unfortunately the pub was closed so we just did a local cafe. Unlike the riany weather of the last visit the weather was awesome this year. Kelly cooked up a storm on Friday night which got the weekend off to a great start. Saturday we visited Cudmirrah where we hung out in the great winter weather at the beach and then we took a short drive to Berrara where we saw a couple of Roos just hanging by the side of the road. We finished off the day with a trip to the bowlo for some Chinese food and a couple of schooners of black.

We could have packed more into the weekend but sometimes it's nice to get away from Sydney with little in the way of plans.

Cheers & all the best.

Quick Trip to Singapore

Last week I flew to Singapore for a week of meetings. The best part of the trip, and my only free time consisted of a speedy and I mean speedy trip to the mall where I hit my two of my favorite stores Muji (adorable home/clothes/stationary in a Japanese+Scandinavian style) and BANANA REPUBLIC! Fantastic, Banana has opened a store in Singers and I was stoked, nothing like 10 min. of retail therapy to get you through a tough week at the office! (no Tiff & Mom, I did not buy a black sweater) Now...if only I could convince them to open a Nordstrom! Here is a picture of me on Orchard Road, the main shopping street in Singapore with my Banana bag. - kel

There is a New Fish in the Sea

Luca and Grandpa (Mark's dad) at Luca's first swimming lesson. Watch out fish...surfing lessons are next...-kel

Luca photo's

Meet the Manny

Yup, that’s right it’s not a typo. We’ve got a male nanny on the way for Luca! Luca’s fantastic nanny, Sally, has decided to take a fabulous new position at one of the big hotels in Manly as an events coordinator, we are super sad to see her go, but very happy that she is moving on to such a great opportunity. With no nanny and two working parents we hit up everyone we knew to find a replacement, Sally is AMAZING, so this was no easy task. To the rescue came Uncle Robin! My younger brother Robin has agreed to come to Australia for 3 months to be Luca’s Manny, this will give him a chance to hang out with Luca, see Australia, do a bit of travel and live with the three of us! We will now have enough time to search for a replacement for Sally. We couldn’t be happier and can’t wait to welcome our newest housemate to 45 Bennett…crazy Manny stories coming soon…-kel

Three Thumbs Up for Three Weeds

The Ferguson's are back in action…we had the best winter weekend a family could ask for. Friday night – Small dinner party at our house with friends, lots of wine, yummy desert and best of all Luca was down to sleep on time and slept in on Saturday AM! Saturday – Beautiful Sunny weather, after a brief sleep in we were up to one of our favourite beach towns, Avalon, for a bit of shopping and the best croissants outside of France, followed by Luca and I cheering Mark on while he refereed a soccer game, leftovers from Friday night (more yummy) and a movie. Sunday – We actually slept in again! Seriously this is a miracle once but twice in one weekend was amazing! It was a cold rainy day – so we headed off to the Rozelle Markets in the school yard of Mark’s primary school, picked up a spotted succulent for the garden and 4 French champagne flutes for a bargain (Apparently when it’s raining you get better deals) and some yummy New York style Bagels. Lunch was at the Three Weeds Pub Luca and I shared the bean soup, Mark had the Guinness and Steak Pie, the atmosphere was fantastic, all warm and cozy, kids and parents enjoying a raining afternoon at the pub, I was warm inside and out and the food was fantastic! Dinner was Bagels and cream cheese sangers, I did a quick sewing job and made a new belt and two travel shoe bags then it was an early night in bed. Great winter weekend, we all agreed three thumbs up. -kel

Fergalicious

It dawned on me the other day that now that my last name is Ferguson, I should fully rock out to the song Fergalicious as much as possible, it’s like a theme song just for me. While I am at it I have also taken to dancing about to the other great (smile) songs on Fergies last album. This however has become oddly entertaining/perplexing to Luca. It’s funny that now that I am a mom I am like a one woman band and 24x7 entertainer…will the first word Luca can spell be G-L-A-M-O-R-O-U-S? Fun times abound at 45 Bennett. - kel

Super Seattle and My Favourite Seattleite

We are home sweet home, after travelling with Luca on a 14+ hour flying kangaroo home I was never so happy to see my bed! When thinking about this blog a few weeks ago, I was all set to out Mark’s crazy driving with the hand brake on, however he confessed himself below so instead here is my short take on the holiday. Our trip home was a whirlwind of shopping, eating, working and visiting friends and family. Super strange to be in Seattle on vaca, I didn’t feel like I was on holiday, but Seattle just doesn’t feel like home any more either. Luca was a great traveller (slept like a champ on the multiple plane rides), shopper and smiled on queue to all the right peeps at all the right times, thank goodness. I got my fill of pizza and Mexican, shopping at Nordies, baby Gap, Banana and of course the outlets. Thank you to everyone who made time to see us, especially to Tiff who reminded me regularly that she knows just how to push my buttons at all the right times in all the right places, what more could I ask for from a sister. She has told me I am not allowed to come to Seattle for another visit unless I acknowledge her as my favourite Seattleite, and it’s true this trip reminded me that even though I am now a mom, with Tiff I can still laugh until I cry when I hear her telling me the first joke she ever made up at age 4, Tiff will always be my favourite Seattleite, I just can’t wait for her to have babies so I can laugh while she changes dirty nappies…cheers kel

5 Spots Not 5 Stars

Seattle was a whirlwind! We got so much done but I could have done with some more time to catch up with a few people I missed.

I’ll do my Oscar speech first…. thanks to Barry, Steven, Gabby, Gary & Boom Boom for an awesome day at the Freemont fair, Bret & Jenn for a great night out in Ballard, Adam for being so excited when we walked into the High Dive even after missing the bands set by 5 minutes, Barb and Sophia for entertaining us in grand style at their respective houses despite being heavily pregnant, Bret for organizing a final drink at the Red Door on the day before I left, Chris for making the drink at the Red Door even though you were on call, Margie, Dave, Mark & Laura for making time to catch up in the middle of a busy week, Lee, Luke, Grey & Nora for sharing your awesome home with us, Jeff P for your understanding of my busy week (it was great to see you on Friday) and Rohan, Jackie & Gaelle for introducing Luka to the high-chair! I will leave Kelly to thank her family for all the fun. Every Oscar speech has to thank God, so I will say my blessed thanks for Paseo’s Cuban Roast (formerly Midnight Cuban) sandwich and black beans and rice, the blue cheese & bacon burger at Red Mill and the ability to expense a sushi extravaganza at Wasabi.

The few regrets – Patty P I am very very bummed I missed you (although it was a great consolation to see Katie and Hank), Jeff L I didn’t make it over your way but will see you in Oz soon and to the Dybwad at Other Coast …next year we have an appointment.

photo courtesy of Lee Wierdsma (you have to do credits with these Getty Images people)

Luca getting into the Seattle spirit in his Sonic Boom shirt in Q.Anne

Seattle is awesome, but would be much less so without all of our friends – so if you would all kindly move to Australia it would be much easier for Kelly and I.

As perfect as I think I am, two stories from Seattle that prove I am a ruse… I drove from Olympia to Seattle with the hand brake on in the rental car and stuffed the brake so badly we were unable to park on any sort of incline the rest of the time in Seattle … I brought a new driver from Puetz Golf and being smart asked them to pack it in a box to stop it being damaged when it was loaded on the flying kangaroo, five days after purchasing the club and four hours before I was due to fly out I decided to pack the box with some dirty t-shirts for more protection and upon opening the box realized I had a box, a head cover and no club.

There is so much to remind us of Seattle in 45 Bennett St and I am glad about that. See you next year.

No Way To Spend Mother's Day

May has been a tough month - mainly for Kelly. The little man was laid out with a major virus for more than 10 days that had us worried and resulted in a few mad dashes to the hospital. Everything he ate/drank was coming out faster than we could put it in, he was running a 100+ fever and had lost nearly 20% of his body weight when he started to get better. No sooner had that happened then I helped Kel celebrate Mothers Day with my own concentrated version of the virus and as a celebration Kel spent the day cleaning up my projectile vomit in the bathroom.

All behind us now - we spent Sunday enjoying the great Sydney winter weather with an early beachside breakfast with friends and then headed downtown for a trip to the Museum of Contemporary Art and a stroll around the Rocks followed by salt and pepper squid a few beers - the Mothers Day we didn't quite have.

Cheers,

Mark

P.S. Kelly has also been tryng her hand at song writing, ask her to sing her Cheeky Monkey song next time you see her. Quite impressive!

WE'RE COMING TO AMERICA....TODAY!!!!

(Insert Neil Dimond theme music) Actually we are not coming to America today, but we have just booked a trip to Seattle for June. Luca and I will be in Seattle June 6 - 24 and Mark will join us June 13 - 23. We can't wait to catch up with all of our friends and family and introduce Luca to everyone! See you all soon! - kel

A Huskie in the Making…

Yes this photo was taken in secret! I just have to thank everyone for all the Huskie gear we have received for Luca. All of the loyal fans, Dad, Christy, Andrea (just to name a few) have sent Luca huskie gear to get him all ready for his collegiate years stateside. I think it’s been decided, there are now two Huskie fans living at 45 Bennett. -kel

Girls Night Out

My mothers group had a girls night out on Saturday night at a new bar in Manly, The Cove Bar. We had our own room and got the full VIP treatment. All the husbands stayed home with the kids, report on Monday morning was no serious dramas, other than a few hang-over’s here and there. All the girls dressed up and ditched the mommy gear for tank tops and sparkles. It was a fabulous night, lots of laughs, a few sketchy encounters, some breast pumping in the loo and yes even some talk about the babies! Thanks to Julie for organizing...we all can’t wait to do it again! -kel

I'm A Wild One

We’ve had some crazy rain in our part of Sydney over the past two weeks which is both a cause for celebration and some disappointment for Kelly & I.

As I mentioned in our blog about our trip to Mudgee there really is a water issue, (lack of water), in Australia in general at the moment, it is front page news and an election issue for state and federal elections. Even in Sydney our dam levels are at less than 40% of capacity. Although where we live we seem to get plenty of rain there are still water restrictions on things like watering the garden and washing cars. So rain is appreciated, especially given the avid gardeners that Kelly and I have become and our zealousness for filling our newly installed rain water tank.

The sad part of all the rain is that we have just had four days off for Easter and we have been housebound for most of it (although we have made the most of it getting a few projects finished that we have been promising to complete since we moved into our house). We had planned to take Luca to the zoo which would have been fun – well at least we still have it to look forward to.

The other cause for celebration is that Luca has his first tooth, he is growing up fast and of course with that comes his rebellious years. As you can see from the photo he is already wearing punk rock t-shirts and hanging out in the pub!



The photo is actually from the Alexandria Hotel, no catering to yuppie tastes here, the pub is old school (one of the shrinking few in Sydney) and Kelly and I know it as not only a place to get a good schooner of “Black” but also the best steak sandwiches in Sydney. We had to do our job as parents and introduce the little man to our secret (although he prefers a schooner of milk to our beer at the moment – give him a couple of years!).

The Iggy Pop t-shirt, which we love, was a present from my cousin Aaron and his wife Alessandra. “Gotta break it loose, Gonna keep em movin wild, Gonna keep a swingin baby, I’m a real wild child” - could this be Luca’s anthem, we hope not!
Cheers - M

Luca has nerdy parents...

Yes, Mark and I have been described as "techies" by our families, we did get very excited over the weekend when we purchased a wireless router, we have 6 computers between the two of us and we have our own blog. Yesterday, however, we hit an all time techie high, we registered Luca (our 16 week old son) for email addresses at yahoo, hotmail and gmail. We did this so he could get a good address. Honestly, we have his long term emailing best interests at heart...we didn't want him to have some funky address when he goes to sign up for accounts in 10 years; we worried luca.ferguson@hotmail.com could be taken. Never fear though he's got: luca.ferguson@hotmail.com luca.ferguson@gmail.com and luca.ferguson@yahoo.com.au. Feel free to send him email any time, might be a while before he responds...gotta learn to type first...-kel

Romania Day 2

Yesterday afternoon we a took a short tour of Bucharest. We toured the 3 main cultural centers of Bucharest, including the Peoples Building (2nd largest administrative building in the world), the medieval center and the religious heart of the city (a beautiful old Orthodox Church). Bucharest is built around a river, with huge boulevards and lots of large buildings. The most amazing thing about the tour was the youth of the architecture, most of the buildings were stone and looked very old, drab and brown, many even looked like they were falling apart. Most of the buildings were built in the last 30 years. When they were built they were simply designed in an older style to create the appearance of old buildings. Historically buildings in Bucharest were made of wood, as a result there were catastrophic fires on a regular basis wiping out huge sections of the city.

Our tour guide was very funny, poor English and extremely odd phrases. She was very informative and I did learn a great deal about the revolution (in 1989) that ended socialism in Romania.
Shockingly we had another all meat dinner, and to clarify I mean all meat. On the large family style plate we could dish up from, we had our choice of bear, turkey, lamb, liver, turkey (or maybe it was chicken), boar, pork and to be honest a few more I am not really sure of. As most of my friends and family know, I am not a big meat eater, let alone sketchy meat cooked in potentially unhygienic standards…bottom line, Romania has been a great step on the road to my pre-baby figure! -kel

Romania

An all meat dinner and smoking inside the office building. Romania is an interesting place, I haven’t seen much of the country yet but today we are taking tour of the city. More pics to come. Bucharest at sunrise this morning.

26 hours in London

Yesterday I had 26 hours in London with my boss. In the morning he drug me around to some of the historical sights, in the afternoon I drug him into some shops then we spent about 7 hours in an old English pub getting fairly sloshed with a few other Aussies who used to work in the MSFT Sydney office. It was pouring down rain, but good fun. Here is a picture of me at Buckingham Palace. I am missing Mark and Luca tons, very strange to be away from them. They seem to be doing well without me, thank goodness for webcams and email! -kel

Oh the joys of living in Australia

Tomorrow I officially end my maternity leave and head back to work. I am off to Romania for a meeting for work and will leave Mark and Luca here in Australia. As I am getting packed to go I am reminded of the top 11 reason I love living in Australia:
1. A foot long lizard recently walked into our back door for a neighborly visit.
2. As we drove home from a fish and chips dinner a small 3 inch lizard clung to the hood of our car. When I got out of the car, I said "welcome to the neighborhood"
3. We have a pool.
4. Words used as work on a regular basis include, here within, whilst, wanker and bloody.
5. Wine, wine and more wine, it's cheap and it's yummy and I seem to take after my mom and aunties and drink quite a bit!
6. There is an amazing view around every corner.
7. I've done so many trips to the "tip" (Aussie for dump) whilst (see #4 I am trying to fit in) building the house, I've actually made friends with the people that work there, last week the woman showed me pictures of her sons wedding and I showed her pictures of Luca.
8. Mothers group. This is a group of woman in my general area who all had babies around the same time as I. We meet at the beach every week for coffee and chat. Instant friends and total fun!
9. Nordstrom now ships to Australia, what more could a girl ask for?
10. The beach is so close to our house that in the morning I can actually smell the salt water.
11. As Auntie Tiffany has pointed out, Luca will have an Aussie accent.
-kel

Mudgee revisited

Those of our avid regular readers (right!) will remember that Kel and I took a trip to Mudgee in Jan 2006... we enjoyed it so much we headed back, this time with a special guest. Luca is a dream passenger - four and half hours in the car with a brief stop for a feed and not a word out of him - although he loves the Waylon Jennings live CD and sings up a storm everytime we put it on - advanced musical taste for his age, we'll just bypss the Wiggles thanks.

There's some good country driving out to Mudgee, no highways for the last 100 miles but with good visiability and rolling hills it is enjoyable. Some areas are really dry out there ... we're having a rain issue in inland Austalia at the moment.

Mudgee is an up and coming wine region and Kelly and I really enjoy a couple of the wines from out there ... so a visit to these vineyards was on the cards as was a visit to a couple of olive oil places that were closed last time we went. We stayed at this crazy B&B, the Beverley House... crazy because it is decorated with such ostentacious random stuff that some how works when put all together, we slept on a four post bed with statues all around us ... they added a pool during the past year which was a real bonus as it is usually in the high 90's F this time of year.

Anyways... we get in at 2pm, get the little man settled and head straight out to the main olive oil place we wanted to visit the last time ... closed again, they don't re-open until the first weekend in March (next week!), this story was repeated at every olive oil place around - next time we go it will be March or later. That was the bad, the good was that we saw Kangaroos jumping around in the wild again and our favorite vineyard was having a huge sale for their wine club members, which we are ... an added reason to come visit us, nice wine for dinner every night!

The whole trip was fun, we mixed it up on the way back driving down a few goat tracks to get to some seriously small towns with a ton of character - Lue & Kandos. And to top it all off we get back to Sydney and it has been raining solidly - the rain dances I have been doing since we got our new water tank have worked - I'm the only reliable white shamen working the northern beaches of Sydney!

We live in a land down under where women glow and men thunder! Cheers.

A face only a mother could love...

Luca is a remarkably good baby, cries on average less than 5 min. each day. He is super happy little boy full of smiles. On the rare occasion he does cry Mark and I usually can't help but laugh because he pulls the funniest faces. Here is one recently caught on camera! - kel

Baptism BBQ

Sunday Luca was baptized at the Catholic church here in Curl Curl. Similar to church services in Australia, it was short and sweet, at times I thought the priest may have thought he was in a speed reading contest. None the less it was a nice ceremony. After the service we had our first BBQ at the house with about 50 of our friends and family. Luca slept through the entire event! The pool was a big hit with the kids, Mark christened the new BBQ with a huge feast and it was fantastic to finally see the house box free and fully unpacked! -kel

Port Stephens

We took a well earned break from painting, cleaning, unpacking and re-packing to get away for a couple of days three hrs north of Sydney in Port Stephens. We buckled the little man up and he travelled like a champion on his first vacation - barely a peep out of him, although I swear we caught him singing along with the Waylon Jennings CD a couple of times.

Port Stephens is awesome, as Kelly said it is hard to believe it is so close to Sydney you really feel like you are on an island somewhere (yeah, I know Australia is an island ... you know what I mean). We stayed in Nelsons Bay but also checked out a couple of other spots near by and we really liked those ... Shoal Bay and Fingal Bay are really, really beautiful.

Although there are Koala crossing signs on the roads we didn't see any although Kel gave it her best shot and probably has a kink in her neck still from all the time she spent looking up in the trees as we drove and walked around. It was a pretty chilled time we did little more than go to the beach (Luca was automatic with his screaming as soon as I put his feet in), walk around the waterfront, eat well and have a few beers. Kelly made lunch reservations on the way back at the Wonganella Winery - cool place, nice food and I hear the wine is good although I was happy with a vanilla milkshake.

We took the scenic route back to Sydney through Newcastle and I entertained(?) Kelly with stories about my previous trips to the area. It was great to get away and hopefully we'll make it back up to Port Stephens sometime soon. 2007 is off and flying, I can't believe it is February already!

I love my auntie

Luca was perplexed when I told him Aunt Tiffany was a Cougar fan. Then I told him her and Uncle Jeff would some day (hopefully soon) have cousins for him to play with. For now he is willing to overlook her allegiance to WSU.

smiles, smiles and more smiles

This weeks milestone with Luca has been smiling. He is ticklish under his arms and smiles all the time. He weighed in today at 5.24 kilo's (about 11 1/2 lbs.) and received a clean bill of health from the doctor. Mark and I continue to enjoy being parents and are still in awe that Luca is our baby! -kel