Scouty's First Christmas

Santa feasted on a chocolate and caramel candy Koala, peaches and a kids take-out coffee cup as he stacked presents under the tree. The reindeers, or more likely the 12 white boomers (Kangaroos), that carry Santa's sleigh across Australia were heard in the front yard during the night; and there was great anticipation from Luca at what Santa would bring.

Definitely an awesome Christmas mainly because Luca is at the age that it all comes together. Luca even made a big effort to speak with Santa at our annual pre-Christmas trip into the city to meet the man in red and white this year whereas last year there were only tears (Scouty more than made up for things in the tear dept. however and mummy and daddy ended up in the Santa photo again!).

We had a leisurely opening of presents at our place in the morning. Leisurely because Luca wants to take everything out of the box that he gets and play with it immediately and because we try and get Scout to show as much interest in the presents as in the wrapping paper (which if we are not careful ends up in her mouth). 

After opening presents we headed up to my parents house for lunch and a swim before heading home for some left over Turkey and crash.

A great day to reflect on how lucky I am and what a great family I have.

 - M

Christmas Eve

Since we moved into our new house three years ago we have been inviting friends and family over to kick off Christmas celebrations with an amazing dinner that Kelly spends days getting ready. The highlight is always the turkey, people don't cook turkey's so much over here (they are expensive and also there is no Thanksgiving) and everybody at dinner always marvels at how big the bird is.

This year we were joined by family from both sides we had a great time and ate and drank till we dropped (almost). Post-dinner clean up there is always just enough energy to get things all ready for the kids big day.

Mark & Kelly with Mark's sister Susie and her husband Clayton

Merry Christmas and happy new year to you all. 

 - Mark & Kelly

sprinkler

We ignored the water restrictions, had some very funny laughs, threw off Luca's clothes and turned on the back yard sprinkler...fantastic!

Luca had a blast!

Saturday we hosted Luca’s Intergalatic Space 3rd Birthday Party. I can’t believe Luca is 3, he is growing up so fast, seems like just the other day we were taking him home from the hospital!

Luca had a blast at his party. There were cakes, lollie bags, rocket painting and a rocket landed in the back yard just for the party (homemade by Mark’s dad). The weather was perfect, warm but not hot, we served egg and bacon rolls and everyone had a swim. Luca really enjoyed having all of his friends over and on Sunday asked Mark if he could have his party again today. Here are a few photos from the big adventure. -kel

Noosa photo's

Noosa Heads

Luca at main beach Noosa

As a joint birthday gift to ourselves we took a five day holiday to Noosa on Queensland's Sunshine Coast with kids in tow. The plan was to stay near the beach and not get a car so that there was little organising required, just a ton of time to relax at the beach and the pool with the kids. The holiday was everything we had hoped for, and with all that mum & dad time in the pool, Luca's swimming has come on enormously.

Happy Thanksgiving

This week we took a family holiday to Noosa, QLD.  (More on the trip with photos later.)  A highlight of the week for Luca were the wild turkeys wandering all over Noosa. We had no real Thanksgiving celebration here in Australia, apparently it was beach time, not feast time, for the Turkeys. -kel

There is a (new) New Fish in the sea

Summer is here in a big way with a few 100 degree days lately and more coming this week. The pool is getting lots of use. Luca's swimming and enjoyment in the water is night and day versus last summer and Scout has a perma-grin whenever she goes in the water. Scouty's first swimsuit issue audition below (and as you can see she is still waiting for her two top front teeth... maybe she will get them for Christmas).

Melbourne Cup Pool Party

Yesterday I hosted my mothers groups Melbourne Cup Party. It was 35 (110) and steamy so the party was more of a pool party where we watched the horses for about 2 mins. Not really your traditional Melbourne Cup affair. Luca and Scout had a blast. To quote Luca this morning "my friends came over to watch our horses in the pool". Here are a few pics, Scout sporting her first barrette (my attempt at a fascinator). Oh and Shocking won the race, cool name for a horse huh!-kel

Hot and Cold

10 min after Luca went to bed...

Luca: Daddy, daddy, da...dd...yyyy (yelled very loudly from his room)

Mark: Yes Luca (standing in Luca's room)

Luca: I am hot

Mark: Ok mate we can fix that (removes quilt from Luca's bed)

5 min later...

Luca: Daddy, daddy, da...dd...yyyy (yelled very loudly from his room)

Mark: Yes Luca (standing in Luca's room)

Luca: I am cold

Mark: Ok mate we can fix that (put quilt back on Luca's bed and pretends to turn on Luca's heater)

5 min later...

Luca: Daddy, daddy, da...dd...yyy (yelled very loudly from his room)

Mark: Yes Luca (standing in Luca's room)

Luca: I am hot and cold (said with a very very cheaky smile)

Oh the joys of parenthood! -kel

Melbourne (a couple of weeks ago)

It's always a bad year when we don't make it to Melbourne at least once so it was with great enthusiasm that we accepted an invitation to friends Adam and Amanda's wedding ... in Melbourne.

We travelled without the kids, without Scout for the first time, so we were a little sad to leave but the upside was days of sleeping in, long breakfasts in cafes reading magazines and relatively unplanned cruising around.

We stayed in the heart of the action in South Yarra - although in Melbourne the action is really spread out pretty thick. We hit our favourite Italian cafe, Brunetti, and a couple of Kel's favourite fabric stores on the first morning and we spent the afternoon shopping on Chapel St followed by a few beers and sushi for dinner. The sleep in part was an anti-climax, being so used to 6:00AM wake ups accompanied by being woken at least once during the night to adjust blankets or administer a feed, we found we were up and ready to go by 8:30.

Day two was fun, we always manage to discover something new on our trips to Melbourne and this time it was Albert Park. We went there on a whim to a cafe we had read a recommendation about and to visit a store Kelly had seen in a magazine. The cafe was good, although there were half a dozen others on the same strip that could have easily filled the brief, the shop we went to see was marginal at best however the area had a ton of other interesting stores and we ended up spending half a day there and I didn't even make it to Andrew's Burgers (supposedly the best in Melbourne). 

After Albert Park we ticked off another favourite of ours, eating vanilla slices on Ackland St, St Kilda. Full stomachs and back to the hotel for cruisy wedding prep.

The wedding ceremony was out on a pier in the middle of Port Phillip Bay and it was blowing a gale, the 15 minute walk out along the pier was a tough one for Kel. For the ceremony we were in shelter but there was still the walk back to the reception. We had a really fun night and I even got a quick opportunity to show my dance floor clearing moves which always provide Kel a few laughs.

Sunday we caught up with our friends Dieter and Katie who were also down for the wedding from Sydney. We had a great morning wandering the laneways of Melbourne enjoying a lazy breakfast and some window shopping. In the afternoon we visited our good friends Franc and Di (Scouty's god parents), had pizza and watched the rugby league grand final on TV. A quick diversion for gelato on the way home.

Monday involved some more eating and catching up with the newly married couple and then home to see the kids. Melbourne is awesome and so is getting home to see Luca and Scout.

Sneaky Exit From Work

Nothing better than a day that seems like two and no better end to the week than sneaking away from work a little early to hang out with kids at the beach for a few hours. Granted it was still a little chilly, but a million miles from work and only a minute from home, here's to a few more sneaky exits from work and to many hours of fun at the beach this summer for Kelly, Scouty, Luca and I. 

Luca Sings Johnny Cash

Luca's favorite singer is Johnny Cash (clearly influenced by Mark!).  Tonight he was in performance mode...-kel

Spring Weekend

We've had a busy few weeks, Mark and I have both had heaps on with work and we took a long four day's in Melbourne (kid free) last weekend.  Since we were kid free last weekend, this weekend it was all about the kidos...Saturday I took Luca and his best friend Sean to see the Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends Show, Sunday was lunch at our favorite Aussie Pie shop and a picnic in the park.  Scout is crawling everywhere, chasing Luca.  Luca is talking non-stop and his imagination is running wild.  Seeing the two of them together is amazing.  We are really looking forward to a nice warm summer and can't wait to see these two in the ocean! -kel

Dust Storm

This morning we awoke to bright red skies, it was unlike anything I've ever seen in my life.  Sydney was hit by a dust storm, gale force winds have been blowing dust from Australia's red center through the entire state.  At 6:30 AM it should have been bright and sunny, instead the skies were so full of dust it was a bright red day.  Truly unbelievable.  I took a few photos (above over our cabana and pool), however check these out from the Sydney Morning Herald. The skies have now cleared to a very windy day...time to wash the car and dust the entire house top to toe!-kel

Father's Day

Not just a Father's "day" this year I got an entire Father's weekend!

On Saturday we went over the "big" bridge to Rozelle for a bit of exploring and lunch with my parents. Back tracking slightly... before we made it to the "big" bridge Luca vomited in the car. Luckily Kel carries a change of clothes for each of the kids in their diaper bag so we snuck into someone's yard washed off the clothes, changed Luca and we were on our way.

We spent a bit of time at the Rozelle markets walking around. The markets are in the grounds of the elementary school that my mum and I both went to so it is always a bit of a nostalgia trip - but hey, it's my weekend so I can indulge myself. Kel and my dad accosted the coach of the footy team we support, the Balmain Tigers, (the guy was just trying to enjoy a lazy Saturday visiting the markets) and gave him the third degree about not making the play-offs this year. We brought a few things and Luca was sick again - Kel is always prepared but not that prepared so Luca came away with a new t-shirt.

An enjoyable lunch at the Three Weeds and a few beers down we headed home for the nights entertainment.

On Saturday night Kelly had organised for us to go to a black tie fund raiser for Bear Cottage. A rare chance to get all dressed up. It was a lot of fun and all for a great cause.

Sunday the festival of the father continued with the purchase of a new car, very unexpectedly, which Kelly positioned as a surprise Father's Day present (a bit sneaky if you ask me!). Our current car is coming off lease soon. We had identified what we wanted to replace it and after looking for a few weeks to get a feel for the market we found exactly what were looking for on Sunday morning.

The action continued ... off to football (soccer) for our last game of the season (we got whacked) with the game followed by a bbq with all the players families afterwards.

I already knew I had the best family in the world but after getting a whole Father's "weekend" I feel incredibly blessed.

Fire House Visit

One of the girls in my mothers group arranged for a visit to a Fire House in the city.  Her brother is the chief of the house so the kids got to enjoy an extra special tour including trying out the hoses!  Needless to say, Luca had a BLAST! -kel

crawling lessons

Luca giving Scouty "crawling lessons" over the weekend.  She's rolling and soon to be on the move. -kel

double decker

Mark, Luca & Scout at the markets this weekend.  Mark got a great workout carrying these two around on a beautiful winters day in Sydney. -kel

picture of you taking a picture of me...

Our little man is growing up, he’s a walking talking decision making bundle of energy. His latest love, photography. Camera above built of Lego courtesy of Daddy. On the Christmas list from Santa…a kids digital camera maybe??? Posting here has been sparse as our home computer had a complete hard drive failure, we need a new computer. Now our big decision….do we go MAC??? -kel

Rainy June

The end of May and all of June have been rainy. Not much fun to be stuck inside when you are two and half so as well as Art & Moves, swimming lessons, mothers group get togethers and library craft days we try and get Luca (and Scouty) out as much as possible. We are lucky to have a number of cool playgrounds (toys as Luca calls them) close by... and monkeys are welcome!

Sewing up a storm...

Scout like Luca is an amazingly happy little baby. She is all smiles all the time and has made the last few months nothing but fun! Since she sleeps through the night and for a good part of every day I've had plenty of time to do a number of sewing projects. Below is a slide show of some of the things I've made, mostly for Scout but a few other things here and there as well. As you will see, I went just a little bit crazy on the girly dress making! -kel

Scout's Baptism

Once again we were amazingly lucky, after a week of solid rain, the sky's parted just in time for Scout's baptism followed by a big party at our house to celebrate. Scout slept right through the ceremony at church and through most of the party at home. She was all smiles when she was awake and loved being passed around from person to person. Luca too had a blast, using the opportunity of a house full of people to head straight for all of the "no go zones". He spent more than half of the party dropping rocks into a bucket of water with the other kids. After the forth shirt change he decided to stay out of the water. It's autumn in Sydney, although a lovely sunny day, it just wasn't warm enough to be wearing a wet shirt. Endless cake, triangle sandwiches, beer and wine were consumed, smiles and laughter filled the house, one of the best parties we've had! After everyone left last night Mark and I did talk about how lovely the day was and how much we missed all of our other friends and family who weren't here to join us on this perfect day. Missing you all so much today. -kelly

Scout being baptised by Father John Hannon

St. Mary's Church Manly

Franc, Daniel, Diana and Sabrina Renzi (Scout's godparents & their children)

Mark, Scout, Luca, Kelly, Margaret and Graham Ferguson

St. Mary's Church Manly

Pink cupcakes and white flowers filled the house

Luca and friend Joska having a blast in the bucket of water.

Scout asleep through it all in the silk dress I made just for her.

Mothers Day

We celebrated Mothers Day at one of my favorite pubs, the Three Weeds. Fantastic food, great atmosphere and the most amazing company Mark, Luca and Scout. Now if I just could have had Luca and Scout sit still for a photo! -kel

West Oz – Pt IV: Margaret’s & Yallingup

The last part of our adventure. After an uneventful drive from Esperance to Albany and an overnight stay (apart from the speeding ticket I have decided I like Albany a lot). We headed north toward Margaret River and Yallingup – renowned wine territory and in size at least much more like the coastal holiday destinations we have been in Australia before.

Many more towns to pass through on this part of the drive, a great coastal stop in Denmark (again, amazing coastline and beach) but the memorable part of this day was the short cut we took that resulted in 40kms of backcountry unsealed roads with a logging truck on our tail and grave doubts in our mind the whole way that we would get to the end of the road and it would be a dead end – it wasn’t a dead end, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger and we arrived at where we were staying and it was one of the coolest places I have stayed at – check out the link (Smiths Beach) and look at the “gallery” section.

Each of the days that we were here we visited a few wineries in the morning (and brought a case each day – some awesome shiraz and cab savs from this area), spent the afternoon at the beach and the pool where we were staying had a quick visit to the local providore followed by Kelly making an awesome dinner and enjoying a bottle of the wine we had brought that day. The drives between wineries were fun with fields of what from a distance look like sheep but turned out to be kangaroos and another being deer (a venison farm).



We had a few days in Perth to end the holiday, we explored around a bit more and found some neighbourhoods that we really liked, went to the beach, Luca went to Zoo with Em and Corey, we celebrated Emmy’s 11th birthday and finally we were ready to go home.

West Oz – Pt III: Esperance

Leaving Albany we had planned on getting a few things for the road but we had also forgotten Australia shuts down on Good Friday – nothing open accept a gas station (luckily!). On the way out of Albany I also fell into a speeding trap and I am eagerly awaiting a ticket in the mail – unsigned speed camera in a 90km area about four hundred metres from the start of 110km speed zone – get me out of Albany.

The drive from Albany to Esperance is 500km and there are two small towns (two gas stations, no fast food chain, and a pub type towns) to pass through – and I don’t mean that you travel on a freeway and bypass the towns, there is no freeway and no bypass. Luckily the vegetation changes a lot as you go and it is really beautiful in many places. Getting back to the point I was about to make – before we left Seattle Kelly and I were enjoying a meat pie in Burien (outside of Seattle) and there was a large map of Australia on the wall, we decided to do the “spin around five times and put your finger on the map thing” and one of the places we hit was this dinky little town called Ravensthorpe – well Ravensthorpe is one of the two towns that we passed through so we had some personal excitement for the drive.

We made Esperance late in the afternoon and my sister and her family were already there having driven from Perth the day before. After getting settled our first trip was to this old wooden pier that in its day was used to transport iron ore to ships out in the bay but now supports about 500 fisher people. There is a very smart (and very fat) sea lion that basically lives at the pier eating the scraps when fish are cleaned after being caught. Luca enjoyed seeing the sea lion and he also helped his cousin Emilly catch a fish – he was so excited about the fish flapping around on the hook that he kissed it (see pic below).

Esperance sells itself as having the best beaches in Australia – it may have the best beaches in the world. The coastline down here is crazy beautiful (my pictures do not do it justice). We had a fun time swimming at a beach with dolphins, visiting an petting zoo, Luca got to ride a miniature train, I ventured to the pub to watch some footy – but basically we just hung out a lot with my sister and her family. It was also an adventure packing all four of us in a small hotel room. From his cot next to our bed, Luca made regularly commentary through the night – mostly telling me to stop moving so much.

West Oz – Pt II: Albany

A four and a half hour drive from Perth to Albany and not a lot in between. We made a brief stop in Williams and had lunch in Kojunup. Pies and a playground for an hour. Both Luca and Scout were great in the car and slept a lot of the way. We arrived in Albany late in the day, Kelly had booked a really cool house right next to the beach. The beach was beautiful so we took a walk before dinner (pic below). A notable night because Luca spent his first night in a “big boy” bed.

The next day coffee (bad) and some shopping behind us we set out to explore Albany. Albany is an old whaling town and was the first town settled in W.A. – a lot of history and a lot of old buildings around. Albany is on the Southern Ocean so it is hit by winds and wild seas straight up from Antarctica and as a result of this it has some very cool coastline and a massive windmill farm. The highlight of the day for us (Kelly may be torn on that statement given she found “bargain” fabric at a local store) was the windmill farm. I know it sounds very boring but with a fog in and the way they sit on the coastline they were very eerie but looked very cool at the same time. On the way out to the windmills, driving along a dirt road, a joey kangaroo jumped out in front of us and it’s mother was right behind it. As they bounced off down the road Kel and I both turned around to see if Luca had seen it and he was sound asleep.


Another great thing about staying in a house is that it has cooking facilities which saves us from multiple nights of take-away which would be the only other valid option with Luca and Scout in tow. On our last night in Albany we went to the local Dan Murphy’s bottle shop to get a bottle of wine to enjoy with dinner and there were crazy scenes! ... lots of people with multiple shopping carts full of booze at the check out getting ready for the Easter holidays – they do things a bit differently in rural Australia, chocolate eggs on the rocks.

West Oz – Pt I: Perth

We had a lot of fun last year road tripping around the south east part of Australia so we decided to head out again, this time around the south west part of the country (Perth to Esperance through Albany and Margaret River). Scouty’s first big adventure!

Luca had been speaking about visiting his cousins Corey and Emilly for weeks and was excited to be going on “holidays” in an “airplane” and taking “suitcases”. The first hurdle came up before taking off when we had to check bags. Luca wanted the suitcases to literally travel with us and wasn’t happy when they were taken away. After that he wasn’t about to surrender his back pack without a fight at security - we got him through but he was unhappy until Kelly took him up to the Qantas lounge and he got to pick out some food and drinks. The 4+ hour flight to Perth went well, mainly thanks to on-demand entertainment service and the novelty of wearing a “music hat” (head phones) for Luca – through all this not a peep from Scout.

We spent the first four days with my sister and her family in Perth. Luca loves hanging out with his cousin’s and they are great with him. We checked out the city, went down to Freemantle, picked the kids up from school and watched Em play volleyball for the school. Of course we also hit a number of parks so that Luca could play on the toys, the highlight being Kings Park with awesome views of the city and a great kids area (see Dinosaur pic below). Perth is a nice city, great outdoor facilities (parks, river area and cycle ways), it is growing quickly but definitely feels (and is) much smaller than Sydney.


A fully loaded car, the kids in car seats, snacks all packed and Kelly’s meticulous planning behind us we left Perth and headed south along the Albany Hwy.

Family Photo

Our first family photo at our local beach last weekend. I know you think we are crazy for so much beach time, but reality hit me on Wednesday when I was touring the local Catholic School. PE class for year 4 is surfing at the beach across the street. Luca and Scout don't know how lucky they have it, in the mean time I'll be spending as much time at the beach as possible, I want them to get A's in year 4 PE right? -kel

Daddy's Little Girl

Mark and Scout at Yum Cha.

South Curly

Yesterday we had our first family outing to the beach, the water was beautiful and we avoided the sharks that have been spotted all over Sydney in the last few weeks. Luca has become very confident in the water and is working on his sand castle building skills! A great time was had by all, here's to many more Saturday's spent at the beach as a family! -kel

Scout snaps