Bonjour from France

I've been in Paris this week for work and am staying over the weekend to see the sites, do some shopping and fill up on as many croissants as possible! Here are a few photos of the sunrise from my hotel room this morning, still suffering from Jet Lag I was up very early. My hotel is in Montparnasse, out my window I over look the Cimetiere du Montparnasse. It's a cold day today, about 38F and raining...but it's Paris, so I love it cold or not! -kel

Happy Easter

Luca playing with his new wooden lighthouse courtsey of the Easter Bunny. It's a nice warm day in Sydney today, we've had a quiet Easter this year enjoying time together over a nice long weekend. We wish you all a very Happy Easter. Cheers -kel

oh the joys of dinner time!

Going South: Coonawarra & back to Melb (Feb 20-23)

Out of Port Fairy we made good time to the South Australia border. We got out of the car to take the obligatory tourist pic "You are now entering South Australia" and parked next to a herd of cows. To date we had seen a lot of cool animals on this trip, both native and non-native, but it was the cows that Luca loved, we got back in the car and he was mooing - funny. We followed the coast all the way to Port MacDonnell (saw some emu's and kangaroos running/hopping along next to us as we drove along) then headed straight up to Penola (Coonawarra) through Mount Gambia (which aside from poor road signage has an amazing blue lake).


Coonawarra is a renowned red win area in Australia, something to do with the thin layer of terra rossa soil on a limestone base. The wine area is relatively small and low key but everything is very accessible, the people at the cellar doors very friendly and there were some beautiful old buildings at most of the wineries. A good mate of mine, Dave Ronson, is the GM of a big wine producer in Australia and they have a winery in Coonawarra so we were set up on a tour of the Brands winery. It was great, we learned a ton - thanks David. Some great wine and generally a good time and again Kelly booked a real winner for accomodation in the town of Penola.


After Coonawarra we headed back to Melbourne with a night in Ballarat. We spent our last night in Melbourne staying on Chapel St which is the shopping capital of the country. Kelly had a great time checking out the stores but I know she could have spent more time there if Luca and I weren't with her. We checked out downtown Melbourne - which is so busy even on the weekends and has some great arcades and reno's of old buildings and finally headed out to the airport to catch the flying Kangaroo home. The end of an awesome adventure.

Cheers all.

Going South: The 12 Apostles (Feb 19)

The morning ritual on this trip of a coffee and a pastry behind us we headed away from the windy roads into the Ottway National Park. We drove through some great forests to get to our first stop Cape Ottway Lighthouse. The Lighthouse was cool, some great views and some awesome old buildings. We explored around for a while but were careful to stay on the trails as there were signs warning that "snakes are active at this time of year". On the way out of national park we saw two colonies of koala's in trees just off of the road - this was the first time in all my years (and that is saying something) that I have seen a koala in the wild. They were so close and there were half a dozen of them.


Then onto the 12 Apostles - totally spectacular. You see them in ads for Australia but they are more impressive to see first hand. The whole coast down that way is rough and beautiful and after the Apostles we visted a few less famous rock formations that were also cool.

We stopped for lunch in Port Campbell and given it was pushing 100 degrees I also took a dip - the water was freezing, painful freezing and it took me a couple of attempts to dive in completely.

That night we stayed in Port Fairy, Kelly got us upgraded to a three bedroom suite so Luca had even more exploring to do. It also allowed us to have a seperate room from the little guy for the first time on the trip so we celebrated with a few beers and pizza.

Going South: The Great Ocean Road (Feb 18)

Across the Westgate bridge and off toward Geelong we got out of Melbourne early and just in time for Luca's morning nap. We stopped at the tourist info office in Geelong to get some maps of the Great Ocean Road. The ladies at the tourist info. loved their jobs and were proud residents of Geelong. When I told them I was skipping town as soon as they gave me the maps they went into overdrive on what there was to see in Geelong, where I should get some breakfast and why I should let Luca have a run around before continuing on toward Lorne. The ladies even pulled out the testimonial postcards from Canada and Sweden from people they had helped who were so inspired by Geelong they had to write and express their thanks upon returning home. Kelly and I are a much tougher sell - onwards to Lorne.

This first part of the Great Ocean Road has crazy roads, you hug cliffs on windy roads way above the ocean. I'm sure the view is great but I was keeping my eyes on the road. We got a laugh out of the road signs that showed a zig zaggy black line with "windy road next 120kms" - we are used to seeing the same signs with the label "windy road next 5kms" (or next 10kms...any distance far short of 100kms). We stopped in at Lorne for breakfast and Luca had a run in the park. Then on to Apollo Bay.



Kelly had booked a great place to stay for our first night out of Melbourne, it was out of town a ways and right above the ocean and had killer views. After checking in we headed in to Apollo Bay past rows of crazy wind swept trees and some cool houses. Apollo Bay is a cool small town itself but with temps in the mid 90's we headed straight to the beach.

If Luca has had more fun at any point in his life I would be suprised - he covered himself with muddy sand, he was a mess and when we finally left the beach he was none too impressed.

That night we enjoyed an awesome sunset and a swim in the pool and Luca enjoyed exploring a new hotel room. I would have been happy to stay here for a few days but at the same time I was looking forward to seeing the 12 Apostles and London Bridge.

Going South: Melbourne (Feb 16/17)

We were up before the roosters and Luca was looking at us thinking "what's going on here, I'm supposed to be waking them up" as we headed to the airport at quarter of five to catch the flying kangaroo south to Melbourne. The little guy took some serious entertaining on the plane but we got there, got our car and headed out on our first big family adventure (needless to say Kel was prepared with a bound book packed with printed sheets of all our reservations, maps, emergency numbers and shopping destinations she wanted to get to on the trip).

We haven't been to Melbourne since Kelly was in the morning sickness stage while expecting Luca and all that time I have been hanging out for a vanilla slice from Akland St, St Kilda - it was our first stop and I wasn't disappointed. After breaky we headed east to visit a couple of fabric stores Kel had had recommended to her by her blogging pals. I think Kel thought the stores were good, but to be honest Luca and I were just soaking up the warm weather and sunshine - something Sydney has not turned on this summer. It was actually cool to get out to the stores, they were in areas of Melbourne I hadn't been to before and I enjoyed having a sticky beak.

The rest of that day we did some catching up with our friends Adam and Amanda (who helped us enormously by loaning us their porta cot for the week) and Franc and Di. During our visits with both Luca managed to get himself soaking wet, first at a restaurant where he poured drinking water all over himself more than once and then at Franc and Di's house where Luca filled their daughter Sabrina's play kitchen sink with water and then splahed it everywhere. He had fun!

Sunday morning we headed up to Kelly's favourite, Brunetti off of Lygon Street in Carlton. We had a great breakfast and left with boxes full of Italian pastries.

Later we met Franc, Di and Sabrina again and headed out to Werribee open plain zoo. As I said in my last blog about Melbourne (April 2006), no trip to Melbourne would be complete without catching these guys, we have had some great times together over the years and I am so happy that Kelly has really connected with them as well. The zoo was pretty cool, I had expected to see the odd Kangaroo on the trip but not hippo's, rhino's, giraffe's and lions.

On our way back to Melbourne we stopped in at Williamstown for some Gelatto - we seriously had 50 places to choose from. I had never been to Williamstown, another side to Melbourne, and somewhere I would definitely visit again. We grabbed some Chinese take-away for dinner and Luca enjoyed exploring the hotel and then we all dozed off looking forward to the road trip part of the adventure starting tomorrow.

Bath Time

and you all thought I would only post photos of Luca in the bath! Luca doesn't like to take baths, we have no idea why. We are persevering however, he is your typical boy and is a dirt magnet! Our solution has been for either Mark or I to take a bath with him, so far so good. Photo above is of Mark and Luca last night in the bath! -kel

Petting Zoo

During the holidays we took Luca to the zoo. This was his first zoo visit and lucky Luca he was able to touch a small python. I was freaking out, meanwhile Luca could not take his hands off the beast! If given the choice I am sure he would have taken the snake home with him. Note that our next trip to the zoo Mark will be the one holding Luca for any snake petting! Luca is doing great and has made a full recovery from his sickness. We are enjoying summer with lots of beach time and lazy relaxing walks. Here's to no more snake encounters this year! -kel

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year

This Christmas we had more to be thankful for than most. A week before Christmas Luca was airlifted from the Base Hospital in Port Macquarie (5 hrs drive north of Sydney) to the Royal Childrens Hospital at Westmead in western Sydney. We still don't know exactly what went wrong but the strong belief from the Pediatricians is that he contracted a major bacterial infection (they couldn't grow any cultures from his blood or urine so we still don't know for sure). The result was Luca running a fever in the 40's (Celcius) having racing heart at 210 bpm and a white blood cell count off the charts, he spent six days in hospital on a drip running some strong antibiotics through him. We are lucky that we had such an awesome Pediatrician in Port and just general great care in the first 12 hours. We were home for Christmas and Luca was almost back to normal so to say Christmas was a great day is an understatement.

Kelly and I spent the week in hospital sharing a tiny bed and managing a wash each. We were excited to get home and it was awesome to open all of the Christmas cards we got from our friends and family.

Post Christmas the weather has been near perfect and Luca is back to normal so we have been hitting the beach most every day and then heading home for a swim and some lounging around.
We would like to take the chance to pass on our best wishes for the new year. Our friends and family are incredibly important to us and you are all in our thoughts.

All the best for '08

Love,

Luca, Kelly & Mark

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