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