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