Chloe is Awesome

I think Chloe might be heir to the Pink Nails legacy

Zoo day

I spent sunny Sunday at the zoo celebrating Ryan’s 2nd birthday. The conversation might have led bystanders to believe that we were actually a gathering of the local Poo Appreciation Society – except that every other kid in the place was talking about poo too. Miles suggested that the giraffe was due for a nappy change.

Sorry, I have no idea what kind of bird this is

An echidna

Birthday cake

Birthday presents

My brilliant sitting career

On Saturday, Chloe came over and we hung out for the day while her older sisters did “big kid” stuff…Lame-o. I took Chloe on a MASSIVE walk for a three-year-old – all the way to the supermarket. I was able to gauge whether I had exhausted her too much with the playground test. If we walked past a playground and she made a run for the slide, then I knew she still had a few hundred metres left in her. In fact, the only time we passed a playground without playing on it, we were so close to home that I convinced her that lunch and a rest were just around the corner.

We went to the supermarket to buy ingredients for….BLUE CAKES!

Smile!

I mentioned to Chloe that we were a great cooking team, and she cried, “Team Work!” and showed me how to press our thumbs together which signifies team work. Obvs.

Go team!

After babysitting on Saturday, today I’ve begun house/cat sitting at Lara’s house.

A sunny disposition

My home office for the week

My raison detre

In other news, I got a new phone today and it has a full alphabet of keys. Jeeeeealous…? I now have the gadgetry to match my super professional heart and soul. In fact, my gadget inventory is getting kind of out of hand. I have:

• Laptop
• Camera
• Ipod
• Audio recorder
• External hard drive (the extremely cute WD Passport) x2
• All associated accessories such as chargers, spare batteries, tripod and cables
• Various thumb drives, quantity dependent on how many I can find on a given day
• And now the fancy phone to replace my old piece of junk.

All of these things are independently compact (apart from my dinosaur computer), but put all these tiny objects together and it’s getting a little heavy to carry around with me – which I do most days because you never know what you’re going to need. The problem is, buying one item that serves the purpose of two or more of these things FEELS.LIKE.EVIL. Replace a decent camera with a stupid little thing in a phone…uh, no. A phone with a few gb to play music as a replacement for an 80gb Ipod. Impossible! Now that I know the joy of carrying my entire music collection around with me I couldn’t possibly go back a small sample of a few hundred songs.

In the wise words of Greg, “THAT’S A BANANA!”

Port Fairy

I got back from Bangkok just in time to join everyone on a holiday down at the beach. It’s the middle of winter here so this was more of a “look at the beach from the vantage point of a wood fire” kind of beach holiday.

The Beach House

We stayed in a great house just outside of Port Fairy, called Bluestone Bay. It comes highly recommended by the people at Where Is Sarah? It was huge, warm, had a great kitchen and totally comfy couches. But the best bit was the view:

View from the house

View of the house

View out the back

Braving the cold to get some pics

Play time

The weather was lovely for most of the trip. After a few days of mild, sunny weather there was a bit of rain. Which obvs means….

Puddles!

Reuben loves muddles (mud + puddles)

It's a COW!

Chloe and the very hungry caterpillar

Seriously fuzzy caterpillar

Venturing further afield

One day we decided to go for a walk to the lighthouse, then we realised that the lighthouse was a few kms further than any kid was interested in. But we went for a wander anyway. The weather was great and the kids were happy to go climbing on mildly dangerous rocks along the coastline.

What better use for a rock at the beach

Strike a pose

I wanna throw the rock into the ocean Sar...

But then it got cold…

Abby realising that she's over it

Wait for me Mum!

Muuuuuum!!

After a week of taking turns to babysit the twins inside the house (a great way to ensure an afternoon nap by the fire), Jess decided it was their turn to go for a walk along the beach.

Twins go for a walk

Eventually it was time to leave Bluestone Bay.

Before we go home...we have to make at least one sandcastle

The others headed back to Melbourne to resume work/school/regular life, while MJ and I headed in the opposite direction for another few days, but I’ll save those photos for tomorrow.

The last of the Photikans

So I did a rubbish job of reporting on my last trip to Australia. I didn’t take many photos while I was at home (I was too busy sleeping), and because my “reports” of travel are just strings of photos with captions I don’t have much to work with.

So just to make it feel like I’ve met the minimum reporting requirements here are a few random photos from my trip and we will just call it even, OK?

The Night of Jess and Beck’s Double-birthday Extravaganza

Lara at the European after Jess and Beck's birthday

I would add some photos from the party but it’s hard to pick my favourite one out of 500 photos of 17 drunk people trying to squeeze into one shot. I might just create a hall of fame. That reminds me, did I mention the party? In case I didn’t…Jess turned 30 and Beck turned 40 and it was a ridiculously funny party. There were even chocolate cupcakes with pink icing…so we smashed them in each other’s faces. Obvs.

Museum Day

I took heaps of photos the day Meaghan, Clare, Ryan, Miles and I went to the museum.

Skeletosaurus

Ryan in the museum playground

Fountain in Carlton Gardens

Ryan resting by the fountain

Miles exploring the garden

Clare and Meaghan walking through the gardens to the tram

Ollie and Liam turn 1!

The other time I took my camera out was another lovely Melbourne day out. Ollie and Liam’s first birthday at the Children’s Farm and Convent.

Sarah tries to get a smile out of Ollie...Ollie is not impressed

Chloe and Rueben (this is one photo out of a very funny series)

Nanna, Liam and Ollie

Done! that’s a load off my shoulders…

Short trip to Rushworth (all those who understand the double meaning raise your hand)

In my short trip back to Australia I was able to squeeze in a trip to Rushworth (in between my busy sleep schedule). Here are some photos:

1. One of the most compelling reasons to squeeze in a trip to Rushworth

Kitchen fire

2. On Saturday MJ, Benj and I did some burning off. Here we pitted the barrel against the pile-of-stuff-bonfire. Both have their strengths: the barrel is more efficient, but the bonfire can handle some of the larger or more unweildy items.

Burning stuff

3. It turned into night very quickly

Burning stuff, then it gets dark

4.On Sunday the girls came to Rushworth and Em took me for a spin on this monster

Emily on the quadrasaur

5. We also did more burning, and cleaned out the wash house, finding little treasures like this:

Sarah's art from grade Prep. I hit the peak of my talent shortly after.

6. In the evening it was time for marshmallows

Abby toasts marshmallows

Abby eats marshmallows

7. And I made a cake! We fed it to people the next day and it got rave reviews. But then when I told them I made it from a packet (obvs) I got chastised! What!? Since when are packets evil? Without them there would probably be 90% less cake in the world.

I made lemon cake!

Snapshots: Reuben

Reuben loves noodles just about as much as his Auntie Sar does.

Reunions (1 and 2)

OK, time to get posting! I want write about my last night in Aceh when the low key taco night turned into a cracker party but I thought it would be funny to take photos on a film camera that I had in my room but (of course) I haven’t had the film developed yet. So I will jump ahead and get on with posting about the series of reunions I’ve had over the last week.

No.1. Ryan Cook’s first birthday

Ryan turns 1

You may remeber Ryan from his brush with fame in Bali earlier this year. Here’s a tip: If you’re a baby in Bali you’re going to get a lot of attention. If you have milky white skin in Bali you’re going to get attention. If you smile and laugh with everyone you meet in Bali you’re going to get attention. Ryan excelled at all three and was consequently the most famous person in Bali…ever. And all this fame well before his first birthday.

His age is slowly catching up to reflect his worldly life experiences as Ryan ticks off the twelfth month of life. Ryan and I, who see eye to eye on most things, both agree that nothing celebrates a milestone better than cake.

Nom nom nom

Ryan’s benefactor and cake maker, Meaghan, had the very good sense to move the family to Ocean Grove, which, for those of you who don’t live in Victoria, is about as nice as it sounds.

The whole gang of our highschool besties (who are also, fortunately, my 2008 besties) headed down to Ocean Grove and we celebrated all being in the same place at the same time for the first time in forever by eating way too much delicious party food (perhaps that was just me…but there were party sausage rolls….i love them), and getting comfortable with a drink around the kitchen table until well into the afternoon (outlasting the other party guests by a casual few hours). Lucky for us we know Meags would never kick us out so we settled in. We got some group shots but they’re on another camera so I will track them down and tell you all about those great sheilas when I can show you a photo of them.

We probably would have stayed around the kitchen table the whole weekend if we didn’t have reunion no.2 back in Melbourne. So Lara, Amanda, Clare, Elodie and I hopped into Lara’s car and headed back to the big smoke.

Our next birthday was Ksenia’s 28th that involved less cake but about as much booze. Actually, this photo that I took at the end of the night (and have nooooo recollection of) proves that Ksensia’s involved a fair few more martinis.

Alan with Amanda in Trolley. Sarah Fortuna 2008.

But slightly earlier in the night…..

Photo Magic

The stars aligned with Lara’s camera to create….Photo Magic. The above photo is of Lara with her camera so not actually a reflection of photo magic, but a record of Lara and her camera on the wonderous night.

Too bad for this blog that I don’t have any of those photos…

While nothing says “birthday” to Ryan more than cake, nothing says “public humiliation with a warm and fuzzy afterglow” to Ksenia more than her Ukrainian mates barging into the frou frou bar with guitars and accordions to sing her a song in Ukrainian.

Ksenia's troubadours

I think the overall theme of the song was “why aren’t you married yet?” So I guess that’s proof that grandma’s nagged messages are quite effectively passed on to the next generation. Grandmas around the world must be proud.

Alan, Amanda, Lara and I outlasted the birthday girl and stumbled home via shopping trolley sometime past the time I could remember.

The next morning involved an early start to make it home in time for reunion no.3 and on my arrival Mary Jo greeted me with, “you’re looking seedy.” Awwww, I missed you too.

I’ll post about the next event that involved waaaay more cake (record breaking amounts of cake) and no booze at all, later.

My year in review using photos I forgot to post at the time

I’ll work in a vaguely reverse-chronological order.

November: Clara and Jesse by candlelight at Canai Mamak, Banda Aceh.

November: My personal mission statement realised. Found in a food court in KL, Malaysia.

September: Ryan Cook sleeping because he’s about a nano-second old, and exhausted. Shepparton.

End of July, maybe August: Kids posing for photos with weapons of war, Prishtina, Kosovo.

July: Ice Banana and Bum Bum. Subtle adult humour, Mostar, Bosnia.

July: Dinner by the Mostar bridge, Mostar, Bosnia.

July: My 45-minute tour of Dubrovnik and all I see is this surly American tourist, Croatia.

July: Oh dear, kitten will chop its head off, Istanbul, Turkey.

Easter: Abby and Chloe in the garden, Rushworth.

Easter: Chiara, Em and Abby rockin’ out, Rushworth.

Unsure of date (sometime after Paul got his new Mac):Marty and Sarah are cool for a brief moment. Lara’s house, Northcote.

Phew, now that they are out of my “to be posted” folder I can breeeath easy and move on to 2008! (Do you really think I have a “to be posted” folder? Do you know me at all?)

//