Oz - Hangin' Out (28th Jan)

So after a quietish day yesterday, a pretty similar affair today.

Relaxin by the pool at home forllowed by a barby @ Lee & Ang's.

Simple - but effective! :-)

So the thermometer has already crossed the 30 degree mark...and it's only 9am! Looks set to nudge the 40 degree mark today. So staying soaked is a great solution :-)

We hung by the pool all mornin' :-)

Really gettin into the pool action. Ness thought to remove 2 of the floats from Big Son's jacket. He didn't notice which was great, but was clear he was workin harder! He was good fun at the poolside as well today - he's also getting into the whole pool @ home thing!!

The Arvo

Was great to go back to Lee & Ang's house again. We got there just before Lee got home from work so just let the kids hang out together. The girls playroom is an amazing pink palace! Lukey was in awe, and there was just so much cool stuff; plenty to amuse both him & Zachy!!

I was a bit gutted I missed this whole jammin' experience - looks cool though!!

Then outside play:

(Copyright L&A D'Amore)


Due to a minor technical hitch with the air con, the guys needed to cool down....

...easy!!

(Copyright L&A D'Amore)

(Copyright L&A D'Amore)


Then we had a great barby - prawns, spicy italian sausage, pork & fennel sausage, beef sausage, rolls & salad, followed by Magnums. PH-AT! :-)
Lee cooked up a storm on his "Beefmaster" - hilarious as they & the girls are vegetarian!
:-)

(Copyright L&A D'Amore)



Nike+ update: managed a 2.5k run, but was pretty tired, it was hot, and I'd had a beer with BBQ dinner....sluggish!

Oz - Rest Day (27th Jan)

Thinking back to my first ever trip to Oz in 2004; we jumped out of a plane, swam the barrier reef and went white water rafting, it would have been hard enough to imagine being a father of two...never mind the idea of batch cooking baby food on holiday! Nonetheless thats what we did today (to be fair Ness did the lions share!) and took it easy for the most part. We're really only at Day 2, so recuperation still very much needed!

....which is pretty easy to do when you have your own pool in the back garden!
:-D

In the arvo we heading east from our place in Palmyra to Canning Vale to go and visit Uncle Amvy, Auntie Rebecca, Sammy & J!

Lukey loved all the boys toys. Daddy got beat (pasted) on MarioKart AGAIN by Sammy & J.

Nice relaxed afternoon!

Then both the boys totally CRASHED on the way home!

oh, and just having written a little made some notes to this point, today is when I actually started posting this blog! ;-)

Oz - Australia Day! (26th Jan)

So....not the best nights sleep in world, but not feelin too shabby. I think I fared best out of the 4 of us today in terms of tiredness or form...however a quick look at the pictures of the day and definitely looking worse for wear!! I hope that changes in the next four weeks!


Highlights of our first night had to be taking turns sitting on the sofa chair doing sentry duty during a stretch of frequent getting up by Lukey. The funniest part was he got past me the first time (This sentry was snoring his head off!) and the second time he was sooo quiet and it was so dark I didn't spot him till he was about 2 ft in front of me!


Everyone was so happy waking up. Zachy seeing the bright blue sky was priceless. He loved being in the garden this morning with Mummy!

Lukey and Daddy jumped in the 4x4 and went on an adventure to the shops. We both loved even such a mundane task; sunny day, different cars & streets so Lukey was excited!

Triple J were counting down the hottest 100 so Daddy enjoyed that, and Lukey always loves a bit of loud music in the car: all good! Forgot they can swear, so I was pleased Lukey didn't pick up any words from the Kings of Leon Creole sketch which talked about macaroons being as dry as Kangaroo s**t. Pretty funny.

Then the family all arrived over. Was great to see them all and catch up. A very relaxed afternoon. The kids loved the pool and when everyone was all splashed out Uncle Lee & I hit the barby!

The volume of food was ridiculous! Prawn & pasta salads, 4 meats, bread city & sauces - what more do you need?!?!

Lee also brought a great Pale Ale called Fat Yak. Tasty.

After wolfing down some ice creams and getting beaten by J on MarioKart DS we headed off to the fireworks! Quite far out of the city but was so easy and handy; by the river and had a playpark and a good view. Plenty of people and atmosphere. Someone had a proper soundsystem and was playing out suitable choons to fit the mood and accompany the show! much fun was had by all. Sparklers, glowsticks, Aussie flags and tattoos ensured all the kids had fun!

Kids not in bed till almost 10!! Hope they sleep well tonight....I'm outta here....shattered......

Almost @ KL...?!!

So weirdly about 22% left to go...to get to KL that is....

It's been okay; could be better, could be worse. The 9th hour, taking us from 2/3s of the time to 3/4 done, was tricky. It was part of the night time stretch. Zachy ended up falling asleep not that long after his usual bedtime, buy Lukey just didn't fancy it...and there were some minor 3 yr old dramas...

Just under 3 hrs till we to get to KL and Zachy's already woken (less than an hours sleep for him!) and they're just about to turn the lights on. We will then try and stuff some sort of chicken sausage breakfast into our bodies that think it is 8:30pm.

Ness doin a good job of trying to settle Z again but don't reckon it's gonna fly....

Almost at the halfway point in the total journey; 10.5hrs to go till we get to Perth....


* * * * ADDITION!!! * * * *

Skipped this part in error. By rights it should have it's own post, but due to keeping the order, I'm just gonna slap it in here!

2nd Flight & Arrival

For some reason Zachy loved being in the toilets on the plane (??!). Coulda just been the bright lights, but whatever it was I took him there to hang out a few times; nice.

Lukey passed out halfway through our stopover. Proper passed out. When We tried to wake him he was like some eye rolling zombie; couldn't walk to the gate or nuttin!

Stopover dragged a little (as did the 2nd flight). Zachy was really getting passed himself even in the airport...but still looked cute!

I really liked this view, just something about the light along the edge of the plane you can see throigh the window...actually that's probably delirium setting in....but I'm going to use the excuse that I don't think the picture really captures it! (click pics to see full size/zoomed)

Out of interest (?) the flash was required to acheive the above. Otherwise it just looked like this....

Both are just iPhone camera pics. Too tired to get the proper camera out!


After some time on the plane, I finally managed to get him off to sleep in my arms, after much rocking....and one of the Malay staff shouted "oh hello baby!" and touched him...woke him straight back up. She got my "I haven't slept for a day" deathstare and promptly ran off; profusely apologised later!

Lukey was just out pretty much the whole flight, poor thing!

Due to the time difference and flight times I wouldn't be upset if I didn't see another "chicken sausage & omelette" brekkie again. One was bad enough but two meals in a row??!

Perth Airport was pretty easy, it's not the biggest airport in the world thankfully. However massive queue for passport control AND customs: couldn't believe we had to declare all the baby food. Painful.

BUT got our car and headed off pretty quick!

We arrived at the house about 17:30 Perth time. 09:30 UK time. As our taxi arrived at 6:45am and we headed to Heathrow bang on 07:00, that makes it a 26.5hr door to door trip.

We'd done our online food shop at Coles the week before so we were buzzin that it turned up less than a hour after we arrived. Technology rocks!

Oz - Getting there.... (25th Jan)

So just over 3 hrs in and we're about 22% of the way to KL. Yes, I am that bored.

Bentley Rhythm Ace has just cropped up on random on Spotify. It’s been a long time since I've listened to this and something about it reminds of planes. The video?

Anyway Ness got Zachy down for a nap but he woke after just 40 mins. Looked cute in the bassinette though!

Lukey's been great so far. Heathrow was actually for him, there were big safe areas that must have seemed phenomenally large to him; RUN TIME!

He liked the obligatory airport raffle cars so posed for a few shots.

Strangely (??!) he’s enjoying watching Looney Tunes (first time for everything!) after a pretty decent lunch on the plane.

YouTube answered that BRA question for me – yep, they jump out of a plane; the mind is weird isn’t it? I often can’t remember what I’m supposed to do today, yet I remember a random music video from 8 years ago...