Mock Camping

Today we tested out our sun tent. Yes the summer sun is so hot that you need to hide under a tent at the beach. We bought the big size not realizing that the whole neighborhood could find inside. Plus it is a quite challenging to fold (sorry no photos of me struggling to fold the tent).

It made for a fun afternoon activity- pitching our tent in the front yard of our house- with our prentend campfire and smores (real). We might have to grab some sleeping bags and try it at night (of course I am too afraid of the spiders in our yard I can only imagine taking it to some campsite).

Our foursome is complete

Finally after two years of waiting Reese has picked up a golf club. Sunday night we went to the driving range and Reese took part in the fun. Of course she only hit about 6 balls then decided it was time for a snack. At least there is hope :)

Reese and her coach (notice the location of her balls in the second picture)

Happy to just watch the rest of the family and eat her snacks :)

Here are some pictures of Nate at the same age- playing the course with his dad

Backyard fun

Now that the weather is starting to get nice (sort of- last two weeks of cold and wet weather aside) we've rediscovered our backyard. The kids love the trampoline and so do . It is contained and safe and a great way to get out the sillies and use energy. We bounce, sing songs, and play duck duck goose. From there it usually goes down hill and resembles WWF cage wrestling. When you are bored sometime check out a satellite map of Australian suburbs (like Curl Curl)- every house has a trampoline in the back yard. Brilliant.

check out these funny trampoline hairdos:

testing me???

It has been a hard couple of days on the parenting front. The kids are adjusting to being back in Sydney. Between the odd sleep patterns and a strange bug affecting their digestive system (Reese now has the nickname Reese 9 poops) it has tough. Plus we've gone cold turkey on the binky. Reese only used it for napping but was addicted and it was starting to be an issue. So instead of a quiet nightly routine of sucking binky and going to bed on her own she now screams and tries to leave her bed. It truely tests both your will and confidence when you have to stand by the door (to manually keep it locked) and endure the crying of your baby. I am really hoping that this only lasts a couple of nights. Especially since Michael is away and I might be tempted to cave in. Tough love sucks.

spring time- watch the clocks.

FYI- we changed our clocks here in Sydney this weekend. We sprung forward 1 hour. Making the us now only 5 hours earlier (plus a day) from Seattle. Slightly easier to call us (hint hint).

No more flights

We just returned from a great but tiring trip back to the States. Our intinary includes stays in San Diego, New York, Seattle and Hawaii....a full coast to coast effort. Plus Nate got to celebrat his birthday in each city- I think he's had 5 turning 5 parties. Lucky kid. Nate has the whole flight thing down- he is a true world class traveller. He gets on the plane steals my itouch and bose headphones and takes long plane naps. I wish the same could be said of Reese. But overall both were good travellers and adjust to different time zones and getting hugged daily by new faces.
It was wonderful to see our friends and family again. We really got to spend quality time with everyone. My sincere apologies for those few who I had to cancel on. We got rushed towards the end of our stay. We did our part to help stimulate the US economy (hope you own Target & Costco stocks)- and even needed to buy an extra suitcase to carry back all the toys, kid clothes, and contraband food.

Now I need to get to thoses suitcases and unpack ;)
check out the photos View Album

Life on Mars

I awoke the other day at 5:00am (thanks to Reese) to look outside and see only orange. It was very surreal. There was a thick red/orange fog that had engulfed all of Sydney. It turned out to be a dust storm bringing in red clay dust from a drought area. A 70 year storm they say. It was pretty interesting to experience. On the downside we had left some windows open and had a thick layer of red dust all over the house. No kidding- the *$&@Q was everywhere. We (in this case me) was cleaning for days and I can still find it in places. We almost changed the theme of Nate's birthday party (scheduled for the day after the storm) to a Mars/Sci-fi party ;)

Check out the photos: