Summer Holidays

After getting back form the US Annmarie and Ben had about three and a half weeks until they started school.

Annmarie is in Year 2! She started back up yesterday! Whoa.

And today, Ben was at school. I had both kids at school today.  Complete madness I tell you.

Over the break we had some great times, and let's be honest, some boring times too. We spent a lot of time at the beach, seeing friends, going to the movies (Paddington), swimming lessons, Annmarie got a new bike and let's see what else.

When we got home Santa left some presses for them.

Swimming and celebrating their efforts with a milkshake.

Playing nicely at home.

Beach time.

Big girl big bike.

After bike shopping we ate lunch and played a bit of pinball.

Annmarie and I had a fun night out to dinner one night. Fresh tomatoes from a friends garden. Ben not going to bed one night and more beach time.

We went into Sydney one day to renew Annmarie's passport and then had a great lunch at Red Lantern. Water play outside.

The holidays ended with Australia Day weekend. Jamie did the Big Swim and Annmarie had a fun Twilight Nippers. The surf club barbecues after and they open the Billy bar - fun is had by all.

On Australia Day which landed on a Monday, it started raining, and rained non-stop for three days. So much rain, that I think it rained more here in the three days, than it did in all of California last year. A huge tree in our back garden fell over.  It was also a very wet first day of school for Annmarie, thankfully we finally saw blue skies today.

We are back into the routine of things, but sill have some summer to enjoy.

Preschool : : Ben

Ben's first day of preschool was on Friday! Yay! He had a great day. He was a little nervous that morning, but he was so ready.  I took him by myself, because I felt he would do better if he only had to say goodbye to me. And he was fine, he told me he would miss me and I left. No worries.  Then Annmarie and I spent the morning shopping and going out to lunch and before you know it it was time to collect Ben. When we arrived he looked at us and then kept playing with a airplane, he didn't want to leave. He showed AM around the school a bit and then we had to persuade him to leave, that he would get to come back.

And just like that my baby is going to preschool.

America - Part 2

After AZ we headed to the Bay Area.  We checked into our room and Jamie headed to a Warriors game and Nana kindly picked up Nations Burgers for the kids and I.  Yum.  Then we went to sleep.

Jamie would also have Nations that evening - at like 1:00am. He also got to go down to the court for this picture, thanks to a old school mate.

We would spend the next eleven days seeing family and friends, eating a lot of food (a lot of Mexican food), drinking, talking about Australia, celebrating Christmas and wondering how we would get all our stuff back and more.

We caught up with Nonny (Jamie's Grandmother)

A trip to the Bay Area is just not complete without a visit to Sports Basement.

We saw old College friends. Go Cal Poly!

We took the kids to Jamie's High School where they did some running.

Uncle Jon and Annmarie played some fierce games of Dots.

On Christmas Eve Eve, we had a lovely dinner that Jon and Andrea prepared and the kids opened gifts from Papa Tom and watched Elf.

On Christmas Eve we headed to Nana's. Where Ben managed to get his motorised train caught in his hair during the car ride over.

We had a lovely dinner - pasta and crab and the kids decorated cookies for Santa.

On Christmas we headed to Jon's to open Christmas pressies.

Some of us would sleep and one of us would run (wasn't me) before heading over to Nana's for a Christmas feast.

We met baby R.

We had a fabulous day in Sonoma with friends. We had a great lunch at the Carneros Bistro, followed by some wine tasting, a stop at an Irish bar and ended the evening at a Himalayan restaurant.

We spent some more time with baby T.

Some of this, of course.

We sadly said our goodbyes and headed back.

It's a bit crazy, these trips. This was our 3rd visit as a family and by far the least complicated. Thankfully, it was one flight back (one really long flight) and we all managed to keep it together. However, the thought of having to get on another plane any time soon makes my skin itch.

We've come back to summer and we are in the final stretches of the summer holidays ending.

Now, who is coming to visit us this year?

America - Part 1

We started our voyage on the 9th of December with one sick one (AM) and one very mischievous three year old. Thankfully, it was one of our smoothest travel experiences. Annmarie was very mellow and just went through the motions and Ben managed to keep it together. United Airlines finally updated their aircraft and we all had our own individual TV's with a generous movie and TV selection. We basically let the kids watch as much TV as they wanted until they fell asleep and they think this is such a treat because this would never fly (no pun intended) at home. There were a couple of hiccups along the way, but all and all there were no major issues. And by the end of the flights AM was well.

We brought the stroller along to help us get through the airport and Ben ended up taking a two hour sleep in it at SFO before we got our flight to AZ.

We stayed at my parents the first part of the trip. The kids had a bit of jet lag the first couple of days and the first night were up for a good two hours at 2am and then were still asleep at 10am. So I naturally took at least 20 pictures of them sleeping, these are just two of them.

We got Ben's hair cut our first morning there.

The following day, December 11th, our sweet Annmarie turned 7.  Star Wars, Lego and games, seemed to be the thing this year.  We had a pancake breakfast, the kids went swimming, and then later that evening we went out for Mexican food.

She requested the same cake I made for Jamie.
I'm also working on a video of Annmarie that I hope to organise and post.

Then we were off to Austin Texas, with NO kids for THREE nights for the wedding of the century. #finallyjk

Jamie has known the groom for nearly his entire life, so we wouldn't have missed it for the world, and considering we basically flew half way around it to get to it, we take that saying quite literally. The wedding was an absolute blast and I think they should just do it all over again.

The beginnings of Night 1.

The ceremony.

The evening ended at the Mini Bar off Sixth Street. Unfortunately I have no pictures from the bar.

Night two.
And all cleaned up.

The night was one big fun party with delicious food, great drink and even better friends.

Like I said - let's do it again.

We made sure we partook in some Texas barbecue.  It was awesomely good.

We spent some time with baby T and then headed out to dinner with her parents on our third night.

Jamie and Stevie.

My parents sent us this one.

Then after some Tacos we were headed back to AZ.

We rounded out our time in AZ, with a visit with some of Jamie's family, a trip to the mall to see Santa and time with Grandma and Papa.

Next San Francisco....