The Rest of January

Lilly got a haircut and I don’t know why her “fringe” looks like it is parted, but it looked like that for several days. It was the straightest haircut but I guess I shouldn’t expect much. Lilly sits really still but I’ve never met someone who can cut her hair straight.



I passed the 7 month mark.


Lilly took the picture so I do look like a giant. But the bump looks like a volleyball under there. I am carrying this one much different than Lilly.

Lilly participated in some Summer Reading Activities at the library. We made the Australian flag for Australia Day.



We went to play at the Melbourne Zoo. I was hoping to see the baby orang-utan. I saw the baby but the mother was very protective and had it tucked under her arm the entire time she was feeding. So instead I got a picture of these two who were very amusing. Notice one is holding the tap on and the other has his tongue out to slurp the water up.



We also got to see both baby elephants at the same time. They were very cute playing around in the water.





Lilly and I went to the Children’s Garden and she participated in a class. She learned about a lot of different plants and got to plant some lettuce in the garden. She brought a plant home and watered it very well for 6 weeks. It is now just a pot with dirt in it.

End of year vacation

The family took a 10 day holiday through western Victoria to Adelaide, then back along the Murray river in northern Victoria. We camped 5 of the nights in a borrowed tent (our two man tent just wasn't big enough for the three of us plus my huge pillow). We stayed in a hotel the first night and the three nights we were in Adelaide.

Dec. 27 - Melbourne to Warrnambool

Dec. 28 - Warrnambool to Canunda National Park (camping)

Dec. 29 - Canunda National Park to Coorong National Park (camping)

Dec. 30 - Coorong National Park to Adelaide

Dec. 31 - Adelaide

Jan. 1 - Adelaide

Jan. 2 - Adelaide to Mildura (camping)

Jan. 3 - Mildura (camping)

Jan. 4 - Mildura to Echuca (camping)

Jan. 5 - Echuca to Melbourne

Australian Holiday Dec/Jan 2011

Less than two weeks after our trip we began to get the rain. Several towns along the Murray River were completely flooded. I'm not sure of all the damage that was done but I was very happy we were able to complete our journey with relatively good weather.

December

We went to the city with Flat Stanley:




Lilly had her end of the year concert from Kinder (the pictures came out terrible and I wanted make sure that I was just putting Lilly up here):



I passed my 6 month mark:



We went out somewhere nice for dinner (at the moment I can't even remember where we went):



And Santa came to story time:



I don't even think we took pictures of us opening our Festivus presents! But never fear, we took another holiday at the end of December/beginning of January. I'll get Seth to finish making the album and I'll post that link shortly (hopefully)!

The Rest of November

November wasn't very busy apparently. Looking through pictures that didn't involve our road trip consisted of an are project by Lilly and Thanksgiving. So that's what you get.

Lilly made a rainbow out of fruit loops:



We had Thanksgiving at our house which consisted of a family from France, a family from the US and a token Aussie family. It took us a while to find a turkey and when I did the checkout person asked if I was getting my Christmas turkey really early. I said no, it's for Thanksgiving. This response just got me a blank look.



We had a kid's table:




And the adult table (photo courtesy of Lilly):

Family Trip

On October 28 I had my 20 week ultrasound. Did I mention I was pregnant? giggle. Yeah, we didn't tell anyone until this point but it looked funny since Seth was still in the states and I was trying not to puke in Australia. We did know that I was pregnant before Lilly and I came home, it was just a bit early to get excited about it. We really didn't know that Seth was going to be gone for another 3 months but we chose to wait to tell people until we were all together again.

Anyway, the ultrasound looked great although baby measured small for my due date so it was pushed back 5 days. Whatever, I hope that baby wasn't listening to that part of the conversation. And of course, Seth wanted to know what we were having and the doctor was rather confident that we are having a boy.

So after the appointment we ran home to pick up Lilly (at a friend's house) and pack up the car. We were going on a holiday!! So instead of telling you all the details, I'm just going to post the picture album that Seth made. I really hope it works. Let me know if it doesn't. Click on the map below to see all the pictures. (crossing my fingers that it works the way it should!)

Australian Holiday Oct/Nov 2010

More of October

My mom sent this cute Halloween shirt and Lilly is in to posing so we thought we would combine the two:



(The shirt glows in the dark!)

I was on the committee again for the AWA Trunk or Treat event. It was even bigger than last year. We are really going to have to come up with a way to make it better and bigger, we are getting a little crowded in our space. I think we could have more cars for the kids to go to but we just don't have the space.

Meet Bindi. As in Bindi Irwin. She's Lilly's idol right now. And if you ask her, she might even tell you her name is Bindi. She's a bit obsessed.

Here is Lilly with her best friend Alex. They were trying to trick us with the hats. But Lilly was still Bindi, don't try to tell her otherwise.

A rockin' family picture. Get it? Bacon and Eggs? No one got it if we weren't standing together. Someone did ask if I was an angel. That was cute but I couldn't figure out what the big yellow dot would have been.

One of these days I'll have a moment to photograph other people's cars. I'm usually really busy checking games to see everything there is to see.

Lilly's Kinder went to the Bundoora Park Children's Farm. It was pretty neat. They got to feed some baby animals, take a hay ride (we were in a cage), and ride a pony. Lilly had a really good time.


Lilly was excited to feed this turkey while I just envisioned her getting her eyes pecked out. It was a scary moment for me but she was fearless.


The drive to and from the farm was pretty uneventful in our enormous bus (the Greyhound sort). However, our but broke down 100 meters away from the school. But we were at a very busy intersection and couldn't get the kids off the bus without stopping traffic and there were concerns about doing this. we waited on the bus for about 40 minutes for a police officer to come and stop traffic. It was silly, considering I was waving at Seth and the other parents were just standing on the corner. And because the bus was blocking the intersection we did cause an accident. The kids were in fairly good spirits so at least it didn't end too poorly!

October - The First Half

This will not cover all of October because hey, Seth was finally able to come home. His date was pushed back many times but he came home! Work gave him a couple of weeks off and he took another week and we had lots of family time and a vacation.

So really, all we did in the first part of October was sit around and wait for him. Just kidding, we did make one day trip out to the Werribee Open Range Zoo. We've been there before but I enjoyed it enough to make the drive.

However, the drive took forever because just as we were traveling down the highway I noticed a ton of police officers. As we exited from one highway to another, I found out why. We were about the third car stopped on the exit ramp. But all traffic was stopped going south so no cars were coming and we just sat and waited. After about five minutes I noticed people getting out of their cars, not a good sign. Ten minutes later I noticed how far traffic was backed up and that people were lining up on the pedestrian bridge. And then I remembered the small snippet of news I actually heard that morning. Because the AFL Grand Finale had to be replayed (due to a tie), some huge bicycle race had to be postponed to Sunday. Which was the day we were driving to the zoo. Sure enough, the bikes came and went. Of course, we were then behind the bikers and could only go as fast as them, but at least we were close to them as we didn't have to wait forever to pull onto the highway and didn't have much further to go.




Once we got to the zoo we went on our safari tour and saw Lilly's favorite 'aminal', the giraffe.



We also checked out the hippos for a while.



Lilly climbed around the ferocious looking statues. If only it had been warmer this would have been a water fountain.



And just a fun little mushroom we stumbled across!