Melbourne

I'm in Melbourne this week for a law librarians conference. It's beautiful weather here, and the city is all excited over some football game that's happening tomorrow... not sure what all that is about ;-)

The conference has been really interesting and I've been catching up with lots of old friends. Simon and Harrison have been bonding at home - apparently H has been extremely happy and well behaved for Simon.

I'm flying back on what will probably be an empty plane tonight. On the way over I'm sure Alissa and I were the only two non-Eagles supporters on the flight, which was completely full.

Bushwalking etc

The new improved Simon has been spending weekends at home of late, and has managed to get his workload down to a more reasonable level. We spent a night at the Vines in the Swan Valley a couple of weeks ago, and for Fathers Day last weekend, drove up to Gingin for a picnic. Gingin is a very picturesque town about an hour or so north of Perth. We have fond memories of Gingin from our trip around Australia in 1994. It has a gorgeous old church and cemetery next to a lovely green park with a stream in the middle. Click on the image on the right to see a photo of the park at Gingin by georgieboy98.... We picnicked there, and played "Pooh-sticks" on the bridge in the park.

Simon took two days R&R this week, and did some camping and bushwalking near Dwellingup. Greg (childhood friend and best man) is in Perth this week, and staying with us on Friday and Saturday nights. Harrison is very excited by this prospect, but I suspect he thinks Greg is a tall guy in a yellow skivvy who likes singing "Hot Potato". H was further confused tonight by Simon having a conversation with Anthony on the phone. He thought he must have the coolest dad in the world, with two Wiggle friends, and was quite put out that he wasn't allowed to talk to Anthony. (Greg is part owner of Locomotion - which surely makes up for him not being a Wiggle.)

Harrison hasn't been himself lately - very sad, not eating, waking up in the middle of the night... all things that just aren't like him. The doctor couldn't find any specific illness last week, but we're concerned enough to be taking him back to the doctor again tomorrow.

A sunny day

Harrison is quite a bit brighter now, and it was a stunning warm winters day yesterday in Perth, so we decided to take advantage of the weather. Simon was on duty at the UWA Open Day, so H and I went to visit. Highlight of the trip was H getting a helium balloon from the guy at the student union stand. It's amazing to see the unadulterated pleasure a 2 year old gets out of having a balloon tied to his wrist and watching it bounce up and down and float in the breeze. We also had lunch with Mel and Tim - old friends of Simon's who've just moved to Perth. They live only a couple of minutes from us, and Tim works at UWA. We ran into them, as you do, in the car park at Karrinyup shopping centre a couple of weeks ago.

Pneumonia

News today is that Harrison has a bit of asthma as well as pneumonia... He had a chest x-ray yesterday, and is not a well boy. One of his lungs is a little collapsed. Poor little thing is mostly sleeping and coughing. Hardly eating at all. We had him in our room in his port-a-cot last night, behaving like new parents and listening intently to his breathing. He's a little trojan though - he is happy to hold the mask of the ventolin thing to his face and breathe in and out for me. I think he's intrigued by the contraption. Isn't so thrilled by taking medicine though. Simon is looking after him this afternoon, and will stay home with him on Friday as well. H goes back to the doctor tomorrow.

"I don't like it very much"

Funny thing happened yesterday while I was at Kings Park with Harrison and Simon's mum. For some reason Harrison started putting his forearm in his mouth and biting his own arm. We got in the car and started driving home, and this voice from the back seat said "I don't like it very much". We asked what he didn't like, and he said "I don't like eating my arm.". We burst out laughing, only to hear Harrison insist "I'm not funny!"....

Mum's going back to Toowoomba today, so it's a sad day for us. We did have a lovely time with her, and finished last night with fish and chips at Cicerellos in Fremantle, which was a favourite haunt of Dad's.

Valley Road

We've been in the new house a week now, and, although there's lots of cleaning up and sorting out still to do, we're very happy there. I think it will really suit our lifestyle. We tried out the local fish and chips last night (thumbs up), and the cafe at the local shops on moving day last week (double thumbs up). Yesterday I babysat Harrison's friend Rhys for the morning, and Mum and I took the two toddlers down to our closest park, which is only 300 metres or so away. They had a lovely time.

On Thursday night we drove for about 3 minutes up to Rendezvous Obseration City at Scarborough and had a night away. Mum looked after H for the night. We drank a lot of champagne, had a gorgeous dinner at Savanaghs, and generally had a fabulous night. It was the first time we'd both left Harrison overnight. He didn't seem to blink an eye (grandma is much more popular with him than either of his parents).

It was a good day for everyone on Thursday, as Harrison went to the Dorothy the Dinosaur Dance Party (the Wiggles minus the Wiggles). He was completely overawed for a while, but he did eventually get into the groove and danced his little heart out in the mosh pit. Best of all, we bought him a "big red car" afterwards. It's a small soft one that now goes everywhere with him - even to bed.

Winnie-the-Pooh

The Wiggles have slipped a bit in the popularity contest of late, and Harrison is now also a Winnie the Pooh fanatic, thanks to the DVD of the Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. So not only do we have to "wake up Jeff" (and every other Wiggle) repeatedly, we also have requests for "a small smackeral of honey" when we ask him what he wants to eat. It's very cute. I actually bought a couple of the A.A. Milne books (Winnie the Pooh and The House at Pooh Corner) as they have the original illustrations in them. He loves looking at the map of the Hundred Acre Wood and singing the song from the movie. He also tries to drink from an empty cup, and says "oh bother, empty again... only the sticky part left".

Moving ...

Well, it seems so recently that we moved. Wait, it was recently that we moved! Well, we're doing it again. Simon found us a very nice duplex in Wembley Downs (just west and a little north of where we are now). There's lots of packing to be done. I pick up the key this week, and we have a week's overlap to move in. So goodbye Herdsman Fresh...

Hey, I just read that Wikipedia entry for Wembley Downs and discovered that we're right in the middle of the

"opulent mansions and striking residences in the Hale Heights, Buxton Road and Buntine Road/Faulkner Street areas".

Simon must truly be a yuppie at heart. Needless to say, our little abode doesn't quite qualify as an opulent mansion.

Sunny Brisbane

Harrison and I just spent 10 days in Brisbane, enjoying the warm weather and catching up with as many people as humanly possible while we were there. He travelled really well, and seemed to love flirting with all the rellies and friends. We stayed with VJ in Brisbane, and Mum and Dad also stayed for 3 days and looked after him during the day for me while I went to the ANZIIL symposium. It was an exhausting trip, but lovely to catch up with everyone. The only downside was that this morning Harrison was still on Brisbane time, so he was wide awake at 4:30am!

Just to make life more interesting, we found out last week that our house in Perth is scheduled for demolition on August 4th. So Simon spent most of last week frantically trying to find a new rental for us. Hopefully we'll know in the next few days whether or not we've been successful.

Happy 2nd Birthday

Harrison turned 2 on Sunday, and thoroughly enjoyed every aspect of his birthday. He is still singing happy birthday to himself 4 days later. He celebrated with a small party at Kings Park with some friends on Sunday morning. He got his first "real" musical instrument from us for his birthday - a ukelele. Now he can play along with his Dad and isn't so drawn to the big guitar, as he has one of his own to strum.

Visit from Grandmum & Grandfather

Mum and Dad visited in April, just on the end of VJ's second visit. We all went to dinner at the Old Swan Brewery to belatedly celebrate Mum's 70th and also Simon's birthday. The OSB must surely have the best view possible, and it was a lovely night. Mum, Dad, Harrison and I went down south for 4 nights, enjoying the delights of the top end of Margaret River (including a sumptuous lunch at Wise's winery), and Karri Valley. Mum treated us to a tram ride in Pemberton, and Dad shouted us a beautiful dinner at Karri Valley (probably the second best view possible). Harrison loved having his grandparents around - he calls Dad "Grandfather Dad", and I loved the afternoon sleeps and other luxuries the visit meant for me. He still can't believe Veronica isn't going to be there when he gets home at the end of the day.

Lilly, Ella and H...

We've really enjoyed catching up with the Cribbs again now that we're back in Perth. Here's a lovely snap of the 3 kids being towed around the back yard in Harrison's clam shell pool.

Milkshake madness

After Christmas we had a trip to Albany. We visited whale world (a weird "theme park" paying homage to Albany's quite recent whaling past, and attempting to cater to the green dollar at the same time). Best thing about it was the superb scones for morning tea, and this photo of Simon and Harrison simultaneously inhaling their milkshakes.

Christmas with Grandma

Harrison thoroughly enjoyed his second Christmas. He understood exactly what presents were for (him, mainly), and loved all the Santas in the shops and in catalogues. We had our nativity scene up, and he used to go for the figurines and say "wise man", "donkey"... Grandma was staying with us, and even though it was very sad not to have Grandpa as well this year, it was lovely for Harrison to be able to give her a good morning cuddle every morning.
Here's a photo of them on Christmas morning....

A new year

It's been quite a while since my last post. Since then we've had a couple of visits from family and friends (Simon's parents, Michele and Mul, Simon's mum and Marg and Neil, Lindy and her girls...), and a couple more are in the offing (my parents, VJ again, Simon's mum and aunty Audrey). We spent Christmas in Perth (much cooler than Brisbane!), and tripped around the south west once or twice after Christmas. We've been back a couple of times to Brisbane as well. Today is the first day of semester for both of us, so life is getting a bit hectic. I should be moving to part time work in March sometime, which will relieve a bit of the day to day work/family pressure.

City to Surf

Yesterday I braved a huge downpour to walk the City to Surf with the ECU School of Law and Justice. The weather ended up not too bad, so it was a pleasant morning's outing. We walked from Perry Lakes to City Beach and picnicked at the City Beach oval.

Visit from VJ

We had our first visitor last week. Veronica came over for 5 days or so and shouted Simon a ticket to the South Africa v Australia rugby test (we lost). She brought superb weather with her, and we enjoyed a spectacular sunset over Floreat beach, a breakfast picnic and walk at Lake Monger, a walk on the Kings Park tree top bridge, drinks and dinner at Little Creatures, dinner in Subiaco... VJ also went on a river wine cruise up the Swan and visited Hillary's Boat Harbour and the Aquarium of WA.

Harrison was absolutely besotted with her, and loved all the attention from his aunty. I think he was a bit disappointed when he woke up on Thursday morning with just his boring old parents to play with.

Rocky

We're in Rocky today - left Carnarvon Gorge yesterday after 2 luxurious nights at the Wilderness Lodge. We did a decent bushwalk with Harrison. He seems to be shaping up as the outdoors boy... much easier to travel with than to try to keep confined to a room. On our way to Fraser in the next few days.

Our new home

We've just heard today that we have a place to live in Perth... We're only about 1 km from our old house in Floreat. Heaps of room for visitors, so start booking those flights.

Next week the removalists come, so it's goodbye to Victor Street. We're both looking forward to a couple of weeks travelling around Qld to Carnarvon Gorge and Fraser Island - before we leave sunny Qld.

House and Garden

We've had a flurry of activity on the house. Gone is the fabulous palm tree wallpaper in the loo. Now the whole house is freshly painted and looking lovely. Our front yard is also finally the picturesque paradise we've been hoping for. It's hard to believe we've finally got it all looking nice, and now we're going to leave it.

Simon is in Perth for a few days looking for our new house. We've spent a week with VJ since our house was a bit smelly from the painting. She's been a trojan - molly coddling me (I have pneumonia), cooking for us, and being the best aunty in the world to Harrison. He gets so excited to see her. Harrison took his first un-aided steps this week. But he thinks it's a game and much more fun if it ends with him free-falling into someone's arms.

That's all from us.