Collingwood and Carlton... the big match!

Well, the big match arrived - Collingwood versus Carlton at the MCG... the day we took 3 toddlers to the footy! Mum, Dad, Liz Lac and Holly came to our place, then we took the train into the ground. It was a pretty good day, collingwood won, there was a bit of a mele on field, and spirits were high. The kids were good, apart from the occasional hunger grissle, and the apparent need to go to the toilet every 5 seconds! We left at 3/4 time, which worked out ok... made it to the express train to clifton hill with 2 minutes to spare so very easy. Then we caught the last 1/4 on telly (our new, hugely big telly), so all was good.

Moving House

We moved house about 3 weeks ago - from a small unit, to a much larger (but probably still considered to be small) victorian terrace in clifton hill. We just love the new place, john still spends his time running up and down the hallway (usually with me chasing him!). Gee we have alot of stuff though, still have plenty of boxes to unpack, but there is not quite as much storage as the unit, strangely enough!
John's bedroom will be great, once we get some proper cupboards for him to put his toys in.
He might actually sleep in there too, wow that would be great.

I am up at the ATCA right now, doing some observing for my student (who, I just found out, is probably going to quit). I'm on the night shift, which isn't too bad ... I didn't even fall asleep (much) last night, but it did get a bit boring towards the end.

Next week is lizzies 30th birthday party which will be great, and the following weekend the whole family is coming to melbourne to go to the aquarium on lizzies actual birthday, followed by pizzas at our place. Should be fun.

Oh well, time to change source, and then venture out into the cold, cold night to get some food! (Note to self.... remember to bring lots of warm clothes when coming to narrabri in winter!!).

Holiday at Parkes

John, granma and granpa and I are up at the Parkes telescope this week which is good fun. I am observing at night, and John is entertaining granma and granpa during the day! John is having a lovely time running around in the open spaces, and stomping up and down on the wooden floor boards. He is very spotty though, a little bug attacked him and ran all over his face leaving a trail of bite marks! Tomorrow granma, granpa and john are off to the dubbo zoo - sounds like fun!

Swimming starts...

John had his first swimming lesson on friday night, it was great! He is in a class with one other girl, and they are so cute! Both with their little swimming caps and goggles. John was slightly tentative to begin with, but by the end of the 1/2 hour class was trusting the teacher and he and the other girl practiced dog paddle while floating on top of a large floaty mat thing. We chatted with the mother of the little girl, I don't know if she appreciated the wit of dicky and I calculating whether John would be old enough to make it to the london olympics!

Liz and the kids down for the weekend

Liz, Lachie and Holly came down to visit for the weekend which was great, if not totally exhausting! We took the kids out for tea on friday night to Taco Bills - lovely food, but John and Lachie were more interested in looking out the window and taking all the take-away menus from their holder and running around with them! Decided eat-in was definately the go for saturday night...
We went to the botanical gardens on saturday, it was a beautiful day and the kids just ran and ran non stop. We went to the childrens garden too, which has lots of touchy-feely things for kids. We walked back to southgate for lunch, and ran into my cousin Kim who we haven't seen for over 5 years! Very bizaar, hopefully we'll catch up with her again soon. After lunch we caught the train back to Hawthorn, and had a quick play in rocket park before coming home, the kids were a bit cranky and exhausted.
On sunday we just went to rocket park for an hour or so, the kids were still exhausted. Liz left around lunch time, and John was pretty tired all afternoon, but didn't go to sleep till 7:30pm.
The photos here are from the botanic gardens....

Weekend at the beach

I took friday off last week and we headed down to anglesea for the weekend which was fun. The weather was pretty good - sunny, not too windy. John tried out his new wetsuit, there is a piccy of him in it at Anglesea beach above. Unfortunately we all were coming down with colds, and John had a bad cough so we didn't spend as much time as we would have liked at the actual beach. But its nice just getting away from it all. We watched only the last 10 minutes of the grand final - very exciting for once, and I was barracking for Sydney (for some unknown reason), who won in the end so that was good.
John woke up at 4am on sunday, bright as a button and ready to play.... mum and dad were not quite as enthusiastic at that time of day!! So we put a dvd on for him, and went back to bed, and like a good boy he watched the whole thing and came to get us at 6am which was slightly more respectable, but not for a sunday morning!

A house for us... (weekend cont)

Forgot to say in the last post - we went to see a house on saturday morning, in Clifton Hill. Its an eighties sort of townhouse - quite ugly, but big, and has heaps of potential for improvement. Best of all its located just 1 block from the park, and a <10 min walk to the train station and local primary school. We have an appointment with the bank manager on weds to discuss finance... unfortunately its up for auction, which is a bit of a stress.