Family weekend

We just spent pretty much the whole weekend at Mum and Dad's, which was very pleasant! It was Michelle's last weekend in Melbourne before she flies home to Canada (boo hoo!), so we organised to go on a bush walk at Nioka Bush Camp, which is on the Plenty River, very close to Mum and Dad's house. It's hardly what you'd call real bush (it's well on the way to being surrounded by suburbia), but it was still beautiful land and great to be outside. We all had fun, lots of clowning around - in almost all the photos, Gord's pulling some kind of face!

Not pulling a face here though! Michelle, Dad, Kelli, my cousin, Bruce, her boyfriend, and Gord.
Check out more bushwalk photos here.

Mum, Dad and Michelle headed out to a Gala evening on Saturday night. To see photos of them all dressed up, click here. Almost the whole sequence is Dad making funny faces and Mum berating him and cracking up - I love it! Pick your favourite James Bond face!

On Sunday, we went back to Mum and Dad's to have lunch with them and our old family friends, the Vee Dubs. (That's the Van Wollingens to anyone else...) Nice space, very laid back, nice to be part of a crowd at Mill Park - that's not the usual vibe. I managed to finish something I was knitting, cos there were so many people willing to hold the kiddo. Piper of course had a ball, soaking in all the attention. She's been a gem the last little while, probably because lots of different people have invested in her/showered her with attention.


To continue the good vibe with Piper, I decided to go to the zoo today. I was thinking about it, and I really don't think I've been since my hen's thingy, so before Piper was born. Seems crazy, cos Piper's been to the zoo a lot, but that's Pippa for ya! (Thanks Pippa!) So yeah, Heidi Duthie and I took the two kids on this outing. I was glad I wasn't by myself - that would have been pretty tiring. As it was, I almost bit off more than I could chew by arranging to get there so early. Jas woke up at 6.30am, and my alarm was going off at 7am, so I was pretty much awake since then. We got the zoo by 9am, after a dream run in what was supposedly peak hour traffic (this is after planning to take the train and then realising that I probably wouldn't be able to squeeze the pram into a peak hour carriage).

I was excited about seeing the orang-utangs, but they were hiding under a sheet when we were there, so we didn't see much of them at all. We probably spent the most time at the seals. I enjoyed the reptiles. We checked out the bears, which led to this conversation later on at home...

(We'd just been talking about how Opa goes bear hunting, well, bear viewing)
Piper: Does Opa go through the glass?
Me: No, Opa walks into the forest and leaves some donuts on the ground and then he climbs a tree so he can watch the bears when they come to eat the donuts.
Piper: Does he throw the donuts over the fence?
Me: No, sweets, there's no fences and no glass wall in the forest, he just walks in and leaves them on the ground.
Piper: oh... (and after a little while) Is Opa a zoo keeper now?

She just couldn't fathom the idea of animals free in a forest!

Had a pit stop at Heidi's house when I dropped her home, and then was pretty whacked by the time we got back here. Crashed out in bed for a bit, although Jasper took ages to go to sleep. My lesson for the day is, you don't have to get to the zoo early, and more sleep means I'm a better parent, especially at the end of the day. No point having a pleasant outing and then being grumpy back at home (not that I was too bad, but I wasn't all sweetness and light!).

So yeaahhhh. (Can you tell I'm tired, I'm just blahhing away here...) Jasper just screamed his head off in Gord's arms and now he's crashed out in my lap after a bit of boob, but he was so tired he could hardly suck! He's a beautiful boy...

(here he is, my little man! what a cutie!)

On a totally different note, this week, Piper, Jasper, my dad and I are heading to Cairns, which is somewhat sudden. Gord and I had planned to visit my family up there sometime in September, but my grandmother is pretty sick and it seems a good idea to go up there now. She's had ulcers on her legs for ages, which haven't healed. They tried some kind of vein bypass thing recently, but now, after trying everything else, her leg has been amputated below the knee. She had a heart attack after the operation, which isn't a good sign - just a higher chance of more heart attacks happening, post-operative.

Anyway, the long and short of it is, that Dad and I and the kids are flying to Cairns early Friday morning, and returning the following Wednesday (25th). We'll probably spend a night in Cairns and then head to Atherton - that's where my grandparents live, and my brother and uncle and his family are there too. Atherton's about 100km inland from Cairns. Pa will be driving to and from to visit Ma. I haven't seen Ma and Pa since Piper was around three months old, and I haven't seen Phil and Shellie and Harley, my uncle, aunt and cousin, for eight years, if you can believe that, and I haven't seen Simon, my bro, for a couple of months, so in spite of the somewhat grim health stuff, I'm really looking forward to just hanging out with family, and am glad they can meet the kids. If it wasn't for that, I'd consider leaving Piper at home (somehow!) cos dealing with two kids on my own isn't my idea of outrageous fun, but Dad will help!

Funnily enough, Gord's going away for his work this week, from Wednesday to Friday, and I leave on Friday, so we won't see each other for a week. I think he's hoping to fill the whole time with social stuff! And why wouldn't ya? I'll have five days off in a row sometime when I don't have a kid who needs my body for sustenance!

Will be nice to experience some warmer weather! And Piper has her own little pull-along suitcase (a finding Nemo one!), just in time! Anyway, that's enough raving. Here's a few more photos...

(Me and Jasper about to race out the door to catch a tram, on the way to see a movie with Michelle, Mum, Nonna (vee dub) and Joy at the Nova.

A photo from the aftermath of our family gathering at The Duck last weekend - my brother Daniel and Jas...

Celebrating Pete's (our house guest) birthday on Friday the 13th.