Edging her way in

When she thought no one was watching, she danced along.

Too nervous to join the class outright, she slowly makes her way towards her sister. Notice how carefully she steps in time to the music. Alas, the music stops before she reaches her goal...

Singer and dancer

Rainy day funtime

Best sound in the world

Wellington

Our direct flight left Perth at 7pm and arrived in Auckland just before 6am Kiwi-time. The girls didn't get more than a couple hours' sleep inflight (I didn't get any at all), so the night was quite short. We flew on to Wellington and arrived before 10am, completely exhausted. Our hotel room was not available until 2pm, made extra trying by the fact that Wellington was experiencing the first wintry storm of the year. The winds were so strong that the captain had to land our flight with engines screaming at full throttle (a little hair-raising though blessedly safe landing). The rain was icy. First up for us: buying appropriate clothing! Life in Perth has not prepared us for that first day in Wellington, and Markus hadn't even packed himself a fleece pullover. Thankfully, New Zealand is well-stocked in outdoorsy gear, and we were set to go again before long. Well, three of us were. Stephanie refused to don anything other than her slightly outgrown fleece jacket, and not even the prospect of a new puffer jacket to match Ellie's could entice her (thank God for long johns and those vests I knitted them last year!). Afterwards, we treated the girls to some seriously beautiful cupcakes and then checked into our hotel to lounge and doze until dinnertime.

Thankfully, the weather was much more kind the next day. Wellington reminded me a lot of New England. The harbor was lovely, and there were beautiful wood houses covering the hills.

check out the cool floating fern sculpture near the library and government offices

We walked from our hotel to the Te Papa Museum, a huge, new and excellently planned museum on the Wellington waterfront. There were four children's discovery areas, so you can guess where we spent our time. We often retreated to these spaces during our time in Wellington, as we were not used to the cold and Te Papa provided a great (free!) space for us to play and be warm.

Admission to Te Papa is free, much to our surprise. Markus suspects that this is to entice all walks of the population to visit. All of the exhibits were in English and Maori (the indigenous people of New Zealand), and there were extensive Maori cultural exhibits. In general, we found New Zealand very inclusive of its indigenous people, quite unlike what we have seen in Australia with the Aborigines. The server at our (nice) restaurant the first night was Maori. We frequently noticed Maori people in various roles, seemingly integrated into society. I didn't talk to any local white people about this, so I'm not sure if our perception is correct for the country, but we were glad to see it. As we wandered through Te Papa on the first day, we were lucky enough to come across a Maori youth group singing in a Maori house built especially for the museum. They were wearing street clothes and were being corrected often by three Maori men in charge (out of sight on my little video), so we guessed they were rehearsing for a concert elsewhere. Lucky us!

Before we left Wellington, we took the cable car up to the botanical gardens and observatories. Curiosity took us into the observatories first, where we enjoyed a very cool movie projected onto the dome ceiling. However, sitting in the dark for so long wore the girls out and the weather turned grey again, so we went back down the cable car without any garden walks. I bet it is beautiful there with amazing views on a nice day.

Normally, my travel logs include extensive drooling about foodie goodness we discovered along the way. I realize, however, this is enough to make the average person roll his/her eyes in amusement or irritation or both. I won't go there this time. Suffice it to say that if you find yourself hungry in Wellington, Prego has the most authentic pizza margherita we've ever enjoyed outside of Italy, and we ate at Floriditas three times and bought their cookbook. Just in case you wondered.

The girls did really well, though all that city walking in the cold did wear them out from time to time. All told, we were in Wellington for three days (though that first day was moot due to exhaustion). Next up: Nelson!

Happy Valentine's Day!

We've received a few valentines in the mail (thank you!), but we haven't mailed any ourselves. Instead, I offer this, from us to you...

Personalize funny videos and birthday eCards at JibJab!

And I know what I know...

And I know what's going to happen!

I'm not sure where this song came from, but I'm very impressed with its duration and all the intense emotions she tries to convey in her performance. The nodding of the head, the large drawing in of breath...diva in the making (oh my).

We call this "burning the fumes"

This is what pre-bedtime mayhem can look like:

Singing and reading

Stephanie is holding a book of German children's songs, singing her version of one she finds. Check out Ellie in the background with a book, reading, rocking, legs crossed... Very cute afternoon moment from today.

What's cookin'

This weekend, Ellie and I attended two birthday parties for her classmates, one on each day. Baby Stephanie was not invited, and she just couldn't understand why. Both times we left, she was very distressed and cried quite a bit at the injustice of it all. By party number two, I felt terrible and offered to make it up to her by baking a cake that afternoon and hosting a birthday party for her and Ellie's babies, Zuzu, Heidi, and Lolo. This was received with great rejoicing, and peace was restored to the universe. Markus caught this little video of us baking the cake together with The Precious:

Monkey on the monkey bars

For Ellie, this past term at school was dedicated to the pursuit of one skill and one skill only: mastering the monkey bars.

Soup for Zoe

Yesterday was the first day of Ellie's winter holidays from school. Today, she will start a music workshop with the school's music teacher, Robyn, that will last for a few hours each day until Friday. Ellie is thrilled about this workshop, but yesterday, that gap Monday with no friends to visit after a wonderful weekend with Papa home...it had potential to go very pear-shaped. Fortunately, it didn't! In the morning, we made our first visit to the Fremantle Maritime Museum (nicely done!). Stephanie was tired so we only lasted about an hour, but it was worth it (kids' entry was free!). After Stephanie's nap, the girls played well in the backyard together. There was a lot of the requisite trampoline time, but closer to dinnertime, it was time to cook!

While all my hard work cooking and preparing foods for my family goes underappreciated by our resident CEO, it clearly does not go unnoticed. I snuck outside with the camera to take a few sneak-shots (they typically stop whatever they are doing when they see the camera), but this time, they didn't notice me at all. I got a bit more bold and took some shots with the camera in full view, and still they worked on. Ellie started explaining to me the detailed process involved in soup preparation, and I flipped to movie mode after about a minute.

Meanwhile at King's Park...

Watch the little one towards the very end.

Fever...with Muppets

Markus has been listening to Michael Buble as background music lately. It's nice, mellow stuff, but I always start to giggle when the iPod settles on "Fever". Every time I hear that song, I see Animal and Rita Moreno in my head. Now, courtesy of YouTube, you can see why I giggle too:

Hip hip hooray!

Baby Stephanie had two birthday celebrations yesterday: a birthday breakfast picnic in the morning and cake and ice cream in the afternoon. We sang and blew out candles twice, because she loves the birthday song so much. She has especially embraced shouting, "Hip hip hooray!" after the birthday song, as you will see about half-way through this wonderful afternoon cake clip:

New diver

Yesterday, Markus bought a set of pool rings for Ellie. She swims (now I should say "swam") with floaties, but he noticed how often she tries to duck her head under and hold her breath...and the girl in the Connie books (German series) that Ellie really enjoys has to dive for rings to get her swim certification. He thought Ellie might make the connection and give it a go. We had no idea she would take to it so quickly and with such enthusiasm! Floaties are out; diving rings are in!

New Christmas tradition

Earlier in the week, temperatures dropped unexpectedly due to the smokey layer in the air, and I was prompted to seek a quick playdate alternative to swimming. We had invited over a family with three kids, and I wanted to make sure five kiddos total could stay engaged and happy for a while. We made a quick trip to the local bakery and picked up gingerbread house kits and then to the grocery store to buy some candy decorations. As it turned out, the kids wanted to swim anyway (kids have such different internal thermostats), so we saved the gingerbread house for another day.
Ellie had so much fun decorating it! We think it appeals to her meticulous nature. Baby Stephanie very helpfully ensured we did not have any extra Smarties to wrangle (Smarties are like M&Ms, larger, lacking the M, and made by Nestle).


We know we will be making one every year!

"I thought I had it in reverse!"

AKA Why Markus loves the South

Best Fishing Bloopers - watch more funny videos

Dagummit!

School concert

This video will be a bit too lengthy for most viewers, but true Ellie fans will love it. Last Thursday night, Ellie's school presented their end of the year concert. The theme was "peace." Children in the 3-5 year old classes were asked to dress in "national costumes." The variety was fantastic. There are a number of families from different countries, and a lot of those families had extra costumes to share. One African boy was shirtless with traditional paint on his chest and face. Two Greek children in Ellie's class looked amazing. I didn't film the whole concert (there are 4 younger classes and a few more older classes than I captured), but I included the duration of Ellie's class song and the final song with all the classes, as well as brief selections from some middle classes so you can get an idea. The adolescent program included hip-hop dancing in their physical education this term (along with fencing and surfing...I wish I'd gone to this school!), so you get to see a bit of their efforts too. You'll see Stephanie trying to mimic their motions a time or two. Ellie is in the first and last song. She is wearing a long pink dress (which belonged to her Tante Ulla when she was a girl). She is standing six children in from the left in the first song, next to the boy in brown. During the final song, she is standing over toward the right in the front row.


The whole concert was absolutely wonderful. It was a bit too late for the little ones, but they held up really well and everyone had a special time. Here, I'm happy to share it with you.

Reading and singing

My first full week back was Ellie's last week of school for the year. To call it intense would be an understatement and somewhat inaccurate besides; instead, it would best be described in Aussie terms: it has been "full on". I am very behind on blog posting, so I offer this joyful snippet as a placeholder while I gather my thoughts.



Ellie is looking at a farm animal book and singing "Old MacDonald".
Baby Stephanie tells us, "I read" before joining Ellie in finishing the chorus.
Best wishes for a lovely start to your week.