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!

We're back!

We have returned safely from our journey to Middle Earth! What a great trip! Even more fabulous, what amazing little travelers we have! I don't know how many families with children under 6 can shrug off a(n almost) seven hour flight each way, three internal short flights and five different locations in two weeks, but I'm guessing not many. These girls are wonderful! We are so impressed and amazed and blessed (though of course we also already knew and felt that, even before we went).

I am thrilled we made it to New Zealand. If we had left this part of the world without it, I would have felt the loss. We were so close to not going. The day we intended to book our trip was the day the world learned of the Christchurch earthquake. Eventually, logic forced me to concede that New Zealand was never going to stop being on a fault, so if I wanted to go, I had to just risk it and go. Apparently, there was a little earthquake our first night in Wellington, but we were all so exhausted from the travel that we didn't notice. Thankfully, there weren't any more to report. There was, unfortunately, quite a bit of rain...

Not that it dampened our spirits much.

At the moment, we're all a bit jetlagged. While the girls are truly amazing travelers, they aren't big on sleeping in transit. There is a 4-hour time difference between Perth and New Zealand plus that 7(ish)-hour flight, leaving us all a bit fried today. I will work up some posts on the different places we visited (Wellington, Nelson, Auckland, and the Bay of Islands) to share over the coming week.

We hope you enjoyed your Easter weekend and, for those of you in the Northern Hemisphere, the start of spring!

Week round-up and off we go!

It took all the restraint I could muster not to drive over to peek at Ellie before 12:30 on Friday, but I managed it. When I arrived to pick her up, she was fine, 100% fine, totally happy and herself. WHEW. I know I'm a worrywart and I should be more excited for her than nervous, but it's a mama-thing to fret. She did very well. She assured me that she even ate dinner although she didn't like the food (wish that happened at home!). Of course, exhaustion didn't take long to rear its ugly head. She walked into walls and cried. She colored, didn't like the outcome and cried. After dinner, she picked up a different color marker than she had intended and...CRIED like her heart was broken. We carried her to bed, and she slept quite well through the night. Poor kiddo. But she was one very proud kiddo, proud of her big accomplishment of making it through the night without us to brush her hair or brush her teeth or read her a story. We're proud of her too.

Next up: NEW ZEALAND! We are off to New Zealand tomorrow (HOORAY!) for two weeks! I think Markus and I have been itching to go to New Zealand since we first saw Lord of the Rings (gorgeous locations!), and now we are going! Ideally, we'd go when the girls are older, but we imagine that we will live much further away then. Relative to the US or Europe, New Zealand is right on our doorstep from Perth. Now that we are beyond diapers and daytime naps (ok, I still like daytime naps), we decided to just go!

Tomorrow night, we'll take a direct flight from Perth to Auckland, arriving in Auckland just before 6am their time. We'll fly on from there to Wellington, stopping over for a few days to check out the city. Then, we'll fly to the top end of the south island, spending a few days in and around Nelson and the Abel Tasman National Park. From there, we'll fly back to Auckland, hang out for a couple of days and then drive up to the Bay of Islands at the top end of the north island for four days. I am so excited!

If you know New Zealand, you know the south island is where it's at for action and adventure, but our reality with two young children is more observation and play. One very clued-up guide book suggested young families bypass the south island as not to tease the adults. We accept this wisdom and will try to limit ourselves to some form of reality around Nelson. As it is, this is the first holiday we've taken with the girls where we'll move them around so much. I tried to book accommodation carefully, always providing us with a kitchenette and sometimes with a nice little cottage so we can keep it simple when we want or need to do so. For now, I'm off to start organizing our packing. It will be quite the temperature change for us, and I'm guessing we will be quite cold after our record-hot Perth summer. Today is another debilitating 36 degrees. In New Zealand, the highest forecast is 18. Big change! Hooray! I'll post and share when I can.

Want a postcard?

Growing up!

Try as I might to deny it, our Ellie is growing up. The fact that this is completely unauthorized does not seem to deter her (nor should it). Sigh (sniffle).

Tonight, she will have her first-ever sleep away from us. There is a sleep-over at school for the kids who are transitioning up to Middle Primary (the next age group, 6-9 year olds) next term. This morning, we packed according to the list the school provided. I made her a little zippered pouch to keep her toothbrush and toothpaste in, and she's very proud of her packing organization. Ellie is very excited, and we've done all we can to talk it up and express great enthusiasm...but on the inside, EEK! My little (big) girl, away from us for the night. I miss her already, and right now is just normal school time that she's always away...except I know I won't pick her up today. I won't see her again until tomorrow at noon! EEK EEK EEK.

My biggest consolation is that the school does this for everyone every year, and many kids experience this sleep-over as the first night away from parents. Those in charge know how to handle this, so I must have faith. I'm sure Ellie will be fine. She'll probably have a blast! It's me who will have trouble sleeping, wondering...until she's back with me again tomorrow.

Paging Dr. Stephanie

Our sweet Stephanie has the gentlest little hands you can imagine. She is very tender, and her empathy and concern for others is astounding. This week, Markus has been sick with a cold. Although it is thankfully nothing more than a cold, it's been a bad one and has knocked him for a loop. The girls, however, have been thrilled. Instead of our normal weekday routine that has us all rush from 6am to snap up whatever time we can with him before he's off to work super-early, he's been in bed, ready to be snuggled and climbed upon and to read stories before anyone is out of pjs. Stephanie especially has been enjoying his time as an invalid.

On the morning he announced he was too sick to go to work, she immediately offered to give him a check-up, did so quite thoroughly, gave him (pretend) medicine and decided he needed more rest. She checked in on him throughout the day, very quietly and with her tender concern so that he was so touched I'm sure the extra warmth radiating from all that love made the cold go away faster.

Now with Crimplene!

Yesterday afternoon, I scooted over to Freo for a little me-time. Just an hour and a half, scooting around, poking around in some shops...and I came home with this:

It's a mint condition '60s turquoise dress with three flamingos appliqued on the left front. It still had the original tags on it, for sale at Boans for $57.50 in who knows what year. I have no idea why the air hostesses for Flamingo Airlines didn't snap this baby up!

Made with the miracle fashion fabric Crimplene!

I know you are jealous.

Family portraits

On Saturday, we had our first-ever professional family portraits made. Yes, I had previously attempted those mall portraits when stateside, but unless the subject was only a tiny kiddo, the result was pretty yuck. Quality professional portraits are super-pricey, and I often find I can beat the image by doing it myself. For family photos, we usually just don't.

I kept seeing work by Blue Lily crop up on blogs I enjoy. Most people shared because they will shoot a video during your photos as well, and it's really cute behind-the-scenes type stuff. The images are great, very natural, not overly contrived and the color boosting is fantastic. Back in September, I read on NieNie that Blue Lily would be coming to Australia, so I signed us up!

On Saturday afternoon, we drove out to Roleystone in the Perth Hills for our shoot in an orchard (orchards seem to be Blue Lily's signature scene). Of course, both girls fell asleep in the car. Crankiness reigned supreme. Ellie was soon coaxed out of it by Wendy's expertise, but the first half of our shoot was somehow done with a completely unamused and uncooperative Stephanie. Eventually, Wendy won her over too. She was genius! She lay flat on her tummy in the tall grass, popping up with a silly face and making puppy noises to get their attention and giggles...worked every time! We had a lot of fun. It will be hard to wait 2-3 weeks for the finished work!

We have to laugh that the portraits will be keeping it real. First, there's the impossible to hide cranky factor. Then, there's wardrobe. Both girls were dressed just fine until Markus told them we were going to have photos made. Then, they went and changed. Ellie inexplicably donned winter wear and Stephanie put on her purple fairy dress that she has never before wanted to wear out of the house and now would not take off. We did make Ellie change back to what she had on before (it's just too hot for pants and long sleeves!), though we did let her wear her chosen outfit in the car. There was no reasoning with Stephanie, and we figured we didn't need to anyway. None of us dressed up (though I did curl my hair), the girls quickly discarded their shoes, and it's all a good reflection of us on a normal summer day here in Perth (except we're in an orchard, where we wouldn't normally be).

My little shadow

I have a little shadow. She is lovely and sweet and fun (and *often* naked).

Even when I hide to steal just two minutes of personal space, she finds me.

And I love that.

Dialogue at the breakfast table this morning

Ellie (enthusiastically): Stephanie, you get to come to school with me today!

Stephanie (mournfully): I don't want to go to school. I want to stay home.

Ellie: Well...going to school makes you taller and stronger and then you can be a teenager and then you can be home whenever you want!

She's in!

Today was Stephanie's first day of school! She went for two hours, and when I arrived to pick her up, she was so engrossed with the button frame--tongue out, brow furrowed in concentration--that she didn't even notice me. She wasn't even sitting with Ellie; she was happily working on her own. Lydia tells me that she didn't cry after I left (though she cried before I wriggled loose) but she did cling to Ellie for a long while. Ellie got her interested in a few things, helped her set out her own morning tea, and stayed close to her for most of her morning. Much to Lydia's surprise, Ellie informed her at one point that she had set up Stephanie with some drawing because, "I need to get back to my own work." Wow. They both did beautifully well! This mama, on the other hand, was teary when no kiddos were watching this morning, cried her way back to the car after prying Stephanie loose at the classroom door, and generally wore herself out in the first hour of separation. Mamas. Whatcha gonna do?

Stephanie's photo timeline

Each child in the class has a photo timeline of their lives. This is displayed on their birthdays, and it helps them tell stories about themselves to others. Parents are supposed to send the timeline to date on the first day. These are the photos I printed out and laminated to send with Stephanie tomorrow.





This is our wee girl, one picture for each birthday starting with the first one. It is such a gift, watching her grow.
For the record, I was hard-pressed to find cute photos of her with clothes on around her birthday time (summer)! There aren't many!

Milestone in progress

We are a Montessori family, which means the kids start school when they turn 3. Stephanie has been three for a couple of weeks now, so we knew the day was coming. Montessori classes are mixed age. The youngest class is 3 to (almost) 6, and the school keeps siblings together at this level, which we love. Stephanie will go into Ellie's class, and Ellie cannot wait to show her the ropes. This happens just in time, because the decision has been made to move Ellie up to the next age group a bit ahead of schedule. She will transition out over the remainder of this term and will start in her new class in term 2. For now, she is ready and waiting to welcome Stephanie into her domain.

Their teacher, Lydia, came for the home visit this past Friday. We chatted about Stephanie's readiness. Markus and I had decided to start Stephanie in slowly. While the school wants kids to go every day from 8:30am to 1:30pm at age 3, we feel this is a bit much and certainly too much from the start. We've decided to start Stephanie with 8:30 to 11am on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays and build from there. Stephanie has never been to daycare. She hasn't really ever had sitters. She is always with me. This will be a huge change for us both! I have my reservations, but I'm trying to be sure they are my reservations and not Stephanie's. In many respects, I think she's ready to go. While she hates the actual moment of separation from me almost every time (even when separating to be with Markus), I know she is over it the moment I am out of sight. I am thankful that Ellie will still be in the class to help her transition. They are such good sisters and Ellie is such a loving nurturer that I'm sure Stephanie will be in good hands (of course, her teachers are great too!). My lingering concerns are about her personal learning style and ways of doing things (so out of the box and so different from Ellie, whose obsession with order made her take to Montessori like a duck to water). We'll see how she goes and take it slowly. Of course, I realize I'm going to need intervention in the carpark if/when she cries at the door. I will hold it together until then, but that's the best I'll be able to do. It's a milestone in progress, for both of us.

Three!

Our girl is three years old!

What I left out of the last post because I felt it deserved its own post was STEPHANIE TURNED THREE while we were down in Albany! The Birthday Girl spent almost the entire day in her Birthday Suit. The clothes came off while we were at the boatshed market early in the morning (it fronted a beach) and we were in the rest of the day, where she could be free as the little bird she loves to be!


We started the morning with our family's traditional birthday bretzel which I'd made at home and brought down with us. It was our first morning in Albany after an after-dark arrival, so Stephanie woke up on a farm on her birthday with kangaroos, cows, an emu and horses (her favorite!) in view. We couldn't have planned a better start to the day for our animal-loving girl!


In the afternoon, our friends joined us for cake and good times.



The water balloon toss was a HUGE hit with tons of giggling all around...until Will was twice over the victim of an exploding balloon. We changed up the order (I had been tossing to him, a rather unfair disadvantage for him) so the kids were mostly tossing to each other, and they had a blast. We kept it to three water balloons (Stephanie turned 3!), so it left them wanting more. I think we'll definitely keep it as a birthday tradition.




And of course, we appreciated the special guest, Enoch the Emu. This was our first day with him, and Alan showed us how Enoch would come when you whistle. He let the kids stroke him, and Stephanie was enthralled. She spent every day after chatting with him at the fence. But what third birthday in Australia would be complete without photos like these?





HAPPY BIRTHDAY, STEPHANIE! WE LOVE YOU!

Down Albany way

Last week, we disappeared down to Albany for a week. Thank goodness. It has been a record hot summer here in Perth, weeks of unrelenting heat and unforgiving Aussie sun. Albany is about a five hour drive to the south, which makes it significantly cooler. It was cool enough to cause Ellie to exclaim, "It's wintertime!" when we stepped out of the car (and by Perth standards, it nearly was). Albany experienced a bit of unseasonably strong wind and some rain, dropping the temperature from Perth by half. Good thing we packed our fleece jackets, pants and sneakers! We were actually cold sometimes. Amazing.




Our good friends and previous neighbors have been encouraging us to make a trip down to Albany for almost as long as we've known them. Alan is from there, and his family are mostly still there. His sister owns some vacation properties, and they set us up in a fantastic spot for the week. It's called Parkfarm, and it is beautiful. It's a free-standing house (four double beds in four bedrooms, two baths, big common spaces and a kitchen) with a wrap-around porch set on a big piece of property just outside of Albany.




Waking up each morning to the wind in the trees, looking out across fields and seeing no other houses (his sister's house is hidden by the trees) and instead seeing their pet emu, Enoch, some kangaroos in the distance and some cows and horses milling about...sooooo relaxing! A week down there was just what the doctor ordered. The girls couldn't have been happier. Markus and I wanted to explore the area, but they were happy just to stick around the house most of the day. There was a child's swing hanging from the porch rafters and a perfect-sized table and chairs with Play-doh toys set out and ready for us.




They also enjoyed meandering over to the family house and helping to collect eggs from the chooks.




About half of our trip down wasn't great weather, but we didn't mind too much. We simply enjoyed being away and keeping life simple for a week. Albany does have some fantastic pristine beaches that we weren't able to enjoy nearly as much as we would have liked, but the beach here at home is none too shabby. We did join Alan and the boys at Mutton Bird Beach one morning, and the kids had a blast paddling in the shallows and climbing on the rocks, despite the grey skies and cool temperatures.





Each day, we drove around the coastline to Middleton Beach and enjoyed early lunch at the Bay Merchant Cafe. Fantastic spot. I highly recommend it. They serve breakfast and lunch all day, meaning we could actually eat lunch when we like to (around 11am) and the sandwiches were inventive and excellent. We went so often that the owners introduced themselves. We're on a first name basis now. We also made a visit to Whale World, a museum about the now-defunct whaling industry and its base in Albany. The girls really liked exploring the whaling ship (especially Ellie, much to our surprise).





Along the way, we stopped to see two natural rock formations made by the sea, a natural bridge and a deep sheer drop cut into the bouldery coast over the ages.




On Sunday, we went to the Albany Boatshed food market and picked up some beautiful crabs (my first!) and some fresh produce to serve alongside it. Alan and Rosemarie and their boys joined us for dinner. They dug up some potatoes from the family garden just before coming over. That dinner was fabulous! There is nothing to compare to the taste of super-fresh food. I made three dipping choices for the crab, and we didn't use a single one. The crab was so fresh and wonderful just plain. Another night, Alan brought over some fresh marron and we had another big meal. Hooray for good food!





On our last full day, we drove 30 minutes over to Denmark to explore. Our first stop was the famous Greene's Pool swimming beach. Oh. My. Goodness. So beautiful! I had a touch of a headcold that day, but I wasn't going to pass a chance to swim there. It was crystal clear, shallow and well-protected from waves. A wonderful spot!






Then, we drove around and discovered The Lake House winery for lunch. It is very small and the lunch menu is limited to (expensive) sharing platters, but the quality was fantastic! The girls were happy too, and we were surprised to realize when we got back into the car that we spent nearly two and a half hours enjoying lunch there!




The drive back was long and not too fun, but the trip was completely worth it and very relaxing! Thanks again, Rosemarie and Alan, for enabling such a great vacation! If you would like to see more pics (just in case I didn't put nearly enough in this post), there are tons in our flickr pool if you click on the sidebar.