Woodland Antics

Queen Victoria Market is a major landmark in Melbourne.  It's also major tourist destination and after two years of living here we finally made it! Fiona brought her little purple Kodak camera to document our morning. All of the following pictures are from her with the exception of the few of her. Tapping that little foot, watching a street performer and eating a fresh doughnut. Does it get any better? There's an incredible amount of stimuli throughout the market.  Everywhere you look there's a bunch of stuff and people.  Leave it to Fiona to spot this golden Asian cat. (above)  She loves them for some reason. It's a little quirk of hers that I can't understand but cracks me up. Footy!   The kids will ask, "Who do you go for Mum?"   {It's so Australian to say "go for"} I barrack for Hawthorne! We're going to our first match on the 17th of August.  Reed and "B

Fiona has been doing ballet since she was 3.  I'm not really much of a "Dance Mum", it's not my thing. But Miss Fiona is so passionate about it. She continued with ballet lessons until the end of last year.  It was then that she outgrew her  ballet shoes.  I took the opportunity to broach the topic of her trying a different type of dance.  She was keen to try Irish Dancing.   What a great choice!  It fits her spunky personality perfectly.   She's totally rocking it and loving it.   She makes me so proud.   She's always practicing and such an eager, well behaved learner. A few weeks ago they had an informal show for parents to watch.  {the BIG one is right before Christmas} photographer Reed took this photo.  He's awesome! After the show we took a few photo's outside. Above is a typical Fiona posed shot.   Eyes closed, goofy little grin. I imagine she thinks she looks pretty elegant. Just

It's been well over 2 years since our family has seen snow.  After 30-something years of snowy winters I have been absolutely fine with this.  The kids, on the other hand, have been itching for some snow play.  Because it's a rare occasion in Ryan's lifetime to have his July birthday in winter we decided his Birthday Experience would be a day in the snow. So, earlier this week we let the kids ditch school and we headed through the temperate rainforest into the mountains. The kids reported it was the best holiday ever!  They giggled and loved the snow just like native Australians. Ryan and I... well it was a very laughable experience for us.  We saw the reality of it all.  It was a hill with a thin layer of slushy ice.  At the top was a PVC pipe shooting out tiny ice cubes into a heap.  That was it. I've seen better conditions at a Walmart parking lot in Massachusetts & Quebec. That's what we paid over forty bucks for.  Was it worth it?  Absolutely!  T