Why??!

Why, when these things grow everywhere here? Makes no sense. Infuriating!!

Camping on Cockatoo Island

Now this is my kind of camping!  Right in the middle of Sydney Harbor, just a hop skip and a jump on the ferry from downtown Sydney (that's the bridge and Opera House in the background).  No long drives, no traffic, no critters, no bugs, and no schlepping gear through a yucky campsite. 

Waiting for the ferry with our luggage.

It is so low-maintenance (again, my style) that they even officially call it "Glamping".  The tents are all set up for you when you get there with sleeping pads (granted, you are still sleeping on the ground, but I guess it wouldn't be camping otherwise).  All we needed to bring was pillows, blankets, food and wine.  Full kitchen, fridge, the works!  

The girls had an amazing time.  We were lucky enough to end up with a tent right next to 2 other little girls exactly the same ages as Hannah and Abbey and everyone was fast friends.  

Hannah and her new BFF (well, for Saturday night at least) choreographed (and dictated to me to record) a whole dance routine.  Just in case you don't follow on the video, it's as follows:

Run, run, spin

Run, run, cartwheel

Spin, spin, spin, spin

Clean!

Right arm out, right leg out

Left arm out, left leg out, cartwheel

Clean!

Skip, skip, skip, skip, skip

Clean!

Bow, bow, bow

The end

Even the ferry ride home was fun, with local entertainment when we arrived back in the city (we have a picture like this for pretty much every time the girls have been to the city.  Those didgeridoo players know their names by now).  Abbey was too busy "texting my friends, Mommy!" to have her picture taken this time. 

Some random stuff

Finally catching up and just have a few odds and ends to throw out there for your entertainment.

Another great lunchtime run around the Opera House

An item from the "Only in Australia" files

Walking home from the bus stop after work

At Luna Park AGAIN!!!

Too cool to look at the camera

Notice the crossed legs

Jogging in a cyclone

First day of First Grade (yes, Hannah wore the wrong uniform by mistake and so looks like one of the boys instead of one of the girls)

Picnic dinner at the beach

New bathrobes and crazy poses

"Daddy, I'm planking".  How does she even know that term??

Yoga with their new nanny/yogi Kelsey

Swimming at the Fairlight Pool in Manly

Catching up on some reading

New Year's Day at Balmoral Beach

Busiest day at Balmoral Beach we've seen since we got here (apparently Christmas Day is pretty crazy too usually but the rain kept everyone away this year).

We managed to stay pretty chill despite the crowds :)

A trip to the Australia Museum

Lots of weird skeletons, a fun hiding place, and a stroll down the streets of downtown Sydney (the CBD, Central Business District, as we call it).

Leila's visit

We had an amazing visit with Leila this week. It was hard to say goodbye and we were all pretty sad, but we're grateful she took so much of her short amount of time here to hang out with us. We played hooky from school on Friday morning to play at the beach a bit.  We hope Leila had a great tip home and we can't wait to see her again when the whole Smee family is back for her Auntie Rachel's wedding.

And one highly choreographed video too :)

New Nanny, More Girls-Day Fun, and other Random Stuff

Things have been a little crazy here recently with the departure of Jacki (boo!), the arrival of Kelsey (yeah!), a visit from Gran and Pop (fun!), an escape to Tasmania for me and Pete (relaxing!), a weeklong business trip to Barcelona for Pete (torture for me!) and finally a week in Singapore for me (exhausting!).


Kelsey arrived from Ottawa at the beginning of January to take over for Jacki who headed back to the snow a couple of weeks later.

We finally managed to have our dinner at the beach that got rained out 3 times over Christmas on one of the last nights Jacki was with us.

Unfortunately Gran was really sick the first day here in Sydney (a 22 hour plane ride and crazy erratic weather here in Sydney, rainy and 22 one day and then sunny and 46 CELCIUS! the next, did not help) so Kelsey and I took the girls to the Sydney Opera House to see ImagineOcean (thanks to Gran and Pop for the tickets!).  Just like almost every airplane the girls have ever been on, they managed to convince the Captain to let them into the cockpit to drive the ferry across Sydney Harbour.

We had a great time with Gran and Pop including lots of fun time hanging out in Manly, going to "our" beach here at Balmoral, and climbing around at the Treetop Adventure Park.  Although Abbey was very keen to get fully outfitted and did the course once through (crying the whole time) it turned out to be too scary for her so we just watch Hannah instead who raced around like a monkey for 2 hours.  Check out the video below.  The last part of the clip shows Hannah in a big green net thing which was Abbey's absolute undoing :(  After that she couldn't get that harness and helmet off fast enough.

Gran and Pop generously offered to stay with Hannah and Abbey in Sydney while Pete and I went to Tasmania for a few days.  It was awesome!  So beautiful and relaxing of course to be kid-free for a few days.

We spent 2 days in Hobart where we miraculously got upgraded to an amazing 3 bedroom apartment (which, knowing how much everything costs in this country I'm sure we could never have actually afforded)...

 ... ate some amazing food (but, don't worry, not wallabies even though they were available)...

 ... weirdly came across an outdoor iceskating rink (I have no idea how they keep that frozen...

... and rode bikes to the Cascade Brewery where we got drunk on the tour which made for an interesting bike ride home.

After a few days in the big city (well, big for Tasmania) we headed off to Freycinet National Park for some very serious quiet, beauty, and nature.  We didn't have to wait long for the flora and fauna part of the weekend to begin as this was the scene when we pulled up to our hotel room/cabin.

We did some beautiful hikes in the park, including one to beautiful Wineglass Bay, got completely soaked in a kayak, and ventured out on a night tour to see the Bicheno penguins (which you are not allowed to take pictures of so the one below is pirated from Google).  Other than that, we basically relaxed and ate a lot (the food might be expensive in this country but it is DELICIOUS!)

The one experience from Tassie that I'm not keen to relive is our hike up Mt. Amos.  On the map it looked like a tame enough trail but turned out to have some very steep, very smooth and slick bare rock stretches that proved a challenge for me and my decidedly non-hiking shoes.  I managed to freak myself out sufficiently to get Pete to call the ranger station when we were almost at the top to ask if it was a loop or if we would have to come back down the same harrowing, seemingly death-defying way we came up.  Sadly, not only did it turn out we did indeed have to get down the same rock faces we had just scrambled up but all we got for our trouble in calling the ranger station was a stern tongue lashing from the unpleasant lady who answered the phone (Pete's American accent probably didn't help here) for not having checked into the info center before embarking on a journey that she clearly thought no soft foreigner should be attempting.  She even hung up on us which really made me feel much better about the whole situation.  Alas, we did make it back to safety without too much trouble.

About halfway up, still calm enough to take totally staged pictures of Pete meant to look like real action shots.

Starting to worry a bit now.  How on earth am I going to get back down if I keep going up?

Putting on a brave face.  "Who me? Worried? No, no, just stopping for a quick sip of water.  Do we have a cell phone signal up here?  How much water do we have left?"

Adding insult to injury, critters everywhere!

After the excitement of Gran and Pop's visit, Kelsey's arrival, and Jacki's departure, we got back to every day life, including another fun girls day out.  After a fun-filled day of Luna Park (of course!) followed by another great outdoor pool overlooking the harbor, we caught a movie at the outdoor Startlight Cinema in North Sydney.  The girls had a great time even before the movie started dancing around and generally acting like lunatics.