Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Yeah that about sums up how I feel right now.  I have one day left until the movers come, and I'm feeling a little stressed.  Craig was home on the weekend, which was wonderful, it was so great to all be together and we got a lot done here at the house, I ordered in a skip bin and we got rid of a lot.  

On the Sunday night we had our Thanksgiving dinner, it went well, I let the kids invite friends this year, and they all had a good time.

  

While we were waiting for the friends to arrive, we noticed Hunter had fallen asleep between the couches on the floor in the lounge, it was pretty funny, so of course, I took a picture.  Craig ended up carrying him to bed and he slept about 2.5 hours.  He looks like he's praying.

 Kenzie and I made a little turkey decoration.  It's not quite the right colours, but that's all I had lying around.

Here's Mackenzie with her friends Eva and Natalia.

Eva and her mum made some delicious cupcakes for everybody.

When everyone had arrived we played a few games while the turkey was cooking.  Hunter had woken up and decided to join us by this point.  Their favourite game was pass the pumpkin.

It was noisy and a little chaotic, but once that food came out, there was dead silence! It was a nice Thanksgiving, with good friends, food and wine.

Kingston found some stickers and stuck then all over himself, I think he may have had some help from Hunter.  Check out that puku!

Tuesday night was our last swimming lessons.  Both kids did so well, I'm glad they'll be able to swim a lot over the summer to help them practice until I can find them new lessons in Australia.  They each got a ribbon for graduating from their levels.....I'm so proud.

 

Tonight I had my friends from my coffee group over for dinner, and I can't believe I didn't even take one picture!  We had a fun night though, it's not often we get to sit around and chat and laugh and drink wine with no kids interrupting.  I'll miss our fortnightly catchups.

This will probably be my last post for a little while, I'm not sure how long I'll be offline, but I will be back with loads of new pictures and stories when I can.

Be afraid.......

Be very afraid.

The November Update

I'm sure you're wondering what we've been doing since we came home from the States.

Besides the trip to Sydney, we've been back into our usual routine.  Hunter is doing really well at school, his reading has gotten so good and he's on level 22 now.  His teacher is wonderful and I think she caters to his interests very well to keep him on track.  Kenzie is still loving kindy, and she's been working hard at writing her name, Mackenzie is a LONG name, with difficult letters, she has it tough!

We've been doing swimming lessons again.  Both kids have gone up a level, and have new teachers.  Hunter is an Olly Octopus now, and Kenzie is a Starfish.  Luckily for me, they're both at the same time on the same day, so now we're only there once a week which is perfect.

Last week was challenge week and they both passed and got ribbons!

As for Kingston, well where do I begin??

He's even more of a monkey than usual.  His favourite thing to do is push a chair from the dining table all over the house to open doors, climb on the bench, and cause general havoc.

But he sure is cute!!   He's talking like a book now, and loves to parrot everything we say.

Last night as I was getting dinner ready, he snuck into the pantry and stole the box of weet-bix.

The conversation went something like this:

Me: What have you got?

K: Weet-bix

Me: Put those back, I'm making dinner

K: Noooooo,  I got breakfast!

He's too smart for his own good!

Earlier in the day when I was on the phone, I turned around to see him in the sink.  He pushed the chair over and climbed into the sink so that he could play with the microwave.

Check out Mr Bed-head

As for me, well I've been keeping busy trying to sort through the house, I've booked the movers to come on November 28th, and our flights for November 29th.  So we have about 10 days left.  I'm nervous and excited, but mostly I will just be relieved when we can be all back together.

Craig is frantically searching for a house for us.  It seems there's a shortage of rental properties in Sydney at the moment, so there are always 10 other people looking at the same house.  Finger's crossed he is able to find one soon.

Speaking of Craig, he will be home this weekend! 

Woohoo! I can't wait, we have a lot to get done, and on Sunday we'll have our thanksgiving dinner.

It's all go!

A quick visit to Sydney

Once we came back from the States, Craig had to really get stuck back into work, so we decided that the kids and I would come for a few days to visit him, that way the kids could see where he's working, and have a look around Sydney, I thought it might help get them excited about the move.

So on Thursday the 29th of October, I got Hunter early from school and we went out to the airport, this was my first time ever having to do a whole trip by myself, usually Craig was always at home to drive us and pick us up.  I used the airport valet parking, they had someone pick up my car right at the departure terminal and take it away to store, then they would pick me up at arrivals when I arrived back - TOO EASY!!

We were really early so we had lots of time to watch the planes landing and taking off.

We flew Emirates this time, who we LOVE, and they didn't disappoint.  A 5pm flight meant that we would leave right around dinnertime and not get into Sydney too late.  The kids got loaded up with activity books, toys and chocolate bars before the plane had even taken off, Emirates are great like that.  Then they settled in to watch their movies, they had Wall-E which is Hunter's new favourite, and he was able to watch it 1.5 times, Kenzie watched Pocohontas for the first time, yep she had been hanging out to see the movie since she met Pocohontas at Disneyland, but didn't know who she was.  Needless to say she enjoyed it and watched it a second time.  Kingston battled me for my headphones and WON, so he watched a little Wall-E and took a little cat-nap after dinner.  

We got into Sydney right on time, and breezed through customs, it was so exciting to see Craig waiting for us, Kenzie ran into his arms, screaming "daddy daddy" 

That girl should be in movies.

We got back to Craig's apartment in McMahon's Point, and settled in, did I mention it's a studio apartment? 

It was cosy!!

On Friday morning we were up at some ridiculous hour, Hunter wakes up around 6am at home, and Sydney is 2 hours behind Auckland, so it was still dark outside.  Hunter and Kingston sat at the window watching the boats while they waited for us to get up.  Craig ran out for some breakfast food, then he had to go to work.

We hung out for a while, then decided to go to the playground we could see down by the water.

This was the view down there.

That's the Sydney Harbour Bridge and Opera House

Incase you're wondering why there's no picture of Kingy, he was fast asleep in his stroller by this time!

And across the other side was Luna Park

It was HOT out in that sun, it got up to 36 that day! (97f) We were really starting to melt, so we walked up toward Craig's office which was just up the HILL!! 

lol, it was a tough walk, he met us halfway which was great, and we got the grand tour. Everyone was so nice. it was good to finally meet them all.  We got some lunch with Craig, then headed back to the apartment, luckily it was all downhill.

Craig came home early and asked if we wanted to take the ferry across to Darling Harbour to the Aquarium?  I think you can guess the answer to that question!

While we waited for the ferry, Hunter spotted jellyfish in the water.  It was his first time to see real jellyfish - in the WILD!!!! He was so excited!

The ferry was quick and the Sydney Aquarium is right on Darling Harbour, it is VERY cool!!

 You walk in through a giant Shark jaw.  Of course Mackenzie was scared and didn't want to go in!  

We may change her name to drama! 

Once we got our tickets, guess who we saw?

BRUCE!!

Kingy was so happy to see him

Kenzie checked him out from a distance just in case!

Kingston was just helping me upload these, and I said "look you gave the shark a kiss, aww"

to which he told me, "No!! Bite!!" 

So I guess he was getting in first! lol

It's a great aquarium, the kids saw everything they like and more.  It has a really unique set-up, I braved the shark tunnel, although Kingston was a little anxious this time, and then we walked into an area where you are surrounded, even the floor is glass and the sharks can swim under your feet, It was very impressive, Kingy would not let me put him down though, glass floors frighten him, especially with sharks swimming under them!  

Eventually we were ready to go, and of course had to manoeuvre our way through the gift shop.  

Next door to the aquarium is Sydney Wildlife World, we didn't go in, BUT we did meet this guy outside.

I can't imagine bumping into a Kangaroo that size!!

We got the kids a snack and the had a play in the fountain.  Funnily enough last time we were in Sydney, Hunter played in the same one, that was 3.5 years ago though, and Kenzie was only just a year old, and sleeping in the stroller.

We were all a little tired and hungry by that point, and after searching in vain for a restaurant open at 5pm to have some dinner we decided to catch the ferry home.  It was a nice ride, and I took some pictures of the tired but happy travellers.

Saturday was another predawn start.  Not quite as early as the day before though.  We spent the day looking at houses, had a nice dinner, and an early night!

Here we are hanging out at Craig's place

This is the view from his window

On Sunday we thought we'd give the kids some options of activities and they could plan the day.

Kenzie wanted to go swimming, and Hunter wanted to go to the Wildlife Park, and Craig wanted to go to the Zoo.  We started with Olympic Park. 

It was just okay! 

Naturally the kids loved it, but I'm convinced they are part fish!   Craig and Hunter and Kenzie played in the rapid river, Kingston is not overly fond of swimming pools, so I hung out with him in the hot tub - no complaints from me.   Eventually Craig and the kids joined us, and then after a while we decided we'd get dressed, grab some food and go to Featherdale Wildlife Park.

I had brought the kids here the last time I was in Sydney, and I knew they'd really enjoy it again.  They were all given a little passport which they had to stamp at different locations throughout the park.

A friendly pelican

These 2 birds, stayed perfectly still, it's like they're made of stone

Kenzie made friends with a Kookaburra

Next up were the Koalas

Hunter said his fur was really soft

They have an area there where you can fill ice cream cones with food for the Kangaroos and feed them

The Kangaroos only like the food, but Hunter found someone who LOVED the cones

We saw a Wombat

A Tasmanian Devil

Some farm animals

and these Peacocks, they were showing off their feathers to the ladies

I'm sure you're wondering where Kingston was in all those pictures? No surprises there, he was asleep in his stroller. When he woke up we took him back to see the animals he had missed.

You can tell he liked the Kangaroos.

Then we went to meet the Koala again, only this time he was a little camera shy.

It was a really nice day, and as we were getting ready for bed that night, we were able to watch the fireworks going off across the harbour from Craig's balcony.  It was perfect!

On Monday we had a nice quiet day, we took a little walk then met Craig for lunch.  After Kingy's nap we went down to look for jellyfish, there were heaps of them, so Hunter was very happy.  Then we played at the playground until Craig was finished work. We had a nice dinner and I started packing our bags.

Our flight home on Tuesday went well.  It was late leaving so they made up the time in the air, only 2.5 hours instead of 3!  We had lunch, watched movies, Kingston napped and we were back in Auckland.  I got my car back quickly and it wasn't long before we were back home.

It was a fun few days, we were all really missing Craig, so it was good to see where he's been staying and see his new work.