Driving down to Melbourne under the really big Australian sky.

A few photos from around the old homestead (otherwise known as Mum and Dad’s house).

This plant is called a Banksia or Bottlebrush and is uniquely Australian. I have a memory of being stung by a bee when I tried to pull one of the flowers off as a child. Haven’t tried it since.

The old Hill’s Hoist, or clothesline as people under the age of 50 like to call it. These haven’t really taken off in America where they much prefer their clothes dryers. In Australia your house is just not a home without a clothesline.

No matter where we travel there is always a park with a swing and a slide and a boy wanting to be pushed. The only thing that has changed is the bravery of the child, his desire to swing higher and higher and his increased ability to hold on.

Geoff Fisher (Emma, my sister-in-law to be’s father – got that?) is a professional photographer. As a christmas gift to my Mum and Dad he offered to come out and do a special family photo shoot while we were in Australia. I seized the opportunity to take my own photos and, while Geoff’s are bound to be much better, I do have a few favourites from the day.

My two brothers (Benjamin on the left and Jonathon in the middle) with Kei.

Emma and Samuel.

Brotherly/Sisterly love. There are definitely no photo like this from when we were teenagers. 🙂

Geoff doing his thing. Of course he has all the gear and of course I am incredibly envious.

Jonathon and Mum with Samuel.

And there’s Geoff again.. with Samuel. That kid was held by someone pretty much the entire time.

My Dad with Thomas. Not sure what Thomas was trying to tell him.

The Australian Bush. I’m thinking about blowing a couple of these up and getting them framed.

And this one I took of Samuel on the way home. This was before he developed his hatred for the car which is why he not screaming.

An early 3rd birthday party for Thomas. We rarely get to celebrate birthdays as a family now that we live so far away so this seemed like the perfect opportunity to make the most of us all being together.

Emma (my brother Ben’s fiancee) and I decided to go all out and make a train cake from the infamous Australian Women’s Weekly Birthday Cake book – the original 30 year old version that I used to look through as a child. Women’s Weekly has released a more recent version and, while very good, it has nothing on the original. Emma and I had so much fun putting the whole thing together and Thomas even helped with the baking and, of course, licking the beaters.

I even made some sausage rolls for the event but I forgot to take a photo of them. For readers of this blog who are not familiar with the sausage roll, it’s basically sausage meat wrapped in puff pastry and is an Aussie staple. Right up there with meat pies and vegemite. The ones I made had sage in them and were delicious. Here’s the recipe I used and this is what they looked like. Delicious!

And here’s the finished cake. Pretty impressive huh? It took a lot of time and effort, and looked like this for about 5 minutes, but I think it was worth it.

And what’s a cake without a picture of the birthday boy blowing out his candles? 

The celebrations actually continued all month and well into the week after we returned home when we celebrated again on his actual birthday – and when Thomas emphatically declared that it was “the best birthday ever!”

This is a portrait of my Great Grandmother Purdie, that must have been taken at around the beginning of the 20th century. It’s one of those things that I saw every day as I was growing up but never really looked closely enough to appreciate it. I think she’s quite beautiful and now when I look at it I try to imagine her sitting there while her photo was taken.  I wonder what she was thinking that day about the events in her life. Was she thinking about her children, the work she had to do, things she was worried about or happy about…? Wish I knew.

Such a different experience from the point and shoot culture we have today and the fact that everything is recorded in photos, scrapbooks and blogs. I wonder what my great granchildren will think about when they look back on my photos and stories in a hundred years.

When Thomas and I travelled to Australia last year, we had the opportunity to visit a local farm/petting zoo. The owners were kind enough to let us visit even though they are closed during the winter months. The most exciting thing for Thomas was being able to feed a baby Joey.

Of course when we travelled back this year we had to make a trip to the farm again. And again, the owners were kind enough to let us visit during their off season. Sadly, the Joey we fed last year came to a rather unfortunate end at the hands (or mouth) of another animal, probably a dog. The wombat had also been released into the wild – good for the wombat but we missed seeing him.

The good news is that there were still a number of kangaroos, deer and other animals to pat and Thomas showed that he definitely has Aussie blood running in his veins. He showed absolutely no fear of these gorgeous creatures that towered over him. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing, especially after a story appeared on the news a week or so later about a man who was attacked by a kangaroo while he was out jogging.

These kangaroos were VERY friendly (I took this photo with my 50mm so he was close).

The native birds were just stunning.

And Thomas had the opportunity to collect some extremely fresh eggs. I reconfirmed my status as a city girl by staying clear while mum rolled up her sleeves and helped. I prefer my eggs nice and clean and neatly packaged on the supermarket shelf. Free range, of course.

Our second full day in Australia was not much fun at all. Our plans were promising – a day in beautiful Bright, Victoria, spending time as a family just hiking, relaxing and sightseeing. The true beginning of our vacation.

The morning began with a tantrum from that little angel face in the photo above. First he didn’t want to get out of the car and then he didn’t want to wear his coat (it was pretty cold) and then he wanted a snack… but not the snack I had on offer. This escalated to a time out before we had even started walking. The sweet sound of birds was drowned out by the wails of “I want my Muuuuuuummmmmmmyyyyyy” between periods of heavy sobbing.

Nonetheless, we finally embarked on our hike and Thomas managed to cheer up about half way through – after snack time of course.

We then had lunch at a cafe beside the park (overpriced for what we got, but the potato wedges with sour cream and chilli sauce were good) and walked around town for a little while. The day seemed to be ending nicely when we stopped at a cafe for coffee. Kei and I got into a conversation with the lady who worked there and, while talking, Thomas began tugging at my arm in a playful way and pulling down. My instinct was to pull up and then there was a loud shriek and a LOT of crying. I had done something to Thomas’ arm and it was clearly very painful. He refused to let us touch or move it and my immediate thought was that I had broken something.

We still had an hour to drive before we were back at my parent’s house so we stopped for some panadol and braced ourselves for a fun ride home and then a visit to the doctor’s office.

Turns out Thomas had a case of “Pulled Elbow”, a condition that can apparently be fixed by a doctor in about 3 seconds. After a quick adjustment (Thomas was distracted) and an initial cry of pain, Thomas was soon back to normal. The doctor wasn’t his favourite person in the world but he started moving his arm again as if nothing had happened.

Oh, and then I did it to him again a couple of days later… Definite nominee for Mother of the Year. This time the doctor (a friend of Mum and Dad’s) made a quick house call on a Sunday night which saved us a trip to the emergency room. Gotta love a small town.

Samuel with a very proud Nan. This boy was totally spoilt while we were away. So much so that I am barely able to put him down now without him getting incredibly upset. And don’t even get me started on the good sleeping habits that have gone out the window… He’s just lucky he has a lot of cuteness in his favour.

Thomas checking out the horses in the paddock behind Mum and Dad’s place. I love that he had a chance to really experience nature, complete with the sound of kookaburras laughing in the distance.