Category Archives: Travel

The Big Day

Our entire visit to Australia was building up to one big moment – the day my brother, Ben, was to marry Emma. The ceremony took place in Melbourne’s Carlton Gardens which was just beautiful (thankfully the rain held off until the very end). The bride was fashionably late so Thomas and Samuel entertained guests by wrestling each other on the red carpet.

I had a couple of responsibilities on the day – accompanying my son down the aisle with the rings and giving a reading – so I wasn’t able to take as many photos of the ceremony as I had liked. I did, however, have a fabulous view from the front row of the bridesmaids…

…and the grooms men/woman. That’s my baby brother Jono in the middle. He turned 30 during our trip so I suppose he’s not much of a baby any more.

And of course we had the perfect view when the vows began. I began crying the moment I saw Emma get out of the car and I’m pretty sure I didn’t stop until the marriage certificate was signed. I blame the extra hormones that come from having given birth to two children.

And of course Emma looked stunning. (Ben looked OK too).

A light rain began to fall as the champagne was poured, so we quickly headed off to the reception at a nearby Chinese restaurant for Yum Cha (Dim Sum for my American blog readers).

I love this next photo. It is so “Emma”.

I told you she looked beautiful.

My kids were the life of the party.

Especially after the pants came off.

We gave Samuel free reign with the binky during our visit. It began with needing to help sooth him during our flight from hell on the way over, and became a crutch to help him cope with the fact that he was introduced to about 50 new people during our stay. I was worried that he would continue the binky addiction when we got home but, thankfully, he reverted back to bedtime-only as soon as we touched down in Portland. Still, I’m a little disappointed that he has a binky in every single photo of him at the wedding.

Of course between the moments of child entertainment, there were speeches from both best men, father-of-the-bride and father-of-the-groom, my cousin Luke who acted as MC and the bride and groom. Nothing too embarrassing (although I’m sure there was plenty of fodder) and I continued to cry. (I swear I didn’t cry this much before I had children – not even at my own wedding).

The very proud parents of the groom.

And another one of Jono. I’m not absolutely sure why I took so many photographs of him during this visit, although I suspect it’s because he’s matured enough that I no longer have to photoshop a certain middle finger out of all of the shots.

Finally, in what is likely to have the longest wedding celebration in history, we headed to a nearby pub for cake and dancing. My flash misfired on this next photo but it ended being one of my (and my brother’s) favourites.

Kei and I partied into the night after my parents took the kids back to the hotel. It was wonderful to have some time to relax and catch up with cousins who I have not seen in years, as well as get to know some of my newly-acquired family members.

It was a wonderfully beautiful day and a great party – and I even scored a sister out of the whole deal (my second one). I’d call that a huge success.

An Ode to Uncle Jono: Monday Mosaic

Yes, I am still going through photos from Australia. I took so many that it feels as though I need to post ten for each day that we were there (don’t worry, I won’t). Of course I HAD to post more than one as my ode to Uncle Jono. I was so grateful for the short time that my brother was able to spend with us at my parent’s house so that my boys could really get to know (and by “know”, I mean endlessly climb on) their uncle. It’s photos like these that make me sad to be living so far away, but thankful that my children have such a wonderful extended family.

There HAD To Be A Kangaroo: More Aussie P365

Now you know I couldn’t possibly post all of my Aussie photos without at least one picture of a Kangaroo. Once again we found ourselves at a small farm near my parent’s house where we could feed the rabbits and guinea pigs, collect a few still-warm eggs from the chickens and throw some bread at a couple of emus.

Sadly the kangaroo population has dropped somewhat since our first visit and this little guy was the only one who came to see us when we shook the can of food. Well, him and a few extremely-aggressive deer. I was afraid to pull put the camera without a fence to protect me, although we were able to get behind the fence and pet the animals.

Oh, don’t get me wrong, we had a great time and definitely had our fix of animals. A few of the Australian variety…

and some of your general, run-of-the-mill farm animals…

It was a fun day for my city kids, even if Samuel was a little traumatized by the experience of being surrounded by animals that towered above him, one of which stole a can of food right out of his hand.

Thankfully he’s young enough that he’ll recover and I’m sure we’ll visit the farm again on our next trip to Australia. It’s become something of a tradition, although admittedly a very smelly and dirty one. Yes, I’m a city girl too.

Easter A Few Weeks Late: Mosaic Monday

Thomas was relieved to hear that the Easter Bunny would find us all the way across the other side of the world in Australia. Until he thought about it a little and  worried that E.B. might not make it to The States in time to deliver eggs to his friends. Of course the Easter Bunny has the same magical powers as Santa Claus, so when he understood this he was comforted enough that he could relax and enjoy the feeling that comes with the promise of chocolate.

On Easter morning, the boys woke up to dusty bunny footprints peppered around the kitchen and living room. The Easter bunny was kind enough to leave a chocolate wombat for each of the boys in a basket, but they were expected to work for the rest of the booty by searching for eggs around the house.

After a quick chocolate breakfast, It was Mummy and Auntie Emma’s turn to hide some eggs in the backyard. Thomas showed his competitive side by running around and grabbing as many as possible while Samuel had to be encouraged. I’m not sure he was fully aware of what lay inside the shiny foil wrappers.

It was so wonderful that my children were able to experience an Aussie Easter, complete with sunny skies (although I remember rainy camping trips at Easter in my childhood – must be the drought), chocolate Aussie animals (instead of bunnies) and, most of all, their Grandparents, Aunt and Uncle.

Side Note: I am aware that Easter was over and done about a month ago. It’s just taking me that long to get caught up on the photos I took during our vacation. And don’t get me started on my mother’s pleas to see the pictures I took of my brother’s wedding. They’re coming soon, I promise. It’s just that with work and pre-school and daycare and Kei’s school and everything that goes in to making sure my children are fed and clothed and in a (reasonably) clean house, I haven’t had time to sit and edit photos. Or even take many, for that matter. Yes, my P365 project has skipped a few days but I figure that, with the thousands of pics I took in Australia, I am more than making up for it.

Backyard Adventures & Bigfoot? Another P365

When you tell people in Oregon that you are about the head to Australia for a few weeks, their first reaction is usually one of envy. Not just for the fact that you are heading across the other side of the world, but also because they immediately assume that you will be enjoying sunny skies during your stay. However, I am from Melbourne and, while our summers are generally sunny and hot, March/April can be a little hit or miss.

Thankfully, despite a recent breaking of the drought, the sun gods were smiling on us during most of our stay and we were able to enjoy a lot of time in the great Aussie outdoors. The kids fully embraced the 1/2 acre of grass and dirt (LOTS of dirt) at their disposal.

The colour coordination of their outfits is purely accidental. In fact I’m not even sure if I dressed them that morning.

This next one is my favourite, even though Thomas should really be in focus. Maybe that’s why I love it so much – you have to search a little for the fun part.

As soon as I saw this next photo, it reminded me of another famous picture.

It’s uncanny.

Smiles

Today’s entry for the I ♥ Faces challenge is all about smiles, so of course I went back through my photos of Australia looking for the perfect smile. The sad thing is that my children are already beyond the age of smiling when I need them to. Oh, they smile on command but it involves the word “cheese”, although I swear I never taught them how to do that. I think it’s innate, like frowning when they’re unhappy or desperately needing to talk to me suddenly every time I pick up the phone for an important call.

Oh, back to the actual smile. I caught this one of my little (now 30 year old!) brother while holding our cousin’s baby. I think this photo is so sweet and I know he is probably going to groan and wonder why on earth I posted it for all to see. It’s because you’re just too cute, Jono, and this photo cancels out every single smirk you’ve flashed me when I’ve tried to take your photo in the past. 🙂

Aussie Colour: A Monday Mosaic

I usually like to include at least four photos in my mosaic posts, but my access to the computer has been limited this weekend while Kei finishes up a project for school. It’s true, though, that sometimes the best results are forced on us and I really love how this one turned out.

We were so lucky with the Autumn weather that we experienced in Australia during our visit with temperatures in the high 20s (about 80 degrees farenheit) every day and beautiful blue skies. Couple that with a broken drought that had turned the previously brown grass to a deep green, and we found ourselves enjoying Australia at its finest.

It wasn’t necessary for me to bump up the saturation on these photos – the sky and the grass truly were that colour.

Scenes from Across The Pond: Project 365

Now that my travel rant is over (read about it here, here and here), I am excited to be back to posting my P365 photos. The photos that I’ll be posting over the next few weeks have been painstakingly culled from the 1000 or so that I managed to take during our vacation in Australia. I’m sure I’ll be posting more than one for some days, so I’m think that maybe I should rename this little project “Project-the-sky’s-the-limit”. My end of year photo album is going to be the size of an encyclopedia.

First up is a photo you may have seen in one of my rant posts. Kei discovered early on in our trip that Samuel is fascinated with watching movies on the video camera. We’re lucky if he watches more than 15 minutes of Blues Clues at at a time but apparently video of himself doing… well… nothing, is absolutely fascinating. Thankfully we discovered this early in our trip and it saved our sanity more than once by the end.

Another one from our marathon trek to Aus. If you’re going to get stuck in an Airport then San Francisco is one of the better places to spend your time. Just the thought of possibly being stuck for 11 hours at LAX makes me break out in hives.

Of course we did finally make it to Australia on Saturday morning and, after shipping my kids off to spend a couple of days alone with their grandparents, Kei and I joined the Buck’s and Hen’s festivities – known as Bachelor and Bachelorette parties in my adopted home. After a five-minute emergency shoe purchase (mine were all in a bag that United airlines had sent to Brisbane), I was able to spend the evening with a wonderful group of ladies – moving from bar to restaurant to bar to 80’s dance club, until my feet and sleep-deprived body refused to cooperate and I was forced to head back to my brother’s place at around midnight.

I had such a great night with my new sister-in-law, Emma (the one in the middle), and her friends. The fact that I was without children and therefore able to sleep in the next morning was an added bonus.

On Sunday we did nothing. Oh, we tried to watch a movie on TV in the afternoon but we all fell asleep so that plan was abandoned. We did manage to drag ourselves out of bed to head out for dinner at a tasty Indian restaurant on Sydney road and I am glad we did. One of the things I miss since moving to Portland is really good Indian food.

I also miss trams. I am aware that we have similar contraptions here in Portland, and they’re great, but they’re just not the same as the original.

Monday saw us heading up to my parents house which is about a 3 hour drive north of Melbourne. 3 hours by car but about 4.5 hours by train and bus. I was actually able to read 5 chapters of a book in one sitting! Of course I missed my children but I have learned to appreciate these rare moments of peace (and alone time) when I can get them and I heard that they had a fabulous time with their grandparents. This is Southern Cross station (although I still call it Spencer Street station through force of habit).