Playing with friends and pigtails...

One of Brady's best mates is Morgan... the boys have fun whatever they're doing! They like to greet each other with the word "Boing!" which is followed by jumping up and down and then landing on their backs on the ground... remember days when life was that simple? Here they are at the park playing with sticks and having fun... thankfully Kara's mom had her camera and we got some photos of them together for a change! Thanks Terri and Kara!

Both children love going to the North Sydney playgroup on Wednesdays, and this time I brought my camera... only to get one photo of Anna! I was trying for more photos of both kids and their friends, but I was busy gabbing with other mums and chasing after the kids... hopefully I'll get more soon!

Here's a picture of sweet baby Tessa, only about 3 weeks old in this picture. Brady loves visiting with Kee-ya, Mo-nee and baby Tree-ha!

I finally got just enough hair to put in pigtails... since it's all in the back of her head I had to take several shots to see them! (I also had to bribe her with my mobile phone to get her to cooperate)

I've had several people ask what we do without a bathtub, so here you have it! This is our family bath/shower!

Not much else new to report here... Blake went to Vegas for business/pleasure last week... amazing how he can still fit his annual trip in even from Australia! I'm glad he had fun and got to enjoy some pool time. It's chilly and windy here, but fortunately has been sunny and beautiful the last couple of weeks after nearly 3 weeks of rain. We finally bought a car... just a little hatchback but it gets us around! Fortunately it doesn't take much petrol which is wonderful since it's about $6.00 a gallon here! We got it 3 weeks ago and filled it up right after we bought it... it's now at a half tank!

Hope everyone has a great 4th of July! We are actually going to a 4th of July event on the 5th put on by the American Society of Sydney. The event says there will be fireworks after dark, which should be easy to do with the kids since it gets dark at 5 pm! Definetely a "different" 4th of July celebration than I've ever had. I'll try to get some photos of us celebrating the 4th in our sweaters =)

Pictures from May

I've been really bad about taking pictures this month! It's been beautiful here with the leaves falling and the weather turning colder... quite a change compared to the weather just continuing to get hotter and hotter as May progresses in the States! It feels like November and I keep having to remind myself that Christmas is NOT right around the corner. We just celebrated our 7 year anniversary with a nice evening out (in Sydney this time!) and I'm looking forward to celebrating my birthday with a scarf on... this will be a first as I used to have pool parties growing up!


Just a couple pictures from the past couple of weeks...

The kids playing in the "back yard"... now you can see how much work needs to be done to our garden area and banana trees!

Brady in his hoodie, looking a bit suspect... not sure what he was into here!

Anna in her boys' gear coat perfect for playing in the courtyard! Look at those green eyes turning brown at 13 months old... guess Mommy does have some genes!

Sunday at the park... it was pretty chilly and windy at 10 degrees Celcius... roughly 48 F

Anna getting ready for the park

The kids eating dinner while Blake was away on business... see that well-balanced meal I prepared? It's amazing what Mommy can whip up when the cook is out of town!

I gave Anna Paige a spoon for the first time last night... she did very well with her mashed potatoes! She actually made less mess than usual, believe it or not

Well, that's about it for May for us! We're excited to welcome Baby Tessa into our "extended" neighbourhood family via Kara, Gervais and Morgan. She was born a week ago and is adorable and so tiny! We've enjoyed visiting with them and Gervais' parents over the past week both in the hospital and at home. Anna saw me holding Tessa today for the first time and wasn't too pleased. She actually growled... I'm not kidding. I assured her that she won't ever have to share Mommy with anyone other than Brady and Daddy!! We're looking forward to seeing the Wiggles tomorrow morning at a small venue here in town... pictures to come! I hope Blake will download his Beijing pics into the blog as well so you can see how cool China looks!

Please add some comments!

I had previously made this blog available to comments from only other "bloggers"... and then I figured out that the only other bloggers happen to be 2 of my close friends! So I changed my comments box so that ALL of our friends and family may post. I love to know what's going on with everyone! If you're just plain bored with the blog, I understand =) but if you'd like to add a comment, the option is now there!

Cheers to everyone!

Taronga Zoo, Sydney

We had a blast visiting Taronga Zoo with Blake's brother, David, for the first time for all of us. Not only does this zoo sit on prime property (with views EVERYWHERE) but it also has great animals to boot! We went on a windy Saturday in autumn and enjoyed every minute. There are heaps of animal pictures to see, plus a few family photos as well...

The Watermeier Family at the zoo

Anna playing in the green area overlooking the harbour

zebra

Uncle David looking after Anna Paige

For all the LSU fans, here is our tiger

The giraffes have the best view at the zoo, and not just because they're so tall... their area is a direct outlook over the harbour

The komodo dragon

the snow leopard, with Brady and Mommy looking on:

the red panda

the rainbow lorikeet

the ostrich

Welcome to Meerkat Manor!

Matilda's friend, the Golden Orb Weaver... we looked up and they were everywhere. We pointed them out to David and as soon as we did these other Americans (presumably on holiday) started freaking out and running away! (In their defense the Americans were probably 6' 4" and much closer to the spiders than us!)

the lioness

the koala

the kangaroo

the gorillas, hanging out

The GLA, so named by David, because we couldn't find out it's name (David dubbed him a "goat-like animal", which is quite appropriate)

giraffe eating

Ferry passing over the harbour (view obviously from the zoo)

Uncle David showing Brady around the zoo

Brady and Mommy in front of the alligator (yes, folks, they imported a real alligator instead of pretending it was a crocodile). Go Gators! (Can you tell who's writing this blog?)

Brady at the "top of the rock" which he was...

Brady trying to look through the scope (which is supposed to be facing the harbour!)

Uncle David holding both of the kids and declaring that 2 are "easy"!

There is our trip to Taronga Zoo and our visit from Blake's brother David. We had a wonderful time and were only sad that it was so short. Blake had to fly out to Beijing, China the next day and David had to head home to his wife Gina and their 3 kids, Rachel, Sarah and Ashley. It was great getting to visit with him. Our next pictures should be from Blake and his amazing trip to China!

Our trip to Melbourne

We had a fantastic time in Melbourne! It was great to get away for a short family vacation, even though Blake had to work most of the week. We arrived on Saturday afternoon, 12 April. After taking a frightening cab ride to our hotel (the cabbie not only practically killed us with his driving, he also charged us an extra $10 to go one extra block than we thought our hotel was on) we checked into our hotel and walked down to Southbank to see the river. It's colder in Melbourne than Sydney, that's for sure!

Here are Blake and the kids at Southbank the day we arrived:

On Sunday we checked out the aquarium, which was actually pretty impressive and both kids loved it:

These last 2 pictures are of the biggest "regular" fish I've ever seen (forgot it's name, of course) and of Brady pointing at it to give you an idea of how big it was!

After nearly 4 months of everyone being busy, I actually was able to meet up with our long-lost friends from Sydney, Nicky, Jud, Lucia and Milijana in Melbourne of all places! Jud is an opera singer so the family has been in Perth and then Melbourne on holiday while Jud performs. It was great to catch up and we promised to get back together at home next time!

Lucia is such a sweetheart and asked me why I called a nappy a diaper... it was hard to explain to a 5-year-old! She said she's going to start saying diaper now and I told her she better stick with nappy around here but if she ever went to America to say diaper! She's very happy in this picture because her Daddy bought her some silly jelly-like stuff...

Our kids had a ball in the hotel room... Anna actually discovered the CD player first, but then Brady took charge of controlling it. The kids loved taking a real bath since we don't have a bathtub at home!

Our hotel room overlooked the filming of a couple scenes from the upcoming movie "Knowing" starring Nicholas Cage. We knew there was a movie being filmed since the street was blocked off, but what really cracked me up was looking out our window and seeing the American flag hanging outside! Supposedly the movie is about Nick finding a time capsule at his son's school and the terror the world is about to undergo... we determined that this scene was supposed to be set in NYC since they had subway entrance signs and had changed the street names on the corner to "Worth" and "Lafayette" streets in Manhattan. Obviously this was staged to look as if a bomb or terror attack had just happened...

We were so lucky to enjoy a couple of date nights while in Melbourne! We ate a wonderful meal at Blake's (and now mine) favourite Chinese restaurant ever, the Empress in Melbourne's Chinatown on Monday night followed by some fun at the blackjack tables at the Crown Casino. The kids were great for Miss Kim up until we got home and Anna proceded to wake up 45 minutes later (12:30 am) FOR THE NIGHT. Yep, Tuesday was a fun one for me (ha, ha). Wednesday was filled with some shopping for the kids, and I even bought myself a new silk blouse for our Wednesday date (shown below). We again had a wonderful meal, this time at Rockpool in the southbank. We again followed dinner by hanging out at the blackjack tables at the Crown and watching some shooting fireballs over the river. We won enough to cover our $200 baby sitter, so that was great! I hadn't been to a casino since the summer of 2004, before I became pregnant with Brady. We really enjoyed our time together and feeling like a married couple instead of "Mommy and Daddy" again!




Cheers, mates!