A rainy day was Boxing Day

The Australian holiday has been fab so far – with a minor blip here and there. Like the fact that our plane left nearly an hour late – resulting in rather contrary little boys! Then, on our shopping trip to Southbank (so much fun looking at the shops, riding the ferry and having poffertjies for lunch) we got back to the car at 8 Mile Plains and it would not start and the steering column locked. This is not a good thing to happen at 2pm the Friday before Christmas. 8 Mile Plains is a park and ride station so there was no shade from the blazing sun, no shops etc. There were toilets however, for which 3 of us were grateful. Cameron had just fallen asleep on the bus and slept through being clipped into his car seat and the entire time that Chris was walking around trying to find a pay phone (twice), toilets trips, awaking just as the rental car guy arrived to collect us at 3:30pm. He swapped cars temporarily and we proceeded to get magnificently lost. We finally staggered home at 5pm having toured most of Brisbane, inadvertently with two grumpy boys in the back. We cooked a fast dinner for the boys and fled the house for Carols at Lincoln Green. The boys had a blast there playing in the playground, listening to carols and saying hello to Santa – then stuffing their faces with the bag of lollies they were given.
We also went to Logan Hyperdome and picked up some cute tees for the boys, as well as a personalised xmas ornament for each boy. They loved showing Chris where to hang them on mum’s beautifully decorated tree. On Christmas Eve Mike arranged to have the boys ride on Santa’s Christmas train – which was a big hit as it circled around streets with names like Robin court, Lionheart crescent, Archery close, Nottingham street and the like. Sweets were flung out to onlookers – to the young passengers’ distress. Cameron took note of the bucket of sweets the Fireman was scooping sweets from and snuck forward at disembarkation and had to be bodily removed from said bucket – clutching his treasure all the while. In between all this excitement we have been swimming, swimming some more, and enjoying even more swimming. Christmas went down like gangbusters. Cameron woke us at 5am while Kieran chose to sleep in :P They had a fabulous time opening presents, with only a few meltdowns from Cameron when the excitement proved too much for a little boy.
The only rain to date began at 11pm Christmas Night and petered out at 6:30am on Boxing Day. Today we plan to go to Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary and then later tonight Chris and I will see the Hobbit. I am really looking forward to it. Later on we will visit Mt Cootha and the Sir Thomas Brisbane Planetarium, Mt Tamborine, and another visit to the South Bank – Science Centre and Kodak Beach. Kirsten arrives on the 27^th – which we are all looking forward to J

Australia, ho (ho ho)

Life has been pretty full on around here.... we've been sorting and wrapping christmas presents, watching Dr Who, packing suitcases and wailing in despair and various other things. Yesterday we headed to Playcentre where the boys cavorted and painted and immersed themselves in a variety of messy play. I helped make xmas chains and plan what we needed for the xmas party on Sunday, then balanced precariously on tiny chairs hanging them from the rafters. Yesterday Isabelle and co headed back to Canada. It's pretty sad and I will miss them - though I am thrilled for Isabelle as I know she wanted to go back. Much of the early afternoon was punctuated with Isabelle coming over with kettles, toasters, various food items etc. Good times :) We have bought Isabelle's car as mine is just costing too much in repairs. I love her car and we got it - yay. I took my camry into the WOF while you shop and it failed, as expected, though for not for the reasons I expected it to. Nope, the tires failed as expected but 2 new issues have popped up - oh, yay! So we'll look at the cost of fixing them and sell the Camry. Cheap, as there is about $500 more in repairs due - windscreen, rust etc. We headed into Henderson today and the boys and I hit the Dragon playground, then KMart while Chris headed to the bank. Today is the Glen Eden carnival and we headed there around 3:30pm. As expected parking was a crush so we parked at kindy :) The boys had a blast! We had a free photo with Santa and then hit the bouncy castles with a vengeance. In between death defying leaps and tumbles we rode the teacups, the pirate ship (Cameron shrieking his joy to the skies as he did a mexican wave) and checked out a large kiddie play area. And it was all FREE!Kieran  was weeping with exhaustion yet didn't want to leave when we headed off at quarter to six. Poor little sod was asleep 10 minutes after being popped into bed. Cameron meanwhile cavorted joyously - rather like an elf on crack - throughout the house until 8:45pm....little sod :P After he wended his way bedwards I finished wrapping xmas presents while Chris baked the ham for the playcentre christmas party tomorrow. Yup, tomorrow at 9am the boys and I are heading out to set up the Christmas party - good times! There may even be a blog entry in it lol.

First School visit

Today was Kieran's first school visit. In NZ they have a system where children visit the school for a morning each week for 3 weeks prior to the start of school. Kieran has a birthday in January, School starts in February and therefore he has his school visits in December. The first visit was rather fraught - It was raining so we bolted up the hill andf turfed Cameron out at the church playgroup, leapt back in the car and raced off to Oratia. Getting there was quick - finding a park - not so quick :) The session went fairly well, with Kieran wanting to sit on my lap for most of the session and me hissing at him to sit on his bottom and pay attention to the teacher for the entire session. Afterwards he bubbled about how much he loved school and his teacher so that was good. This was also the week that I had the last Plunket coffee group session, the last mainly music session - and dinner. These went well, especially mainly music where Cameron donned fairy wings and graciously allowed Santa to give him a present. I then sorted the Plunket room, and made an inventory so that equipment and toys could go to various plunket branches for a small donation and the rest to be freecycled/off to dump/TradeMe. Naturally it was pouring with rain, and lo a tornado hit west auckland. I also almost had a car crash trying to merge onto west coast road - which made my day a bit more exciting. Everything else is ticking on nicely - boys loving playcentre and playgroup, kindy remains a hit with the boys and school is eagerly anticipated. We went Christmas shopping on the weekend which was exciting too. Sadly I bought the wrong size shoes and the sale has ended, so I will sort this after I get back from Oz. I also managed to find the boys swimming costumes. K has outgrown his, but Cameron now fits it so we just need to sort a rash shirt for K. The house owner also arranged for the house to be waterblasted and the gutters cleaned. The plants in the guttering had grown so tall it looked like a forest was growing on our roof.