Jasmine's party

waiting for the train
beautiful sunny day to have a birthday at the park, for both Michelle and Jasmine.
boat full of party go'ers, who is the sober driver?
I just want juice Dad, honest...
right, hes not looking, make a dive for the beer...
Noooo Lucy, too many beers and you will roll down the hill like me!!!!!!

Dancing through the train station post party, who cares who's looking...
show us those night fever moves!!!

where we are

this is a google image of Adelaide (looking from about 2km above), showing about where we live. We are at the top of the picture in north Adelaide then, as you move south you can see the Adelaide Oval (famous for cricket and AFL games, Link here) and home to sir Donald Bradman. Further south and over the torrens river you get into the central city. Where I have shown a path to the right is called Rundle mall, a pedestrian area for all the main street shops. then at the very bottom of the picture to the left is Grote street, home of the central market. (Link here) it takes me Ella and Lucy about 15mins to walk to town, (if Ella stays on the buggy, and about 25 if she walks) then we can save a few minutes if we get on the free tram down the main street and get to the central market in under 30mins.

This image is a bit closer about 550m above showing the path Ang takes when she walks the 7-10 mins to work at the childrens hospital. The whole of that city block is occupied by the womens and childrens hospital.
and this one (from about 1.5km above) showing how far it is from home to the closest golf course. (no I have not become a golf nut, I've only managed to make it there once so far, but hope to go a bit more.) takes about 3mins on the bike, prob 10min pulling the golf trundler...

last week

Thursday:
day at the beach with (Left to right) Abby Michael Ella Jamie Lucy Ang and Lauren.
Lauren has a taste for sand!
Lucy had a go too!

Friday:
The royal Adelaide Show. Highlights: Pig racing and diving...
Pig diving
Ella getting up close and personal with the farm yard animals
inclucing this friendly bull!
Look Poppa the sheep are this big!!!! (and they have horns!)
This is more my style...
Guy? can yours do this (and video below....)
Show bags, Trick is to have a big enough kid to counter balance the stroller to allow at least 20 show bags on the handles.
Show bag Hall. (bags full of lollies and plastic toys mostly) you pay from 5$ to 40$ ave=20$ and get 40-50$ worth of product (supposedly)

Saturday:
Ella and Hannah in the tunnels at the playground at Belair national park with Drew and Sarah. nice walk and fed the ducks, and the girls played in the playground.

Sunday:
Lantern festival Edgar park (on the way into town by the bandstand)
Ella and Maddy dancing

the fairies

sunday market (link here) in Rundle st is home to the fairys, and if they have been good, and tidied their bedrooms well, they are allowed to fly down from the magicical fairy land castle, and come and dance and paint faces with the children on Rundle st.
we have been 3-4 times now, and Ella is on first name basis with a few of fairies already...



Mia the pink fairy

Gem the green fairy and Ginger the orange fairy along with Ella the tiger!

Poppy the blue fairy and Ginger with Ella the rainbow fairy
Raya the rainbow fairy and Ella.

fathers day

nothing says happy fathers day like a Jet Propelled Thomas train!


Ella is wearing face paint or what is left of it from her visit to the fairy's this morning. We met the new rainbow fairy today so decided to have our face painted like a rainbow.

First few weeks

were a blur... the trip over was ok, a bit of a mission, but all achieved in one day and with no excess luggage or lost luggage drama. Ella was at times a bit ratty but only as you would expect from a 3 1/2 year old with no sleep.
Arriving to Adelaide, and then attempting to fit ourselves and the 100+kg of gear (and that was only the checked in stuff) into one car, when it had taken two cars to drop us off at the start of the day in Napier was one of those situations where the Taxi driver looked at us sideways and must have been thinking there is no way, what are these people thinking! but at that point of the trip there just wasn't going to be any other way, we were all going to fit, and that we did, we just had to unpack Ella's car seat for her to sit in, and the rest of the gear went into the back of the stationwagon, (including the buggy) and we all squashed in, and nursed both Lucy and the remainder of the bags on our knees in the back seat...

The first few weeks we spent at a motel, over the road from the womens and childrens hospital,
(old part of the Womens and childrens hospital)

so handy for Ang to pop over the road and see her new work environment. Also very easy 10min walk to central city.
Ella was funny as she had been told that we were going to Australia, and so from the day after we arrived, each time we went out for a walk and then came back to the motel Ella would say "look, there is Australia!" (pointing to the motel as we walked up...) It took a few days to get her head around the fact that Australia was the place, Adelaide was the city and greenways was the motel... think she has that one sorted now...
Other than getting around and trying to select a rental house, we were pretty busy in the first few weeks catching up with a few friends. Having Jenny come along was really very helpful, as not only did it mean we had another 20kg luggage allowance, but Ang and I could go off and look at houses or go to town to stand in que's and get drivers licences, Medicare cards, etc etc, while Jenny and Ella spent whole days at the park or swimming pool, or just chilling out.
Along with catching up with friends who had moved here at the start of the year, (Walter, Shelley, Maddie & Zac + Sarah, Drew & Hannah.) we got invited up to see Stephen and Angela in the Adelaide hills, where they grow/bottle wine. lovely spot about 40min out of the city, with a resident owl in the tree and a dog named George.
So we then settled on a house, and moved in at the end of the 2nd week. It is fully furnished, (the easiest option in the short term) (shopping in the local supermarket, about 1 min walk from home)

which one is the monkey
don't touch that Ella just leave it sleeping on the rock...
But it tickles grandma! these kangaroo are very very friendly (wallaby in this case, they are smaller than kangaroo's)


the worlds largest rocking horse. that is Daddy and Ella at the top of the rocking horse's head.


the local market. about 15mins walk into town and a ride on the free tram gets us to the market where we get all our fruit and vege's it can be quite hectic in here at times. this was taken on a very quiet day.


Look Poppa, a digger just like yours...

meet sky the clydesdale who pulled us across to granite island from victor harbour
on the tram.Lucy bouncing around in one of her fav spots.



Ella and Mia the pink fairy. (a regular sunday outing.) more to come.

the girls chilling out at home


Roger came to visit while he was in Australia, and we did some sight seeing together. up into the Adelaide hills, and out to the beach etc. Ella had fun with Roger, showing him all her games.
like this one. it's called Dad, I'll just roll around in the pile of packing paper and make a mess while you unpack our stuff which finally turned up off the boat.

Lucy making a start on her numbers and letters! or maybe she was hungry and actually trying to get in the fridge...

Ella just doing a touch up job on the bike. 'needs a new paint job Dad...'

the view from mount lofty. it's a bit like christchurch, only the other way around (west coast, beach then city, then hills to the east.)