Winter Holiday in Melbourne--week 1~

Recently Stan has been assigned to consult for a project in Melbourne for 4 months. He goes down Monday through Thursday and then fly's back to work in Sydney on Friday. We see him on the weekends and this break (we get two weeks off of school every ten weeks), we were able to fly down to Melbourne to spend the break with Stan in Melbourne. Unlike PwC, Bain flew the whole family down and then put us all up in some serviced apartments so we could cook and have more flexibility than a regular hotel room. Our apartment was right in the heart of the city. And we were one block away from the city circle (tourist tram) which would take us around the city for free! We visited everything you could think of... Here are a few pictures--about 300+ are on Facebook if you want more!

Reading the in-flight emergency procedures! Go Thomas!

The tram/ City Circle!

Thomas loving the tram!

Saint Patrick's Cathedral below!

reminded me of England just a bit!

After I took this picture the kids were mobbed by a Chinese tourist group who did a 5- 10 minute photo session--Seriously, see pictures below!

Touring the parliament building

Flinders station!

Federation square playground, by the Yarra River and the circus behind us!

Melbourne Aquarium

Saint Paul's Cathedral

A really amazing wood carving

Olivia wanted to light a candle. I told her that she had to donate money and think of someone who needed help. I said maybe she could think of herself so she could start growing and she said, "no--I want to light a candle for Millie." Millie is her friend from Oxford who has cancer.

China Town!

The AFL (Rugby) stadium

Federation square

Old treasury building

Melbourne Museum!

Olivia has been talking about seeing King Tut for MONTHS!

Street performers

On our way to the police museum in the world trade center (melbourne)

A petting zoo in the docklands!f

A playground with snow--laughing at the sand toys thrown in ...how does snow come out of a water pitcher?

Complete with a snow machine

End of term and first semester!

At the end of term the kids get to do something on the last day of school. This year it was crazy hair day... The girls loved it!

In addition, since it was also the end of the first semester (half way through the school year) we had an open day; where the parents could come into the classroom and observe. The girls were very excited to show me what they had been up too and the teachers also did Parent/ Teacher interviews which went well for both girls!

Mary with her best-y (as they would say it here in Oz)

Mary's teacher, Mrs. Stephenson

Miss Mary showing me her work!

Mary showing me some of her art work

Olivia with her Teacher Miss Rigney (year 2)

Olivia showing me her work!

doing math on the smart board, basically like a giant I-Pad chalk board.

Olivia getting to ring the school bell for recess to end!

This year Thomas has started swimming lessons! He started at 2....got kicked out for crying and then started up again at 2 1/2. He has now been in lessons for 6 months and while we originally thought he was a prodigy...because he was paddling around at 18 months without assistance, we have now learned that his audacity is completely dependent on his mum! The term before we had to leave the lesson early because he saw kids jumping off the diving board which gave him quite a fright! This term (terms are 10 weeks) I was surprised to see him not only swim to the deep end where the diving board is, but after getting thrown off the diving board about 6 times he actually jumped himself the last time!....which I didn't get on film. Here is some footage and pictures--enjoy!

4th of July in Sydney....

This year for the 4th of July, we celebrated with the American Society at the City Hotel (on the 2nd--as it was a Saturday)! It was rented out and decorated with every random American thing you can imagine...lots of Las Vegas stuff, a random statue of liberty, sports teams paraphernalia etc... All the American abroad clubs had booths. There was one for the US soldiers; each person would write on a post card a message of appreciation and then they would mail it to an injured soldier. The democrats abroad had their usual cut-outs of Obama everywhere--there are no republicans abroad :-)

Upstairs there were games and coloring activities for the kids. There was also a guy dressed up as Uncle Sam, who would give the kids candy! The club had classic US movies playing all over the hotel--first it was Top Gun, then Independence Day etc... I won $150.00 worth of beer for winning part 1 in the trivia contest!! There were fire works in Darling Harbour at 8:00 which we didn't stay for as the hotel turned up the heat around 7:00 and families with kids were invited to leave....the party started at 4:00. We went with another family who was happy to take the beer--apparently it was an American beer company so everyone was really excited.

The next day we flew to Melbourne for the winter holiday break (2 weeks). When Monday rolled around we celebrated again with our Melbourne friends from Montana (Candace and Wes Anderson). They had us over for dinner and Candace even bought a gift for each kid! The kids were pretty excited, and we got to wear our American t-shirts all over again!! So proud to be an American! Happy 4th everyone!