The girls were here for a sleepover at the weekend. They seemed to enjoy a change of routine and the way the rules are not quite as tight over here. Like …… getting the paints out whenever you feel like it, eating chocolate Easter eggs when it's not even Easter, going to bed way later than usual...…..
Sunday dawned clear and COLD, a real Canberra Autumn morning - probably our first COLD morning for the year (but no not like London COLD!). A great morning for some park play.
The girls love our Hassett Park. Ella can't resist creating beautiful poses - with perfect control!
I love the way her pose echoes the Y shaped frames in the front courtyard of the newly built Koben Apartment building in the background.
Josh and Jody joined us mid morning for coffee at our fave local Intra.
Giving them a chance to sample Intra's kimchi (and provolone cheese) jaffles. They now understand our passion for them!
I took these pics with my brand new camera - the Fujifilm X-T3 with its 18-135 f3.5-5.6 zoom lens. It's gonna take me WEEKS to work out the way to use it in a smart way. It's a lot more hi tech than my 6 year old and fairly battle scarred little Fujifilm X20!
We've just had 3 beautiful days in Coogee with J & J, A & E, having lots of fun and laughter together at our favourite city beach, great meals and LOTS of physical activity.
After noting the presence of the very imposing Wallabies RU Team (and the Q'ld Reds) we were all settled in our ocean view rooms at the Crowne Plaza by Saturday afternoon. The girls were primed to hit the big grassed oval at Grant Reserve and test out one of Abi's new birthday ball and racquet games.
Abi's recently mastered the art of cartwheels. She can do them PERFECTLY and is now practising doing them NON STOP!
A duet of cartwheels!
It helps when you have a big sister willing and able to teach you the next level....
We walked up to La Sen at the Spot, Randwick for a beautiful Vietnamese meal on Saturday night, adding a 3 kilometre walk (there and back) to our afternoon of running around Grant Reserve.
Sunday dawned cloudy but warm, good enough for a perfect morning on Coogee Beach.
Abi did hundreds of cartwheels up and down the length of the beach this morning.
Abi is "at one with nature" wherever she finds herself - always watching out for birds, insects, crabs and any other form of nature (and marine life).
A laid back lunch at the Coogee Bay Hotel and a 2 hour sleep after (for an exhausted Abi) ended off a perfect Sunday morning at our Coogee Beach.
We celebrated with dinner at our fave (but crowded) Barzura's last night...…. Coogee was as lively as a January summer this Canberra Day long weekend!
We were all down the beach again as early as possible this morning...…...
And just to make sure we all got the most out of our long weekend at our fave beach we ended off our stay with a walk to South Coogee and the beautiful rock pool (the Ivor Rowe Rock Pool) at the end of the Bondi to Coogee coast walk
Ella and Abi find lots of hidden treasures on these rocky platforms.
We ended off a perfect weekend with a late lunch at the Pool Café at Maroubra before the long drive back to Canberra. It was such a joy and a privilege to spend uninterrupted time this weekend with my gorgeous, funny, fit and always whip smart family - and there is no bias at all in that observation!
We've had an unprecedented run of 39-41oC days here in Canberra. It means we can't go outside much after about 10.30am without getting seriously uncomfortable. We've taken the girls to the movies on Monday (Mary Poppins Returns) and to the National Gallery of Australia (NGA) yesterday. Both were very successful outings.
The NGA Play area was focussed on activities around the gallery's collection of Ballet Russes costumes from the early 1930s (thank you Henri Matisse among others). The girls were happy experimenting with the activities here for at least two hours!
But another huge hit on our visit yesterday was seeing Yayoi Kusama's "The Spirit of the Pumpkins Descended into the Heavens".
This is the view we were entranced by: 46 pumpkins (Ella counted them) and a whole lot of mirrors and clever lighting ……..
But the polka dot room setting for the mirrored box is rather wonderful too...…..
We got the girls home in time for a slip and slide session in the back yard before a pretty wild electrical storm set in … although it didn't cool things down too much.
Sunday dawned clear and COLD, a real Canberra Autumn morning - probably our first COLD morning for the year (but no not like London COLD!). A great morning for some park play.
The girls love our Hassett Park. Ella can't resist creating beautiful poses - with perfect control!
I love the way her pose echoes the Y shaped frames in the front courtyard of the newly built Koben Apartment building in the background.
Josh and Jody joined us mid morning for coffee at our fave local Intra.
Giving them a chance to sample Intra's kimchi (and provolone cheese) jaffles. They now understand our passion for them!
I took these pics with my brand new camera - the Fujifilm X-T3 with its 18-135 f3.5-5.6 zoom lens. It's gonna take me WEEKS to work out the way to use it in a smart way. It's a lot more hi tech than my 6 year old and fairly battle scarred little Fujifilm X20!
