film

A lovely birthday week!

| poppypeach

It was a quiet week last week as I was busting my free time to write a paper for University plus it was my birthday! It was so fun to go to school and have the kinder kids give me their wishes they had made and present a beautiful bunch of flowers to make my day.

IMG_1160

At my work – Ventana School, it was the week of stories, so that gave me a great excuse to wear my owl costume from the Owl Diaries book series – I am a bit of a fan of Eva the owl ever since my daughter bought it home from the library. Since then I have moved onto any book by Raina Telegemeier and the Phoebe and her Unicorn series. You know I need to read the stories to understand what the kids are getting into these days.

Recently I listened to the book The Wild Robot, and I absolutely love it, and as a birthday gift, I bought myself The Wild Robot Escapes, book 2 and it is so good! The audiobook is so well produced and well read I cannot wait until book 2 is out so I can hear the narrators voice again. The story is incredible with the friendship connection from a new being (the robot)  stranded on an island, meeting sea otters :D, combined with the futuristic sci-fi element where the island became an island from the rising sea levels, so all types of animals live there. The characters are lovable, and you feel for the robot as she begins life as an outsider and soon becomes loved – it is full of such grand adventure! I have not enjoyed a book as much as this for ages. I have a copy at the bookstore so I can add it to my collection for a classroom read aloud (it is recommended for grades 3 to 6).

Speaking of books, we had a Hicklebee’s book fair at school as a fundraiser, and this was a book bought into the classroom. I love the illustrations in this book and by Lemony Snicket. Our family favourite is A Series of Unfortunate Events audiobook series which we listened to on our way down to the Joshua Tree. And now Netflix has a TV series of all the books which we love watching on the weekends.

IMG_1205

So for my birthday, I had a very delicious dinner of a middle eastern salad topped with grilled fish at Dish Dash in Sunnyvale, and over the weekend we enjoyed family time going to the Aquarius cinema in Palo Alto to see Isle of Dogs by Wes Anderson. I am a bit of a fan of his films as one of my faves is Fantastic Mr Fox, actually looking at his filmography I really enjoy most of his movies! My husband and I met volunteering at a film gallery so going to the cinema (mainly to see an arthouse film) is a special time for us.

The rest of the weekend was lovely with hanging out at the park in the sunshine after I had done enough writing in the afternoon. On Sunday was a bit of a write off for the ladies enjoying too much wine on the picnic blanket (the picture above says it all!) and singing our afternoon away… I was even thinking of getting out my ukelele?!?

Friends, Food and Family

| poppypeach

IMG_7369

A whole week of planning with the kids as my third teaching period for University commenced. To start the week off, I said to the kid’s let’s visit my friend who manages a book store to stock up on your fave author David Walliams. The USA does not get his book releases as much as Australia. So we did that and went to the cinema on cheapo Monday at the Nova to see Chicken People. We loved it as we are all a bunch of chicken lovers and enjoyed the quirkiness of the chicken obsessed at a chicken show in Ohio and Nashville!

I had to balance some study time in with catching up with friends and their kids for the school holidays. There is nothing like art time and then playtime for the kids and wine by the Yarra River.

I started two units, so I had to devote some time to carving into the work for this week, so I spent a morning in and took the kids shopping in the city and on the way back we found a park to play in complete with a flying fox.

The big day last week was quite random as I wanted to check out the National Trust House property of the Rippon Lea Estate as it is Aunt Prudence’s house from the Ms Fishers Murder Mysteries series that I love so much! The bonus of visiting Rippon Lea Estate is there was a fashion exhibit Night Life focusing on clothing on the 1920s-30s!!

Oh my,  I had such a fun time with my friend checking out the clothing and accessories worn around Melbourne in the high times of partying and living it up in this fabulous city. I loved this era in fashion especially with the bias cut dresses and the beaded dress silhouette including the accessories!

IMG_7563

On our way back to the train station I found this very famous restaurant Attica in the streets of Ripponlea. I had only seen this on a show on Netflix and wondered where it was in Melbourne – the chef is very innovative and forages for a lot of bush food in the dishes and had me glued to the television when I watched it, and it did make me yearn to come back home.

IMG_7564

Oh and the dramas of public transport – we made it to North Melbourne, and one of the kids wanted to get off the train to go to the toilet, so we did with only two stops to our destination. Next train disappeared off the schedule, and the next thing over the loud speaker was we have problems with the train this evening we do not know when they will be running again, now this was 4 pm on a Thursday night – peak hour rush just on the horizon. So what happens next was this disjointed plan to get back to our place via the tram with everyone else leaving the city sardine packed into them as they travelled by. It was a difficult choice to make especially with having the kids with me, so we just walked to the 57 tram near the Victoria market and waited… and waited… it was two and a half hours later, and we were finally home. My phone was dead we got back to the house and plugged in to see what was happening with my dinner plans. So, of course, everyone else was in the same situation, so we just stayed in had a bitch session about how crap it was and had some pizza and wine and catch up such a way to end a Thirsty Thursday!

FriYay and I spent most of the day studying except for lunchtime when I met a friend for lunch in the city, and we went out to Lygon Street for dinner in the evening with my sister in law, her hubby and the cousins. The kids had already had fun though exhausting time with their cousins playing all day, so we had pizza and gelato and headed on home.

Another friend catch up on Saturday with a very old friend of mine from way back when and we went out for Laksa to a favourite haunt of ours from back in the day, the Laksa King and it still tastes amazing! After lunch, we wandered around the hood to check out the million dollar houses and matching fancy cars.

IMG_7600IMG_7603IMG_7605

It was back to school for the kiddos this week in Melbourne, so we had our goodbyes to the cousins and the animals at their house. The menagerie of cats, chickens and dogs was enjoyed by everyone. I will miss my friends and family, but I know I will be returning real soon and knowing this does not make leaving Australia to feel all that bad.

Temporary local tv stars

| poppypeach
On our last adventure out in Vancouver we were at Bloedel Conservatory enjoying the warmth and on the way back to the car we found some huge maple leaves to play with. A couple of guys came by and asked if they could take some pics of the kiddos so we said sure, next thing we are being interviewed – here is what was screened after the news.