Rainbows and Pelicans

In the last two months, we have seen three full rainbows outside our front door after rainstorms.  I have never seen a full rainbow, so I made a really big deal about it with the kids.  Now that they have seen three fairly recently, they think it is just a regular occurrence.   Not sure if that is more common on this side of the world, but I still think it is amazing even after seeing three now.  Hopefully good luck is with us and we will see more.

Last Sunday, we went for a walk on Balmoral Beach and stopped to watch the fisherman in the pier, our regular walking route.   However on this walk, a pelican joined us on the pier.  He was quite social.  Paige started yelling at him and telling him to go away.  Her tone caught his attention and the pelican came chasing after her.  Paige was so scared and jumped into my arms.  It was a little scary, but more funny than anything.  I think the pelican wanted to teach her a lesson. 

 

Cade just finished his second term of kindergarten.  Hard to believe he is already half way done with the school year.   Cade had a soccer game this past Saturday in the pouring, cold rain.  He and Sam, his mate from San Francisco, loved every minute of it and celebrated with hot cocoa and marshmallows after the big game. 

 

Aussie Pizza and Wine Country

We returned to the Sydney Vivid show the following weekend to show the kids the spectacular light performance.   Some Australian friends joined us and treated us to a real Aussie dinner in advance of the show.  Here is the menu of pizzas we sampled from the Australian Hotel.  Most were surprisingly good with the exception of the crocodile pizza. Capsicum is what they call red/green/yellow peppers. Unfortunately it was another rainy night for the show.  It probably helped contain the crowd, but we likely would have stayed longer if it weren’t raining, but Paige enjoyed working the crowd with her own umbrella.  
 


Last weekend was a 3-day weekend with Monday being a public holiday for the Queen’s birthday.  We don’t have another 3-day weekend for some time, so we took an overnight trip to Hunter Valley wine country.  It’s about a 2 hour, picturesque drive from Sydney.  We treated ourselves to McDonald’s (Macca’s) Egg McMuffins on the way out town first.  We lucked out and had beautiful weather and it wasn't too crowded.   We scheduled a horse and carriage ride so the kids could have fun and we could experience some of the smaller wineries.   Our horses, Cowboy and Louise took us on the back roads to the wineries and Cade got to help drive the carriage.  The kids both kindly shared some of their apples with the horses as well.   Matt and I took turns with the tastings while the kids ran around and played.  They did get to enjoy the olive oil and chocolate tastings.  Our hotel was very kid friendly with several outdoor games including life size checkers, chess, ping pong, croquet  and giant balls and bean bags.  We met up with some friends at our hotel that evening and then they joined us for dinner and then for aqua and putt-putt golf on Sunday.   Here is Cade at the driving range trying to hit the ball into a bucket in the lake.

 

We have all been battling colds and coughs for the past few weeks and we are ready to be healthy again.  Happy Father’s Day to all the great Dads.  For some reason, Australian’s celebrate Father’s Day in September so it has thrown us off a bit.    Of course, Matt is expecting two celebrations:) .  On our way to Cade's soccer game yesterday morning, we went through another RBT (Random Breath Test) at 8 AM in the morning.  Really?  I guess they are catching people who are still out from the night before.