July 2019 update

From the beach to the snow! Making the most of a particularly cold spell, we headed into the Brindabella Ranges in search of snow. After finding lots of mud that attached itself to every nook and cranny of the mighty Acadia, we finally found snow! The thought of it was very exciting, but the reality of it soon set in as we alighted from the car at Bulls Head to fierce winds that chilled to the bone and cold hard, wet, cold cold cold snow... that hurts when you get hit in the face as the boys found out when having a snowball fight.

We didn't quite make it to Mt Ginini as a couple of cars had slid off the road (every man and his dog in his 2wd Toyota Corolla were also out looking for snow!). But it's a definite reason for another road trip (after the mud dries up!)...

Earlier in the month Linc spent some time with the PM, the Leader of the Opposition and other parliamentarians for the Last Post ceremony at the Australian War Memorial. Was so proud of Linc as he was polite and really enjoyed the ceremony.

The Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 has just been released in Australia ($175k!) and so we went to check that out - it has 477kw of power making it more powerful than a Lamborghini Huracan!

In other news, Linc has just had braces fitted to get his teeth under control. While they were installed in late June, by late July his teeth had already started to straighten - incredible!

All in all, life is still hectic, Nugget continues to grow rapidly, and Dad is travelling Every Single Week to Melbourne... and these kids continue to grow up so quickly...

Narooma June 2019

After what seemed like an eternity, the family finally got in a winter coast trip to our favourite south coast destination - Narooma. The weather was pretty decent, but the last day got rained out so we came home early. Didn't really get to a proper beach, but walked across Wagonga Inlet to the island which was fun!

Puppy!

Yesterday we welcomed a new addition to our family - Nugget - a Labrador Retriever born 22 January 2019. Nugget's sister, Razz was also adopted into the wider family, so Nugget will be able to play with his sister on a regular basis!

Nugget (green collar top) and his siblings (7 boys 2 girls)

Nugget's mother is named Berry (UK/Irish) and his father Ben (dob 05/08/2014) actually lives in the UK (Millersbyre Sword at Coyletaiglum) with a very impressive bloodline. The breeder is based in Devonport Tasmania and recently provided detection dogs to the AFP, so we're going to train Nugget to sniff out drugs to keep our children in line...

Nugget, Berry and his new family

Nugget's Dad

Unfortunately Linc is a little allergic to dogs, but it's minor and he really wanted a puppy, so we'll just have to manage that.

The four kids

Nugget's new mum!

Singapore - Day Five to Day Six

Day five (Tuesday) we headed to Singapore Zoo, starting with breakfast with the Orangutans. The food was fantastic (best of the trip) and we all enjoyed the variety; then the Orangutans came out and perched on a branch for photos. The Zoo is really good; the highlights were the white tigers, Rhinoceros', Sloth, Giraffes, Lions, Tapiers, Jaguar and too many more to mention.

We finished the day by having dinner at Clarke Quay which is a very trendy place.

Day six (Wednesday) was our last full day and we headed to Universal Studios on Sentosa Island. It was amazing with a really cool movie studio vibe about it (funnily enough). We met Optimus Prime and Bumblee that mingled with the crowd and posed in front of Evac. The Transformers VR ride was amazing, although the kids were a little terrified.

There rides for all ages, although more were designed for bigger kids (like Dad who went on the Cylon ride which was very cool). But the most amazing thing was Addi going on the dragon roller coaster, not once, but twice (see below)!

Addi (with Dad and Carter above) was terrified, but for some strange reason wanted to go on twice?!

The American style diner was also really well done, with regular dance shows. Funnily enough, Addi got chosen from the crowd and went up and chose a disc to 'spin' for the crowd.

Addi dancing with the entertainers

Two cool dudes and a cool American car

Addi drawing attention (again)

Day six (Thursday) was our pack up day, so we didn't do much although the boys did do a river cruise with Gran and Pop.

Clarke Quay river cruise

It was a bit sad to come to our last day so quickly; especially when there is so much left to do. But there's always next time, I guess!

Parkroyal on Pickering in the background

Chinatown

Attorney-General's Chambers in the background showing how vegetation can be combined with modern architecture to great effect!

QF36 departed Changi on time and we commenced a pretty ordinary overnight flight home. Addi didn't fall asleep until very early in the morning and was extremely restless until the crew woke everyone for breakfast. The boys did get some sleep but Mum and Dad didn't sleep at all. None. We landed in Melbourne at 05.55 am and had a rather frustrating time queuing to pass through customs (we couldn't use the e-gate as we had children, so had to line up with all the other randoms).

We then had five hours to wait for our flight home. Thankfully we had the Qantas club so had all the food and drink we needed, as well as a cosy corner to curl up in (and Carter slept most of the time!). We arrived in Canberra slightly ahead of schedule to our fantastic Acadia (Addi was very excited to see it!) and it was home to unpack, arrange dinner, get the kids to bed, and most importantly - stay awake until bedtime! What occurred next was pretty amazing - everybody slept until after 10am. Around 13 hours of sleeptime, without stirring. This was an irrefutable demonstration of how exhausted we all were from day after day after day of heat, humidity and non-stop adventures!

Singapore - Day One to Four

On Thursday, 21 February the family flew to Singapore for their second family overseas trip with Gran and Pop (who stopped over in Singapore on their way back from India).

The flight was very uneventful - a Qantas 737 to Melbourne (where the pilot invited Addi into the cockpit!), a short stopover, and a Qantas A380 to Singapore - row 57. The kids were fantastic, especially Addi who just played iPad, ate food and watched movies the whole way (same as Linc and Carter!).

Addi in the cockpit of a Boeing 737-800

QF35 - Boeing A380 Lawrence Hargrave

QF35 to Singapore

We arrived in the evening of Thursday, 21 February and were lucky enough to have a maxi-taxi waiting to take us to the apartment - the Village Residences in Clarke Quay - where we met up with Gran and Pop and unpacked ready for a huge week. We grabbed dinner from Chinatown, which is very close to Clarke Quay.

Village Residences Clarke Quay (circled)

Day one we took it relatively easy, and headed to Orchard Rd to see the amazing shops and commence spending (and familiarise ourselves with the MRT). It was also heaven for Linc (and Dad) as everything from luxury Rolls Royce's to sporty Lamborghini Huracan's drove by one after the other. The amazing thing about that is how expensive cars are in Singapore, partly due to government taxes, but also due to every car having its own Certificate of Entitlement that entitles the vehicle to use Singapore roads for up to 10 years. The current price of a CoE is $35,000 SGD. Add that to the cost of a Huracan (below) and you're looking at $935,000 SGD or $975,000 AUD...!

Lamborghini Huracan LP610-4

Mum bought Dad a beautiful Ermenegildo Zegna leather/silver bracelet for our wedding anniversary, and the kids spent-up big at Toys R Us, but aside from that we were very restrained considering the huge number of amazing shops.

Fun fact about Ermengildo Zegna, an Italian luxury fashion house founded in 1910 that makes men's clothing and accessories: it is one of the biggest global producers of fine fabrics (2.3 million metres per year) and is the largest menswear brand in the world by revenue, producing suits for Gucci, Yves Saint Laurent, Dunhill and Tom Ford. Zegna is one of the biggest buyers of ultra-fine Merino wool, and has encouraged, supported and rewarded the efforts of the Australian wool industry since 1963 in the production of finer and softer wools. They hold annual world wool awards (not kidding) and in 2010, a soft ultra-fine 10-micro fleece from Windradeen, NSW set a new world record and won the Ermenegildo Zegna Vellus Aureum International Trophy. But you'll pay for the privilege of wearing Zegna product; for example, a Zegna tie will set you back $345 (I have two - both from eBay, and both for under $100!). Now you know.

For lunch we went to a food court in one of the shopping centres (see below photo) and for dinner we went to an Italian restaurant in Chinatown which was really quite good.

The food was amazing; even the food court's had exceptional meals!

Day two (Saturday) we headed to Seaworld and were blown away by how amazing it is. The tanks are huge - especially the biggest one - and there's a really good variety of marine life to see. The only downside was the huge crowds and every second person with their stupid selfie-stick getting in the way. It was also our first Singapore experience of trying to keep seven people (including an adventurous three-year-old) together.

In the afternoon we headed to Suntec City as we had booked a Duck Tour which is an amphibious ex-military DUKW vehicle that tours the key sites through the Civic District from the water.

Duck Tour - VERY noisy, very hot, but a different way to see Singapore's Civic District

Gran and Pop took the kids back to the apartment for their first swim in the pool while Mum and Dad had drinks at the Mandarin Oriental Bar (MO Bar).

Day three (Sunday) we headed to Gardens by the Bay followed by lunch and some more shopping (although not much purchasing was done - more looking) at Marina Bay Sands. We did the Sky Garden and Flower Dome and were all brave enough to do the SkyWalk. Addi continued to draw significant interest due to her blonde hair and bright blue eyes - we should have charged a fee for photos!

One of the many occasions people wanted a photo with Addi

Sky Garden

Sky Garden

Flower Dome

Sky Walk

The famous boat-on-a-building building

Sky Garden

Day three was also a very special day; so Mum and Dad headed to the Manhattan bar at the Regent Hotel for the most expensive drinks in the world (luckily they were awesome, with names like 'Coal', 'Bellini', 'Mad Men' and 'Iron Horse').

Day four (Monday) was by far out biggest day with a private car to Malaysia to visit Legoland! It was particularly hot and humid, but super awesome as there was hardly anybody there (although the park is obviously designed for very large crowds). It was really good in that it had rides for little kids through to bigger kids. The kids loved meeting Lego Batman and the Lego Dragon really loved Addi (along with most of the Asian and Indian visitors to the park who constantly wanted photos with the our family's biggest attraction - Addi!).

The best ride in the park (by Dad and Carter's standards) was the VR rollercoaster. Linc went on once with Pop (without the VR goggles) but didn't like it. Carter went on three times - twice with the goggles and once without - as he loved it (although the below photo says otherwise). It was a fantastic ride - the goggles take you into a virtual Lego car race and there's rises and dips and side to side movements as you dodge various objects. It's also quite isolating as the roller coaster disappears, as does the person sitting next to you and you have no concept of what's happening in the real world. But a real buzz nonetheless.

The live Lego Ninjago show was really good also; they used big puppets to tell a short story and it was nice and cool in the theatre (did I mention how hot/humid it was?!).

After a massive day at Legoland, we had to rush to get to our pickup point at 5pm for the trip back to Singapore. And Addi fell asleep almost immediately...

For Day five onward, see the next blog post!