Cycling at Homebush Bay

On the last day of our holidays (yesterday) we went cycling at Olympic Park at Homebush. It was Meeks' idea and it was a super one. Mitch loved being on the back of the bike although he did a bit of exploring by himself too

We stopped for lunch at a park with some play equipment. Mitch checked it out first and then Mitch and Daddy had a go on the flying fox


After having lunch together we peddled off back to where we hired the bikes and went home quite weary



Finally a panorama of the beach on our holiday to Bateman's Bay

Now this is more like it!

Well, the weather has finally turned pleasant and we are still on holidays. Pity it wasn't like that last week when we were actually away at a beach resort with a pool and sand. To take advantage of it we went to Balmoral and enjoyed the sand and Mitchy and Mummy had a little swim.

Before we went to the beach we visited Dr Wyeth (his name is Barry ... get it Barry Wyeth? Sound familiar? I'll give you a hint "Darling I, can't get enough of your love baby?") Mitch's paediatrician. Mitch is a delightfully normal little 18 month old. He is normal weight, slightly taller than average but apparently has a large head for his size. Apparently this comes from his Mum and Dad - neither of us suspected he we had a big head, but apparently we do. We always though Mitchy had a small head. Oh well, he's normal and healthy and was very well behaved when the doctor was poking and prodding him.

While we were away we tried to count all of Mitchy's words. He can say more than 50 words now, I wont bore you with the whole list, but it's apparently very good for his age. He only really says one word at a time (or the same word over and over) although he has one phrase which is "More cake!" ... cake is anything sweet, whether that actually is cake or he actually means ice cream or yogo or soemthing else - not that he gets a whole lot of any of those, but when he does it goes quickly.

He also has one joke. When we get home in the car, we ask him, "Who lives here?". He knows Mummy and Daddy and Mitchy live here, but he says, "Nana!" instead so we say, "Nooooooooo!" and he laughs and laughs. He's started branching out with his one joke, so now whenever we ask him a question (like "What did you just put in your mouth?" or "Why are you digging in the pot plants?") he replies "Nana!" with a big cheeky grin on his face.

Anyway, back to Balmoral. As you can see the weather was beautiful, here is the familiar arch

and a couple of Mitch playing in the sand


We also made a lot of sand castles for which Mitch had the newly found pleasure of destroying by first stepping on them, saying "Kick! Kick! Kick!" and then squashing them with his belly.

Bateman's Bay

It was under leaden skies that we left for Bateman's Bay on Monday morning and under leaden skies we returned this afternoon. Unfortunately it pretty much rained most of the time so our "beach" holiday didn't quite turn out how we had hoped. This was about as good as it got!

That photo was taken during one of the brief lighter moments. We took advantage of those by going for walks down to the beach. Mitch did lots of running around during those moments to make up for being stuck inside when it was raining.

The highlight was visiting Mogo Zoo one morning when it wasn't raining too much. Mogo Zoo is about 10 minutes drive south of Bateman's Bay. Mitchy loved seeing all the animals. There were some friendly animals:



And some big cats:



Mitchy took whatever vantage point he could get:

So it was good to get away, but a lot of the time we were stuck inside wishing we could go and play ...

... outside!

And that is the story of our holiday to Bateman's Bay.




Okay ... a couple more animal pictures:

Sydney Aquarium

Today was the first day of our holidays and it was raining (and it looks like it's pretty much going to rain for the rest of our holidays) so we decided to have some indoor fun and went to the Sydney Aquarium. Mitchy loves fish and particularly sharks so he loved it. Here are some photos:





Later on Mitchy was just being cute so we took some more photos:



Hopefully the weather will get better, but if not we'll just have to find something else to do indoors.