Henry's birthday - breakfast and dinner

We tried to keep Henry's birthday low key ie not the extravaganzas that Felicity and Lucy enjoyed this year.  So we told everyone not to do anything special.  But Miss Jackie knew us a little better than that and she decorated the breakfast table for Henry so beautifully.  

With a green theme, there were co-ordinating plates, cups and straws with balloons in the middle.  The girls had made place cards and place mats the day before during their crafting session. And there was a delicious gf chocolate cake with 3 green candles.

We enjoyed a hearty breakfast of bacon and eggs before heading off to the aquarium.  Henry also received some fun Australian presents to take home.

Henry's birthday dinner was hosted at Nanna & Grandpa's house.  Grandma & Grandad and all the aunties and uncles (apart from Auntie Kat) were there to celebrate.  Henry had requested lamb for dinner and chocolate pudding for dessert.  And he was not disappointed! He received lots of (small!) presents and lots of love. There were gf chocolate cupcakes shaped into a 3 for his birthday cake but his main focus was still the pudding which is his favourite dessert.

Henry's birthday party at Symbio Wildlife Park

During the early planning stages of our trip to Australia I asked Henry what he most wanted to do while he was there.  He replied 'pat a koala'.  

So my brain started whirring and the end result was a 3rd birthday party at Symbio Wildlife Park.

And as part of the party package he got to pat a koala named Banjo.

He also got to pat a whole lot of other animals including a baby alligator (Rambo), a ring tailed possum and another possum (Cleo and Blossom), and a snake called Feather.

Sugar High Cakes made the awesome shark cake (fitting in with yesterday's theme).  Unfortunately I had made Henry a koala cake for his first birthday so we had to go with something different for his third.  Miss Channah even put an NC licence plate in the mouth of the shark!

After the party we headed over to the tiger enclosure to see them eat their lunch and then we wandered around the zoo.  The highlight was getting up close to kangaroos and being able to hand feed them.

Henry had a very fun time! I hope he will remember this fun day for a long time. Thank you to all our Australian friends and family for attending.

Henry's birthday at the Aquarium

 

For Henry's actual birthday we headed into the city to visit the Sydney Aquarium.  Henry wanted to see the sharks up close! And note that he was wearing a co-ordinated shark jumper/sweater. Look at those teeth!

Part of the excitement was catching the train to the Aquarium. It is a 40 minute one-way trip which I have taken MANY times but the kids thought it was awesome and loved pointing out all the graffiti (of which there was an overabundance). Somehow we were able to get seats each time as I guess no one wanted to sit near the noisy children.

There was a bit of a crew at the Aquarium including Grandma & Grandad, the Martins, and Auntie Julie with cousins Edward and Cordelia.

The aquarium is very large and very awesome.  It was so fun to walk underneath the shark tank and see them swim above you.  There are so many different animals to see and we will definitely return again the next time we are in Sydney.

Afterwards, we ate a delicious gf Mexican lunch at Mad Mex at Darling Harbour.

Walking the Harbour Bridge

When we were planning our trip I made a list of the things I really wanted to do in Sydney.

At the top of the list was to walk across the Harbour Bridge as a family. We caught the train across the bridge to Milsons Point and then walked south.  We headed under the bridge to Dawes Point for morning tea before walking to The Rocks. We enjoyed lunch at DARE and walked around Circular Quay to the Opera House (watching a crazy unicyclist along the way.)

Here are the photos, I'll keep the words short. The pictures show what a beautiful city Sydney is even in the middle of winter. Again why do we live in North Carolina?

First Day of school - Henry

Henry started preschool on Friday.  His teachers are Mrs Faulk and Mrs Bryan.  He is going to preschool on M, W and Friday.

The first day he was very upset and cried alot when I left but quickly cheered up.  On Monday he didn't cry at all and was very brave.  His favourite part was playing in the sandpit with the diggers, dump trucks and trailer trucks.

Sydney: Arrival

Aren't arrivals the best? 

Remember the beginning (and the ending for that matter) of Love Actually that takes place at the arrivals lounge at Heathrow?  Apart from the soundtrack we experienced all that love in Sydney.

This arrival was a very fun one.  After enduring the travel and getting off the plane, time went very fast.  Our bags arrived, our passports were checked and we were diverted past the customs lines and suddenly we were at the exit doors ready to see everyone. We were expecting a really long wait in customs so I wasn't ready yet! It was an exciting moment for us (well for Andrew and I) as we made our way out.

And even though it was 6:30am we had quite a fan club

Henry's first reaction was to burst into tears.  But thankfully Grandma had bought some helium balloons for the kids.  So when Henry stopped crying and asked for his Elmo balloon I knew everything was all ok again.  Lucy was esctatic with her Hello Kitty balloon.

We picked up our rent-a-car/bus and headed home with the M family.

 

Sydney introduction

This is a hard post for me to write.

There is so much swirling around in my head from our trip and now I'm finally sitting down to process all that went on.  

Whilst we were returning to our native homeland there was still so much change to take in emotionally. So much to see, hear, smell, taste and touch.  Our senses were attacked daily and with three little ones and severe jet lag there wasn't any downtime to really think about things, categorise them and absorb them.

I am still thinking of questions and discussions I wanted to have.

So in the limited time I have I will do some reviews of some of the things we did while in Sydney.  Please do not think that this is the full and final view of our trip but rather a synopsis of the major events.

And to kick things off here are some photos en route to Australia.  The 24 hour travelling time was by far our least favourite time of the whole month.  To say it was a nightmare is an understatement. And that is all that I am going to say about that.  On to more fun things tomorrow.