27th April- 6th June
There really isn't much to say for these days, especially considering I'm writing about it on 10th July! This is more just to know where we are day wise and knowing dates. We just got down to business with every day life in Melbourne. I was working 2 days a week with acacia and Paterson, as well as having 1 or 2 days a week working with my new kids Mabel, Audrey and leisel. I really enjoyed these days, Mabel was 5 years old and the 2 others were identical twins at 18 months. I had a day where I took them out to melbourne museum by myself which was great, and the rest of the time was looking after them at home and babysitting on weekend nights.
We had various evenings out for dinner and met a few times for lunch. We visited the docklands and played glow in the dark gold and had fish and chips.
I tried to get to the gym most days, we were members of the library so we could get DVDs out. Spent time walking round the city and just doing the normal stuff.
7th June- 18th June Nanna and Grandad come to visit
On the afternoon of Thursday 7th June we were both let in for a massive shock when nanna and grandad turned up in Melbourne! I won't go into too much detail about what we did, mostly because im writing this on the 10th July and also we have their heads together with ours to remember and reminisce.
So they turned up to Liam's work place,and when I got home they were hid in the bedroom they jumped out on me and gave me the fright of my life. Some tears were shed, then I got to watch a bit of video on their phone of the moment liam saw them at work which was also very good to see. We spent a bit of time catching up on things - I have to admit there wasn't much due to facebook telling all already!
Liam headed back to work and I took them both into the city to show them around a little bit, I was so glad to get to show them because I loved the place. After a couple in our regular, the optic bar, we met liam after work and had a nice little meal on degraves street which is an outdoor lane with lots of tables set up with heat lamps.
I had work the next day but invited them along to the scienceworks museum so they got to see around there and meet the kids.
The day after that was Liam's birthday, which I had already made arrangements for but managed to book them on and get them in on all the "surprises" of the day. We went to meet them in the city for breakfast and the pancake parlour which is a chain which sells....pancakes! Liam didn't know we were going there so that was his first birthday treat. Then nanna decided to accidentally let slip he was doing a bungee so he spent a long while looking utterly horrified and being a little annoyed at me. He was glad to find out we wernt jumping, just going up to skydeck 88 on the eureka tower. It was the perfect day for it, so clear that we could see for miles and miles. It had an interactive floor with information on the sky deck and what things were in certain directions. We had a drink up there overlooking the views and also went onto the edge which is a glass box that goes out away from the main tower. It was a bit scary being that high up with only a couple of inches of glass underneath you but it was worth it and we all went in together. We then went to the zoo where we paid to go in with the kangaroos, it was good but not worth the money really plus there were lots of crowds. Despite that we were happy we had got to touch them and it was a nice afternoon spent there. We went back to the skydeck in the dark after which was spectacular seeing all the lights.
The day after we went to the comedy club which Liam had no idea about either. We initially went out for some drinks, before going down the yarra to view the fires at 6pm. Then off we went on the tram and spent the evening at the comedy club. It was a great evening,we all had such a laugh, had meals and nanna and grandad got absolutely piddled. We were out so late we missed the last tram so took a taxi! I'm really glad we went
I have to admit on a day to day basis I forget what we did, we did a walking tour of the lane ways, cooked food in some nights with DVDs and tv ( where they fell asleep every time), went out other nights and generally did a bit of sight seeing, eating and drinking! We all decided to go away in a campervan for a long weekend, Liam and I decided it was worth the extra expense to make nannas birthday better whilst she was here. However they ended up paying more than half for the whole thing anyway!
The campervan weekend was wonderful,they think I didn't enjoy it I think because I had a cold and was grumpy but I loved every minute. We had already done the great ocean road but we loved driving them down it for them to see the sights. It was also spectacular enough for us not to mind seeing it all a second time. We did a bunch of sight seeing things which I honestly can't be bothered to include much extra information about it...maybe I will ask them to add some footnotes at the bottom if they can be bothered! We went to split point light house which was built in the 1800s and still in use. During our time there we had a little tour of the place, all the way up the spiral stairs to the top where we could look out at the views below. We also got to see all the different kinds of bulb that have been used over the years and all the different flag signals they have.
We saw Apollo bay, gibsons steps where the glasses were lost! London bridge, the loch ard gorge. We drove through Peterborough which of course nanna took a picture of, and stopped in a town called port Campbell so she could get some new glasses. We ended up staying for a drink, we liked it there because it reminded us of home and away. We went all the way to warrnambool but it was getting dark by that time so we were too late to see anything really. So we drove up towards the grampians which is a sandstone mountain range on the Australian national heritage list. Once there we saw lots and lots of kangaroos, and lots of little dead ones on side of the road too unfortunately. We even got to feed some wild parrots at a lake we stopped off at for a break. The views were spectacular, we went to some view points such as the balconies and baroca, in halls gap and the look outs were just amazing. You could see for miles, no words can really describe how great it looked and the photos don't do it justice either.
We went out to a malaysian restaurant in chapel street for nannas birthday, she got a little piddled then too but wont admit to it! we visited the old gaol where the famous ned kelly was hanged. That was an interesting couple of hours, it was a 3 story jail converted into a museum with lots of information about the history of it and its prisoners. Paula cathedral and federation square were also visited along with the neighbours set and the shrine of remembrance. They got very efficient at using the tram system although grandad did always forget to hold on and always nearly go flying. We really wish they could have stayed longer, we loved having them with us ( even if I was a grumpy horrible person most of the time it was nothing to do with them!). I think they enjoyed Melbourne and I have a feeling they will be back.
