Bonjour from Beautiful Brisbane

 

We interrupt this period of non-transmission to bring you a community service announcement...
LUCEY BLUE IS IN BRISBANE! The Brisbane River at Kangaroo Point to be precise….and has been for almost a week :-)

Nick, Ryan and Nick's parents left Sydney in LB on Friday 10th June. Nick will fill you in on that somewhat eventful journey at some point soon (maybe). In the meantime, Emily, Eric and I stayed with my mum in Sydney for a week, then flew up to brissy on the 18th. We got REALLY lucky and completely missed any airport ash cloud chaos…which was nice because one adult travelling with a 7 year old, a 4 month old, a large hiking backpack (choc full), a large duffle bag (also choc full), a stroller, a car seat and two small carry-on bags….was no mean feat. But, with the help of mum, some lovely QANTAS staff, the helpful Budget rental car staff, and a very kind gentleman in Brisbane who dragged all of my baggage off the carousel for me (I had Eric in my pouch and could barely bend over, let alone remove baggage from the carousel)…we made it in one piece, tired, but all accounted for!

I never got a chance to wrap up our Bantry Bay stay, as well as a couple of other bits and bobs from Sydney...so here goes. One of the Bantry Bay highlights for the kids was, of course, the ice cream boat! YES…you read it right…the ice cream boat! Kinda like a Mr Whippy on the water, but with no Greensleeves playing. He zips around selling ice cream and coffee, there are actually a couple of them operating over summer, but in winter, we only saw this one. What a great idea! What a cool job!!

When they weren't scoffing ice cream, the kids were entertaining themselves drawing pictures in the abundant window condensation…

Another item being scoffed that weekend was some boat-baked chocolate brownies...these lasted all of about 15 minutes in my estimation ;-)

...and one small boy was only too happy to help out mum by licking the bowl absolutely, positively, spotlessly clean (the 5 year old...not the 4 month old ;-).

...baked in our shiny new SMEV 7000 oven, which was purchased for its gorilla...every boat needs a gorilla apparently, how else would a certain old salt make his beloved cheese on toast??

It was a fun weekend, but some of us also managed a spot of much needed shut-eye...

...and the whole thing was topped off with a wonderful, fantastical, supercalifragilisticexpialidocious trip to see Mary Poppins at the Capitol Theatre in Sydney!

Please don't mind my scruffy looking kids! We aren't really kitted out for a high-flying night-life here...and had to just make do with what we had that was clean :-).