Melbourne

We had a great time vacationing in Melbourne. There were a ton of things to do, great restaurants, and lots of parks and green spaces. What is not to love? We spent 5 days there which is much more than what we usually spend in one city while on vacation but thought we would relax a bit more especially since we are now travelling with a toddler. One big change: instead of hotels we booked an apartment which gave us much more space to sprawl out. I think Ethan really loves when we change locations since it gives him a brand new environment to explore. He especially loved standing at the floor to ceiling windows and pointing out each 'baus' (bus) and 'ka' (car) that passed below us on the street.

I have to say that he was great on the flight over. We just booked an infant ticket but no extra seat since our friend just brought his toddler (she is bigger than Ethan) over on Qantas and she apparently slept in the bassinet. Well we opened that bassinet up once in the air and there was no way Ethan would fit in there. He ended up just sitting on our lap and napped or played with the water bottles or TV remote. Periodically he would ask for his 'salk' and 'shooos' and we would take a jaunt down the aisle but for the most part he was happy to just hang out with us at our seats. The flight attendant servicing our side of the plane kept commenting on what a happy baby he was and mentioned as we left that he was the most well behaved toddler she ever saw on a flight. This could be because he is getting to be quite a flirt I have to say. He laughs and waves and babbles to those who take an interest in him.

The first day we arrived we walked all over the city and then caught a tram to the Docklands. We saw the boats, did a bit of shopping and stopped by the first ever Costco to land in Australia. We might have also stopped by a Target. Apparently I miss America more than I thought. =P

Ethan having a great time at Costco - where he learned how to drink from a straw, had his first ever bite of hot dog and also liked getting samples for us to eat.

Ethan liked the tram and kept wanting to dangle from the 'andles' above us.

Every day we walked to either the Fitzroy gardens, along the Yarra river towards the Royal Botanical Gardens, or to the Alexandra Gardens. We also hit up the Aquarium (the penguins were our favorite), the zoo (where we watched the lions being fed and petted huge tortoises), and went to the Collingwood Children's farm (where we got to pet all kinds of farm animals and also got to milk a cow!).

Collingwood Children's Farm:

The cow before the milking demonstration. Ethan wasn't that up for it but Bob and I gave it a try.

Of all the animals, Ethan liked the cat the most. His version of petting was poking the cat repeatedly in the ear while saying 'meiow me', but she still purred contentedly for us.

Alexandra Gardens:

Aquarium:

Zoo:


Fitzroy Gardens:

Australia 2007

We just came back from a trip to Melbourne and Sydney but before I post pictures I thought I would share some from a previous trip that Bob and I took in '07. We went to Adelaide (where we had awesome meat pies and the best brunch I have ever had), Kangaroo Island (to see the little penguins, kangaroos, koalas and seals out in their natural habitat), Cairns (for the scuba diving) and Sydney (where we went on the bridge climb, had great food, and explored all of downtown Sydney). Of these places our favorite by far was Kangaroo Island and hopefully in the future we can take Ethan back there.

Cairns/Kuranda:


Kangaroo Island:





Sydney:

Happy Halloween!

This year for Halloween Ethan went as Tigger. Halloween could be my all time favorite holiday.



We spent the afternoon at the plaza. There was a haunted house, lots of fair food, and of course cute kids all dressed up.



At 6 o'clock, trick-or-treating began! There is only one street within our community that is designated for giving out candy and everyone just flocked over there. Someone mentioned that they bought $1,000 HKD worth of candy and it was all given out in 30 minutes. That's a lot of candy! We just went to a few houses then gave up because it was so crowded and it was past Ethan's bedtime. But it was amazing to see all the people out there and when we went it was even before the official start time for trick-or-treating.

And because I can't resist, here are some pictures of vintage Ethan from last year's halloween.

Word Explosion

All of a sudden over the past month Ethan has been learning 1-2 new words a day. I counted all the words he could say and it was way over 75, and of these about a quarter are Putonghua. I don't know what is normal for a 15 month old, but I think all toddlers go through a language explosion before reaching two years old. All I can say is that it is really fun to communicate with him and not have to guess at what he wants. If he wants to go he will say 'bye bye' or 'home' if he wants to go all the way home, if he wants to drink he will say either 'wa wa', 'juuuuice' (we just started letting him have watered down OJ since both Bob and I are sick and don't want him to get sick), or nia nia' (for milk), if he wants to sleep he will start clamouring for his duck lovie 'ya ya' and his binky 'bin bin'. Now when Bob gets home he will say 'Da dee' and then 'bao bao' for daddy to pick him up. And I am now officially 'Mommy' after first being 'Ma Mum' then 'Ah-ma' (I guess to a 1 year old a 30 year old does make me an old lady) and then 'Ma Ma'.

I think it's neat how he can recognize specific things within the same category. For example as we walk down the street he will point out the 'busss', 'kaa' (which actually are golf carts since there are no cars where we live), 'tuck' (truck), 'ain' (train). Vans still confuse him and he calls them buses. When he first learned the shape circle he called it 'bub-ble' since a playground we go to is underwater themed and I used to point out the white bubbles surrounding the fish. After awhile I started letting him know that only bubbles are formed from water, so now he says 'irk-le' for circle when he sees the outline of a circle or 'dot' for many solid circles that are together and 'ssspot' for circle patterns on an animal. Usually though when he is excited and first sees a circle shape he will yell out bubble first but then corrects himself.