Visiting and Exploring

With the Chinese New Year almost upon us, we visited Ye Ye and Ma Ma to pay our new year's respect and to wish them good health for the Year of the Dragon. The unfortunate thing about living in a non-Asian country is that we don't get a public holiday for Chinese New Year. We'll all be working next Monday when the new year comes around, hence the early visit. The kids had fun blowing bubbles in the front yard and were spoilt by Ye Ye, who gave them massages. It should be the opposite, right? However, the kids all enjoy it and Kieran often asks for a massage before he leaves, when I pick them up after work.

After our visit, we headed off to the Warran Glen cafe for lunch. Daddy hasn't been here before but he really enjoyed the food and the environment. So much so that we decided that we would take Ye Ye and Ma Ma here next time.

Since we were on the same side of town, we decided to visit Montsalvat after lunch. We love this place for its open space and old buildings and architecture. Definitely a beautiful setting for more photos.

Games Night

It has been a while since we have had a family games night so tonight, after putting Ashleigh to sleep, we took out Monopoly City. Monopoly is Jared's favourite and so far, we have about five or six different variations. The boys were in a bit of a silly mood so they were giggling and laughing throughout the game. It's a pretty good variation because the rules are a little different to the ones that are only differentiated by the cities that are printed. This one seems to require a little bit more strategy. It's nice to see the good old board games resurfacing, instead of just the electronic/computer games which they have become so addicted to.

Early reunion dinner

Tonight, we had an early Chinese New Year reunion dinner with Ye Ye and Ma Ma. We had a relaxing meal out at a restaurant with all of Daddy's family, with the exception of Daddy's oldest brother, who lives in Singapore. We're starting to feel that the kids are truly 'growing up' when they have their own table and eat independently (with some occasional nudging and prompting from Mummy and Daddy on the next table). Thank you Ma Ma and Ye Ye for a wonderful meal.

Lavandula Swiss Italian Farm

We're starting to run out of places to visit but with the school holidays still on, we want to make the most of it before they return to the school routine and weekly activities of swimming, football, music lessons, chinese school and so forth. So today, we headed to Lavandula Swiss Italian Farm, a farm which grows lavender, olives and grapes. From memory, we've visited this farm before, probably more than ten years ago because we definitely didn't come with the kids. I think it may have been with Amanda? I do recall that it wasn't anything particularly special when we visited last time. However, not 100% certain if it was the same place, we decided to check it out today.

Lavandula Farm is about 10 minutes from Daylesford so it was about a 1.5 hour drive for us from home. We got there at almost 2pm and the place was packed. There was a Harvest Celebration on today and lots of people brought along their picnic rugs and settled around the garden areas, listening to the live music and dance performances. Luckily, we found an outdoor table, under a shady tree outside La Trattoria cafe. Daddy then went off to order lunch. Ten minutes later, another family asked to share our table (there was plenty of room) and they too, went to order food. After a while, Daddy and the boys came back and we waited for our food. Not long after that, we found out through the family next to us that all the food had run out and they were too late! The parents settled for some champagne instead, which was also very popular as there was a long queue for that also. They left shortly after so we had the table all to ourselves. I think they were eyeing our meals because they jokingly said to us "You better eat your food before we get our hands on them". While having our meal, the waitress came over with two glasses of champagne, asking if we had ordered them. We didn't, but we told them there was a family who did, but they had already got their order. So the waitress gave them to us, on the house! After lunch, we explored the place.

In particular, I loved the feeling of sitting peacefully outside the entrance of the farmhouse. It's quite amazing that I took these photos with hardly anyone else in the background, with it looking like we were the only people there. Believe me, the place was so busy and full of people walking around and I had to quickly snap away because within seconds, someone would walk into the picture. I particularly love that photo of Ashleigh sitting on her own. It seems so calm and peaceful. If I had a porch like that, I can imagine myself sitting on that chair with a good book for hours and just enjoy the peace and quiet. Notice the lavenders hanging from the ceiling. The whole place smelt of lavender (naturally) and the kids said it smelt like 'soap'.

Ashleigh had so much fun roaming around the open fields of grass and gardens of lavender. It was indeed very peaceful and relaxing. Having said that, there wasn't much for the kids to do, besides from, well, just walking around and exploring the area. The boys (and Ash), however, did get a chance to play Bocce Ball, an ancient game that resembles bowling, using metal balls. We don't know the rules of Bocce Ball, but Daddy managed to make up some rules and they had fun for a while, bowling away. It was a lovely way to spend a relaxing afternoon.

More bike fun

We thought we'd keep the momentum going, now that the boys can ride their bike so this morning, they went out for another ride. Daddy indeed had a good workout running besides Kieran, just to give him that little bit of stability and to steady him if required.

Here's another video. In particular, I like this because it shows each of them in their midst of a new milestone. The boys on their first bike rides without the training wheels and Ashleigh, toddling around, chasing after her brothers.

Baby, I can ride my bike

Around this time last year, we had a goal for the boys to learn to ride their bikes. However, we never took the bike out much again for more rides and so the bikes stayed in the garage and collected dust and spider webs. Today, we decided to give it another go and after some dusting and pumping of flat tyres, we headed down to this flat area at the end of our street for more lessons.

And here is the end result....

Yes, Jared has learnt to ride the bike and Kieran is almost there. Well done boys!

Later that day, Kieran attended his friend Alexander's 7th birthday where he had a great time playing soccer and football. For someone who was initially not very interested in joining in (because he was 'so tired' from the bike ride), he quickly became enthusiastic about the soccer game and chased the ball around.

Celebrating Amelia's birthday

Amelia will be turning six next week and tonight, we went over to the Trans to celebrate her birthday. It was also the first time we met Natasha, Jac and De Jean's little girl, who is about seven months younger than Ashleigh. They played really well together - both are so easy going and gentle natured.

Nat and Jac also prepared a yummy, authentic Hainese chicken rice, while Michael made some fried wantons. Ash thoroughly enjoyed singing happy birthday to Amelia. Hope you have a wonderful ballet birthday party Amelia!

Perception Deception

With Ashleigh down for her afternoon nap and at home with Michael while he worked from home, I took the boys to Scienceworks Museum. Today, they checked out the new exhibit "Perception Deception", which had exhibits that were meant to challenge one's ability to interpret information from your senses. Time always flies whenever they visit Scienceworks because there are so many things for them to do here.

Shopping at Ikea

We decided to check out the new Ikea in Springvale before visiting Michael's friend David, who just had twin boys. There was a lot more of running around and playing with the toys than there was of shopping. We had lunch at the ever popular Ikea cafe and of course, tried their meat balls, although it wasn't a favourite of mine. Oh and guess who we bumped into? The Dieps.....we really do think that they are stalking us. After spending all day together yesterday, you'd think they've had enough of us. I don't have the photos to show it, but believe me, they were there, and we ended up having lunch together in the cafeteria.

Exploring the Enchanted Maze

We decided at the last minute this morning to visit the Enchanted Maze Garden in the Mornington Peninsula and hence met up with the Dieps there. The last time we were here was two years ago and oh my, how much the kids have grown since then. They have also added a couple of new activities such as the tube slides and the 3D indoor maze. We headed to the tube slides first and it was a lot of fun. Even Ban and I gave it a go. However, the hard work was pulling the tubes back up the hill once you've come down the slides. You can tell by Jared's face below that he wasn't too amused. The poor Daddies did most of the hard work.

After that, it was exploring one maze after another, as well as trying all the different obstacle courses. Brace yourself for a huge photo post for today. Finally, I'm all up to date with my blog posts. Yay!