Holiday in paradise (a.k.a. Fiji)

We have just come home from the most wonderful time of our lives! For years, we'd been talking about maybe heading off to Fiji for a holiday, and after much deliberating, we finally decided that life was too short, so we booked it in, and headed off! Jules' brother Steve joined us for the trip, and was most welcome!

Our overseas journey started (as they all do) on the plane - the kids were very excited, and despite the 11:30pm departure time, both of them vowed to stay awake the whole way there. Ah, the follies of youth...  :)

Due to a slight schedule adjustment by Pacific Air, we actually arrived a day earlier than originally planned, so they very generously put us up at the Raffles Gateway hotel, which was just over the road from the airport. As in, literally, you just had to cross the road. A van came and picked us up, packed our luggage, and then we drove for five seconds to get to the hotel. Very amusing. After a short enforced nap to allow the grown-ups time to catch up on some needed sleep, we hit the swimming pool for a leisurely afternoon swim.

It was only a 3.5 star resort, but that was fine by us, as it had a fantastic pool and water slide. Aside from the almost constant use of said slide, the kids also took the opportunity to get in some snorkelling practice.

And, after all that, what better way to wind down the afternoon than a quick dip in the spa pool?

It was a huge day of swimming, and by dinner time, both kids were more than a little exhausted, and pretty much fell asleep in their food.

The next day saw us on the ferry, heading off to our principal destination: Mana Island!

We got there a little early to check in, so we simply sat down at a convenient sheltered bar, and admired the scenery. No sooner had we done this, than a friendly local came up and got us some drinks: coffee for the adults, lemonade for Lucas, and some manner of blue sugary chemicals for Alicia. Oh, dear. For Alicia, this was the first of many techni-colour smiles that she was to sport whilst on Mana Island!

Eventually our room was ready, so we checked in, and settled in for some serious leisure time. There was dancing and party games in the evenings:

More snorkelling, both practising in the pool (again), as well as for real at the beach. And not to mention just wearing you flippers and chilling out on the couch!

Food was cheap enough at the resort, but we discovered a cheap and cheerful restaurant at the Backpacker's and local village that saw our custom for the majority of our lunches on the island (and even a breakfast or two).

The days passed leisurely by in a pleasant blur of totally stress-free activities. We spent most of our time on the beach, sometimes snorkelling and observing the magnificent coral bommies and the gorgeously colourful fish that populated them, sometimes just swimming for fun, sometimes just chilling out and reading!

There were some canoes available for complimentary use of the guests, and we'd often take advantage of these from time to time. Lucas became quite a proficient paddler towards the end.

And of course, there was always the obligatory "happy hour", where drinks went from being cheap to being even cheaper. Cocktails and beer for the adults, and sugar for the kids - it was win-win!

 Alicia was also quite keen to get her hair braided, so we visited the local village and had it done. Two hours in total, and she was very patient, and also very pleased with the result!

It was all good. Mostly sunny days, and even the rainy days were still quite bearable. Fiji just doesn't seem to be able to muster the gloom that Melbourne is famous for, or maybe it was just the laid-back and relaxed attitude of all on the island.

Although it was pleasantly slow in coming, we eventually got to our last day, and were crooned off the island  by two very talented and cheerful minstrels. We all vowed to come back someday to this little piece of paradise.

So, having "roughed it" out on the island, we checked in for four final days of five-star luxury at the Radisson Blu resort on Denarau. It had a truly enormous swimming pool (with swim-up bar), another awesome waterslide (which is where Lucas spent the majority of his time), fancy restaurants and all the mod-cons you'd come to expect from this kind of place.

Truth to tell, we much preferred the pristine beaches and gorgeous waters of the island to the chlorinated pools and luxury trappings of the Radisson, but nonetheless we still had a fun and very relaxing time here.

Alas, all good things come to an end, but we'd had a truly fantastic twelve days of fun, relaxing and enjoyment on Fiji. Absolutely number one favourite holiday to date. Don't get me wrong - we love visiting family and friends, you guys are great and all, but if it's 100% leisure and relaxation we're after, then Fiji wins hands down!

Love to all,
Andrew.

A weekend at the snow!

Well, it's been a pretty cold winter so far (colder than last year, at least), so before it was over we thought we might pop up to Wodonga for a visit, and include a trip up to the snow to boot!

Alas, Mt Buffalo (where we went last time) was completely bald, according to the reports! Luckily, Falls Creek came to our rescue, and it was only an extra half an hour away. After a quick stopover in Mt Beauty for some essential supplies (mainly toboggans), we got up to Falls, and deployed over at Windy Corner for some tobogganing fun with the Parker boys! Lucas, being the big tough 8-year old that he is, did not need any parental accompaniment. Alicia, however, was happy to go with pretty much anyone.

After a while, Daddy and Alicia had been tobogganed out, so they set to work on some snowmen! There was a small family of three that ended up getting destroyed by an Aliciasauraus, so after we'd said the eulogy, we set to work on a bigger, more robust specimen. He turned out quite impressive in the end, and we were even able to set him up with a wizard's hat!

Eventually, the kids went back to the slopes for some more helter-skelter fun down the hill. By now, they were bored with plain old toboggans, and decided to experiment with some unorthodox methods of sliding down the mountain.

Let's not forget Lucas, who in his desperation to try snowboarding, decided to make do with the equipment at hand.

And lastly, we're happy to report that Alicia has completely recovered from the trauma of the previous tobogganing episode, and has learned how to fall off a toboggan in a graceful and non-injurious manner.

All in all, a great day out and much fun was had by all. And in just under a month's time, we'll be off to the blisteringly hot tropical weather of Fiji!

Happy Birthday, dear Mummy...

Happy Birthday, to our dear, precious Julia!

A rather quiet day today, given that we all had to go to school/work. Nonetheless, we did manage to get out for dinner in order to celebrate Mummy's birthday. Plus, Daddy was able to dig around the kitchen, and whip up a birthday cake in his lunch hour. Not the most intricate of designs (certainly nowhere near as involved as Cedric the Snake), but pretty good for a one-hour lunch break. No-one complained of the taste, anyway, so it must have had something going for it.  ;)

Party first, birthday second...

So, today is Lucas' actual birthday, and despite a fairly agressive campaign of pleading and whining to the parents, we held out on giving him his "Mum and Dad" presents until this morning. He wasn't too happy prior to this morning, but the annoyance quickly melted from his face once he saw his gargantuan pile of presents!

He was up at about 6:30am, but we managed to hold him off from opening the presents until about 7:00. Alicia doesn't normally rise this early (ever), but was coaxed into coming out and helping with the unwrapping.

Alas, he still had a day of school to go to, but he did get choice of tonight's meal (spaghetti bolognaise), and we topped off the evening with the remains of Saturday's birthday cake. It was going a bit green, but we just assumed that was mostly just the coloured coconut topping...

A slumber party!

Lucas had a slightly different sort of birthday celebration this year - his first ever slumber party! He was quite keen, despite being duly informed by his parents that it would necessarily mean a drastically reduced invite list. So, we had Lewey, Evan, Connor and Toby over on the Saturday afternoon, and they (mostly) stayed over until Sunday morning.

After critiquing Dad's soccer-themed birthday-cake-making efforts, it was off to sidetracked for an afternoon of fun and games. The boys played on the dodgem cars...

... and on the laser force.

At the end of both activities, they were given a choice: $10 worth of tokens each to spend on the arcade games, or another session of laser force. Have a guess what they decided. Go on...

After a fun time shooting each other, it was back home for some pizza. Home-made? Oh, no - Lucas was the boss for the evening, and he explicitly wanted delivered pizza. Fine by me...

Then, we burnt off a bit of energy by having an evening run-around in the park with torches and sparklers, then it was back inside for the birthday cake.

After that, we watched a LEGO DVD movie, and then it was bedtime!

Lots of fun, and a great day's worth of activities! Sadly, we lost Toby before the sleep-over started (he had to be up early for a footy game on Sunday), and we also lost Lewey, who really, REALLY likes his sleep, and was unable to get any with all the giggling and whispering that was going on. They eventually got to sleep, but the three remaining survivors were rather bleary-eyed the next morning!

New bed(s)

Remember this?

I do: it was Lucas' first "proper" bed, and he was so chuffed to help Daddy assemble it, and of course to sleep in it for the first time. Truly, he thought himself a big boy.

Well, times have changed, and we've had to farewell the old, and bring in the new and improved. Behold, the bunk!

No, we're not expecting another (phew!) We really love it when visitors come over, but the only annoying part was continually digging out the mattresses, and then putting them away again. So now we have a permanent spot for visitors to sleep, in the most space-economical fashion we could find. Many thanks to Granddad, who did most of the work putting it together (we figured he'd already done it once before, so he was the best qualified).

Lucas is of course over the moon with his new elevated status, and has settled in quite firmly on the top bunk.

Healesville getaway

The Bird clan went away for a little break this weekend, to catch a glimpse of the autumn foliage around Healesville. We decided to go back to the Healesville Sanctuary Cottages, because we'd had such a fun time there before, and because Mummy is such a huge fan of wood fires.

As before, the kids had a lot of fun at the park, particularly on the tractor (which, at some point in the proceedings, became turbo-boosted with laser guns attached).

We weren't really all that busy on this mini-holiday, it was more about taking it easy, and enjoying the (beautiful) scenery. And feeding some goats. Alicia was quite keen on feeding the goats. Well, actually she was quite keen on watching someone else feed the goats while she watched on and giggled.

One of our two main excursions was the Hedgend Maze, where we went around collecting clues, and attempting to solve the puzzle of the maze, one letter (clue) at a time. Well, Mummy and Lucas did most of the legwork in that department, Alicia was more interested in being the Leader (with Daddy as the Follower) and singing out Eenie-meeny minie moe at every fork in the maze (there was a lot of singing). And the solution we came up with to the Maze's clues was the well-known saying: "gr8w rkfl g2 nyup-nyup". Hmm, perhaps we'll have better luck next time...

Aside from the maze, we also visited the gorgeous Maroondah Reservoir, and we even managed to complete a 2km "bush walk" without too much complaining - a very good effort from the kids, Mum and Dad were quite proud.

A fantastic and relaxing time in a beautiful location. This Autumn getaway is fast becoming an annual tradition in the Melbourne Bird clan!