Bumper Car Mayhem on Australia Day

For Australia Day, we'd planned on going into the city to show Grumps the air show and the amazing Perth SkyWorks fireworks display, but it was just so hot on the day that we couldn't motivate and ended up deciding to go down to Armadale for the local fireworks and show. 

It was such a good decision as almost directly in front of where we would have been sitting, a plane in the air show crashed killing both passengers on board and cancelled all of the other scheduled events.

I don't know how I could have explained such a tragedy to the boys, and I'm just really glad that they'll remember these silly bumper car memories instead of a terrifying plane crash. 

Happy Birthday (Invasion Day) Australia!

Fun in the City

Summertime is a fantastic time to have a day in the city, and Grumpy, Heidi and the girls, and we had a busy day. First up was Erth's Aquarium, a show in Perth's fancy Heath Ledger Theatre highlighting all sorts of prehistoric aquatic creatures. It was a good laugh, but not nearly as good as their previous show which the boys and I loved: Erth's Zoo.

After the show and lunch we headed down to Elizabeth Quay so the kiddliwinks could try out the new carousel and the newly re-opened splash park. 

After that, it was obviously time for ice cream. Some clueless mothers a-okayed dark chocolate which made the kids crazy loco and made for an early departure, but otherwise it was a pretty awesome day!

Snake Charmer

Caving in Denmark

In honour of Grumpy's visit, we decided to do something completely new on this trip to Busselton: caving!

And holy mackanoly, what beautiful caves they were. First we visited Lake Cave with its amazingly photographic reflections and learned all about the mega fauna that used to live across Australia and whose remains have been found in many of the caves of the Southwest.

After Lake Cave, we ventured a bit further south to the biggest show cave in Western Australia: Jewel Cave. Here we all had lots of fun exploring and learning all about all the very many different cave formations, including stalactites, stalagmites, helictites, pendulites, straws, flowstone, columns, cave coral, shawls, and some others that despite a lot of practice reciting them, I can't remember now.

And when we weren't caving, we decided to venture into the depths of the ocean and the underwater observatory at the very end of the Busselton Jetty (at 2 kms, the world's longest wooden jetty).

For me, this wasn't quite as remarkable as the caves, but it was pretty cool spotting crabs, star fish, and pretty fish swimming around the coral-covered pylons that support the jetty.

And Ollie showed his true cowboy soul when he climbed atop this beer cow at the Colonnial Brewery in Cowaramup.

Nitro Funny Cars

With Grumpy in town, it was only appropriate that we headed to the speedway to satisfy the boys' need for speed. After touring the pits, the boys' eyes were glued to the track as we watch the nitro funny cars and motorbikes whoosh out of sight! 

A great door for some snaps of brotherly love

 

The Scorchers

After many years of trying to make it happen, I managed to get tickets for the family to go and see our awesome T20 Big Bash Cricket team: the Perth Scorchers.

And as if that wasn't enough, I entered us into a first time competition, and would you believe it? We won!The prizes (a blanket and chiller bag) weren't awesome, but we all got interviewed on the ultra big screens before the game. It was kind of fun being celebrities.

What wasn't fun was watching our Scorchers lose pitifully. You would have never guessed from that game that they would end up being the champions this year.

Happy New Year 2017!!

How lucky were we to get to ring in the New Year in Denmark (the town, not the country) with our very favourite ex-neighbours. With their house now ready to move into, Peta, Super, and the boys have moved down south, and we decided to invite ourselves to celebrate the New Year in their new home.

If only I would have remembered to take pictures, you could have seen just how much fun we had hanging out around the fire, putting on LED poi ball shows, eating ourselves silly, and maybe just maybe having a wee too much to drink.

The boys just loved catching up with their friends, playing cricket, riding their bikes around and getting ridiculously dirty.

We hate that you're not just down the street anymore, but mark my words Otway family, we will be visiting your gorgeous selves in your gorgeous new home very often!