Fathers Day 2008

Carmela and Lucia having cup of espresso.
Luca, Stef, Matt and Anth playing Wii.

John test-driving Franks bike.
The Argyle club in the garage.

Cool dudes.
Brothers.

Wii

Merci Marraine

j'ai reçu votre colis aujourd'hui. J'étais très sorti et heureux. merci infiniment d'un cadeau d'anniversaire gentil!



Je t'aime Marraine! Jacob.

In English now.

Thank you so much for a nice birthday present! Jacob was very exited and happy. Of course he had to wear the dinosaur shirt straight away! And after he put on the T-shirt with the picture of a T-Rex on it, he wanted to watch Jurassic Park movie. What a surprise! not.

When I took some pictures of him with his new shirt, he wanted to photograph me too so here I am.

My holidays in Gap

I'm just back from a week holiday in Gap.

Gap is located in the south-east of France, with 100 kilometers in the south of Grenoble and with 150 kilometers in the north of Aix-en-Provence. It is the chief town of the department of Hautes-Alpes. We could see the Mount-Blanc from the plane!

It is also the most significant city of the Alps of the South. Near to the lake of Serre-Ponçon and the National park of the Jewel cases, Gap is a feature of union between Dauphiné and Provence, the landscapes of high mountain and the softness of the hills of High-Provence.

A week spent with some members of the skydiving club of Nantes....obviously we went there to jump. Gap is the biggest skydiving club in France. It's where most of the teams and champions train! We also had some time to visit the area, especially the beautiful lake of Serre Ponçon.

And here are the cabins where we were staying, just by the water...

And because landing can be ..... challenging....

More:

Pirates and Prostitutes

Mid-summer night party Estonian style.
Traditionally we would make big bonfires, cook meat on the fire, play all kinds of games to compete in speed, accuracy and strength. Oh yes, and of course - get drunk.






This year though, we celebrated little-bit differently.

Margit and Indrek - young Estonian couple who work on the cruise boat in Sydney - organised a party on the water. Theme - pirates and prostitutes. Surprisingly everyone made an effort to dress up and costumes were fantastic. It was a group of 30 people, most of who I had never met before.
We left Darling Harbour on board of Solarsailor at lunchtime and party took off rocking the boat to the point where I thought we might fall through the floor.
The crew members looked shocked when Estonian music was blasting and everyone got up to dance and sing along. We had the best time!!! Arrrrrrrr! Best party I've been to in a long time! :)

Jacob's operation

We arrived in hospital at 6:30am. This is our room - 313.
Jacob was quite happy to be there as he probably didn't understand what exactly was going to happen to him.
At around 8:30am he was taken downstairs to operating theatre. I was allowed to accompany him and to hold his hand while he was put to sleep. He was very brave - last thing before his eyes closed, he gave me thumbs up - Tops!



View from our room.
Operation took about just under an hour. I was waiting in the room... had a good cry... it was awful! I hope I never have to do it again.








Here's Jacob right after the operation. He was really confused and in quite a bit of pain. It broke my heart to see him like this...









Awake. Feeling drowsy and sick. Poor thing!







Yummmm - green jelly, bring it on!








Ice block and favourite DVD - Evolution. Life is not so bad after all... :-)







We spent one night in hospital. Jacob had the drip and he was also hooked up to the machine that measures heartbeat and oxygen levels - it's just a little clip with the red light that goes on the finger.
Anyway... this machine was beeping every time the clip fell off which made it impossible for me to sleep. It was terrible - I was up all night because of that bloody machine!

At home. Having a good rest.
It's now a week and a half since the operation and only yesterday he was starting to feel better. He didn't even need Panadol and was able to eat and drink without pain. Today he looked back to normal.
He still wakes up few times at night because of sore throat but when he's asleep he can breathe normally and seems to have a good deep sleep :-) In the long run, it was all worth it.

Cockatoo

A highlight of my day.

Today around lunchtime, a colleague of mine said that there is a friendly cockatoo outside our office. I went out to see what she was talking about.

This beautiful bird was walking around in the car park and didn't seem to mind humans at all.
As soon as he saw me, he started to come closer to me and I got little-bit scared because I have never touched a wild bird this size before.

I kept wandering how much it would hurt if he decided to bite me with his huge strong beak.

As it turned out, he was very tame and polite, he even said "hello"! :-) It's obviously someones pet and for some reason he really liked me. He didn't take much interest in anybody else, although there were quite a few people around who tried to approach him, but he kept following me. It was love from first sight! :-D

Lucky we have cameras on all mobile phones nowadays so that we can capture moments like this!

Jindabyne

At last!!! Long awaited winter holiday! I have been waiting for this break for so long. Finally it's time to pack our ski jackets and beanies and head down towards Canberra, Cooma and Jindabyne.
Jacob and I started preparing a week earlier, we baked lots of gingerbread cookies to take with us to the snow. Some of them thought, didn't make it further than baking tray :-D
We left home around 8am on Thursday 26th June. 5 hours later and 450km from Sydney, we finally arrived at Jindabyne. After short discussion it was decided to stay in and order pizzas for dinner because we were all quite tired from long travel and didn't feel like going out. When dinner was finished and plates washed up, Jacob's latest favourite movie - "Kung Fu Panda" was screening in the lounge room TV and as you see everybody got comfortable and settled in to watch it together. It's a funny movie about this fat panda called Po (voice by Jack Black) who against all odds becomes a Kung Fu master, claims a title of Dragon Warrior and defeats an evil leopard Tai Lung to restore happiness to beautiful Valley of Peace. If you haven't seen it, I strongly recommend. Kids couldn't stop laughing and repeated lines from the movie for days. Jacob's favourite is the scene featured in this picture here... "You want it? Come and get it!" (he-he-hee you'll understand, once you see the movie)
First Day at the snow.
Wake up at 7am, then quick breakfast and off we went to Perisher Blue Ski Resort. That was pretty much the only place open for skiing. We've had warm weather and not much snow fall this year. Our ski trip was almost cancelled because there's just not enough snow but because we had planned this for months and it's very difficult to find dates that suit every one's work and school schedules, we decided to go ahead.

Jacob looked so cute in his one-piece ski outfit, complete with helmet and goggles but after trying for little while he decided that he didn't like skiing after all and wanted to just play with the snow. I tried to exchange his skis for toboggan but toboggans were not allowed in the general area and tobogganing run was closed because there wasn't enough snow :-( That was bit of a disappointment because I'm sure Jacob would have loved sliding down the hill with me. And so would I.

Phil & Frank were skiing this year but all the kids decided to try snowboarding. I personally prefer snowboarding to skis but I had babysitting duties so I didn't get to snowboard which is fine by me, I had fun watching other and playing with Jacob. Besides, I had Lisa, Joe and Maria to keep me company.
Stef already knew how to snowboard but boys had to learn because it was their first time. In the beginning they found it a bit hard but everything new is difficult in the beginning, they didn't give up but tried again the next day.

Day 2.
Before heading up to Perisher, we took this lovely group picture at the front of the flat where we stayed. Behind us is beautiful Lake Jindabyne. In case you don't recognise, from left: Maria, Frank, Luca, Joe, Lisa, Anthony, Stefania, Poliina, Jacob, Phil and Matthew.

Jacob and Lisa building a tiny snowman.

Phil on the ski lift - he's the one in the middle with red boots.

Lunch break. On the menu: corn chips, apples, breakfast bars and soft drinks - all brought from home by Frank and Maria - very thoughtful because food at the resort is expensive and ques are much too long.

Lisa, Joe, Jacob and I went up on the ski lift that was open only for sightseeing. We stopped half way and took this photo at the lodge overlooking the mountains - the view is breathtaking.

On the ski lift. You see how little snow there is?! :-(

What is a snow trip without an injury? Someone always gets hurt. This time it was Matthew. He hit a rock with the snowboard and fell badly on his wrist. If you look at this photo closely you see group of people gathered in the middle just below the ski lift pole, it's the medical crew who took Matt to the resorts medical centre for assessment and after X-rays were taken, we found out his wrist was fractured. Lucky it's his left hand.

Lake Jindabyne. Beautiful isn't it?!?

On our way back home.

If you look closely, you see Frank's BMW in the distance ahead - leader of the pack. The blue Commodore in front of us is Joe.
We all had walkie-talkie radio transmitters so we could have a conversation on the road. It was fun and really handy when you need to keep track of eleven people in the ski resort.

Lake George. Dry at the moment. Apparently not always but I have never seen it under water.

Snuggles.





The End.