July 4th Do Over

Emily and Tess dressed in patriotic style on July 4th. Tess had a play date in the afternoon but we spent the morning doing crafts at home. I came up with a few fun yarn creations. The girls dubbed them Miss Octi and the yarn babies. They like to pretend Octi has super powers and can swim around and save people.

Still, it felt strange to be away from home for Independence Day. I have gone up to the Adirondack every summer of my life except for the year that Tess was born. When the calendar switches to July it just feels right to go to Keene Valley. I found myself really quite homesick on that day. In hindsight I wish I'd made more proactive plans to celebrate the day in some suitably American way.

We ended up just eating take out for dinner that night so we decided for a do over of sorts on Saturday. We headed back into Darling Harbour, played on the playground, had pizza and ice cream for dinner and then watched fireworks. Fireworks are a Sydney specialty. They put on a big display for New Year's Eve. They do fireworks for Australia Day and many other reasons and they also put them on every single Saturday throughout the year. These were clearly unrelated to the 4th and the US but they felt fitting none the less.

While in touristy Darling Harbour we also picked up some postcards to send to friends. Here are Tess's drawings of the Harbour Bridge with dots as people walking up and down and a ferry underneath.

I can tell she's also getting really excited for soccer in September.

Darling Harbour with Friends

These three pictures really say it all about today. We had fun! After several days of exploring Sydney on our own it felt good to get out and meet up with friends. In this case we saw Sarah and Stem. The six kids range in age from two to six but they all got along well.

We started on the playground with a heavy emphasis on the slides. 

Cate did not enjoy being left behind while her mom did the big slide. 

We then moved on to a delicious pizza lunch. It is a little chilly to sit outside but most restaurants still open to the outdoors and simply supplement with heaters.

Emmy and Tess did well watching after the younger kids. They shared their bike and scooter. Tess motivated Chloe to ride faster by singing a little song, "I'm a cheeky banana and you can't catch me" and running away.

After lunch we treated the kids to a ride on the carrousel. Tess decided to ride on a moving horse for the first time. She looked a little tentative at first but she ended up loving it and go with no hands for a while. 

Emily chose to ride next to Cate. Em also rode a moving horse for the first time but she was too busy playing the part of the big girl to draw attention to that fact. What a fun, fun day.

Chinese Garden of Friendship

Last night I did a little research on school holiday activities and saw that the Chinese Garden of Friendship offers a craft project where you can make your own shadow puppet. I'd been meaning to check out the garden anyway so we set it as our agenda for the day.

The Chinese Garden of Frienship is set in the heart of Sydney's CBD but once you go in the gates you feel like you're in another world. We had fun talking about China and pretending that's where we were. It helped distract me for a bit from the fact that I'm really missing Keene Valley.

We read a little about the 2,500 year old history of shadow puppets and then each child got to pick a character from the myth of the Monkey King. Both girls chose to create a princess. They have a link for more characters if any of you fancy making your own.

Emily put a lot of detail into hers including creating a unique pattern for the skirt. She liked the symbolism of the colors and made a point to do red for courage, black for honesty and to avoid white because it signifies meanness.

Tess enjoyed trying hers out against the white screen. I like the idea of making a toy that you can go on and use. At one point in the afternoon the girls pulled theirs out and made up a whole dialogue while moving their puppets around.

After making the puppets we set off to explore the gardens and stumbled across a spot to try on traditional Chinese dress. We took a few pictures in their formal setting. 

To our surprise and delight they let us go out and wander all over in the dresses. Emily loved posing for pictures. Tess not so much.

We finished off the afternoon with some playing at a fountain and then the trek back home. I love having these wide ranging unstructured days. After all the rigors of school Emily and Tess really enjoy having time for free play. 

Energy Tuesday

On Monday we walked all over. On Tuesday we decided to try something different. I have really been enjoying my midweek runs. I wasn't sure how to replicate them this week with the girls at home. So I decided to lace up my running shoes, put the girls on their bike and scooter and then see how things went. 

At times it was like having two personal trainers. They loved racing me. We actually covered a lot of my regular running route. Tess wanted to stop for a lot of snack breaks and we did a good amount of playing along the way but we covered six miles with me doing a mix of walking and running. Emily enjoyed it so much she suggested we implement "Energy Tuesdays" where we go out as a family and do something together to get exercise. We might have to do that!

In honor of school holidays we even stopped for lunch at the lovely Cafe Charlotte in Birchgrove. The girls enjoyed pancakes while I had avo and tomato on toast. Yum. 

Botanical Gardens and a Park Play Date

Yesterday we welcomed back our old friend the sun. After nearly three weeks of rain (had I mentioned that?) we were thrilled to see blue skies in the forecast. It happened just in time for the first day of July holidays. The girls and I were thrilled to get out and about after spending so much time inside. I was amazed to see how soggy everything still looked. It's going to take a while to dry out the area. Several of our friends are dealing with major mold issues in their rental apartments. I'm relieved we've been spared and I hope the drier days will help them out.

We decided to do a bus - ferry - bus - walk home circuit. We started by heading into Sydney CBD (Central Business District). Emily wanted to go to Myer to look at Lego. She even sweet talked me into a small Lego Friends set. I thought it was cute she wanted the one of the girl playing soccer.

From Myer we walked over to Hyde Park, Archibald Fountain and St. Mary's Cathedral. It felt great to just explore and take our time. We stopped for snacks, balanced on walls and generally just enjoyed the warmth and the change of scenery.

I'm amazed by how green things continue to look in winter.

You occasionally pass bare trees like this sycamore but they are the exception.

From Hyde Park we wended our way towards the Royal Botanical Gardens. This continues to be a favorite spot of mine. Every time we go through we take a slightly different path and we discover some wonderful new corner. Yesterday we went through a new gate and the girls stopped to play by the fountain for nearly an hour.

We picked up some maps from a helpful volunteer.

We walked through the Fernery and even stopped for lunch in the heart of the garden.

We continued down to the water's edge, around past the Opera House and over to the ferry. We took the ferry to Balmain East, took the bus up the hill and met up with friends for a play date in the park by school. One friend brought a soccer ball and the girls adored practicing their moves.

Emily and Tess both doted on little Caelan. They loved helping him up the stairs and down the slide. They definitely sent him faster than either his mum or I would have but he laughed all the way.

In all we covered about six miles and slept well at night. It was a great start to our vacation time.