"Two Years Old Daddy!!"

...and every time he says it, he looks ever so pleased with himself :-) As promised, here are the pictures from Dylan's second birthday party. We held it in a local park which worked very well as the place has all kinds of playground distractions and it's fenced in so mums and dads aren't constantly looking around the place... Pictures are in rough order of the day, starting with presents in the morning, party in the park and then more presents in the afternoon...

.... Big Day Daddy...

Blog Statistics

As some of you may be aware, we've been posting to this blog for just over a year now and thanks to Google Analytics I can show you some of the interesting visitor stats that have accumulated over that time. (Yes, I can keep my beedy-digital-eye on you all from here...)

So, first up where are you all? The map shows all the places people have viewed our blog from. (Europe is a little crowded, but if you look carefully there are alotadots...) The size of the dot is vaguely representative of the activity at that location...As you can see, our loyal fan base is trans-global and in four continents....

Next up is a pie chart of major locations. The good folks in the UK accounting for just under half of our visitors...

And finally, the traffic generated this month (I don't think we need to upgrade the Euro\Australia fibre optic backbone just yet eh....)

Other stuff I can find out is that most people use Internet Explorer but a few of you use Safari and Firefox, connections have been made from PlusNet, Harris Corporation (Hi Ang!), Tiscali GmBH (Hi Gail and Tito!), Royal Bank Of Scotland (Stop slacking you lot!), and Eircom to name just a few.

So, if you know anyone in either South America or East Asia send them a link. Gotta get more dots!!! :-)

Anyway, there you are. Watching me, watching you, watching us. Stay posted for pics from Dylan's birthday bash coming soon...

Cheeky Kids and Web 2.0

Cricket. Ouch.

On a more brighter note, it's been an interesting couple of weeks since cidinoz last checked in. We've been busy preparing the little guy's second birthday bash which is going to be held this coming weekend. We've been trying to explain to him that it's going to be HIS birthday party this time and he just says "Cake!?". Marvellous...

He's a very happy camper at the moment and we've managed to get a couple of pearls onto video but my favourite this week was when my mobile rang at work, I answered without knowing who was on the other end and he yelled "Lazy Bones Jones!" down the line. I mean what the hell??? The guy isn't two yet and he's giving me all kinds of grief :-) Actually, I lie, the BEST moment was this evening. We've just got our Christmas tree in and tonight we were decorating it - Mr.D was having a great time and getting very excited about it all when he came up to me all meek, snuggled up and for the first time said "Love you daddy". It gives me goose-bumps now just thinking about it. What a top little kid.

Mind you, it's not all been plain sailing this week. The blo*dy digital camera has packed up!!! How's that for timing?!! Kids birthday and Christmas round the corner. Sheeesh. I've managed to borrow one for this weekend but we'll need to sort something more permanent out sharpish. Canon has got it at the moment and there's a good chance we'll be covered by warranty. Here's hoping.

Last night, Gary, Marcus and myself (lads from work) went of to "STIRR Sydney" which was a very good gig. All Web 2.0 entrepreneurs pitching their stuff (.com's with a real plan this time...allegedly) meeting for beers and mingling etc. (If any of you Uni folk are out there... how exactly DID we manage to drink what we did??? Bit of a sore head this morning on what would once have amounted to a warm up). STIRR was pretty fast and furious and quite amazing to see how some of these internet start-ups get going. The raw creativity in the place was great to see and you get the feeling some of these guys really could sell ice to the eskimos (over the net of course). Now all I need is a half baked idea... hmmmm....

So that's about it for now. I'm off out on Saturday to watch some basketball apparently. The Sydney Kings playing, er, some other team. Big fan me obviously...I vaguely remember a rule about travelling or something...

Summer is a comin' in...

I guess the weather is a bit bizarre all over the place these days (They announced snow AND bushfires here last week...) but finally after a few cold snaps and some rain, we're getting those balmy evenings here in Oz, and as luck would have it, The Ashes starts on Thursday! How's that for a summer feeling?!! Nice...

Yep, Freddie and the boys have landed and after a slightly wobbly start the oldest cricket rivalry will soon be under way and I for one will start that long, slow, slide into enjoying one of the more sedate spectator sports. In what other sport can you say "Just popping out to watch the match love!" and come home five days later? All I need to do is figure out how I'm going to get Aggers and the team on Test Match Special over the Internet here in Oz...

As you've probably noticed, it's nearly Christmas. We're having to be a bit more organised this year as the postal situation has changed a little. It definitely doesn't feel right, shorts and sunglasses on, trudging round shops that are all decked out in tinsel with pictures of frosted windows and robins all over the place. Weird or what. I'll have to admit that I'm already missing the idea of Christmas dinner and watching the Bond movie in the afternoon but I'm sure we'll have a blast over at cousin Dave's.

Young Mr.D has continued to keep us busy from dusk 'till dawn. He's well into his swimming lessons now and is loving every minute of it and day-care seems to keep him entertained with lots of new things to try. Actually, that said, the poor guy has another ear infection today and was feeling a bit feverish at 4am, and 5am and 6am this morning. (Apparently four ear infections by their second birthday is about average. Phew) He is now starting to entertain us quite a bit and can do a "two year old's rendition" of Baa Baa Black Sheep, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and Now I Know My ABC among other favourites. He's good on names too and insists that Grandpa's name is Grand Peter. Sounds more like a Womble to me...

This week we have mostly...

...been messing about...

...sticking stamps on our heads...

...nicking "dollars" from Dad's wallet...

...and having puppy dog faces...

Oh yea, and it's nearly Christmas and 30C. Go figure...???

How much is your gopher wood now?

It started raining on Friday. It's now Sunday. It's still raining. The forecast is not ideal until at least Tuesday and while most Aussies will be celebrating the fact as NSW is suffering a serious drought, our unlucky friends, Lorna and Graeme decided to visit us from London this week on the long way round to South Africa! Fortunately, we did managed to make the best of it and had a pretty good weekend all round. On Friday night we had a nice meal at our place with one or two beers out on the decking and some good catching up into the small hours. A lot stories and a lot of laughs to be sure...

On Saturday night Isy and I celebrated our 3rd wedding anniversary with a superb meal at one of Sydney's finest restaurants, Aria on circular quay. The food was fantastic, the drink was a little extravagant and the atmosphere was great. (We even managed to spot the Edradour single malt - The smallest distillery in Scotland which we've visited and loved!) Our night out did mean that young Dylan had to spend his first night away from us (ever!) and slept at good ol' David, Tina and Francesca's place. After some initial tears he was fine and came through unscathed. Not so sure about us though :-)

Sunday saw us all head down to Bondi for a brisk walk across the headland and look at some open-air sculptures. The surf was up and one or two of the more extreme surfers were out doing their thing (pic).







Other muppets were out running around in the windy weather, doing their thing...

Cake, Cricket and 6ft Koalas

A whole month has gone! Zip! Just like that. It's pretty scary actually 'cos it's taking a real effort to think what on earth we've been up to...and then I remembered. Cake.

In the past couple of weeks we've been to two two year old's birthday parties (Did I stutter just then?) and we've been invited to another soon!! First up was a little pal of Dylan's called Jordan who kindly invited us to her house for the usual fun and games. Little monkeys running around all over the place! Some especially nosey ones taking a particular interest in the family's huge boxer dog (pic). Who would be a nursery teacher I don't know. Dylan had a great time as you can see from the photo's and ended up with cake all over him which, as we all know, is the whole point of kid's birthday parties.


The second bash was a joint-affair with all the kids from a weekly playgroup going to a huge party held in a local sports hall. There were bouncy castles, ride-on toys, tunnels, climbing stuff - you name it. And of course, cake.

But it's not all been for the little 'uns. Last Saturday we were invited to an evening BBQ with some of our neighbours and very nice it was too. Actually, it was a bit of a treat for Isy and I as it is fair to say we haven't had too much of a social life in the recent months. To sit around and talk rubbish over a few beers was a great escape. Poor old Dylan didn't fair too well though as he decided he was going to pick up a tea light which had only just gone out. He now fully understands "Don't touch it's hot" and hopefully he's got a long memory...

We also managed to get out of Sydney for the day a couple of weeks back and head up into the Blue Mountains! The mountains are about a two hour drive west of Sydney and are very picturesque. Blue, because they have a hazy blue mist over them all the time due to the Eucalyptus in the air. It was a nice lazy day which we spent walking around a small town called Leura and also on a short trail to a tourist spot where you can see the Three Sisters peaks. Whilst on our wanderings we came across a massive Koala bear which caused some amusement (and a little trepidation...)We took a trip on a cable car which Dylan just about managed to keep himself together on, but the "steepest railway in the world" had him (and a few other people) screaming all the way to the bottom. I'm sure he loved it really... :-)

Closer to home, the house is still being kitted out and we've now made in-roads on setting up the office. We've got a great new wooden "exec" desk and a plush leather chair which makes you feel like an oil baron when you sit in it (I know why JR was always grinning now. It was the chair). Summer is coming and, slowly but surely, the garden furniture is making it's way...yup...into the garden :-)

We're also very close to purchasing the quintessential Aussie accessory! A new Barbie is on the cards soon and I imagine we'll be sending the invites out to the friends (and relations!) we've met in our time so far for a bit of a knees-up. BBQ's are somewhat of a science over here - I saw one the other day for around $1500AU with an entire spit on it!! Mr.D can eat a fair bit for a little guy, but I don't think we'll be getting anything quite that size...

And then of course, the cricket season is nearly here. The traditional Ashes sledging has started in earnest and good ol' Geoffrey Boycott seems to be batting for the Aussies off the pitch!! All good fun though and I for one can't wait. The Ashes urn is doing a tour at the moment and I might pop down to the Museum tomorrow to check it out. Apparently Shane Warne was also signing his new book in Sydney this week - with his clothes on no less!

I'm surprised people recognised him.

Summer Toons

You know that thing that happens every year when you "Get That Summer Feeling"? Well, it's definately here today and to mark the occassion I've put together a Summer Toons play list. Here's what computer code is being written to today...

Ash - Shining Light

Athlete - Wires

Coldplay - Fix You

Counting Crows - Mr. Jones

David Gray - This Years Love

Dido - Sand in My Shoes

Gnarls Barkley - Crazy
Gorillaz - El Manana
Guns & Roses - Estranged
James Blunt - High
Johnny Cash- Wanderer
The Killers - Mr. Brightside
The Killers - All These Things That Ive Done
Led Zeppelin - Going to California
Madonna - Hung Up
Madonna - Music
Oasis - My Big Mouth
Oasis - Magic Pie
The Rolling Stones - 19th Nervous Breakdown
The Rolling Stones - Sympathy for the Devil
The Stone Roses - I Am the Resurrection
The Stone Roses - Fools Gold
The Strokes - Reptilia
The Strokes - 12_51

Sorry Dan - I would have put something from Simpatico on but haven't got it with me :-(

Rave On.

Possums and Palookas

What did I tell you! PC is nearly fixed, it's hotter than hell and the tax man has coughed up. Sorted.

As I said, things have warmed up considerably this week. Yesterday reached 31C and today we're expecting a high of a rather nice 33C. The good news is that it's also quite breezy so still pleasant to be out in. Dylan spent this morning running around on the decking wearing next to nothing and delighting in splashing us with a tub full of water. Too much excitement bless 'im - he's now flat out asleep and I expect will remain so for a good couple of hours.

He's also been going to swimming lessons these last few weeks and seems to have taken to it really well. He's been "dunked" a few times and managed to get over the shock and can sit on the side and "jump" into Isy's arms. There's an open air pool down the road from us which we might pop into this afternoon for a bit more larking about... hee hee (His language is also coming on. This week he cried "Hello daddy! Palooka!". He gets it from his mum.

Mr.D has also received a kids-size table and chair which he loves (Yea, we know he needs a haircut). It also means I can drop the travel cot and high chair off with my mate Marcus this week as his sister and baby are coming to stay...

Speaking of which, we're also expecting our friends Lorna and Graeme out here towards the end of October which should be great fun!! We were expecting Liza from South Africa to come out for a bit too, but she didn't make it due to changing jobs :-(

One final thing, last night Isy and I were having a beer out on the deck when a mother Possum snuck down out of the trees, crept across our garden and ran off with her baby clung to her back!! How cool was that!

Anyway, time to do something. (To prove I actually do things around here, here's a pic of me sweeping the remnants of about two tonnes of leaves from our garden last week...)


Catch you all later.

Newsflash: Blog / Sun Outage

Unfortunately, a harddrive failure on our home PC has thrown a
reasonably large spanner in the works when it comes to blogging this
week leaving me with my trusty phone. That, coupled with the fact that
so much rain has come down that the lavender in our garden is now
growing horizontally means not a lot to report this time.

The good news is that the living room has seen the addition of a
great coffee table, TV platform and corner table this weekend and the
Aussie tax man owes me big bucks.

Here comes the Sun. Doodle do dooo...

Golf Balls and Gift Wrap

Ok, after all that napping I guess it was time to go out and do something...


...so, after much talking about it, I finally made my way down to the driving range in Terry Hills to whack a bucket of balls with Dave and a lot of fun it was too! According to Dave, I did Ok and I certainly managed to get most of the balls flying in pretty much a straight line which was more that I was expecting :-) I've also invested in a glove as I came home with a couple of cracking blisters from not using one. Another couple of sessions and I think we'll head out for a round! Can't wait!

Last week was Isy's birthday so Dylan and I spent a few hours wrapping presents one evening which was a lot of fun. (The secret is to give him something ELSE to wrap while you get on with business...) I kept saying to him "shhhhh, don't tell mommy!" and when she came home he was saying "shhhh!" all the time which was pretty cute.

Spring is well and truly here now and the weekends have seen us putting in some serious time down at the local parks. Dylan is now a big fan of the swings... as are a few other people we could mention... The garden is also coming into full bloom and the plants are growing a quite a pace. Fortunately there was a note in out letter box from a local gardener offering his services recently so I think a quick call is in order soon before jungle starts taking over.

This afternoon we headed over to Manly to have a BBQ\Braii\Barbie at Gary's place with a few other friends. Very nice it was too and I think we'll have to reciprocate in the not too distant future. Speaking of Manly, the Manly Surf Cam on the right is live in Australia so if it looks black, it's cos it's night over here and even crazy surf dudes don't tend to go out at night. If you want to see the action, best times are probably between 8:30pm and 10:30pm UK time...

This week we have been mostly snoozing...

With teddies on our heads......

In our hammocks...

...and like old ranchers after a dusty day herdin' steer.

Cup o' Tea

Well, it's been a busy week or two that's for sure and first up is the big news about Isy! As I mentioned before, she had in interview for a Business Analyst contract with a consultancy in the city and....big drum roll... she got the job!! Yey!! It's working three days a week so not too much impact on Dylan (an extra day at nursery) and is based at one of the main Aussie banks helping them implement (wait for this project title...) Anti-Money Laundering and Counter Terrorism Legislation. So don't mess with her. It seems that the team are all pretty nice folk too so all in all, she's one happy camper right now.

Out and about we've done a few things. Last weekend we went to the Manly Aquarium which was great! They have one of those underwater tubes you can walk through with sharks, manta rays etc. swimming right over your head! One fish with a long snout swam past to cries of "Noooooossse!!" from Dylan which kept us laughing for a while :-)

Today we drove across North Sydney to Terry Hills and had a look at a driving range we'd heard about. It looked very good and I will probably have a bit of a session there one evening next week with cousin Dave. We also had a quick peek into a small, modern Buddhist Temple which was very nice. Lots of fat laughing buddha's and gold stuff :-) Then it was on to Mona Vale to meet with an old collegue of Isy's, Gill and her fella Ross who have recently arrived in Sydney.

One slightly "small world" moment also happened at work the other day when I found out that one of the guys I work with used to be a barman at the Bear and Staff pub on Charing Cross road - A favourite watering hole of Ken and I a few years back. Aussie barmen in London. Who'd have thunk it?!

Dylan's phrases of the week are "cup o' tea" which I particularly like and "Again!" which accompanies everything he particularly likes.

Just the three of us

We have accumulated about 500 photos of Dylan over the past two years and, give or take, approximately 4 with all three of us in.

5 now.

This is us, on the front steps of our gaff, saying a BIG HELLO to all of you out there reading this...

Spring in July?

So how stuffed was I on Sunday morning after the game? Very, in case you were wondering. I'm going to say it once then it's done with.... Why the h*** can't England kick the ball from a spot on the ground into a huge net from a few yards away? What? Why? It's one of those never-to-be-solved mysteries right up there with the Bermuda Triangle and the Yeti. Give me strength. Still, it's all over now eh? Poor old Zizou...

So what's been going on in the real world now the World Cup has finished? I have no idea, I've been halucinating from sleep deprivation. Young Dylan is having plenty of fun and has recently been painting at daycare, dancing to his CDs and getting lots of cool toys every week from the toy library. He continues to astound us and others with his linguistic skills (favourties this week are "possum and teapot") and he can do a pretty mean half-volley with a footy. Actually, the poor little guy has had a bad cold the last few days and he had to sleep in until 10:00am on my early morning shift. Shame that.

Still, colds aside, I think it's warming up slightly as it seems to have nearly cracked 20C a couple of time recently. The trees are doing their best to wake up and there are definately bulbs etc. starting to grow. All very strange for this particular Englishman... I keep seeing things on the net like: "Sunset in London: 9:31pm" then looking outside at the crispness of it all :-) Our turn will come!

And it's not just the flora. Fauna is out too! We saw a possum! Yey! He was shimmy'ing along the telephone cables in the street as I came home from work on night. He was a cool little guy with BIG eyes! Isy gave him a name, which eludes me at the moment, but hopefully we'll see him (and his mates) again soon.

This weekend has seen us acquire some more creature comforts! We were genuinely excited about having our bedside tables finally arrive and we've invested in a decent set of pots, pans and crockery. Exciting eh. I had a big fast sports bike once you know. Sheesh...

This entry has taken a few days to get round to and the big news today is that Ms. Smarty-Pants dos Santos has an interview on Wednesday!! Fingers crossed all goes well...

See ya later.

p.s. If you use the customised google as your home page, you can add our blog to it!

1) Click "Add Content" in the top left
2) Click "Add by Url" on the right next to the Search button
3) Enter http://cidinoz.blogspot.com, click Add and then Close
4) Click "Back to homepage" in the top left
5) You should see "Chris, Isy and Dylan in Oz" as a new section!! Wey hey!!

Also, adding the link or http://cidinoz.blogspot.com/atom.xml should work in most RSS readers...

The Big One

At last the most important game of the competition is nearly upon us. It's the usual 2:00am kick off but there are no trophies, no medals and no ticker tape parade at stake for this one. Oh no. This is serious. The loser has to get up with Dylan at 7:00am!

Yup. It's England vs Portugal tonight and Isy and I will be glued to the TV, bleary eyed.

Whoever said "Football is not a matter of life and death. It's much more important than that!" obviously had kids who bounce like Tigger in the small grey hours of morning too...

So it's the first of July then! I was led to believe the seasons were reveresed here in upside-down-land but it's got to be said it's a beautiful day today. (Here's a pic of the sky...) We've both earned our points and been to the gym this morning and now it's chill out time until sleepy head wakes up then we're going over to Dee Why to hang out with our mates, Mike, Tae and little Stephen (who got a new bike last week apparently. Cool.)

Not a great deal else happening at the moment to report on. Work is going well and we're now into designing a new architecture for one of the company's products. All very nerdy stuff... Isy is still job hunting. Her CV is getting lots of attention but the part time thing tends to throw a spanner in the works :-( Frustrating but we'll just have to keep plodding on.

Speaking of work, my mum has finished! For good! Yup, retirement last Friday! Well done mum! There's plenty of time for you to read this blog now eh!?! :-)

Oh yea, one last thing, we bought a web cam a few weeks back and have successfully done a live link up with my folks back in the UK! Awesome stuff - sound and picture worked a charm. If anyone fancies hooking up online for a laugh, drop us an email and we'll arrange a time...

Footy Fever

So the footy is on then. The whole world switching on to watch the beautiful game being played on the world's greatest stage. Switching on, bleary eyed with a cup of cocoa at 3 o'clock in the morning if you live Down Under that is...doh :-( Still, everything is going to plan so far. Unless you're called Michael Owen that is.

And what about the ol Socceroos eh? (Or Sheilaroos as I'm led to believe they are called in the UK). Ranked 44, into the last 16. You'd think they'd won the cup the other night after the draw with Croatia! Chants of "You're red! You're white! You're going home tonight!" ringing out before kick-off. Heh Heh! Mind you it is all quite a new experience for them. The last time they were in the World Cup finals was 1974 when I was Dylan's age! Their win over Japan was their first ever in the finals! Confidence is running high and they're bigging-up the Italy game... hmmm time will tell.

So anyway, by the time most of you read this, we'll either be going on about how Ecuador were never going to be a problem, or Sven\Becks will be the most hated man on the planet (according to the British tabloids anyway...). Fingers crossed all goes Ok. If we beat the south americans we've only got to get past the Brazillians, Argentinians and then...dare we think it... The Germans...

in the final...

on penalties.

Winter Sports

You know those times when you wonder what on earth you've done all week...we'll I guess we've just had a couple of those as it seems to be a good while now since we last put up a blog entry. Oops.

The good news is that, we have actually been up to a few things! Yey! At the weekends we've started to explore a bit further afield and spent an afternoon down at Coogee beach in south Sydney. It's a bit further south than Bondi and personally I thought it was much nicer. It was pretty chilly despite the sun but Mr.D enjoyed running amok and chasing the seagulls and playing with other toddlers who were out and about. (Some crazy old guys were swimming in the sea. Mad.)

The main event recently though has to be our nice long weekend away playing in the vineyards of the Hunter Valley about two hours north of Sydney. We booked our stay in a small cottage on the edge of the wine lands and while it was quite basic, it did have a log fire and a TV (neither of which we have at our place!) so it was quite cosy in the evenings sipping on a glass of red or two. As you know, it's winter here in Oz and things can get a bit chilly (down to single figures at night) especially as the houses aren't really built to keep you warm! The log fire really was very nice, it has to be said...

We covered most of the wine lands touring around popping in to the odd vineyard here and there (we like to try and find the small boutique ones) and spent a few hours in the Hunter Valley Gardens one afternoon which was very nice. I think our favourite vineyard would be Brair Ridge just for the overall atmosphere of the place - we'll definately will be making a trip back in spring or summer next year :-)

On a different sporting note, we spent the morning of June 1st hammering away at the Australian Ticketek web site trying to get hold of tickets to this year's Ashes series. Talk about busy website\phone lines! The good news is that our hard work paid off and we've secured some good seats for days 1 & 4 of the Sydney test and a few for a day-nighter one day game. Half of Syndey was furious about the way the tickets were sold complaining that they couldn't get through. I wanted to ring in and tell them to try getting U2 tickets in London...

Still on sport, I did manage to "borrow" the BBC streaming TV feed of the England vs Paraguay game last night. I just switched on to see Becks whip one round the wall and some Paraguian (sp?) bloke stick it in his own net. Unlucky mate, but we'll take 'em any way they come... I must admit, I've got a wierd feeling at the back of my mind that England might just do it this time, and buggerlugs here is going to be miles away from the party. Hmmm...

And finally, on the sporting topics, it's round to my cousin Dave's tonight to watch England vs Australia in the rugby union. I've not been keeping too close an eye on their form recently but I'd imagine the Aussies might have the upper hand. Who knows.

So that's about us for now. Dylan can now say amongst other things, careful, coffee, juice, water, bubbles, please, "Daddy Cool" and Bic! (biscuit). He's also a pretty keen footballer and does quite a respectable half-volley when he's not picking the ball up or running away! Isy has been trying to avoid giving Dylan his dummy too much recently so when he moans for it, typically she plays ignorant and responds with "What?". The result of all this is that Dylan now calls his dummy his "What"...

All The Trees Are Brown...

...but fortunately, the sky isn't grey. Another week has passed down here in 'stralia and we are now definately into the Autumn. Nice warm sunny days but a touch on the cool side in the evening, especially as the houses aren't really geared for keeping you warm! We have a real fire in the living room but as of yet, haven't figured out how to spark it up. Necessity they say is the mother of invention... time will tell. As promised, here's a couple of pics of the neighbourhood in full colour.

The season has also brought out one or two interesting creepy crawlies and itchy things... check out our pet Preying Mantis! He was awesome! If you moved, his beady eyes would follow you. After much deliberation we decided to name him Sir Archibald as he was truly a very statesman like fellow...

We've also booked our weekend away in the Hunter Valley at the end of the month. Yey! Isy's organised it all and all I can remember is we're staying in a log cabin amongst the vineyards and there's an open fire. I mean, what more do I need to know really? It should be great and give us a chance to start mapping out the Sydney surrounds. (At the moment, it feels as it does when you first move to London and all you know is a 200m radius around your tube stop. Imagine that, but Sydney is your tube stop and you'll see what I mean.... The map might as well say 'There be Dragons' 15km around Sydney in all directions.)

Today is Mother's Day so we all headed off to one of the parks for a picnic and a bit of a mess around. My cousin and his family were there with all their kids so it was quite a laugh. Dylan was being his usual adventurous self and wandering off all over the place followed by dad who had to keep going and 'fielding' him. *sigh* The little chatterbox is now repeating lots of what we say and I'm sure he called a truck driver something un-printable the other day. Oops. Amongst many new words, his vocab now includes turtle, beetle, DeeeLan (!), park, digger, and, (this was a proud-dad-moment-of-note)..... beer. He's also very keen on high-fives and handing out the kisses much to everyone's delight!!

Anyway, as I said, it's Mother's Day so I'd better get off this computer and make myself useful. Here's a picture of our little romeo...