Celebrating not having to go to school

This time of night on a Sunday and I should be sound asleep in bed. Instead I have stayed up late doing very little. Eventually mum sent me to bed and less tha a minute later she changed her mind and said I could get up again because of this...

Love my view!

... Fireworks at the end of the street. This is pretty much what I was looking at from my room too!

I have to say that living here is like celebrating a holiday every day. 

I am looking forward to not having to get up early in the morning, instead I can relax and enjoy the holiday. 

Love AJ Pickle

A holiday for Billy

My cousin Billy is having a sleepover at our place tonight.

My Crazy Cousin!

I hope he isn't this crazy when it is actually bed time!

Love Princess George

Edited to add - We had so much fun during the afternoon that by 6.30pm, Billy was so exhausted that he was sound asleep in the study so I had my own bed all to myself.  I was pretty tired too so I went to bed super early too! x

A holiday at home will have to do

As much as we would like to, it doesn't look like we will find the time to take a family holiday to some far off exotic location this year and our frequent flyer points from our last big adventure are about to expire.  We didn't want them to disappear so we went shopping with our points instead.

It may not be a holiday to Macau, Tanzania or Guam but it will be great for a holiday at home!
Love Princess George

Pyjama Rules

It is late in the day and mum and dad are heading home but I'm not, I'm on holidays and spending the rest of the week at nan and pop's house.

Sometimes, depending on where I am, the holiday rules change and one of these rules is about pyjamas. You see, nan and pop are fans of pajamas and they like me to wear them to bed EVERY NIGHT! They like pyjamas so much that they gave me a new pair for Easter, in case I forgot to pack any! If I was the boss of everything, I would happily sleep in some version of the clothes I wore that day. It saves so much time and effort if I do, it means that I can pretty much just get up and go the next day and ultimately it means that less clothes are put into the wash because I am too busy to put them away. This whole 'wearing pyjamas' thing means that I have to get changed. Or do I...?

I figure if it is expected that I wear pyjamas to bed, why not just wear them all day long, then I will save time and be ready for bed so much quicker!

Happy holidays,
Love AJ Pickle

PS - I thought that wearing my PJs all morning could be a good April Fool's Day trick but I was so comfortable that I decided that it could possibly be an every day trick!

When Holidays are Hard Work

Some times it is hard work having holidays.  There are sleep overs to be had, late nights, junk food, far too much running crazy and with friends and this time of year, too much swimming and sun.

I have had an awesome holiday so far but at this rate, I think I will need a holiday to recover from my holiday.
Love Princess George

Keep Out! - or what to do with Post It Notes

Sometimes people like a little privacy so we thought that we would help Nanny an Poppy get some privacy.

Do you think our sign will work?

Love AJ and Milla

Being helpful

Yes I know that AJ complains that there are too many girls and that they are always hanging around at Nan and Pop's place but it isn't my fault that I am really good at making friends and that I have great friends living so close to their house that we can visit each other all the time.

Anyway, AJ should remember that having girls around isn't always a bad thing, sometimes they can be extremely helpful (instead of completely annoying), just like when we went fishing except I didn't want to do any fishing.


Instead of getting in your way, I let you guys do the fishing and I did all the hard work - I took all the stinky carp to the dead fish pile for you!

You're welcome AJ!

Love Princess George

Another Day, Another Beach

Like I said yesterday, being dragged along to hang out with girls can be a pain and being stuck hanging out with 3 little(ish) girls can be very painful.  Luckily we were in another pretty awesome place again today.

When we arrived at the beach we had the whole place to ourselves. 

I was able to go bodysurfing before the crowds turned up.

Once it was too busy in the water and I was thoroughly waterlogged, I decided it was time to join the girls on the beach. They were digging holes to see who could dig the deepest hole. I knew that I could did the biggest hole so I started digging.  Then, once my hole was the biggest, the girls helped bury me.

                           

Hmmm, I really didn't think this through!

Luckily I could get my arms free then I had to start digging my way out.  Let me tell you, it is much easier to dig a hole than it is to dig your way out of a hole!

If you don't count the wicked sunburn that I now have, maybe hanging out with girls at the beach isn't so bad!

Love AJ Pickle

Visiting with friends

Sometimes I get sad that some of my best friends moved to the other side of the city and I don't get to see them all that often.  The sadness disappears when I get to go and visit them at their holiday house and we can spend the evening playing on the beach.

We didn't swim but there were waves to chase...

Trying to stay dry (NOT!)

Sand dunes to explore (and by explore I may just mean slide down!)...

Slip sliding and having fun

Even AJ, who spends most of his time complaining, seemed to have fun.

Boy time

Do you know what the only problem with going to the beach for the evening is?  

Celebrating Summer with cartwheels

The sun setting and us having to go home for the night!  Luckily we are having a sleepover.  Hopefully we will get to go back to the beach again tomorrow.
Love Princess George

Making friends

I love having holidays with Nan and Pop, I get to go to the lake with my friends almost every day.  

Oh and speaking of friends, I have made even more new friends this holiday.  

I love hanging out with friends.

There were heaps of people at the lake today so it was a miracle that we found this little guy!

Leaping Lizards!

Love Princess George

Might as well JUMP!

For some reason whenever mum sees these photos, she starts singing this 'Jump' song.  I don't know the song, I think it must be from the olden days, either that or mum is such an ordinary (that is a nice way of saying terrible) singer that it is unrecognisable!  Anyway, if you were about in the olden days, you probably have that song stuck in your head too :-)  

I guess if you are now singing or humming along to the tune, I might as well show you the photos.

Might as well JUMP!

Ed joined in the fun

Even Billy went for a jump!

Don't you wish you were relaxing on the banks of the lake watching us jump, better still jumping too?

Love Princess George

Famous (kind of) from a long long time ago!

Way back in the days before we were blogging, when we were just little little kids, we went to the United States to live.  Well we didn't end up living there for long, but we did have an awesome holiday.  One day we will even sit down and write the stories about all of the crazy adventures when we were there but in the meantime, I thought I would show you a photo of where we lived that is being used on tourist link, a tourist website.

Look how little and cute we were!

Beden's Brook, the creek in the photo, was just down the hill from the cottage where we were living.  We would go for a walk down to the creek to look for bugs and frogs whenever we had the chance.  It was great living by a creek, even when a flash flood went through and washed away all the sticks and rocks that we used to build with.  I loved seeing how far I could throw rocks and to see if I could make a huge splash.

We had a great time living in New Jersey and visiting so many really amazing places.  Hopefully one day we will get a chance to go back and revisit all of the fun places.  If you want to see any other photos from our time in America, you can see them on our Flickr pages.
Love AJ Pickle

PS - If you look really closely at the photo, you can see Skanky Bear - Milla's favourite teddy that travelled all the way to New Jersey with us.  Skanky visited Philadelphia and New York with us but who didn't come back to Australia.  I think Milla still misses Skanky Bear :-(

Showtime

Now it is nothing new to everyone but for some reason, mum and dad really don't like going to the show.  Mum mutters something about all the crowds, the crazy and the cost and then says something along the lines of "Lets go to a country show instead!"  Of course she has said that for the last few years but have we ever made it to a show anywhere?  NO!

This year we took matters into our own hands.  A quick call to Aunty Sharn and we found out that she was going to the show and we could go with her.  How awesome was that.

We spent hours looking at the different show bags online to find not only a show bag that we liked but one that mum wouldn't take one look at and decide to throw out saying it was full of 'plastic crap'.

Finally, show day arrived and we were up bright and early.  We were armed with our list of 'approved show bags', a packed lunch, drinks and snacks as well as 'truck-loads of cash' when we went to Sharn's house.  As soon as Sharn's other friends arrived, we wandered over to the show and the madness began.

First stop was the show bag hall and that was where catastrophe struck.  All of the show bags on AJ's approved list were sold out.  A quick call to mum who was at work and AJ had approval to get a different show bag.  (I think mum must have been flustered - she would never have agreed to AJ's next choice of show bag!)

Check out the sensational specs from our show bags!

Love the shades!

Next it was time to get out and see the sights.  We watched some awesome displays in the grand arena.  We were a little disappointed that it was too windy for the stunt motorbikes to get out and do their crazy tricks but our disappointment ended pretty quickly when the stunt utes were in action instead.

Then there were rides to be had.

Cruisin round

Can you believe that we were at the show all day long and still didn't get a chance to see everything.  I wonder if mum and dad will still let us go to a country show so that we can see the things we didn't get to see here?

Thanks for an awesome day Aunty Sharn, any chance you can take us to the show again next year?
Love AJ and Milla

70 x 2

Friday was a pretty special day, it was the day that our Nanna Pat and her twin sister Aunty/Nanny Bette celebrated their 70th birthdays.  We know Aunty/Nanna Bette isn't really our Nanna, she is our great aunt but since they are twins and they look so alike, sometimes we get confused and we just call them both Nanna!

Aunty/Nanna Bette and Nanna Pat - 70 years and 1 day old!

The nannas didn't know about it, but the kids, grandkids and some of the nieces and nephews had a surprise planned, we had organised to all go out for lunch together and then to a winery.  First we had to get everyone there.  Now I guess most people would just meet wherever we were going but this is no ordinary family, this is a family that likes to have fun, so we all caught a bus out to lunch!

I am pretty sure all the trouble makers are up the back!

We headed out to Byramine Homestead for a great lunch and birthday cake, as well as an explore of the area.  The kids got to have a party lunch - can you imagine just how crazy it was with so many of us hyped up on junk food and fizzy drink!

Some of the boys, replenishing the energy supplies.

Most of the adults didn't mind, they were enjoying some of this!

Drinks for the grown-ups

Even when we caught the bus back to town, the party wasn't over.  Really, it was just beginning.  There was more food, more cake and more fizzy drink for everyone.  I think there were some pretty tired and grumpy party folk this morning!

Thanks for sharing your special day with us Nanna Pat and Aunty/Nanna Bette,  we love you.

Love AJ and Milla

Wandering around Werribee Zoo

With all the craziness that has been the last few weeks - Mum being in Papua New Guinea walking the Kokoda Track (again), Dad making the most of some quiet time at home before he starts his new job next week and us on holidays with Nan and Pop, we really haven't had much family time.   We decided that we should spend the last real day of the school holidays together, doing something fun.  The tough part was to decide what to do.

It may have taken us all morning to work out what we were going to do, but when we did make a decision, it was a good one and we headed out to Werribee Open Range Zoo.

 

There were heaps and heaps of animals to meet and greet... but we had more fun running around, climbing anything we could and exploring.

We are so glad that we are Friends of the Zoo so that we can go to one of the zoos whenever we have a spare afternoon.

We had a great time together.  

It is a shame that the holidays are almost over, we could get used to this!

Love AJ and Milla

PS - if we ever get time, we will fill in the gaps that we have missed because we have all been too busy to blog!

When the Queen came to Town

Did you see the Queen when she was in town?  We did.  We figured it was a nice night to go out and have some fun and what better place to have some fun other than at the beach right?

The queen was much bigger than I imagined!

We wanted to stick around until the Queen left so we filled in time the best way we know how - having fun!

Goodbye Queen Mary, I hope to visit with you another time.

Love Princess George

Cooling Off

What do you do on a hot sunny summers day?  You could always cool off by heading in to the ice rink for some fun.

You can hang out with a Yeti... 

Or slide down the ice...

Whatever you do, it is much nicer being inside and cool.

How are you staying cool this summer?

Love Princess George

With Dad and Dave

I went for a lovely relaxing 'walk' with Dad and Dave this morning as we hit some golf balls around the golf course.  I wasn't hoping to have a hit or 2 as we walked around but there weren't many other people playing so I got to play most holes.  It was a pretty great way to spend the morning.

We really didn't do too much walking, Dad and Dave hired a golf cart to get us around the course.
Shhh, don't tell mum but I also got to drive the cart too!
Love AJ Pickle

All Things American

Taxi!

Our quest to do All Things American continued.  Our bus was a little late arriving in at Penn Station because we had to drive through the New York Marathon.  (If only we had arrived earlier, we could have run the marathon too!)

We had too much luggage to take on the subway so we had to catch a cab to our hotel.
Once we had checked in, we headed out to explore the neighbourhood that would be our home for the next few days.

The next typically American thing we did was buy homemade brownies from a sidewalk bake-sale in the Bowery.  The kids had just made the brownies and wandered out to sell them.

Beautiful Brownies

I wonder if we will stumble upon a lemonade stand like we did last time we were in America?

Either way, what a great start to our stay in New York.  I think we are really going to love this city!
Love AJ and Milla

Bring it on!

We have been trying to do as many American things as we can during our holiday here.  Trick or Treating last week was awesome and very American; it was just like we have seen on TV.  Today we tried another typically American thing - we went to the football to see the Brookline Warriors play the Milton Wildcats.

I have to say that I am not a big fan of football and I had never even heard of American Football before but since the rest of the family were going on an adventure I figured that I had better go along too.  I am really glad that I did, not because of the football but because of the cheerleaders.

In Action

The cheerleaders were way more interesting to watch than the football.  They were really friendly too, they lifted me over the fence onto the playing field so that I could have my photo taken with them.

Milla is a Wildcat :-)

It was like being a part of Bring It On.
Maybe if AJ moves to America to be an ice hockey player, I can be a cheerleader.
Love Princess George