Discoveries in the kitchen

Normally when there is a discovery in the kitchen it is something gross and disgusting. Perhaps a potato that has fallen to the back of the cupboard and has gone rotten or more commonly a lunchbox is discovered weeks after it is packed and ends up looking something like this...

This once was a vegemite roll!

Sure the mouldy lunch happens a little too often but we have only been in this place for 4 months so we haven't discovered any other mouldy or rotten food hiding in the back if the cupboard or fridge. This discovery was way cooler than rotten food, and heaps more practical. Today I discovered a new drawer, right there under the oven.

Surprise, another place to hide things!

I wonder if this tiny little place will have any more hidden surprises for us?

Love AJ Pickle

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

Learning the transport network the hard way

So today was my only "free" day, with no hockey, no training, no obligations so what did we do? No we didn't declare it a pj day and sit around watching movies all day long. Instead mum insist that i do a practice public transport run to get ready for school with me leading the way. 

We were in no hurry so we didn't check timetables, just headed out. The journey started off well, not having to wait long to catch the bus or the tram. In fact we made it all the way to my school with no dramas at all. In fact it was so drama free that we decided to stop for lunch on the way back. 

After lunch was when decisions needed to be made - Milla had a dentist appointment to get to. Should we catch all catch the tram to the dentist or should we return home and then just mum and Milla gontonthe dentist?  

Going home first was the choice that won. Of course heading toward home, the transport connection wasn't as smooth. By the time we got to the bus stop, we had missed the bus by only a few minutes. We now had a new dilemma, wait for the next bus and be a few minutes late for the dentist or head back to try and catch the tram. Seeing that mum hates being late, we headed for the tram as mum called ahead to say they were running late. Naturally the tram had just left but another tram was in sight so it seemed we wouldn't be too late. Of course that team sat for ages without moving. Finally when it did move it was so slowly we could have walked faster. What did we do next?  Not sit and enjoy the slow leisurely ride. Instead we got off and walked back to try and catch a bus. To continue with the excitement, there wasn't a bus in sight and we didn't even know where the bus stop we needed was. We tried to hail a taxi but the only taxi that stopped only stopped to tell us he wasn't taking passengers. We even tried calling for a taxi but they didn't answer the phone. Clearly getting to the dentist was going to be hard work. 

Mum called the dentist to say that we were still stuck in Footscray. Luckily for Milla they had a cancellation so she could still go there whenever they could. So here I am, almost an hour after missing the first bus, back at the same bus stop, waiting for a bus that of course we missed by a few minutes. At least this means I get to go home instead of being bored waiting at the dentist!

So, what did I learn today?

1. Always get to where you are going before stopping for lunch. 

2. Leave earlier than you think you need to, public transport can take forever and it always takes longer than you imagined. If it doesn't take ages you get to where you need to be you will be early and that is good too. 

3. Make a decision, stick to it and see it through, heaps of time is wasted each time you change your mind. 

4. Mum's brain must still be broken, she has forgotten how to make a decision!

5. Running late is better on a full stomach however, running through the suburbs with a full stomach is less fun!

Most importantly it isn't what I have learnt, it is more important that I have convinced mum that I can read timetables, make contingency plans and I will have no hassles getting to school on my own next week!

Relaxing in the pool

After a busy couple of hours dragging boxes to the car, driving in to the new place and unloading everything, it was time to collect mum and Milla from Icehouse and head home.  Mum must have been just as excited about moving as we were because instead of heading home, she convinced us that we needed to head back to the new place to go for a swim!

You know, I think I could get used to this!

Love AJ Pickle

Checking out the new place! - A sneak peak

When you come to visit us at our new place, there are heaps of different entrances that you can use.  This is the one we are most likely to use.

Next you have to catch the lift up to our floor, this is what the lift foyer on our floor looks like.  

Now I could show you photos of the empty rooms, but realistically they look like any other empty room, instead check out the balcony!  Down there you can see the tennis court as well as the garden and barbecue area.  In the background you can even see Etihad Stadium.

Milla has a pretty good view from her room, overlooking the garden and tennis court too.  If she looks out the side window, past the balcony, she can see the Bolte Bridge too.

The view in my room is a little different, you can see all the way from Port Phillip Bay in one direction, right around to Kensington in the other!  I didn't think to get a photo from my room but that's OK, this is just a sneak peek of our new place, soon we will have eleventy billion photos to show you.  

Right now mum and Milla are heading to Icehouse and I am heading back to Kensington with Dad to load up some stuff in the car and begin moving in.

Hooray for moving day!
Love AJ Pickle

Heading Home!

Instead of heading home after school today, mum and dad picked us up and we headed home!  I know that sounds kind of crazy but what I mean is that we didn't head to our Kensington home, instead we are headed into Docklands to collect the keys to our new apartment.

Look, there is our new building complex.  In a few short minutes we will have the keys and we will be headed home.  We can't wait!

Love AJ and Milla

Going bush for Father's Day

In amongst all the crazy, we kinda almost nearly forgot about Father's Day.  Well we knew that it was Father's Day but we just didn't have time to plan anything special for the day.  When we found out that Ellen and Sarah were going for a hike at Werribee Gorge, we decided to join them after soccer, after all, the sun was shining and it is spring!

OK, all we really wanted to do was to get out and have some fun and we figured that we could show dad and the others the really cool beach that you get too by rock climbing above the river!

Of course we knew that there were going to be other great places to explore too, so first we set off up the hill.  It was steep and rocky but lots of fun.  There were some great lookouts to stop at for a rest.

Eventually we made it to the beach and stopped to have a picnic lunch.  We could have stayed there all day long but we were kind of excited o show everyone just how much fun it is climbing around the rocks high above the river.  

The grown ups were much more afraid than we were - we were able to climb the entire way without even needing the help of the guide rope!

Oh and in amongst all of the adventuring, we forgot to actually stop and get the obligatory Father's Day photo!  I guess this will have to do, to prove that we did actually have fun hanging out with Dad today. 

Thanks for being a great Dad and having fun adventures with us.  I hope we get to go on more adventures again soon.

Love the best kids in the world,

AJ and Milla xo

Pissed Off - a tutorial

How to get the whole family pissed off in just a few easy steps.

1. Get Milla and I to do things just to annoy each other.  
2. Make sure Milla is really annoyed.
3. Milla will run to mum and tell her what happened.
4. I get in trouble for annoying Milla. 
5. Milla gets in trouble for dobbing.  
6. We are half way there... we are both pissed off!
7. Continue to annoy each other because we are pissed off.
8. That makes mum get pissed off.  
9. When mum gets pissed off, it pisses off dad.  
10. Then dad keeps getting pissed off because mum is pissed off at him for no reason.

And there you have it - how to piss off the entire family in 10 easy steps!

Does anyone know how to get the whole family un-pissed-off really quickly?

Love AJ Pickle

PS - luckily this doesn't happen all the time, just every now and then :-)

Moving on up

We had an unexpected adventure for Mother's Day - we HAD to go in to Docklands and sign house contracts.  Yep, that's right, we have bought a new home, an apartment in at Docklands.

This is what the apartment complex is eventually going to look like.  It is being built now and it should be finished by the end of the year.  We can't wait.

How many days there are until the end of the year?

Love AJ and Milla, the soon to be Docklands residents :-)

A Day for Mum

Today is Mother's Day, so that means that we have to do everything that mum wants to do.  Luckily mum loves to do cool things.

Now most people get their mum's pretty things for Mothers Day but not us, we stocked up on some more Lego for mum.  Isn't it cool that a present for mum is something the whole family can enjoy!

An awesome Mother's Day present

After Milla's soccer game, we headed out to visit Grandma so we could have some fun and so dad could wish his mum a happy Mother's Day.  We could have stayed all day but since it was mum's choice, we headed back to Docklands to go to the hockey - Melbourne Ice were playing again.

Ice ready for action

And because it was Mother's Day, a heap of mum's got to do chuck-a-puck and mum was one of the lucky mums, along with Webby's mum and the Wong's mum.  Mum didn't quite win, but was a close second (just like Milla was when she did chuck-a-puck!) and was lucky enough to get a Melbourne Ice Chocolate Puck!

Mum's chocolate puck

After the game, which was 'freaking awesome' (mum's words, not ours!) we headed over to Harbour Town Hotel for some dinner.  Not only did we have a delicious dinner, mum was given a complementary glass of bubbles.  Not a bad way to end the day.

Bubbles for mum

Did you remember to do something nice for your mum for Mother's Day?

Love AJ and Milla

PS - this is one of the other things we did for Mother's Day, I think mum was pretty happy about it!

Atoms on ice

It isn't every day that a kid gets to play ice hockey in front of a packed house at Icehouse but luckily for me, that is what happened today.  My second hockey game for the day was a cross-ice demonstration game after the first period of the Melbourne Ice game.

AJ and the atoms in action

It was a little chaotic with heaps of little kids on the ice but pretty good practice to get used to playing in front of crowds.  

When I play for Melbourne Ice, I will be playing in front of crowds like this every week!

Love AJ Pickle

I'm a Pirate

Well I have to say that the long drives to Oakleigh have been well worth it - I am now a Pirate!  Not a pirate with a sword and a hook instead of a hand but a pirate with a hockey stick and a new jersey.

At training this morning my coach said I was ready to play in the game.  I was so excited, I couldn't wait.  Luckily the game was only a few hours after training!

This is me all kitted up ready for my first ever Pee Wee game.

It was pretty awesome playing in a real match.  It was so fast and so competitive, heaps more fun than training or even scrimmage.  I had heaps of ice time and even got an assist with only a minute to play.  The final score was 4 - 4.  

I can't wait until my next game.

Love AJ Pickle

How to buy a new house (and turn your world upside down) the superRelish way

Now this story starts a couple of weeks ago when mum and dad decided that they would go for a wander around Docklands instead of sitting and watching us skate all day long and ended up with us exploring display suites and pretending we were going to move to Docklands.  Well today, mum decided that she needed to convince herself that she didn't want live at The Quays and that meant that she wanted to go and have another look at the display suite to prove to herself that it was too small, that the kitchen wasn't practical and that she really didn't want to down-size.

Boring… been there and done that!  Instead of joining her, Milla and I went home with dad and mum and Ellen went off to explore the display suites.  Well this is the shorter story of what happened next.

First off, instead of deciding that she couldn't possibly down-size and live in a small apartment, mum decided that she really really really wanted to live there.  The only problem was that someone else already had the apartment on reserve and were thinking of buying it.  She called dad (using Ellen's phone because hers had a flat battery… again) to let him know that she loved the place but was disappointed that someone else was going to buy it.  Mum decided that if it was meant to be, it would happen and wandered off down the promenade to explore some more before walking home.

Now naturally the sales person checked in with the people who wanted to buy the apartment and found out that they weren't ready to commit to the sale, that meant it was available and ours if we wanted it.  She couldn't call mum so she called dad.  Dad tried to call Ellen to work out what to do but her phone had gone flat too.  He wasn't sure what he should do but took a punt and headed in to the bank to even see if we could afford the apartment.  Apparently most people talk to the bank way before they fall in love with a new place!

So it turns out that we could afford the apartment so dad transferred the holding deposit and had whatever paperwork needed to get a new home loan started.  He got home from the bank just after mum walked in and said that we had plans for the morning - WE HAD TO GO AND SIGN A NEW HOUSE CONTRACT!

Check out the photo gallery of the place we will soon call home :-)

I guess we had better start thinking of packing soon!

Love AJ and Milla

Ice Time

Most kids decide that their favourite sport is something that they can play in the park whenever they want and all they need to practice is a ball of some sort.  Not me, that would be way too easy.  I had to find a favourite sport that involved going somewhere else to practice and train, somewhere cold and at crazy hours of the day.

I've just come home from Development Council in Oakleigh (that's ice hockey training for kids that want to join a PeeWee team).  I only started Council a couple of weeks ago and tonight I was evaluated.

The good news is… I am now ready to play PeeWee Hockey.
The bad news is… I have to get up really really early of a Saturday morning to get to training.

This first week, I will train with a team, then if the coach thinks I am ready, I can play in the team the following week.  So adding PeeWee to my training, let me tell you what a typical Saturday is going to be like.

I will have to get up crazy early, scoff some breakfast and head to the ice where I will spend most of the day.  First off I have training at Oakleigh that starts on the ice at either 6.30am or 7.45am, for peewee training.  Then I have to head in to Docklands for Development League at Icehouse where I have to be ready to jump onto the ice at 10.45am.  My favourite part of the day is what will happen next, the peewee match.  For the match, I will have to be at either Oakleigh or Icehouse by 12.30pm to get ready for the match at 1.15pm.  If the match is at Docklands I can hang around and have another skate with my friends just for fun.

Oh and as I am playing ice hockey all over the place, don't forget that Milla has her figure skating training.  She starts at 7.15am so on the days that I am at Oakleigh at 6.30am, she will have to catch a taxi in to Icehouse with dad!  She skates in classes till about 10.30am then just hangs out with her friends, skating about and having fun until we leave.

Now you would think that by now the day of ice hockey (and figure skating) madness would be done and we could go home and relax but it isn't, there is still heaps more to do.  Some days we (the Atoms - under 11 players) will get to do exhibitions games after the first period of the AIHL game at Icehouse, so that means we have to be getting ready at 4.30pm.  Then after the AIHL match, I have another training session and game at 7.15pm.  By the time that is finished and I peel of my sweaty stinky gear, it is after 8.30pm and I will have been skating around for what feels like a million hours and will feel like a zombie.  I am pretty sure that I will be more than ready to just fall into bed and sleep for a week but no doubt mum will insist that I have a shower first!

So there you have it - we can kiss our free time on Saturday's goodbye.  If you want to catch up with any of us, grab a jacket and head on down to the ice rink!

Love AJ Pickle

Lest We Forget

It isn't often that we are encouraged to get up early, especially when early is before the sun has even risen but today is a special day, it is ANZAC Day and we were going to the local dawn service.

Mum woke us super-dooper early, we put on our Scout and Cub uniforms, grabbed a croissant and a banana each before jumping in the car to head down to the local RSL. We (the Scouts and Cubs) had been invited to march with all the returned soldiers and their families before the service and then to go back to the RSL afterwards to have breakfast together.

It makes us really sad to think of all the people who were killed or injured at war but it is important to remember all of the people who have sacrificed so much so that we can be safe in Australia.

Thank you ANZACs,
Love AJ and Milla

How to fill in time

When we were skating today, mum and dad decided to get out of the cold and go for a wander around Docklands.  Somehow that walk became them imagining what it would be like to live at Docklands and they had a look at a few different places that we could live in if we ever decided to move.  When they came back to collect us they decided that instead of going back to our own house for lunch and a rest before going back to watch the opening round of the hockey, we would go out for lunch together.  Of course they told us all about looking at apartments so we wanted to look at some too.  Next thing you know, we are wandering around Docklands looking for display suites to play in.

First stop was The Quays.  We pretended that we wanted to buy a 3 bedroom apartment.  Just our luck, there were 2 available.  We chatted to the sales person and she showed us all the cool things in the building.  We really wished that we were going to live there, it looked freaking awesome!  The apartments themselves looked pretty cool, all shiny and new, with our own bathrooms but the coolest parts were in the 'residents club' - there was a swimming pool, tennis court, gym, library and even a cinema.  Better yet, it would be ready to move into by the end of the year.

When we finished looking at the display suite, mum and dad reminded us that we weren't really moving to Docklands, that we were really just pretending.  They kept on pretending and went to another display suite - New Quay Promenade.  This time the building hadn't even been started and it was pretty hard to imagine living in a place that wouldn't be built for nearly 2 years.  We got to choose who would have each of the bedrooms, had fun exploring the kitchen and the bathroom on display, as well as looking at all the really cool pictures they had.  It looked pretty nice, but it didn't have a cinema so it wasn't as nice as the first one we looked at!

If only we could move in to Docklands, we could easily go home for a few minutes in between ice skating things without any hassle…
Love AJ and Milla

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

Old (and perhaps a little crazy?)

SHHHH, don't tell anyone, but today is mum's birthday.  

If you ask her how old she is, she is likely to stop and think for a long time before she comes up with an answer.  For ages mum told us, and everyone else, that she was 27.   I think that she was 27 for about 10 years, even before she was 27.  Once we worked out that she couldn't be 27 forever, she started to use her real age for a while.  Apparently remember what her real age was was far too difficult so now she has decided that she will be 42 for a few years.

Don't believe her though, she really is only 38, but don't tell her that we told you!

Happy Birthday Mum

We hope you had a great birthday mum and will enjoy your relaxing weekend away

Love AJ and Milla, the best kids in the world 

Hockey Camp in the Holidays

Now I had an awesome time hanging out in Yarrawonga but I had to come back last weekend because I had hockey camp.  I can almost hear you thinking, "What is hockey camp?"  Well it is a chance for me to hang out at Icehouse every day and play hours and hours and hours of hockey.  Pretty cool huh!

Ice time

I was there from before 9 in the morning until 5 in the afternoon.  When we weren't skating or playing hockey we would do all kinds of cool things like building parachutes for eggs, playing street hockey and even watch movies about hockey.  As a bonus, we kitted up and headed back out on to the ice for another game of hockey before we went home.  Not a bad way to spend my day!

Posing for a photo or stacks on the coaches?

I can't wait until next holidays when I can go to hockey camp again.

Love AJ Pickle

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!