During the trip, Sophie has lotsa good time to bond with Daddy!

Every other morning James would wake up earlier and take Sophie out for breakfast at the nearby bakery so that I can sleep in and spend time with the Lord. It was so good……..

I’m on a roll again. Finally got my act together and started crafting and learning with Sophie again!

This week our topic is rainbows.

I took the opportunity to teach her about colours too, of course! She’s finally getting her colours. So far she’s pretty confident with blue, red and yellow. Sometimes she gets orange, green and purple right.

Using whatever I already had, we made rainbows using coloured pipe cleaners! We were missing a violet but it’s as good as it gets! We also used the coloured ice cream sticks (super cheap for a bundle at Popular, great for craft and learning colours) to play a sorting game to emphasize on the colours. It so happened that it had all 6 colours too (no violet).

We attempted some potato printing. Supposed to print rainbows but it didn’t quite turn out like that! Sophie preferred to print her hands. Oh wells!

We read two books – Noah’s Ark and The Rainbow Fish. We also learnt the Rainbow song from Super Strong God CD.

Thank God I prepared a few things for us to do today coz it turned out, Sophie was having a cough and was running a slight fever in the morning. And of course, it’s been raining.

I showed Sophie a picture of a city. She caught on and started building her own cities. Look at that sky scraper!

P/s…….. finally Sophie’s into building blocks! It actually keeps her entertain for a bit. It’s very cute to see her being all focused on building cities.

Left: 25 mths old and Right: 7 mths old

The last time we went to Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary, Sophie was only 7 mths old. This time round we paid to take pictures with the koala and Sophie got to feed the kangaroos! And my parents came along too!

Our little one was SO brave! She was all gamed to carry the koala and take photos with her but unfortunately the koala was the same weight as her and it wasn’t safe. SOOOOO, James carried the koala for our $15 shoot and frame. And Sophie got to hug the koala and she got a kiss! So cute lah…..

It was really nice to hang out with my parents and Sophie enjoyed the time with them. Mum and esp Dad were pretty impressed with Sophie’s gung ho ness since Kel, Rach and I were such scaredy cats when it came to animals.

We are a typical Chinese family – must eat Chinese food. First thing we did when my parents arrived? YUM CHA at Sunnybank, the place to be for Asian food (btw, forget about Chinatown. The asian people in the know go to Sunnybank, not Chinatown. Chinatown is for the angmohs who like sweet and sour pork.)

People in the photo, from left: Mum, Dad, Bro, Sis in law, Sis in law’s mum, me and Soph. My sis couldn’t join us and James was taking the photo.

Ooooo I loved the weekends in Aus coz of the lovely markets! There were so many to go to! We managed two that day – Jan Power’s Farmers Markets at New Farm Park and the Valley Markets at Brunswick St. The former is somewhat like a farmers’ market with lotsa food and cheap fruits and veggies and the latter has more clothes, jewelery and handmade stuff.

We ended the day with a lovely dinner prepared by our friends at Hope Brisbane. HOME COOKED!!! YUMMS!

Together with James’ old friend, we took a road trip to Gold Coast. It’s only about a 45 mins drive from Brisbane.

We stopped at Sanctuary Cove, an uppity type of retirement village with a lovely marina, golf course and shopping and dining area, for lunch and drove past Surfers Paradise and stopped nearer to a beach near Coolangatta. We gave Surfers a miss coz we’ve been there a million times (ok maybe 5 times) and they happened to be having the Indy Car Race and it was madness, just imagine F1!

We promised Sophie that she’ll get to play with sand at the beach but it was colder and more windy than we had expected so…………………………….. we found a playground with sand! Hee… she was SO happy.

Sophie loooooves going to the museums. There are lots to see and all at her eye level. There are always lotsa children around and lots to learn.

She loves popping her head into these things and asking to see the picture later. Super funny! Sometimes she even has the correct expression for it! Like this picture!

The Brisbane museum is smaller than the Melbourne one and less extensive, of course. BUT still there were lots to see and it’s free. They had the usual dinosaur bones (they actually had a Dinosaur garden which we missed) display, transport section, wildlife section, sections to highlight the plight of sea turtles that were hunted and going extinct, etc…

Prior to the trip, James bought Sophie a book "Maisy Goes to the Museum" from ELC. Turns out, it was so appropriate for the trip coz we kept going to the museum.

After the museum, we went to ikea with my bro and sis in law. They had to run some errands for the new house so we just tagged along. Sophie got real cranky and kept needing to run around coz it was late. She was fussing and had a pee accident. We were planning to buy a towel and ended up using it to wrap her coz I ran out of change for her. Thank God ikea had a children’s corner with a TV so we sat there to wait for the rest. And I found out Nickelodeon has a lot of strange cartoons. Anyways, long days for a 2 year old is not a good idea.

Brisbane has a man-made beach at South Bank right smack in the city! We’ve always just walked pass it – I mean which tourist would go to the beach while shopping right?!? But this trip we were so free and with a super active toddler, we decided we must go!

Sophie was SO excited! She loves playing with sand and water so the beach is PERFECT. And the weather was great, part cloudy but no rain.

We spent the morning there and then met a friend for lunch. Yummy yummy Indian food – curry with naan. Oooo I love!!!!!! I had butter chicken and the garlic naan was so shiok.

Hee Sophie was so exhausted from playing, she fell asleep eating! (First time! Steph, hee like Luke!)

We had a nice quiet lunch while Soph napped in the stroller.

We took a walk back to P’s place in the city. James hung out with him and Sophie while I had a break at Borders. I actually read about 3/4 of a book while I was there. Nice little break for me.

I really like South Bank – during the trip we came back here a couple of times for the museum which was free, the markets on the weekend etc.

(Back to blogging about the trip )

Sophie’s schedule hasn’t changed much since we’ve been on the trip. She’s just been waking A LOT earlier since the light comes in and it’s REALLY bright by 6am. If she’s asleep by 8pm, she’s normally awake by 7am. She takes a nap anytime between 12pm – 2pm, sometimes even at 3pm if she’s really into the activities. She normally naps for an hour to two.

This is her in her portable cot. We put a sleeping bag around it so that it’s darker. But normally by about 7am, it’s this bright. She’ll stand up in the cot calling us. One of us will attempt to roll out of bed to get her. Sometimes she just hangs out in there if we’re still asleep and plays.

We’re taking things a lot easier here in Brissy. We’ve been here a couple of times so we kinda know our way around.

We lived with a friend at her apt. 5 mins walk to Guyatt Park where the City Cat (ferry) is.

Started the day by packing breakfast to the park so Soph can play at the playground. She made friends with a little german boy who was a few months older than her. I love the playgrounds here – they have such interesting stuff! Here’s a little "shop" with a cash register and weighing scales. I love it that they put a shade over the entire playground coz Aussie sun can get quite hot but if it’s shady, it’s cool and nice.

Top Left: James made this cross using bottle caps 2 years ago on a tree at the BBQ pit at the park and the imprint is still there! How cool!
Top Right: Guyatt Park, overlooking the Brisbane River
Bottom Left: Sophie making friends
Bottom Right: See saw – so rare these days…

After that, we headed back to the apartment to wait for Mel to pick us to go to Paddington, a quaint little area for shopping. She was running late so I prepared a quick macaroni lunch for Sophie – macaroni, minced pork and spinach soup.

Sophie eating her lunch

Paddington was real nice! The shops were in old houses. It wasn’t a long street but we didn’t manage to finish looking at all the shops. We stopped to have tea at The Coffee Club and it started to rain!

Top Left: Sophie taking a break from shopping
Top Right: French outdoor fabric shop
Bottom Left: Op shop shopping with Sophie. We found a hairband with bunny ears! I love shopping at op shops. Never know what you’ll find!
Bottom Right: Sophie, Rach (my sis) and Mel at Coffee Club

We left just in time and headed to the city to meet James’ old roommate from Perth for dinner. He lives in an apartment in the city that overlooks the river. How cool!

City view from friend’s place

First thing we did this morning was to go down to the hawker center to eat FRIED BEE HOON for brekkie! Hahaha… Oh ya… and soya bean drink…… shiok only.

Sophie now eats everything since I didn’t really restrict her diet on the trip (yes yes… chocolate, ice cream, etc… the works. I’m still holding off sweets tho). So this morning she also had soya bean drink, kaya toast with insane amount of butter and a bit of my fried bee hoon. YUMS! 

Oh how i missed our local food. Brisbane now has Little Singapore – a eatery with all the local delights. But it’s still not quite the same when you pay $8 bucks for laksa! Our fried bee hoon this morning cost only $3 sth for the both of us!!!!!!!

After breakfast we went marketing and I’m not used to paying $6 for a punnet of blueberries!!! ARgh! I cooked both her meals – fish porridge for lunch and fish and spinach pasta for dinner. Sophie’s eating MUCH better back home – finished both her lunch and dinner. Phew!

I find that as I grow older I take a longer time to adjust to being away and I miss home a lot more. So I’m glad to be back. Sophie too I think. She’s been so much more well behaved today compared to the trip. Our house is like a new toy shop to her. I think she missed her toys. Just going thru all her toys afresh occupied her day.

Oh… and her timing and schedule is back on track. Cool beans! Only problem was getting her to nap. She’s used to being held to sleep since we were out everyday during the day. Mostly when we were in the car. Oops… But not too bad, she whined a bit before she slept.

Okie will blog more when we upload the pics for the second half of our trip.

Janice Missy Mok, my niece, has ARRIVED! She’s 52cm (SO TALL! Woo wee!) and 3.25kg!

Sophie was really thrilled to see Janice. She’s been talking to Janice in the tummy and must be a little surreal for her to see a real baby!

Happy happy happy…