Weekend in Melbourne

Nat decided long ago that she would go to last weekend's ASA conference in Melbourne. Seemed like a convenient time for all of us to go with her, so I could take Ella & Katy to see their Melbourne family (mainly great-grandparents) while Nat went to the conference during the day. As an added bonus, we got to stay with Ella's best mate Sophie for the weekend, which made for lots of fun (but a fair few tears as well!).

On Friday we dropped Nat off at the train station and headed out to Mitcham to visit Great-Nana. Great-Nana is 93, but still lives all alone and had prepared us a lunch of sandwiches which Ella devoured quite happily. We stayed there until mid-afternoon, predominantly playing with dancing dogs and chickens.

Saturday saw us at Great-Granny's place. She's also 93, and lives in a nursing home. Ella and Katy played in her room for a while, and she showed them her wombats while I tried to stop the kids destroying stuff! It was the first time Katy had seen her great-grandparents, so nice for all of us.

For the rest of the weekend we hung out with Sophie and her parents (Richard & Tanya). I should point out here, that Ella & Sophie are best friends, but they vacillate between playmates and enemies, which can be stressful for poor parents trying to keep the peace! We played lots of games, went to local playgrounds, fed the ducks at the pond (see photo; unfortunately for the ducks they only had gravel to feed) and played peekaboo at the dining table (see other photo). But the absolute highlight was a special trip to the train (just Box Hill to Canterbury) which enthralled them both. When we left Sophie's (via Great-Aunty Jill's and the City to pick up Mum) both Katy & Ella slept for 2 hours straight in the car. We drove home that afternoon and are now busy recovering from the trip.