I am looking back at our January holiday from some distance now. Hey, life is busy, you know. And the holiday has an especially rosy glow from this angle so there is something lovely about writing this a little later.
We left our beautiful Patonga. Jess went into self isolation in Adelaide and they had the strange experience of socially distanced visits from Steve who moved into a hotel room for a fortnight.
We took in a couple of days in Sydney so we could spend just a little more time with these gorgeous people.
We also caught up with the delightful (if always a little wild!) Ross family as well as the Simon and Reeves families. There were big walks and beach time and even a dramatic sea rescue when we saw some fishermen washed into wild water!
We navigated state and territory borders with finesse managing very close to our perfect holiday despite covid chaos. Our time in Wamboin was especially sweet and our friends there remain very close to our hearts.
Ed headed to Darwin for more teacher training while the kids and I headed to Narooma with Chaudie and Jeremy to spend a few days at their beach house. It is such a peaceful beautiful place and we are so grateful that they shared it with us. There was good food and beach adventures and movies and a run in with a shopkeeper who didnt appreciate our tribe of little darlings.
We drove down the east coast to Victoria and I found it a bit emotional looking at the forests and towns slowly recovering from the raging 2019-20 summer bushfires. It was hard not to think about how many similar tragedies are ahead of us as we face a warmer future.
We finally arrived in Melbourne after managing the fairly complex rules for entry from NSW and were able to see our beautiful grandparents after nearly a year apart.
Unfortunately poor Opa ended up in hospital for most of our visit with pneumonia but he remained in remarkably good spirits!
Ed had a BIG birthday and his parents joined us in Melbourne for a wonderful lunch at Donovans which Yvette recommended.
Ed got some lovely gifts from the family for his birthday but the BEST was an amazing date night at the moonlight cinema at the Botanical Gardens with gourmet hamper and childcare included!
Zoe also had a birthday. 9! She tried really hard to have a great day with a short trip to Luna Park and a great dinner but between a visit to hospital for Opa in the morning and another visit to the hospital to address the tummy pains that poor Zoe had been having for days and worsening, it wasnt a crash hot birthday! She was a trooper about it.
We returned to the NT with our cup properly refilled. We had been able to properly embrace our family and friends. We had had beach time and bush time and fun time and down time. We arrived back to Maningrida flush with the green vigour of a big wet season. The kids really enjoyed some of the huge downpours and this was one particularly impressive one! It is worth noting that with perhaps 15 kids on our street playing in the flooding drains, I was the only parent out supervising. Of course nothing bad happened but I certainly felt the need to monitor closely!!
We took the opportunity when school went back to join forces with a couple of other summer birthday kids and Zoe was able to celebrate turning 9 in good health! Happy birthday Reid, Zara and Zoe!
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