Whitemans Park and Serpentine Dam

My, it has been a busy few weeks/months.  We never seem to have the time to just sit and do nowt but hey ho, at least we are happy and busy.  We are doing good here now.  Things seem to starting to drop into place and we feel a lot more comfortable and the feeling of just barely keeping heads above water is receding, we are now about standing on the bottom of the lake and may be about to attempt walking to the shore (shush don't tell anyone).

I think that it is so much cooler now, than even a few weeks ago has made a huge difference.  On average it is below 30'C and at night it is down to mid teens.  It helps us sleep, the boys can play outside on an evening, well all day really and Anna and I feel that we can go places and not have to be so worried about the boys not coping in the heat (which Marcus especially doesn't do well).  So we can actually have the outdoor life that we wanted when we came out.  Next summer will hopefully be cooler, the one just passed was an extreme summer even by WA standards and with the boys being older they will cope better.

In the last few weeks we have made some fantastic new friends from Daycare.  They have two young boys who are basically nine months younger than both Finley and Marcus so we are in very similar positions and their from England would you believe!  We are getting to know them well and feel so comfortable with them and we don't need to put on airs and they take us for who we are.  Over Easter the Church put on an outside showing of Kung Fu Panda 2 and they came with, while we looked after two of our workfriends kids while they had a dinner out.  Was a great night :)

Two of our friends at Church announced that they are expecting their second so we are very happy for them.

Anna is doing well at work, it is a little quiet at the moment but it will pick up in about a month or so and then it will be very busy, so we keep saying she is to enjoy the calm while it lasts!  I'm doing ok at work, still enjoying it so that is always a bonus.  I should have been up in Darwin this coming week but due to legal stuff I will be going up in May sometime.  It's to look at mangroves and bio-diversity so I'm really excited about that.  In a weeks time I am going to Onslow (1400km north of Perth) for a week long site investigation. 

The boys are doing well and growing and, most importantly, Marcus is sleeping through the night so we are sleeping better.  They are both doing well at daycare and everyone is besotted with them.  Finley is vocal as ever but starting to ask quite searching questions like "How do you make saucepans" and "how do you make jellyfish"... Mummy and I are getting good at thinking of how to make things :p  Marcus is starting to vocalise a lot more and words are definitely coming out (when he wants them to).

Anna is happy, Dancing with the Stars (Australian Strictly come Dancing) has just started here.

Last weekend we went to Whitemans Park, only about 20mins away but it took us about 45mins to find the place, since the sign posts are none-existent. Tis a great park with loads of picnic areas and walks, in a few weeks they are going to have an alpaca day (expect a blog and pictures).  They do tree planting and tram rides and all sorts.  so I think it will become a family favourite.  Some pics.

Looks like Finley is going for the football route and Marcus the rugby route :p

Today we went with our new friends to Serpentine Dam, about 70km south and a bit east of Perth.  Up in the Darling hills.  We had a great time, it didn't take long to get there, we had a BBQ on the free BBQ's that are there (which I've only seen in one or two places in the UK).  The views were great and the company better.  The boys, for once sat for photos but then again they couldn't go anywhere being sat in a tree :p

We saw a beautiful little bird known as the Australian Robin, it's tiny!:

Will try to get a better picture next time we go.  There were also parrots that were doing the job of seagulls in the UK.  If you held out your hand with food on they would come and sit on your hand and eat...the head was also a favourite place to sit.  Finley loved feeding them, he sat on the floor and held his hand out, they ate direct from his hand and he said it tickled.  So sweet to see him interacting with the wildlife so well.  We also got visited by a wild kangaroo.  We stayed our distance and took some photos:

Unfortunately shortly after this a small girl got within a few meters of it and spooked it, so the roo reared up, standing up 2m tall and swiped at the girl.  Thankfully it didn't connect but then the stupid father picked up the girl and walked back to the roo and tried to scare the roo away by shaking his fist...he should not have been allowed to reproduce.  The roo swung again but more to scare away than hurt and at the urging of the girls mum, the muppet eventually left the roo alone (apologies to the genuine muppets out there).  However some drunken idiots though it would be fun to entice the roo closer with food and then TAUNT it, I mean REALLY?????? how stupid can you get??? it was at this point we decided to head home.
A brief cuppa, chat and play for the boys at our friends rounded off a great day :)

p.s. finally found bacon that makes a great bacon buttie!!! result, you've no idea how much we have missed a good cuppa and a bacon buttie on a sunday morning :-)xx