For those of you who we didn't stay with/invade, we are back from our trip to Scotland.

The trip was a great success, not least of all because we all coped with the flights okay - apart from a minor issue with Adam being ill on the approach into Bangkok airport but after both incidents, within about half an hour he was back to his usual self again - we were calling him Adam, the friendly ghost as he was more than just a little bit pale.

Although we didn't go to Scotland for the weather, we could have done with a touch less rain - it pretty much rained solidly for three weeks - wettest August since records began apparently! 

Emily just announced to me that she "knows all about boys". I was slightly worried what she was about to say. Fortunately she then told me that they wear t-shirts adn jumpers and have short hair and sometimes have glasses. Also then told me that girls wear necklaces and sometimes dresses. PHEW!

We decided to take the kids up the mountains. YES its not all sun and sand here! About 2 hours drive from our house is Lake Mountain, where you can ski, sledge etc. Sadly this is right in the middle of the worst affected bush fire area that was totally devastated at the start of the year during Black Saturday. The fires destroyed over 4500 square kms and over 150 people lost their lives. I felt quite saddened driving through all the bush land that was just made up of black trees. But also amazed the way nature bounces back with the trees having this strange green glow of new growth.



We stopped in Marysville for some lunch and we hired the kids snow suits. They were so excited and just looked the cutest things. We then continued our drive through the fog and up to the snow. There was not a huge amount, so a little disappointing, but the kids had great fun sledging down the hill.



After sledging for a while, we went for a walk further up the hill into the fog. I got some amazing and spooky shots of the burnt out trees, fog and snow. It was like a scene from a horror movie.



We walked back down the hill and headed off for a snack. Stopping again in Marysville we went for a walk and really started to appreciate how much was destroyed. You could see gates where a house once stood, burnt out place signs and people living in trailers beside the plot where their house once stood. I obviously didnt take any pictures, and I still feel a bit shaken typing this and thinking back to how I felt.

Driving back home their are amazing views and you get an idea of how green the country really should be.

We went to a great Dali exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria. It was a little surreal, but quite enjoyable none the less.

Again, no cameras are allowed, but the outside still looks pretty spectacular.

Spiderman, Batman and Indiana.

Leigh and I watched/listened to the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra for about 2 hours, playing James Bond and Ride of the Valkyries at Superheroes at the Symphony. It was a great night. The conductor was very amusing, even appearing at the end with a superman outfit on underneath only to rip off his velcro suit at the appropriate time.

Sorry no pictures as it was dark and banned!

I can still hear the Raiders of the Lost Ark tune in my head when I think back. Da Da Dum Dum

We went for a lovely dinner with the Mcleans (Heather, Neil, Cathrine and Annie) on Lygon street, which is a great street with a top selection of restaurants. Neil picked an excellent Italian that they had been to before. I had to die for chicken with mash.. YUM!!

Emily had great fun playing with the 'big' girls at the end of the table. Not quite sure though who enjoyed playing with Polly Pocket the most!

After chesting the ball down on the 18 yard line, Adam rounds two players, nutmegs another and runs the length of the pitch and then chips the goalie.... well not quite, but it was celebrated with just as much enthusiasm.

I have always wanted to go see the MCG (Melbourne Cricket Ground) or just the 'G' as it is known here. It is one of the biggest cricket grounds in the world and has a capacity of 100,000. It really is an impressive site and can be seen for miles around. We went to an evening world cup qualifier between Australia and Japan.



The match was a good game. We had already qualified for the world cup having been undefeated in our group, but so were Japan. We were 1-0 down at half time, but came back to win 2-1. Because the stadium is soooo big it felt a little empty, but still was a pretty good atmosphere, especially when choruses of Aussie, Aussie, Aussie go round, or a Mexican wave too. The announced at half time that there were 69,000 attendance!!!! I think thats more than a Hampden final for a meaninless final. I cant wait to go to a capacity match. The AFL big games regularly get 100,000.

As you know our family has a love of zoos and aquariums so obviously it wasnt too long before we made it to the Melbourne one. For all you people who got off your butts and visited us, it was very similar to the Sydney one.

Not quite as many sharks, but they had a great penguin exhibit that mum would love.

Towards the end of the aquarium there is an absolutely huge display which we saw just as the divers were in feeding. They have to manually feed the larger fish, rays and turtles because if you just drop food in, the smaller faster fish eat it all before the larger ones can get to it.

Any way, was well worth a visit and have included a few photos below.

As Adam has been bugging us, for what feels like years, this winter he joined Hampton Junior Soccer team. He has training every Thursday and then matches every Saturday morning - quite painful at 8.30 am but not quite as bad as rugby which was on Sunday mornings.

Adam's team it is fair to say is not the best in the league but after some discussion among the parents, they have split the team into an A and B team as every week both teams were losing quite badly. They still haven't won a game but they are much closer and the boys are definitely enjoying the games much more.

Adam, I am very proud to say is in the A team - although the boys are not told which team they are in.

Emily's new passion is cooking. Here she is making chicken nuggets that involves dipping in flour, egg and then breadcrumbs

No story, just sharing what our decking looks like

Which she has named Adam, which is not the same as Baby Adam, and God help you if you call either of them the wrong thing

Adam had a spectacular day during the school holidays where he bit Emily on the leg - his excuse: I didn't bite her, my mouth was just really close to her leg.

He then decided, apparently on Emily's request, to write on her head:

It took all my willpower not to laugh when I came home from work!

FYI: Our website was orginally set up to share photos when Adam was born and as Geoff thought he looked like a monkey (charming!), the website was named Cheeky Monkey which is what Adam has been known as and is why the blog is called Cheeky Monkey does Oz.

We were invited down to Somers by friends of the Barretts. Afraid you will need Leigh to explain the family connection (Leigh update: Sheena, who invited us to to visit, is my Gran's oldest friend's daughter and lives about 5 minutes from us in Brighton). But we drove down the peninsula to their family holiday house and had a lovely lunch and all the kids played together in the garden.

We then wandered down to the beach. We were slightly disappointed that the wild Koala that had been there an hour before had now moved on. Been here coming on for 3 years and not yet seen a wild Koala or Kangaroo. The beach was beautiful and very quiet.

Emily decided that she wanted to be part of the action, nothing new, altho I don't think anyone else realised that she could not swim, as a large wave came and almost swept her out towards Tazzy. Leigh quickly rushed down as she was plucked here from the surf.

One of the highlights of the afternoon though was watching a pod of dolphins swim past the shore only about 20 or so feet away. In the past we were told that they use to come right up the the swimmers and swim around you. Lately they have been a little more distant as they had a baby with them.

You can just make out the dolphins in the left part of the picture. Not my greatest photographic effort, but was just taken with the little snapper.

Leigh and I hid some eggs around the garden and let the kids loose for about 10mins to find them all. Not sure if the birds got more than the kids.

We went to Werribee Open Range Zoo for a day trip. Its part of the same australian zoos that allows us to get in for free. There is a great part where you can walk around with kangaroos and emus roaming around you.

Emily was very keen to introduce Baby James to his cousins



Lots of skippies hopping past



The next part of the zoo is in a safari style bus where you drive through the various compounds and see the camels, lions and rhinos. The large rhino got a little too close at one point for my liking.



The next enclosure was a great space where you could sit in an old style safari jeep and look out over the lions. There was a large glass window where the windscreen would have been. We all sat in the front seat as the keepers put some meat on the bonnet. The lions were then released and made a pounce for the small snack



Lots on fun as always at the zoo!!!

Every Term the second last lesson is always Safety Week. The kids have to do the class in their pyjamas and life-jackets.

As part of easter the whole school do a hat parade where the kids make hats and dress up. As you can see it was lots of fun. Please take note of the lovely lattice paper weaving on the top of the hat. Adam (and Leigh) was very proud of that!

We again got lucky on the parking and made our way over to the track laden with supplies and ear defenders.



After a bit of wandering about looking at the various pre-event activities, Emily met Rory the racing car, we went back to our spot the day before hoping to get a nice patch to sit. Unfortunately, race day must have had about 3 or 4 times the number of people so we could not even get close. We sat back a bit for a while and waited in hope that after a couple of events and over lunch we might get lucky.



About 3/4 hours before the race we managed to get into a spot which had a nice view and sqeezed our butts in and sat down.

The next few hours were about survival and defending every inch of grass that we managed to claim.

With about 30mins until the race started the crowd swelled and it became a bit of a crush as everyone was clammering for a view of the first corner. There was the customary fly overs and warm up lap and then it was off.



During the race the crowd thinned out a little and we could relax. We also had a nice big screen right in front of us with the commentary over the tannoy so we could keep track of the race positions.

Amazingly Button won! Sadly Webber was not so lucky.

As soon as the cars finished announcements were heard asking for people to stay off the track. This just seemed to encourage everyone and people climbed like monkeys over the 15foot fences and raced up the pit straight to get a view of the podium.



After a very tiring weekend we wearily headed home.

It was amazing to go the the GP, something I have always wanted to do. I am not sure if anything could have lived up to my expectations of what I thought the race would be like, but seeing the speed and experiencing the noise and vibration from the sound of the cars was incredible. Something I will never forget.

I think if we ever go again I would like to do it in style with a grandstand ticket. Might need to win the lottery for that one tho :(

Keen to see if our parking for Friday practice was a pure fluke we thought we would chance our arm so set off for day2 of our GP weekend. Much to our amazement we got park in almost the same place as we did the night before.

The place was pretty packed already, but the weather was glorious. We wandered about and took in a few of the events on the track.



We found a spot on a hill with a view of corner 1 and 2, put our rug down and made ourselves comfortable to take in the rest of the afternoon.

We watched several races of other series of cars and planes and helicopters flying overhead and waited for the F1 cars to take to the track.





Once the F1 cars had finished we slowly wandered home. Because this was the first ever twilight race it was almost dark by the time the session finished.

We bought weekend passes for the F1. They were general admission, which meant we could wander round the track, but could not go into any of the grand stands. We decided to drive into town on the Friday afternoon to have a look around. We thought we would drive and see if we could get parked somewhere in town. As it turned out, I dont think anyone was as insane as us and we got parked a 10minute walk from the main entrance!! Totally crazy, Leigh and I spent about an hour in shock about our good fortune. We just could not believe we got parked so close.

We followed the crowds of people towards the entrance and towards the noise. As we arrived the F1 cars were going out for a practice, and my word they are loud. I was so glad we had the ear defenders.



Friday was very pleasant, the weather was lovely and you could easily get close to the fences to see the cars fly past.



We didnt stay too long that evening and used it more to get a feel for the place and work out the best places to stand.

Here are a couple of my fav photos from Friday. As you might imagine I took a few

Here are some pictures of Emily's Birthday.

As part of Emily's Birthday we went into town for some food and a ride on a horse-drawn carriage.



As you can see from above, she was very very excited about it. Its a lovely ride around the city. It takes you out to the gardens, round and back for about 45mins. It was a lovely warm day and we had great fun. The only worrying part was Emily's tendency to lean right out the carriage and Leigh or I having to quickly lunge and drag her back before a car zoomed past too close.

After the horse ride we went up the Rialto Tower, a lovely gift from Colin and Oli. It is one of the tallest buildings in Melbourne and has a great 360 degrees viewing deck right at the top. The pass was a day long pass which meant that we went up in the afternoon and then had some dinner and went back up to see the city by night also.


The above pictures show the Melbourne Cricket Ground (the G as you call it here) and the surrounding area.

Melbourne is a very arty city, lots of "cul'yar". We wandered round the city and took in the sights.

(This is Emily trying to be "cool"!!)

We have been looking forward to going to the F1 GP since we knew we were moving to Melbourne. Because the race is round Albert Park you can drive round the circuit in your car and watch as all the grandstands and signs etc are being constructed. The park is also very beautiful with a lovely lake in the center of it with lots of boats and things.

Anyway, I had to stop Leigh from doing weaves down the main straight as the kids made broom broom noises in the back seat.

I have put a selection of pictures here as we visited Albert Park for a drive through about 5 times before the race weekend.

We headed to the Air Show which is on the other side of town about 45mins from the house. There were expected about 50,000 people, so we were prepared for the large queues of cars, but we got there with no trouble and parked up. Sadly the weather was not great, it was really like a typical Scottish day, lots of rain and lots of wind! It was absolutely huge! Must have been close to 500 planes on display from Jumbos (A380) and large airforce transport planes to small gliders and helicopters.

Neither Leigh or I had been to an airshow before so were not really too sure what to expect. The first planes started to fly overhead and I started to say that they were not too loud, when the suddenly accelerated and it got extremely LOUD!!!

We alternated between exhibitions inside and out depending on the weather. Thankfully as the day went on the weather got a little better and the sun started to shine.

I have included a few of the hundreds of photos that I took. The highlight for me was the dump and burns that the jets did as they flew overhead.

Another visit to the zoo, more animals, nuff said!

We took a visit to the National Gallery. Was a few good exhibits on, but we mostly walked round the free to view parts. The building itself is pretty amazing.

We went to see Bolt at the moonlight cinema. We parked relatively close to the park and wandered off with our mountains of blankets and pillows. Unfortunately we decided to follow several groups of people who looked like they knew where they were going. To our disappointment they did know where they were going... just not to the same showing as us!!!

We eventually found the right place after a delightful tour of the park paths by night and 2 rather grumpy children in tow.

The film was fun if a little cold. So glad we wrapped up!

The Moomba water festival is a festival centered around the river Yarra going through the heart of Melbourne. We saw tons of exhibitions and there was lots for the kids to do.

I really enjoyed the water skiing and of course the Birdman competition which is the final event of the festival. Very amusing to see all the nutters try to fly.

Both Emily and Adam have continued their swimming lessons down here and are both enjoying it. The new pool is called Waves and has a large beach type pool that every 30mins switches on a wave machine where kids get thrown everywhere and frantic adults run around pulling drowning children from the surf. I age about 10 years everytime I take the kids into it!!! At the end of the 10minutes of waves, I am ready for a lie down and the kids cant wait for the next set of waves.

This is our little local beach, about 5mins drive or 20mins on bike.

This exhibition was a 15 minute drive from our house further down the coast and apparently took 3,500 tonnes of sand to build

We went to the St Kilda festival on a not so nice fresh and windy day. Tons of markets and stalls. The highlight of the day was meeting Mr. T and Dora

After the bush fires the NAB cup match was all in aid of the bush fire appeal. It was in the Telstra Dome between, Bulldogs and Essendon. We were not really not sure what was going on as AFL still remains a bit of a mystery, but all of Melbourne is consumed by the sport, so I am sure it wont take long to get immersed.

St. Kilda are our local team, I think. Its also a nice co-incidence that they are also top fo the league.

For the NAB cup match we left at half time as it was a late night match, but was still fun and Adam had lots to tell his friends the next day at school.