A trip to Australia - Canberra (III)

Our trip back to Canberra took us near Gundagai and the Dog on the Tuckerbox where we stopped for a welcome drink and break. There were many things to see and a lot of space to run in.
Then we were once again staying with Aunty Chelle and Uncle B for our last week in Australia. Aunty Chelle had even left her Christmas tree decorating until this visit. I believe that that makes three trees all up! We had the lovely surprise of Grandie coming to stay with us (we had been driving her car around so it was a good way to get it back to her - thanks Grandie and Poppie) which meant that Alex and Sebastien got many treats - Mummy and Daddy had them convinced that these machines didn't move and that you just sat on them...now the story has changed to Grandie has magic money.Aunty Chelle and Grandie took the opportunity to take Alex and Sebastien for a nice long walk around the lake. They saw many water birds including pelicans and Alex even had a go of Aunty Chelle's phone camera.It was a little cold later so Alex got to wear Aunty Chelle's sweater.
From a guest post from Aunty Chelle, you would have already seen the delight of "Caramels by Candlelight". Although a late night (Sebastien was in bed) it was still a lovely time and one that Mummy hopes can happen in the future at a live concert. Here are Mummy and Alex having a quiet moment on the couch listening and watching the show.Our last week also allowed us a final playdate with Cousins Chelsea and Kalan. We went to a new playarea with Grandie and had a ball...The girls were kind enough to help Grandie enjoy a ride so she wouldn't be on her own.The Graham clan also had a final opportunity to see the grandkids/niece/nephew/cousins as Aunty Shell had everyone there for dinner. One of the highlights was the singing MP3 game - a close competition between Aunty Shell and Cousin Tristan - but Alex was also pretty stoked that Cousin Chelsea had brought her new bike (thanks for sharing)!
We made the most of Aunty Chelle's bath - again. Here's the only non-full frontal nudie shot of Sebastien. We think he wanted the dogs to come for a bath too.
We visited Aunty Maureen to introduce Sebastien to her - and enjoy a lovely afternoon tea. Aunty Maur always uses her best china, complete with paper doilies on the saucers. She had some presents for Alex and Sebastien, including a play cricket set, which were very much appreciated.
We were able to call Daddy on skype and fill him in on everything that we'd been doing. Still haven't got the hang of not being able to "show" the other person what you're talking about, this is Alex showing Daddy where the dogs are - "Here".Unfortunately Sebastien decided that Mummy had had enough time playing Mahjong with Grandie and decided to take matters into his own hands. Almost half of the last week was taken up with him being sick. A bad bout of gastro saw him (and Mummy) up half the night for a couple of nights - and I'm sure that the rest of the household didn't sleep well either. Here he is trying to get in some sleep during the day.However he recovered just in time to get onto an international flight! Timing is everything. We had a Christmas with Santa photo taken just before we headed out of Canberra towards Sydney. Mummy took off and hid in a clothing rack so as to not distract the kids from the photo taking. Here is my sneak shot:
You'll have to check out the Queen's Christmas Message 2008 in an upcoming blog (yes, I'm late) to see the resulting photo.

And finally, a video that Alex took on Aunty Chelle's phone. A bit of background; she thought she was taking photos (hence the clicking noises) and at some stage her hat must have blown off her head. She is a fair way behind Aunty Chelle, Grandie and Sebastien so any comments made are to herself. Enjoy - because when we accidently found this, we did. Pure gold!