summer 2018.

It's been a pretty fun summer, and as usual I'm sad to see it go.

our first Australia Day as permanent residents. p.s. Australia, change the date!

My mom came to visit in late December to early January, while Ben and I took a few days to visit the Gold Coast for our first child-free vacation in a few years. The trip was awesome, and it was also very generous of my mom to come all the way to Melbourne to babysit Arden. Our little girl was on her very best behaviour the whole time - going to sleep without a two-hour bedtime routine, eating well, riding in her stroller, no-fuss napping in her crib (!!)... and after Ben and I returned, she's been sleeping pretty poorly ever since. Serves us right, I guess! We got to spend some quality time with my mom in Melbourne as well, including our usual tradition of enjoying high tea.

my mom's 5th trip to Melbourne!

Sadly, my maternal grandmother passed away at the beginning of the year. I'm so glad that Arden was able to meet her Thai-ma last May, when we visited Manila for my grandma's 100th Chinese birthday celebration, and also that Ben was able to see her in 2014 as well. She leaves behind nine children, 26 grandchildren and 24 great-grandchildren. We are forever grateful for the time we had with her, and for the stories of her courage and faithfulness that we will be sure to share with the next generations.

Manila in May 2017

This summer's weather was all over the place. Melbourne weather is generally pretty crazy, but this season it felt like the changes were more drastic than usual - 107 degrees (Fahrenheit) one day, and in the 60's the next day.

watching helicopters along the water.

Every year we like to get a membership to something cool - a few years ago it was the Eureka Skydeck (the tallest building in Melbourne), and last year we got an annual pass to the zoo, which we definitely got our money's worth by visiting "sister zoos" during our trips to Perth and Sydney. This year we decided to get an aquarium membership, which we've already gotten our money's worth by visiting every week (at least, Arden and I). It's very close to our apartment, plus it's indoors so we can visit rain or shine! It's a pretty nice aquarium - there's a really breathtaking exhibit in the basement where you can watch sharks and stingrays through huge windows and clear tunnels. Arden likes the frogs, lizards, the clownfish, penguins, and of course the huge saltwater crocodile.

these green screen photographs are amazing.

Arden enjoys her swim and music classes more and more every month, and her teachers are all in love with her. It's a joy to witness her development through these activities, and to see her skills develop in a learning environment. This year we decided to add toddler ballet class to her weekly schedule! Dance class was never an activity I did as a child, but Arden loves anything to do with twirling and tutus. So, whatever makes her happy...

Arden wears her favourite "ballet outfit" everywhere.

White Night is probably my favourite Melbourne festival. I've written more about it in previous blog entries (here's our archive for past White Night events: 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017), but basically: it's a festival celebrating light and art installations, for one night only and from the hours of 7pm to 7am. It's creative, fun, unique... and at times suffocatingly crowded, so it's a bit challenging to navigate especially with a young child. Arden decided to nap until 8pm for this year's event, so we were actually able to experience the event a bit later at night. We weren't able to see everything we wanted, but the exhibits we did see were pretty awesome.

there were a bunch of these things around the city.

Chinese New Year was in mid-February this year. We dressed Arden in a traditional Chinese outfit given to her by my aunt, and enjoyed wandering around Chinatown observing dragon and lion dances and Chinese stringed instrument concerts. We got to see Sun Loong, the world's longest dragon, paraded around the city in celebration. 

it's the year of the puppy!

Arden loved wearing her traditional Chinese outfit

the head of Sun Loong, apparently the world's longest dragon.

The whole city gets decked out for the Lunar New Year holiday, which is pretty cool. Melbourne definitely embraces multicultural holidays more and more each year. Crown casino had a really beautiful display of the Chinese zodiac animals, as well as a really cool show featuring its flame towers (which are normally there), temporarily decorated as dragons by local artists. We were pretty impressed, except for the night we tried to watch the show from a nearby bridge and absolutely nothing happened, for an hour.

the Chinese zodiac on display

fire-breathing dragons!

We're looking forward to a few fun things on the horizon - upcoming visits to Washington and Michigan, and a little getaway to Singapore later this year! We're always excited for the opportunity to travel. Even though Arden no longer gets to fly for free...

CK