Exhausted

We're back tonight from our week in Melbourne, happy to be home and utterly exhausted after a marathon two-day drive home. Without kids, you can do the trip in 7-8 hours (with minimum stopping). With kids and roadworks combined, it's more like 12-13. Since Carl couldn't come on this trip and as Tristan is still not sleeping the night through, I knew I'd be too tired to manage it in one day, so we did it in two in each direction, staying the night in a motel (an adventure in itself for the children) in Albury.

A minor miracle, we all managed to stay healthy this trip! This meant we were able to catch up with friends and family we missed at Easter. Romily just adores her four boy cousins and they like seeing her. It was great seeing them all playing so well together. Tristan was watching with eyes agog, and you could tell he was working out whether he could join in! He had a very exciting time playing with Grandma and Huppa (my parents) and has learnt to speed crawl. He loves nothing more than 'crawly chasy' - especially with his big sister.

(Rom looking like an angel with a halo at my parents' house)

(Tristan after Huppa sneezed loudly and frightened him - excuse the pink sleeping bag - it was Romily's when she was a bubba!)

I attempted to finish Robina's quilt in time for our visit to Bendigo, but our trip was brought forward by two days, which just did me in. It unfortunately still isn't finished, although I only have one side's binding waiting to be stitched down. I encountered some problems with Grandma's sewing machine, which saw many stitches being skipped on the front side of the binding. I ended up having to go around twice. Anyway, it's looking good, and I hope to finish it over the weekend.
Here is a photo of the finished top before it was sandwiched, as well as a photo of the basted sandwich. I hope she will like it.

While watching Romily and Tristan engaging with their grandparents was an absolute highlight of the trip, my initial reason for going was to see Pink! When I bought my ticket she wasn't coming to Canberra. Of course, Canberra concerts have since been announced. Ah well, we were due for a visit down south. I digress. Pink was fabulous! The venue has its challenges - it was the Rod Laver Arena, which is the main court for the Australian Open - including dodgy sound, but after the first few songs the techies managed to fix whatever was going wrong. What a show. I won't spoil it for those who haven't seen it yet, but for those who have or don't plan to, let's just say it was world-class and the girl could sing underwater (and just about does!). I had a great time.

It was very hard to say goodbye to my parents yesterday. They're so good with the kids and the kids adore them. We don't get to see them often enough and poor Romily was bereft last night, wailing in the back seat of the car "I want to live with Grandma and Huppaaaaaaaaaaa". She gets the drama queen from me, by the way! Hopefully they'll be able to get to Canberra in the not-too-distant future and we might sneak down again in September, depending on how things are going.

It was lovely to arrive home this afternoon. And even lovelier when Carl got home from work. We all missed each other enormously. Back to reality tomorrow. Carl will take Rom to her swimming lesson and I'll get some crafting done. Got to get some things made for Rom's fast-approaching birthday party...I can't believe she'll be four in three weeks!

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And some excellent news awaited me upon my return home - I received a High Distinction (90 per cent) for my course mark. Woohoo! Yeeha! Got to be happy with that. I must have done pretty well on the exam after all. Thank god!! One more unit of coursework to go before I transfer to the coursework/research program, which will mean a 75,000 word paper, to be written over 2-3 semesters (part-time). I need to get cracking on my research proposal, as well as start reading for this semester's course - Strategic Management. The things we put ourselves through!

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And finally, here are a couple of pictures of my handsome boy after his first real hair cut. It was pretty tricky trying to cut his hair - he was a moving target - but I don't think I did too bad a job!Clapping hands! What a clever boy :)