Featherdale wildlife park

as part of our plan to do more with boo before baby #2 arrives, we took him to Featherdale wildlife park. Jim scored a good deal on scoopon, instead of the usual $29 per ticket, we paid $28 for all our tickets (entrance for boo is free). 

the park started off pretty good. as we walked in, we were greeted with wallabies and we got to feed them too. boo was not keen to get out of his stroller because he doesn't like unpaved ground, especially one covered in animal poos but as we spotted a little joey in its mother's pouch, he was distracted and forgot all about the poos and unpaved ground.  

after that, we got to pet a owl like looking bird which i've forgotten the name followed by a koala. boo was very excited when we got to the wombats enclosure. 

most of the wildlife are Australia natives like the Tasmanian devil, kangaroos, emu, echidnas . there's also a farmyard nursery with bunnies, chickens, pigs, sheeps and guinea pig. as we continued to explore the rest of the park, we realised a lot of the enclosure are repeats of the animals we've seen in the other parts of the part and there are multiple enclosures of the same wildlife. we have only arrived less than an hour ago. 

all in all, i think boo had an enjoyable time at the park. whilst the park is nothing like Taronga Zoo, at least he got to see and learn about most of the native animals. 

next up, we wanna take him to either Taronga Zoo or the Sydney Aquarium.  

Balmoral beach on a rainy day

we're so lame.  it's almost the end of autumn and we decided to take the boy to the beach. not only was it not sunny, it was drizzling too. but i swear, the sun was out before we left home but as we got closer, it started to drizzle. nevertheless,  we managed to take some decent photos, checked out the beach and realise it is actually closer to where we live than expected. probably one of the closest and more accessible beach to us. on top of that,  parking is not bad, there's a nice cafe just down the esplanade and the beach is quite kiddy friendly too.

looking forward to summer 2015 already. 

ps: i must be quite out of touch with blogging with photos. the tone/colours of some of the photos in this post looked different from how they were or how i intended them to be when i edited them. it felt like blogger altered the colours as i uploaded them to the post. 

Sydney Royal Easter show 2014

wow, the last blog post with more than one photo was like 3 months ago. time for some photos! 

as the due date of baby #2 gets closer,  we feel the need to spend more quality time with boo. his life is about to change forever. soon he would not have 100% of our attention and be the only child. i often feel sad for him and i hope he understands when he is older that it is much nicer growing up with a sibling than without one. 

i have to admit we're quite lazy parents and we don't often take him out much to do 'interesting' things. not that we don't want to but our time mainly get filled up with chores and full time work. so, lately we're making more effort to take him out. 

first up, the royal Easter show. as we are both on leave when the show is on and boo is old enough to go on rides and appreciate the show, we decided to take him this year and i'm so glad we did. 

on the day before,  we looked up on the show guide to get an idea of the types of activities be might be interested and the timing so that we can make the most of day. 

we got to the show bright and early and made our way to the farmyard nursery. so early that it was not opened yet so we went and check out different types of sheep where boo picked up a colouring book and some sheep/lamb related posters. at the farmyard nursery, we bought some animal feeds to feed the farm animals, we saw some hatching chicks, we patted some sheeps and goats and the animal that boo was most interested in was the puppies!  after that, we went to the milking shed to 'catch' a milking presentation but we left half way because boo wasn't interested. we picked up some free milo with milk on our way out and that was the first time boo had milo. he loved it. chocolate milk! yum! 

after the milking shed, we went to the poultry exhibits to check out some show birds. boo got very excited when we found freshly laid eggs in some of the cages. we touched some of them and they were still warm. 

no Easter show is complete without rides but we're not sure if this boo would be a fan of them because i certainly am not one. lucky daddy is and he could take boo with him. boo's energy level was starting to get a bit low by the time we finished checking out the animals but he perked up as we got to the rides area. we walked around a little to figure out what type of rides would be suitable for him. in the end, he went on 4 different rides, his favourite was the super slide. he asked to go again as soon as he came down. and his least favourite was this spinning saucer thingymagic that resembles the spinning tea cup except it goes up and down as it spins round and round. i could see his face changed after the first ten seconds. 

after the rides, we had some lunch, checked out the arts and crafts section, and headed to check out the dmx show. i thought the show was pretty awesome but by this time, the boy started to get a little restless as it is almost his nap time. we managed to catch most of it before heading to the show bags area to pick up an octonauts show bag for him and a princess show bag for his cousin. we thought this boy would be so excited when he sees the octonauts show bag but by this stage, he was already sounds asleep in his stroller. instead of heading home, we took the opportunity to check out the food dome. i was going to try the famous cwa scone and cream but i was too full after lunch. we wander around the food dome and other sections of the show while the boy napped in the stroller. 

all in all, we all had a great time at the Easter show and i'm glad we took boo out of daycare because i don't know when we'll be going again.