Chuc Mung Nam Moi & Happy Australia Day!

Well, today is an extra special day as we celebrate Australia Day and Vietnamese New Year on the same day... It's the blending of two important days on our calendar from our two cultures... and honestly, it is just wonderful to be able to celebrate these two eastern & western events side by side.

We celebrated new years eve last night with Sharon, Collin, Emily & Isaac last night, along with a few of their friends... we had steamboat for dinner with lots of delicious seafood, meats and vegetables. Just gorgeously yum! Beth was scoffing down the salmon we were cooking, unusual 'cos she doesn't normally like salmon! Beth played with Em and Dylan (a little boy who is 6 months older than Beth) really happily. Phan and I actually got to eat dinner in peace while she played with them... So nice seeing Beth interact with other kids... she was tickling Dylan at one point too (huge progress, 'cos she doesn't normal like getting near kids she doesn't know)... and giving Em hugs... really cute.

Today, we did the typical Aussie thing and spent the morning and early afternoon at Redcliffe, which is only about 30-40 minutes away from where we live ... There is this fantastic family friendly outdoor saltwater pool (it's *HUGE*) and water play area called Settlement Cove Lagoon (Bao, Ty & Phi, I'm wishing I'd known about this place while you were down, because we would have had a ball there!), there was such a safe and fun atmosphere there... lots of people, but not an insane crowd... We got there about 10:30am, spent a good 45 minutes paddling in the water, which was a perfect temperature... I could have spent all day in there. We went and had lunch at a great place called Ebony & Ivory... it reminded me cafe food in Adelaide (those who know me and my foodie obsession, will have heard me complain about the lack of quality of food here in Brisbane *alot*... so it is a big deal for us to finally come across good quality food that for a reasonable price)... I had eggs benedict for lunch (mmm!) & Phan had the house special chicken schnitzel which was really good! Beth looked completely knackered from the swimming... but she managed to eat a good amount of Phan's chicken and down a whole glass of juice. Then we had some icecream (Norgen Vaas) at an icecreamery right next door... (delish!). Beth looked pretty tired, so we walked back down to the lagoon on the way back to the car, and she perked up again when she saw the water, so we went for a second 45 minute swim. I took along my p&s (I don't like taking my 40D out near water!) so I managed to get some photos and a snippet of video footage of our second swim... the camera didn't get too wet from the splashing, but I'm beginning to think about getting a waterproof p&s camera. I apologise for the quality of this footage... I had to downgrade the quality to upload to youtube from 115MB to 15MB... so a lot of quality has been lost, but hopefully you can get an idea of what was going on...

After our second swim, we headed home... Beth crashed after about 10 minutes... and then when I tried to transfer her to her bed, she woke up! I put her down in her cot and she lay in there for about 40 minutes having quiet time, but there was no way she was going back to sleep... so I let her get up after that little rest... I suspect she is going to get tired pretty early tonight! I dressed her up in an ao dai (traditional Vietnamese outfit) in the afternoon... it was a present from Ong Noi from the last time he was in Vietnam... it fits well, except the pants are waaaay to long and they are swimming around her feet... but it's very cute.