Cupcakes

The Crane and O'Brien Gang

Merry Christmas 2013

The girls had another wonderful Christmas Day. Unfortunately their morning started with Enzo bringing Tiger a Christmas presents of sorts. Luckily Brooke is not to scared of mice and was able to save the little critters life.

There were lots of presents to be unwrapped.  Santa bought CJ a wonderful new ukelele and Brooke a back lit whiteboard. They both received a lot of art equipment so we can expect to see lots of drawing and water colours over the school holidays.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Courtney's New Shoes

Courtney received an early Christmas gift from the Dawes and they are pretty fantastic!!

Symphony in the City

This evenging thecranegirls went with Dad and Louise to the Symphony in the City. We took a picnic dinner and then just after sun down the Western Australia Symphony Orchestra played for about 90 minutes.

The girls liked the music but it may be a long time before they are classical music fanatics. They liked the picnic and ice cream just as much, if not more.

Netball

Today was the last game of the netball season for Brooke. It was the best game yet, ending in a draw but both teams played a wonderful game.

Macaroon Making

Today Louise and the girls cranked the air conditioning on and made about 100 macaroon shells. Yum!

Courtney's Song

Courtney performed her own song tonight at her school music recital. She also played a solo clasical piece, did a duet and lead a whole group in singing another song. Alway, here is the world wide debut of Courtney's song

Braces Off

Today Courtney had her braces removed!

Christmas Tree

Today thecranegirls, Dad and Louise went to the Christmas tree farm.

Courtney's First Job

Courtney got a job today. She is going to be cleaning the dog hydrotherapy bath at the local vet twice a week.

Dad is pretty jealous she is getting paid $20.00 per hour - tax free!

Picnic #1

Today the girls, Louise and Dad headed to Matilda Bay foreshore for the first of this summers picnics. It was a lovely day but the flies were a little friendly.

General Update

Brooke has been playing with a new netball team for the last few weeks. Yesterday was Courtney's first game of indoor beach volleyball with her friends from school. Good to seem the girls are getting some exercise.

Brooke has been madly playing Pokemon X and Y over the last couple of weeks. She waited and waited for the games to be released, we just hope she does not conquer them too soon.

Courtney has started attending some night classes at the Western Australia Academy of Performing Arts. Although she is the youngest there by many years, she is loving it! She is getting a trill from being around people who like to sing as much as she does.

Lastly, CJ is looking at getting a job over the Christmas break. We're not sure what sort of work she will apply for as yet.

Afternoon in the Park

In a somewhat rare event, the girls went down to the park just to play on the swings and to allow Dad to take a photo or two.

It was a lovely afternoon.

Loving Sisters

Sizzler

Tonight the girls went to dinner with the O'briens. Always something for everyone to eat at Sizzlers.

The Royal Show 2013

Perth Royal Show 2013

Hot Chocolate Fudge - Fast Eddies

Father's Day

Last night the girls stayed at Grandma and Pa's house. The girls and Grandma watched a television show about Elizabeth Taylor and all her jewelry.

Today, begin Father's Day, the girls, Grandma and Louise took Pa and Dad out for a very late breakfast - cause the girls slept in until 10:00am.

Pa is happy as he has a gift voucher/reason to go to Bunnings and Dad is happy with a huge jar of jelly beans.

This afternoon the girls got stuck into some sweeping up and cleaning the car. They're raising pocket money for Minecraft and Pokemon.

Lake Mountain

St Kilda

We're Home

After a couple of long flights. Thecranegirls are back home.

Our Final Day in London

Train to Gatwick

It's been a busy last day in England. This evening we returned to Victoria Station and collected our baggage before catching the Gatwick Express. Brooke was really impressed by this train. We're not sure if she was comparing it to all trains or just the ones she had been on over the last few weeks.

After arriving at the airport terminal, we caught a small shuttle train over to the main airport area and the Sofitel where we were staying the night. The girls worked on their journals in the lobby of the hotel before going to bed.

Big Ben

After Westminster Abbey we walked around the corner to the Elizabeth Tower which contains Big Ben. This landmark has always been a favorite of Courtney's and although we had seen it earlier in the week, it was nice to get up close. The girls were given another of their Lifescout badges which they were pretty happy about.

Then we caught the tube to Bond Street and met Louise at Selfridges on Oxford Street. We had dinner at Yo Sushi, of which both Courtney and Brooke have become big fans.

Westminster Abbey

This afternoon we visited Westminster Abbey, which is primarily a church but also serves as the the place of coronation for the kings and queens of England and the church in which Prince William and Princess Kate were married.

There is a whole section of the church called Poets Corner where a lot of famous writers and musicians have been buried or a monument has been erected to acknowledge their life.

The Last Lunch

It's fair to say the girls are now very good at negotiating the London Tube, walking through busy crowds and taking their lunch in any corner pub. It is now fairly seamless to arrive, find a wifi network and order a lemonade with lunch. We're going to miss this lifestyle.

Tower Bridge and the Tower of London

This morning the girls and Dad caught the tube to the Tower Hill station and then walked down the hill to the waterfront where we could get  a good view of the Tower Bridge. Ever since he was a little boy, Dad had thought this bridge was called the London Bridge and it was this bridge mentioned in the nursery rhyme - but he was wrong. The London Bridge is a little further along the Thames.

Just next to the Tower Bridge is the Tower of London. It is another castle which is a lot smaller the Windsor Castle but still very impressive. It was interesting to learn that past Kings had collected a lot of exotic animals and kept them inside the castle grounds. In some places you can see bricked areas which may have been used for animal enclosures. Apparently at one time there were lions, tigers, elephants and even a polar bear living inside the castle walls.

We saw most of the Crown Jewels which had been made since English Civil War. We were lucky Queen Elizabeth II's crown was there because she had worn it the previous day at the opening of parliament. We were not allowed to take any photos of the crown jewels, not even of the old rickety boxes that were built long ago to keep them in.

  

It was really cold the day we went to the Tower of London and there were long lines to get into each building so the girls quickly lost interest in going to see the gallows or places where people were executed. We did go and look at the exhibition about how the money was made and all the different types of weapons the royal soldiers have used over the centuries.

Les Miserables

This afternoon the girls went to see Les Miserables on stage. They were both really impressed.

The British Museum

This morning saw us of to the British Museum for a wander around. It's fair to say the museum experiences are all blending together for the girls (and Dad) and their interest levels are decreasing.

Still, it was good to see the Rosetta Stone and a sphinx statue. Courtney had learnt about them in school and she spent a lot of time teaching Brooke everything she knew.

With only a couple of days left in London, it's starting to dawn that this adventure is coming to an end. The girls are excited to get home and see Mum and Tiger, but at the same time they know there is so much more to see here.

A Busy Day

This morning we caught our first double decker bus. Courtney quickly worked out the direction and bus number we needed and we were lucky enough to have the whole top deck to ourselves. We sat right at the front and had an awesome view of the streets below us.

We took the bus to Earls Court tube station where there is a real blue police box which is designed to look just like the TARDIS. We're not really sure what purpose the box serves but it looks like some sort of CCTV station.

From Earls Court we caught the tube over to Charing Cross Station. In another moment where you come out of the underground and know you are standing somewhere special, we walked up the steps and found ourselves standing in the middle of Trafalgar Square with all the monuments and fountains.

We walked to the M&M World which was four floors of every colour and merchandise you could think off! Awesome place - you can buy (and spend top dollar) on anything there and it will have an M&M logo on it. There was a wonderful smell of chocolate in the air.

Then we walked on the National Portrait Gallery which houses one of the weirdest things we have seen. Marc Quinn's sculpture entitled 'Self' is a self-sculpture made out of 8 pints of his own frozen blood!

Then we went to the National Gallery and saw works from Van Gogh and Monet. Dad and thecranegirls have really sponged up the culture in the last month. We have taken to stopping and looking at only the art which takes our fancy. There is just too much of it to take it all in.

To end the day, we went on to the British Cartoon Museum which was a little too political and over all our heads - so we went to the pub next door for a lemonade.

London Zoo and Regents Park

Today we caught the tube to Camden and then walked to the London Zoo. We were lucky, having the London Pass cards got us express entry and we seemed to have half an hour in the zoo without too many other people.

The zoo was impressive and had a lot of reptiles and a large aquarium exhibit, but on the whole it was similar to Perth Zoo. A great experience and another lesson on how well we have things at home. One of the cool things about the zoo is the girls (unknowingly) visited another location where they filmed a Harry Porter movie. In the photo below the girls are standing right on the spot Harry Potter was sitting when he spoke to the snake for the first time.

After the zoo, we walked through Regents Park on our way to catch up with Dad's cousin Bryan who lives in London. The gardens were absolutely beautiful! Pa would spend hours wandering around theses gardens.

The Royal Mews

Just down the road from Buckingham Palace, we visited the Royal Mews. This is the place where all the Queen's horses and carriages are kept.

We had a guided tour and we met some of the horses. We got to see the Australian carriage and learnt it has electricity installed to operate the air conditioning and heating.

Buckingham Palace

We went to Buckingham Palace today and got to see the guards standing smartly to attention out the front - and some policemen leaning on the corner of the building chatting to each other.

Dad did not think too much of Buckingham Palace and can see why the queen prefers to spend her weekends at Windsor Castle. The Palace (on the outside at least) is fairly bland and does not have any where near the character of Windsor Castle.

The gardens were in full bloom and there were lots and lots of people taking photos of themselves, the buildings and monuments.