Our Travels

School broke out on the 13th and my kids and I were on the flight headed for NZ on the 15th. 19 hours of flying and 12 hours layover later we landed in Auckland into the arms of my social media star sister and niece in the freezing winter. We drove past my other social media start sister's house to drop off said niece but alas she was not there with open arms so on to our base for the time being. We all went straight to bed, had a good night's sleep and woke up the next day to seize the day, ready to watch Samoa v ABs game that very evening.  I had planned to make the game to surprise my almost 9 year old for his birthday but he decided that he didn't want to come and sit for 90 minutes of rugby while his mum, aunties and uncles drink too much beer around him. We agreed that was a fair call so Mum, aunties and uncles game night it was. My sister was busy making pales tinged with blue for the Manu for us in the afternoon and our good friend Saki from Brisbane was at home e...

Day 1. We left our dear friends place in the morning and made headway for Obereggen on Saturday morning. The drive from Milan is just magnificent through North Italy. The flat becomes mountains blanketed by terraces of grapevines! I was a passenger in between snoozing I marvelled at the grape growers expertise in traversing the sloped vineyards. Rivers run through vineyards as well as train tracks as a train chugs along through the perfectly lines. And we are on a road that cuts right through this work of art. We ascend higher and higher into the mountains and it's still very green. I'm inwardly worried that there may not be any snow for us to ski on and we were all so looking forward to the snow. We drive through Bonzano and it is warm and the sunshine hitting the green trees is just beautiful. As we ascend the winding road it's still green much to our pleasure coming from the desert however at this moment we'd like white snow! It is of course very late in the season...

Summer is here in Oman. It's now past 40 degrees heat once again. Some days are super hot with dry heat and some just plain humid with heat. Today we made it to the pool at the club we're members at and enjoyed a good swim there until 11am. The pool is cooled which helps so when you're in the pool it's pleasant but if you decide to sit on the side...you'll just swelter. I had a lie in while hubby was up with the awesome twosome. When we got back from the pool I made chocolate muffins for the nagging 5 year old! Hubby and bubs are now at the shops getting some veges as we're low on them. Master 5 is knocked out and I'm trying to de-clutter, cook kids dinner and look I'm blogging instead eek. Ce la vie. School is out in two weeks and we're off to visit family down south where it's winter. I think we'll get a shock coming from this heat but am sure we'll be fine. Can't wait to see mum and catch up with family we get to see. yay.  ...

Day 3: Up early and headed to Maria Delle Grazie where the original Last Supper painting by Leonardo DaVinci is to be found. Unfortunately you have to pre-book to see the painting and as our trip was a bit last minute we were unlucky with the tickets. So I thought we'd still go there and hope for the best. Luckily where we stayed was not far from all this and it amounted to about a 5 minute ride on the train every morning. And once there we could walk everywhere and the streets are so pretty that it's pleasant and fun. We took Tau's stroller of course so we didn't have to carry him though he enjoyed sitting on his dad's shoulders than the stroller half the time. We got to the Grazie and sure enough it's fully booked and we're obviously not the first to think that there may have been cancellations as they had a big sign on the desk to say that there were no cancellations! DaVinci Codes However we weren't to be disappointed as in a smaller chapel they h...