Tiptoe through the Tulips in Silvan

Yesterday I took the kiddies to check out the Kids Week fun at Tesselaar Tulip Festival.

Let me just say, visiting a flower farm is not normally my idea of an exciting day out so it was an unexpected surprise that I enjoyed this one so much.

They’ve got all these awesome kids things happening over the school holidays, and best of all, it’s free for kids under 16 to get in! (Adults are $22, conc. $18)

Squishy trying out some Dutch style

There was shows running on the stage practically all day with lots of singing and dancing, a Despicable Me 2 show starring 2 dancing minions and an awesome and educational animal show from the Reptile man, and then we checked out their stall afterward and got to meet and pat some cool lizards and I got to hang out with this guy…I can’t remember what kind of python the guy said it was, but it was just gorgeous!

 

Hanging out with my scaly new friend

 

The face painting was amazing. Yes, the line was HUGE and we waited nearly an hour, but it was also right at the busiest time of the day, but they were only charging $10 a kid and the ladies were doing a really wonderful job, every single kid I saw looked amazing – lots of frozen themed ones, princesses, dogs, cats, super heroes, lions everything.

Squishy wouldn’t sit still long enough to get his face painted, so the lady did this adorable rainbow spider on his arm. He loved it!

My “frozen” princess

And now a smiling one 🙂

 

Squishy’s spider, he was showing it off all day!

The fairy garden was just adorable, and we even stumbled across a fairy taking a nap in a tree!

Who’s that up there having a sleep?

The mobile animal farm was a huge hit with the kids, they loved meeting the gorgeous baby cow, lambs, bunnys, guinea pigs, geese, chickens, ducks, a goat kid and a cheeky little piglet.

Getting cuddly with the lambs

Oink Oink

Alpacas

And lets not forget the reason for the festival… The tulips!

They were gorgeous, I had no idea there were so many wonderful varieties and colours of tulips, it was like walking through a rainbow!

 

 

We’ll definitely be heading back again next year.

 

 

 

 

* This is not a sponsored post, just a review of a place I visited.  If you would like me to review something for you, sponsored for otherwise, please contact me via email at contact.thisisbeck@gmail.com  *

Road trip, part 2

Ok so we made it to Warnambool.

We checked in to our room for the night, got settled in and had a glass of bubbly to celebrate our trip, then decided to go exploring.

We walked down the main st, checking out some cute shops and sussing out our dinner options for later. Then we took a drive around the foreshore and river district and had a little walk around, we even found a few twilight markets on, and enjoying some time to actually talk, to each other, without any little munchkins demanding attention!

With such a perfect sunny day, it seemed a waste to go sit inside somewhere for dinner, and then we remembered the cute little courtyard at the back of Fishtales Cafe, so off we went for dinner.
Salt & pepper squid to share, an then a burger each, Zorba for Kane and tandoori chicken for me, and of course a couple of pale ales. Yummo!

Super cute Fishie made from old bottle tops @ Fish Tales Cafe

After dinner back to the room to enjoy a night of (kid-free) relaxation and check out the great corner spa.

Next morning we went to Koroit Pet Resort to pick up our long-awaited puppy.

(by the way Victorian people, if you’re ever looking for somewhere for your pets to go stay while you’re on holidays, the lovely Josee @ Koroit Pet Resort is wonderful with animals.)

Polly and siblings giving Josee lots of kisses

Polly is a Pyrenean Mountain Dog (or Great Pyrenees as they’re known in the U.S.) She is absolutely gorgeous, we are all completely in love with this new addition to our family. Kane came up with the name “Polly-Bear” because when we first saw her, she looked just like a little white polar bear.

After we got our little Polly-bear, we started on the long journey home.

We decided to stop off at Timboon for a bit of exploring and lunch.

Gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous! We had lunch at the distillery, WOW, yummy.

Lots of lovely local beers to choose from and some fabulous wood-fired pizzas (Kane had something yummy with pumpkin and goat’s cheese and rocket.  I had a slow-roasted pork with apple and fennel and home made relish…omg, if we lived closer, I would be going there every week!)

The distillery offers tasting of their whiskey and liquers and they also have a huge range of locally made produce, including the wonderful Timboon ice cream, just perfect for dessert. (Also really lovely was that they are pet- friendly, not only was Polly allowed to come sit with us in the deck, but all the staff were coming to give her cuddles because she was just so cute!)

So, that’s about it. Came home to collect the kids and introduce them to Polly, they became instant best friends. Now I am busily puppy-proofing the shed and constantly rescuing the kids toys from our fluffy little terror.

Road Trip

* Finally got around to finishing off the blog post I wrote 3 weeks ago, lets just blame it on Christmas, or the kids, or whatever else you wanna think up…*

Hubby and I decided to treat ourselves to a little pre-Christmas treat last weekend.

We had to make the road trip down to Warnambool to pick up our pup so I jumped online and booked us a night away.

Saturday, we left the kiddies and headed off down the great ocean road. I haven’t been down there for at least 15 yrs and had forgotten what a gorgeous drive it is.

We stopped at Anglesea for breakfast at the General Store, Kane had the biggest home-made sausage roll I have ever seen (and yummy too) and a decadent gooey chocolate brownie and a caffeine top-up for me.
Back on the road, sun shining, music blaring. The perfect day for a road trip, the only thing that could have made it better would have been to be driving it in a convertible.
Next stop was a pretty stretch of beach just out of Apollo Bay, where we went for a little walk, checking out rock pools.

We couldn’t drive past the 12 Apostles without stopping to take a peek. Absolutely stunning.

Next stop… Warnambool

(Stay tuned for part 2 in a day or two  whenever I remember to do it!)

Till then, hope everyone had a great Christmas, I am still completely stuffed from non-stop eating and drinking the last few days (and loving it!)

Listmania 8

This weeks listmania prompt was to write a “Reverse Bucket list”, a list of things you’ve done so far. I thought this was a really awesome idea. We spend so much time thinking about the things that we still want to do, that we can often overlook the cool stuff we’ve already done.

Here’s some highlights from the last 30 years:

Paris

My Europe trip.

I hate flying, so surviving 21 hrs on a plane was a really big deal for me.

I got to go to Croatia and see where my Dad grew up and meet some of our relatives. I went to Peré Lachaise cemetery in Paris to visit Jim Morrison’s grave. I ate amazing breads and cheeses and drank local wines and beers and had a wonderful time. The only thing I would change if I could would be to have not gone with my (at-the-time) boyfriend, who was a miserable git the whole time and stopped me from trying lots of things I would like to have done.

Becoming a qualified hairdresser.

I have a pretty short attention span and tend to jump from idea to idea fairly quickly, and rarely finish things. (I have a whole cabinet devoted to unfinished craft projects to come back to one day!)

So when I started a hairdressing apprenticeship, I had major doubts about whether I’d be able to stick it out for the whole four years.

Miss Snugglebug meeting Squishy for the first time.

Having Babies.

Before having my daughter, I thought I was prepared to give birth, I read books, I went to the classes, I was ready… Then it happened and it was nothing like I imagined. It was the most powerful, incredible, scary, overwhelming experience I’ve ever had. And that was with the epidural. Then I held the squirmy little thing the midwife handed me and nothing else mattered anymore. The second time round, there wasn’t time for an epidural. I had to do it naturally. I am still in awe of this thing that our bodies are supposedly designed to do. But again, same as last time, when I held my son, nothing else mattered and I’d do it again a hundred times over for my beautiful babies.

Music.

I’ve always loved music, of all kinds and I was lucky enough to start going to see bands at a fairly young age. For my eleventh birthday I asked for mum to take me to the (don’t laugh) MC Hammer concert! This sparked a life-long obsession with live music.

I can’t even begin to count how many gigs I’ve been to, but these are some of my favourites: – Prince, – Metallica, – The Black Eyed Peas, – Eminem, – Madonna, (back when she was cool) – UB40, – Neil Young and Crazy Horse, (a couple of years ago, and again tonight!) – The Whitlams, (twice, so far) – Pet Shop Boys, -Snoop Dogg, – Kanye West, – The Drones, (4 or 5 times and counting) – Sime Nugent, – Nelly.

Garlic Snails

Food.

I love trying different kinds of food, Thai, Vietnamese, French, Malaysian, Nepalese, German, Indian, Greek, Indonesian, Spanish, Turkish, Japanese. I haven’t had Ethiopian or proper Moroccan yet, but I’m sure I will. I even have a rule when out at a restaurant, that if I see something on the menu that I’ve never tried before, I have to order it.

So far I’ve had Quail, Snails, (really yummy) Pigeon, (like tiny, tiny chicken) Sea snail and minced raw steak with a raw egg on top at a fancy japanese restaurant.

So, that’s it for my ” reverse bucket list”. What makes your list?

Till next time,
Beck xoxo