a brief interlude

we had  a brief interlude without the  little man last weekend. A date for M and I - whilst some dear friends came over to babysit. Little man had a great time turning on the penguin toy our friends gave him. 

Have to say it was a lovely day over sydney harbour and we had reservations at Sails on Lavender Bay. 

What an awesome location or a restaurant, right by the harbour with a view of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, and yachts moored just in the bay.

Lunch itself - the food was lovely. We had a travelzoo special 3 course lunch for 2. The meal started with amuse bouche of lemon zucchini arrancini. It was really delicious. 

M and i had the same courses for entree and main. Duck salad and king salmon. The duck was so very tasty.. that i  wished that there was more. the King salmon was good, but not my favorite course.

For dessert M had the cheese plate, and i had an amazing panna cotta..

Am inspired to try making this once we have our new kitchen.

The service was nice, though the kitchen was slow. It would be a lovely spot to linger for abit. 

hawaii 2012 - north shore

on Hawaii - i love hawaii - a few years when M and i went for our first trip there.. Now i had been there once when i was a child - i still have the photos of me in that hawaiian print dress and the hula dancer..(might have to dig it out and have it scanned)
What's not to love about a city that has great beaches  and warm tropical waters, nice weather year round and friendly people.

This is our first family trip away overseas. We had high hopes of L sleeping all the way there given we were on an overnight flight.. he had other plans. So no one slept much on the flight there.. 2 tired parents and a tired toddler. We were smart enough though to have loaded the ipad with his favourite show - Fireman Sam or AM as L calls it. And that was a godsend for the hours that he was awake.
so here's my tip for those travelling with a sub 2 year old. If your child has a favourite show and you have a portable device like an ipad - make sure you load a few hours of the show on it.
Admittedly despite the lack of sleep, L was really well behaved.

We had 12 glorious days in oahu - the first part to be spent on the north shore, the second down in waikiki.
I had booked in at a condo in the estates at Turtle Bay. After resolving some issues with the keys - we were able to settle in and all have a desperately required kip.

My MIL arrived later in the afternoon and we all headed out in our large Jeep to get acquainted with the neighbourhood east of our location. First stop Foodland for supplies. We then headed back to our condo, and as you travel with a little one, ours has dinner around 5 so we decided to stop at Romy's for shrimp for dinner.. L had at least 3 of my shrimp and some rice. I tasted one of MIL garlic butter shrimp. Which was quite tasty and then back home for the normal routine for L.

our condo is really well situated.. about a 10 minute walk to the beach as we discovered - a perfect little cove - Kuilima Cove that was not overcrowded - which was great for L's introduction to daily beach life!