lifeasdaddy

lifeasdaddy - Bunnings' playpens

Yesterday morning I told Edward that we needed to go to the hardware store.

He said, "Can we go to the one with the playground please?"

So we went to the Bunnings Warehouse at Belrose. In one corner they've got a partitioned section with some playground equipment.  At weekends it has plenty of kids in it, and Ed likes playing with other kids.  On this occasion, there was only Ed.

When he saw me taking photographs he asked me to take some pics of him looking through the different coloured sections of a tinted perspex window.  He doesn't usually ask me to take specific shots, so I thought I would put them up here.

lifeasdaddy - Edward plays his Ukulele

Gabrielle bought Edward a Ukulele in Hawaii. 

He's long been a fan of guitars, mainly because of Murray.

This one's a Leolani Ukulele. 

So far, Edward's uke playing sounds more sitar than guitar, but he's just starting out.

You can also see Ed's special friends Teddy and Elephant.

Here's youtube of some fine ukulele playing.  And for something more traditional.

lifeasdaddy - Ko'Olina Lagoons. The best beach for children on Oahu, Hawaii.

I won't go into much detail about those beaches we found inappropriate for kids this week, I'll just tell you the best we found.  This is for children under 5 years with limited or no swimming ability.

      I add this caveat:  I believe that children need to be supervised constantly, continuously, and 100% of the time while in the water.  This level of supervision includes the beach I am about to name.

The Ko'Olina Lagoons are a set of 4 man-made (woman made?) seawater lagoons which are protected from waves by rock breakwaters.  The beach is made of fine sand and is gently graded.  Here's a pic of Edward practising his swimming.

The lagoons are surrounded on the land side by a master planned development comprising the Marriott Ihilani Resort & Spa, a timeshare condominium development and the Ko'Olina Marina.  As such it is a gated community and when approached by road a security guard at the shack will ask your reasons for visiting. Each of the lagoons has a small amount of free public car parking - around 20 spaces each - which were full each time we visited.  Apparently the public car parking fills by around 9am each morning.  When the public car parking fills, the guard turns away beach goers.  The trick is to tell the guard that you are going to eat at the Resort restaurants, and also visit the beach.  The guard will issue a lagoon pass.

At Lagoon #1, the first on the right hand side as you drive in, there are reasonably clean amenities blocks, and open air beach side showers wash off the salt water.  There is also foot access to the Marriott resort where you will arrive at the Poolside Grill.  We had lunch at this casual dining outlet twice and both times were very pleased with the food, beverages, and especially the service.  (Thanks Ryann)  Here's the menu, and you can see that the prices are higher than McDonald's, but quite reasonable for this type of hotel and environment.  Importantly, parking in the hotel/resort car park is free with a spend of more than $25 in the resort's food & beverage outlets, so if you park in that car park (probably your only choice) then be sure to take your car park entry ticket with you and have it validated by your server upon payment.

Contrary to what may be read elsewhere on the Internet, there are no lifeguards on duty.

See this Google Map for a satellite view of the lagoons which appear as crescent shapes.  You can zoom out on the map to see driving directions, and it's position relative to the rest of Oahu island.

It's about 25 or 30 minutes drive from Waikiki.

The kids loved having a swim amongst the gentle waves and building sand castles on the sand.

lifeasdaddy - An inexpensive pretend fire fighting toy.

Edward's aunt, Lauren, gave him a spray bottle for play in the swimming pool.  He and his cousins had lots of harmless fun spraying water at each other.  Ed has now found another use for it, and that's putting out imaginary fires.

Good fun, and an inexpensive toy when coupled with the power of imagination.

lifeasdaddy - A package from Quetta

Rosie Oglesby wrote this letter to the Guardian Weekly about posting a letter at a Bangladeshi post office.  It had to be wrapped in cotton and closed with impressive plastic seals.

Today at the post office there was a very interesting package waiting for us from Quetta in Pakistan.

Wrapped in cotton.

And with impressive seals. It was from our dear friends Sean and Alana, who've been hanging out in Quetta for some time.

Wow!

A toy truck to make a boy happy from Timbuktu to Tibooburra.

Thanks Alana and Sean.

lifeasdaddy - Edward visits the fire station.

Today was Open Day at the NSW Fire Brigades' fire stations.

It's a means of communicating fire safety information to families, but most of all, it's a chance for kids of all ages to check out the fire engines and the fire stations.  We took Ed along, and naturally he loved it.  Here's a selection of photos, and you can click on the thumbnail for a larger view.

lifeasdaddy - Ed the baker.

Ed and Gabrielle are baking as I'm writing this.  Ed's first job was to grease the baking tin with some butter.  He's a good cook.

Here's the recipe for GoodTaste Family ginger bread.

Just as a bonus, I'll include this photo I took of Edward while he was asleep earlier this week.  He's covered with his favourite quilt which was a gift to him as a newborn from our friend Lorraine.

lifeasdaddy - Ed rides the big red train

   Ed told Gabrielle that he wanted "to go to the train park" this weekend. So today we took him to Bales Park in Willoughby (maybe it's in Chatswood).

It's got a great wooden train which kids love to drive, and use to play all sorts of games.  The train is surrounded by a big sand pit so there's minimal risk of kids hurting themselves if they play sensibly.

Edward thinks that it looks just like James the Red Engine from the Thomas the Tank Engine stories.

Ed  likes to pick up little sticks and other combustibles so that he can put them into the "fire box" of the engine, at the botom of the cabin.  Then it's time to drive the train.

lifeasdaddy - What's wrong with this photograph?

Look carefully now.

Yes, Edward has got his sandals on the wrong feet.

He's getting pretty good at dressing himself.  Yesterday we were getting ready to go out, and I pointed out to him that he had his sandals around the wrong way. He insisted that that's how he wanted it, and it didn't seem like something worth arguing about, so go out we did.

lifeasdaddy - The Smoby toys pedal digger with backhoe

   We were wlaking through a shopping centre earlier this week and Ed's attention was captured by a ride-on pedal toy which is a very realistic looking scale version front end loader with backhoe.

It looks like it's made by the toy manufacturer Smoby under licence from JCB.