Birthday Celebrations (1)

Each year, Melbourne partially shuts down during the months of March and April for the festival known as "Vicki's birthday." Hannah has decided that that is an excellent way of celebrating. This year her birthday party is divided into three (or is it four?) separate events. The first event was a Saturday night sleepover party with her friends Nora, Emma, and Juliana. The party included lots of food, dance, games, a screening of "Singin' in the Rain", and this magnificent cheesecake from Junior's, a Brooklyn institution. Stay tuned for further updates from Birthday Party Central.

Upstaged (2)

Jess has run the London Marathon. That's, like, twice as far as my half-marathon!! Man! Well done Jess, you're a winner!

Sam's playdate

Sam's playdates are exhausting events. Running up and down hallways, jumping on beds, setting up train sets, playing with Buzz Lightyear, it just doesn't seem to stop. Here, he and David take a breather.

Upstaged (1)

I reckon a loop around Prospect Park for a 6 year old is probably equivalent to a half marathon. The week after my race, Hannah's entire school performed a Walkathon around the park. Here is Hannah at the halfway point. I don't know how she got her hair to obscure Lucas like that. You can watch a two minute film of the event here. In the film, you can see almost all of Hannah's class, most of her friends from other classes, the school, the park, 3rd Street, but, somehow, not Hannah or me. We were there though. Promise.

Brooklyn Half Marathon

On Saturday April 14, my running buddies and I ran the Brooklyn Half Marathon. We had perfect spring weather and the 13.1 mile course took us from Coney Island to Prospect Park. We managed it in 2 hours, 9 minutes (just under ten minutes per mile) as per our schedule. Here we are looking remarkably fresh at race end (left to right: Kristen, Kathy and Lily). The celebrations afterward did justice to the effort of the race.

Spiderman and the Butterfly

Unplugged

This week is Hannah's school's Unplug Your TV Week. No TV, no computers, no electronic games. It's been very peaceful, we've done loads of puzzles and games, but it also means I haven't been able to update the blog. Because when it comes to enforcing instructions, Hannah takes inspiration from this guy.

Good Winners?

Here's how the children behave when they beat their father at "Sorry." Where do they learn this stuff?

Fashion Victims

Will bought a size 5X shirt, the biggest he could find. Sam, Alexa, and Hannah tried it on for size.

Look Out Big Kids

Sam was able to walk a bit taller around the playgrounds of New York last week. Anyone who messed with him had Will and Freddie to deal with.

Teens Take Manhattan

The Kerr-Dineens hit town last week...and it stayed hit! Here they are at the top of the Rockefeller Center. While they were in New York they went everywhere, did everything. They saw all the usual sights, and while Sarah was trying to drag everyone around the cultural highlights, Georgie and Will were more interested in setting up camp in places like this (I tried to follow them in, but my i.d. showed that I was way over-age.) In fact, shares in Abercrombie and Fitch plummeted when news came in that the KD's had left the country.