Rock'n santa

Blog Bettanin hopes your Christmas rocks!

Santa photos 2008

There was no need to prep Tor for his meeting with the jolly man this year. Alison could bearly control his dash from Tram to Santa!

We remain indebted to the City of Melbourne for arranging a free visit from Santa, thereby liberating us from the David Jones photo shoot trap.

Early Christmas cheer

Christmas came a little early for Tor this year with a visit to Grandma's house in mid December. He scored an electric guitar and we've been rock'n ever since. Tor knows all the classic moves, suprising us with air-jumps and body swings during his debut performance.

When the music got too hot we headed to the beach to chill out.

Mr & Mrs Pope

We were priveleged to attend the wedding of Alison's cousin Sarah Roadnight to Ashley Pope on the lawns of the Botanic Gardens, Sydney. Sarah and Ashley are English, southern to be precise and in an effort to become even more southern they had travelled extensively together throughout Australia a few years ago. Sydney was a natural choice for their wedding.

In a word the day was magical, and Blog Bettanin is convinced this magic resulted from the hard work of the happy couple and the admirable tendency of the bride to leave absolutely nothing to chance. This parent of a 3 year old was particularly impressed by their choice of transport to ferry guests to the reception venue. There is little better incentive for a young lad to behave through a wedding service than the promise that 'good boys and girls will get to ride in a little red train afterwards'!!!

The ceremony itself was beautiful and I'm pleased to say that sunlight delivered Sydney Harbour at its best. Tor and the other children played happily on the lawns afterwards and we relaxed as Grandad agreed to assume 'chasing duty'. Mr and Mrs Pope held their reception at the Waterfront, a superb venue where Alison enjoyed the evening catching up with her relatives.

Pictured are the bride, groom, train and train-fanatic; Sarah mid-vows; the bridal party; well-heeled onlookers; the three siblings Aunty Sheila (mother-of-the-bride), Tor's Grandad Ray and much-loved Aunty Jill; Tor and bridge; and the inseperable duo. Anthony also attended, yet as he was neither clad in satin nor holding Tor does not get a photograph entered here.

r2-d2 meets ewok

Its amazing who you bump into at the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney. We ewoks were just passing by for a play at Zoe's House (the museum's play area for construction crazed three-year-olds) when we were intercepted by an advanced robot looking for a chat. Tor also happily bounded up to the "space men" (storm-troopers) which are apparently not scary to those unaware of their link to the dark side of the force. Tor showed no interest in the 6 foot darkly cloaked asthmatic who can be heard in the background of this clip.