Starring Genevieve

Genevieve is full of life and personality.  She is very verbal and loves to sing and be sung to.  Knowing the real words is not at all necessary and we have fun making stuff up.  The current game is turning a 2 year old standard "no" into a game.  She says "no" then I say "maybe" or "perhaps" and the game and giggles is on.  She truly loves water and getting wet and stomping in puddles and running and riding on shoulders and........

Genevieve helping to bake Grandma's 60th birthday cake.

Flying girl at the beach.

A rare pose with Grandma.

Joy, joy, joy!

Stomping in the soft sand.

One sandy girl.

Her favorite thing.  Being held up but able to touch the water.

Our windswept beauty.

Getting her feet wet.

 

Starring Franklyn

Franklyn is a very happy 5.5 month old little boy.  He is a real joy since he smiles and laughs a lot.  He is just now starting to sit up and now is trying out some solid food to supplement Mommy.  A true treasure and wonderful addition to the family.

Two handsome men.

Grandma surely loves her boy.

In the act of sliding down the pillow but so happy.

Sleeping beauty.

Pure cuteness.

Desalinization Plant

Eric is an engineer at the local desal plant and kindly arranged a tour for us.  Rosemary, our guide, was very friendly and knowledgeable.  Her pride in every aspect of the plant was obvious.  In case you didn't know, Australia experiences severe droughts and they have positioned several of these plants outside their larger cities to ensure an adequate supply of drinking water for the people.  They are not inexpensive but at least the seawater is free.

One of the giant intake valves.  The water comes in from the ocean then goes through
a multi-stage process from saltwater to tapwater.

A large holding pond with the berm behind it.  To provide pleasing aesthetics
for the surrounding area, you can't see the plant at all from outside the berm .

The intake valves from the ocean.

The outside of the main plant building is landscaped with native plants.
Quite a bit of effort has gone into making the place as pleasing to all
the various constituencies that might have objected to the plant.

To lend some perspective, this is just one row of one type of filter. This
is the largest desal plant in Australia and 3rd or 4th in the world.  It is
equivalent to the 2 plants in Perth.

One of the many racks of filters.  The water goes through
three phases of cleansing then three steps of salt removal. The
desalinization process removes everything so some minerals need
to be added back in to make it palatable for drinking.

Phillip Island Fun

We are so fortunate that we had Mary as our own personal tour guide.  Although I wasn't able to take pictures of the penguins, it was still an amazing outing.  The park doesn't allow pictures since flashes and lights directly in their eyes is very disturbing to the little creatures.  The penguins on the island and in the Melbourne area in general are the smallest in the world sometimes called Fairy Penguins.  They stand about 3feet tall and weigh in at maybe 3-4 lbs.  Their coats are a shiny, deep blue and they make the most peculiar sound.  They are very social and spend a fair amount of time outside their burrows "chatting".  The night we went to the Penguin Parade was clear and just about the perfect temperature.  Mary had warned us that it is usually quite cold due to wind and general weather conditions on the point so we were very lucky. A bit after dusk the penguins start coming to shore from out in the water.  They come in groups called "'rafts" ranging from a few to 10-12 little birds.  They are prey for larger birds and so don't come to shore until after the predators are off to their roosts.  It was so funny to watch the interplay between the penguins and the sea gulls that seemed to wait for them.  One gull was take delight in chasing the raft as they came ashore and most would scatter back into the surf.  Eventually some of the penguins would tire of the chase and head on in to their burrows.  Some of the little birds just liked playing in the surf and would go out and back many times before they headed home.  Since there was a limited amount of time we would be allowed to be out on the point we split between watching them come ashore then off to the boardwalk to watch them waddle up to their burrows.  This is when we saw lots of preening, canoodling and general socializing.  Mary has volunteered quite a bit with penguin research up in Melbourne so we had a very knowledgeable guide to answer all  our questions.  It was a perfect evening.

Earlier that day we had her as our guide on the walk from a coast point up to a lighthouse then back again.  We also were able to watch part of a surfing completion going on at that beach.  The walk was unique in that it is all along hillsides with nesting sea birds such as plover and many others.  Quite a squawky place.  Best of all we were able to sight an echidna.  This was a real highlight as they aren't usually visible from paths.

 

Looking across the headland to San Remo.

Plover burrows dot the path for a long way.  Sadly, we saw a lot of chicks who
had not made a successful debut into nature.  Not sure what killed them.

Quite a sight to see the caves worn in the cliffs.  I imagine they
would be a lot of fun to explore by kayak or scuba depending on the tide.

One of the many crevices along the way.

It was amazing to watch  the surfers ride the waves.  Mary said it was
definitely not ideal surfing conditions so even more impressive for us.

Our special echidna.  It is a monotreme, an egg laying mammal.

Mary watching the surf competition.

This rock formation is called the Pinnacles.

This is from near the lighthouse looking back the length of the island.

Holes are cut by wind and weather in the softer sandstone.

Not what we were imagining for a lighthouse but later that night it was
very visible from the other end of the island.

A weekend at Phillip Island

Since we wanted to do more exploring on Phillip Island but nap schedules needed to be observed, we rented a house perfect to the task through Airbnb.  The house had enough space for all of us and it was close to everything we wanted to do.  It was in the Smith's Beach area and only a short distance to that beach.  We were close to the Penguin Promenade, a major goal for the trip and the walk to the lighthouse, another major goal.  

The house is on a generous lot with a garden in back and best of all, a trampoline.

The living area and kitchen are all along the front of the house with
the bedrooms and laundry room/toilet/shower along the other side.

Plenty of room for all the fun and games.

Reef walking

One day we went out to this awesome area.  It has tidal pools, sandy beaches and caves.  In other words, a perfect spot for mom to sit and feed Franklyn while Genevieve walks the reefs with Grandma and Grandpa.  There was a lot to see.

These shells were all over the tidal area.  The black spots look like
blackberries but they were hard.  The small white things are limpets.

The striations are from eons of water flowing.

There were new things to discover in every hole.

Of course your feet must get wet on occasion!

The fissures are full of what appears to be a ferrous substance.  It is
hard but not really metallic.  Where's a geologist when you need one?

One of many tide pools along the area. 

Mary and Franklyn in front of one of the caves in the cliff wall.

The sections look almost man-made in their uniform sizes in some spots.

These were unique rock formation.  It looked like elephant hide but was all hard rock.

 

More General Cuteness

Being a completely smitten grandma, I really can't enough of these kids!  Of course, the prototype baby, Mary is pretty special as well.

Suppertime for Franklyn.  Genevieve was entertaining him.

Grandpa rigged a slingshot for toys with his exercise bands. 
Genevieve thinks this is the best way for her cat and goat dolls to travel.

Act II.

This is a much loved toy.  It has been in several rooms now currently in her room.

Genevieve's New House

Many years ago David built a house of extra cardboard boxes for Mary.  She loved playing in it until we moved from Sacramento.  There were extra boxes saved for a repeat project for Genevieve.  She loves it and he had fun in the design and execute phases.  We did have to take it apart to get it upstairs but no problem.  He incorporated her current box hideout so Grandma Boesiger's stickers are still intact!

Beautiful stickers are on the house!

I don't have a decent photo editing software on this computer so she
looks a bit of the zombie.  She loves the Minions as much as I do.

Inside the house before decorations of Mommie's cushion and other
blankets, books and animals were added.

Almost finished.

Going in the front door.

Tada!  All you need is a steeple with a star to make it complete.

Throwing things out of the windows is great fun.  Cat flies away.