Pick up the phone, the phone!!

Stair climb

Ashmi's 2nd birthday

We went to a birthday - a proper birthday party. Deepti's Indian mother's group friend Ranja had her daughter Ashmi's second birthday party in Werribee. A hall was hired, Indian food was catered, there was balloons and cake and unlimited soft drink. All I needed was a cricket talking cousin and I was back in my teenage years.

I had a blast, so did N.

Where's the balloon? ("Bee! Bee!")

Mastered in minutes (see video)

Long dresses in fashion (it was Spring Carnival time)

Ranja, Ashmi, Anirban

Long dress, crocs and Bee! Bee!

Coasting around Woolworths

Cactus-zilla

The post that had to happen. Meet our succulent balcony neighbour. Perverted.
Mmm, succulent. Apparently he's been there longer than the previous owner. The photos don't do justice to the creepy size of the thing.

Much better. Even N doesn't know what to do with him. I'm afraid I'll come home to a Little Shop of Horrors scene where the giant flycatcher plant has swallowed one of the actors.

Good old safe airconditioning. Cactus-zilla doing best Terminator impression.

Since last time

The move to the new house has been an experience for reasons mentioned before. But overall, we're in and N's got new territory.

Our little cul-de-sac, Nepean Ave has a shiny new electricity substation at the end of the street which work always seems to be "in progress". Nepean Ave is a cozy place, there's two apartment blocks on one side of us - with three or four young Indian families. This is good - Naina plays with Australian kids (play is a strong word) and Indian kids (play once again a strong word).

We're in Hampton East. It's about 10 km from the Melbourne CBD, about 2 km from the bay, we've got a park within 400 metres (Wishart Oval, though they call it a park) and Moorabbin shops are about 600 metres away - all the glitz and glamour of Moorabbin. At least two, yes two, Asian restaurants. We were spoilt in Malvern East where we had a pub 200 metres from our front door and not less than 20 different restaurants. No fancy breakfasts in Moorabbin, thanks.

Onto some pictures, the photos are taken upstairs in the guest room, hallway, balcony out of our room and N's room:

This is how the window open's (and the key goes missing)

A lot of our photos of N have to be secretive these days -
she's become like a disgruntled celebrity and always wants the camera

Cutie on the balcony

Cactus-zilla

I've been getting a lot of requests (okay, two, thanks Andrew, Green) for evidence of cactus-zilla.
I refer you to these two photos. Cactus-zilla is ominously, sitting in the background, upstairs like Norman Bates' mother or a Dalek...

http://nainaindrawati.blogspot.com/2009/08/we-got-one.html

And in breaking news

Cactus-zilla lost an arm (flower) in the first big storm in the new house. I seriously thought the roof would fall in. We got about 3 cm of rain in 20 minutes - more ominously, I could see the storm approaching from our bedroom window and as it passed over head, I was sure something was going to give.

Turns out it was cactus-zilla.