Day 1

After a bit of a sleep in, I find I'm not in a rush to go anywhere really, but son wants to show daughter around K-mart and daughter has asked if we can start doing those "tourist things".
We spent the morning doing puzzles from the newspaper, playing, reading and chatting. Drove to the local shopping centre at midday and walked around, browsing shops and the toy section of Kmart. Lunch cravings hit at 1pm, so sat down and daughter had her first real hot-dog which she thought was very yummy.

Browsed the bookshop after (we have great bookshops) and bought some groceries. Was saying to mum if we hang around long enough, I should run into someone I know and wouldn't you know it, a few minutes later, I run into Melissa whose son went to pre-school with my son, last time we were here.

Later in the day, mum takes kids to park and I went with sis to pick up her kids from school and look at her computer which seems to have contracted a nasty virus. Oh well, shit happens!

Mum and kids arrive there later on and daughter, who we thought was allergic to cats, is not reacting to the cat at all. In fact, her usual terror of all things animal is taking a brave backseat while she takes deep breaths. My family are animal people, but my own family are not. We've never even had a dog, though we did have fish for a while, pre kids. Daughter has been scared of animals since she was a baby, though I don't know why. Anyway, she coped especially well with the presence of a loose cat in the house and the snake moving around in it's tank. I was very proud of her.

After dinner at mum's, I take the kids to see a friend who I've known since highschool, but have only reconnected with her last year when I came back home. The kids have a great time together and we catch up over two cups of coffee and can't believe how fast time has gone since I was last here. It's strange, but I always have a lot to say to her, despite almost ex's opinion that my conversation skills are sorely lacking.

Kids got tired around 9, so I thought great, I'm in for an early night, but no, they got a second wind after announcing they were hungry and so we didn't get to sleep til around midnight - maybe they are still on Malaysian time which is 2 hours behind us.