MADISON'S 1st holiday

our dear Madison is indeed one lucky gal....

WEEK 5 and she is off to Melbourne, Australia for a 1 week jaunt...the amount of luggage that she created: an entire suitcase of new clothing, the AVENT steriliser, bottles, breast pump and BRESTFRIEND pillow and a pile of diapers, her carry cot/car seat and stroller.. the rest of us had minimal luggage!

We left Singapore on the 14th of April, 1 day after she turned 1 month...We flew on Singapore Airlines SQ228. It was a night flight, which in retrospect turned out to be a bad choice as we, the parents didn't get to sleep! Madison slept so well it was a nightmare trying to rouse her to latch on during take off and landing!
The entire flight there was filled with coughing spluttering people, mainly children too... resulting in the ENTIRE family coming down with a cold/sinusitis, starting with Pa, then Ma and now Chris and I are starting to come down with it too!

We arrived in Melbourne at 8 in the morning, and picked up the car ( RAV 4) that Chai had booked for us. For some reason, she started her distinct dislike of the car seat during this trip... the initial protests turned into massive wails and screams until we reached the house... we got stuck in traffic trying to avoid the CITYLINK toll...

The first day was spent at the Registry of births, deaths and marriage attempting to register her birth.. after waiting eons we were finally served, only to be faced with the immense difficulty of getting an approval for the registration form! BOB, the guy serving us was really helpful though, and went out of his way to enquire about the process of application for us... took us almost 2 hours to accomplish and we are still in the dark about the success of the application!

Ming and Olivia were the first to see Madison, and they joined us for dinner. Cheryl and Selene were next...our dear Maddi decided to play up most of the trip at dinner time, refusing to settle... I suppose she realised something was up...We had a get together on Friday night, with a potluck dinner at home... Austin and Lyana/ Angus/ mike and Yen/ Alex and Lisa/ Soong Chua/ Janette and Asrar/ Pete and Carla turned up ..

Most of the trip revolved around our dear girl. We did manage to go to Albert Park one morning for a really short stroll to see the ducks, one afternoon in the city shopping at David Jones' Food Hall, and breakfast at the Victoria Market, shopping at Brunwsick discount stores...(Nike and Addidas), breakfast at Joe's Garage...

Pa did most of the food catering at home... he was absolutely mesmerised by the meat department at the Victoria market. We had steak, pork roast, Osso bucco,crab in it's shell. I had lots of Chicken soup courtesy of ma, diligently chopping chicken at night to stew in the slow cooker...

we met up with Chai for dinner and most of Saturday.Han Ting came over as well.. they make a nice couple. Chai held Madison and really looked the part!

Sunday came around really quickly, and we were soon packing once again to make the journey back home. We left Melbourne really early in the morning for a day flight back to Singapore on SQ 238. Once again Madison was super sleepy in the plane, driving me crazy trying to force her to latch on for take off and landing! IT was amazing the stuporific effect the plane had on her! If only she would sleep like that at night at home!

We arrived safely home in the afternoon and took a taxi back to the Papillon house... in preparation for the final move back to our apartment ( we had been staying at the Novena house since she was born )...stress..