Do you have a default place that you go to when you know that you just have to get out of the house before you go completely stark raving mad? We have that place. And even though we try to think of other places, we always end up back there no matter what.
It kinda goes a little something like this…
Me, “Man, I really feel like going out today, I feel like we’ve done nothing all weekend.” (This is code for I don’t want to cook so take me out or eat scrambled eggs. Again.)
Seth, “OK cool where do you want to go?” This is usually said when we are already in the car, driving towards a random, unknown destination.
Me, “How about um. That place. Um. You know that one right? That, uh flip, I can’t think of the name.”
Kyla, “I’m starving. Can we go have something to eat? I WANT PASTA!”
Riya, “I need the toilet!”
Knox, “Play! I wanna play!”
Me, “Oh flip, I also need to get a present for that party tomorrow. We need to go somewhere that I can stop and get a gift on our way. And we need to get some groceries cos I didn’t have time to get any yesterday and all the veg in the fridge went off.”
Seth, *probably rolling his eyes, but he’s wearing glasses so I can’t tell for sure*
Any random family member that thinks of it first, “Let’s go to the Waterfront!”
*general agreeable murmur of consensus punctuated with Knox fist pumping the sky and shouting YES!*
I’m not even exaggerating.
That’s what happens nearly every single time we want to go out but have no actual place in mind. It’s the same for date nights. We always end up there because no matter what we feel like there is something to do. If we don’t feel like talking, we go to the movies. If we want to have a serious chat about something in life we head to a restaurant for dinner. If we’re feeling peckish but also want to shop, we pop over to have a glass of wine with a sushi platter.
And it’s no different with our family in tow. They get to play on the jungle gym or we get to walk by the harbour and spot the seals. There are so many restaurant choices that are great for any type of meal – pizza, pasta, sushi, Indian. You name it.
We even go there when I take the kids out on little dates.
We recently went there with the invitation from the V&A Waterfront to check out some of the fun, family things to do there right now. It was such fun.
The afternoon started out at Col’cacchio where our kids were thrilled that they could order pizza or pasta. Something that they don’t regularly see anymore thanks to our (OK, my) lifestyle change. Kyla adored her creamy mushroom pasta while Riya and Knox literally inhaled their pizzas. I didn’t even really get to see what they looked like – by the time I looked again it was all gone!
Even I indulged a little with a chicken and spring onion pasta. It was so lovely it made me miss pasta!
While we were there the kids got hold of the camera and had fun taking pictures while we were chatting and catching up with friends we hadn’t seen in a while.
After that we had to work it all off with a trip to the ice rink. It was so much better this time around. Last time there was water from the rain on the “ice” and that made it extra slippery, but this time it was dry and much more doable.
Then we hit the Big Wheel which even though we’ve been on it a few times, it’s like the first time every time you go. With the different weather conditions and company our beautiful city always looks so different!
Last up we headed to the new exhibition that they have in the Watershed. I love that place. There are so many skillfully crafted products to oogle at while you wonder through to the entrance of the Future Park. We waited for the event to start and spent our time listening to a guy jam it out on a didgeridoo.
I really wasn’t sure what to expect from the Future Parks before we went in. With things like this, I don’t really like to investigate too much before going in. It ruins the surprise. So when we walked into a dark room with hundreds of colourful creatures moving around on the wall we all gasped.
The idea is that you can actually interact with the creatures by physically moving the creatures with your hands. Which is pretty incredible considering that it’s all just lights! You can also colour in your own fish/jelly fish/shark etc that then gets up loaded and you can actually see it swimming about on the screen in front of you. The same with this cool road map – you can colour in a truck, car or even a house. I took a picture of our little house with 3 kids and 2 dogs in front of it haha.
And that’s just downstairs. When you go up there are these balls that glow with a rainbow of different colours and the kids can go nuts. This was by far our favourite part. Once they got in there it was very difficult to get them to come out!
For more on the exhibition you can check it out here – it’s here until 31 January.
