Ash's NYC: January 2014

Well hello 2014 and my first blog. Hopefully I'll step it up a bit from 2013 where the number of blogs dropped right off. I cannot believe how quickly the past 2.5 weeks has gone and sadly in two days I'll be heading back to work. It's been a cracking summer holiday and we've crammed a whole lot in a short period of time. Starting with Agnes Water and the Sydney invasion then down south to Scarborough Hotel and Symbio.

This week however has been focussed on having a holiday in Sydney without leaving home. Normally we'd take every opportunity possible to travel with the limited leave we get but it's a tad harder with the young fella so we decided to stay put this year. Fortunately the weather picked up from Christmas and it's been pretty much sensational every day since boxing day. We've packed in some great adventures with a big focus on getting to the beach. Flynn is turning into a right royal beach bum and it's only fitting we get him a fix every day. I think he'll have withdrawals next week.

We started with a party at some friends place for NYE. It was by far the closest Tracy and I have been to the fireworks with a prime position on a terrace in Kirribilli. I thought the old Lav Bay pad had a pretty tidy view but this was even closer. Flynn was a party animal and watched the 9pm fireworks but was snoring like a trooper for the midnight ones. A great night.

By far the biggest highlight was a ripper beach down in the Royal National Park called Garie Beach. We were intending to check out Wattamolla Beach however the toilets there had overflowed and they closed the beach off so we ended up at Garie. It was a bit of a drive down the mountain to get to it but what an unexpected surprise. The water was dead calm and a refreshing escape from the 35 degrees. We set the tent up and hung out for a couple of hours. It really reminded us of the beach we went to at Block Island. We'll definitely be back. We packed up just at the right time as there was a fairly sudden change which came through and tents and umbrellas went flying.

We also had some adventures to a couple of inner harbor beaches including Balmoral and Chinaman's. Loving the coffee dude who comes along in the boat.

We've also taking Flynn to the North Sydney pool a couple of times. They have a great indoor section for kids and Flynn is loving being dragged around in the water.

Tracy and I have also been trying to introduce new foods into Flynn's diet. We're doing this thing where Flynn gets to explore food and sort of feed himself. We've had some real hits with apple, pear, sweet potato, apricots, rice cereal, paw paw, swede and banana on toast (Thanks Jack). The fun thing is watching our real life seagull come hoover A.K.A Dasha hanging around under the chair waiting for the flying food. Lets just say meatballs were a hit.....with Dasha.

Loving summer 2014 and hope this is a taste for the rest of the year.