One afternoon in March

Dom enjoys the piano

Staying at Granny's

We had a little birthday/late Christmas celebration over the weekend and stayed at Granny's house. It was lots of fun and we got to visit Tango in the morning! Dom stayed up very, very late, having had a sleep-in in the morning and a short nap in the car on the way down.

 



 
 

Painting

Mum had a cool painting of a giraffe at her house - the canvas had been painted stripey green, then the outline of a big smiley cartoon giraffe had been painted or drawn on with vivid. Debbie asked if I could do something similar for Dom's room but with a dinosaur. This is what I ended up doing:

 

Not very much like the painting at Mum's place, but I like it.

Kelly Tarlton's - best bit

This is the bit of Kelly Tarlton's which I remember from my childhood visit, and it didn't disappoint on a retun trip. The sharks looked a little smaller but the experience of being under water but dry was very, very cool. There was a ride past the penguins (which we didn't go on because of the queue), an open tank which Dom loved, a couple of side rooms with seahorses and eels and stuff, and the arctic exhibit from Chch, but the underwater tunnel was bestest.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

*Photos taken with a Panasonic TZ8 on scn mode -> high speed burst (3M) -> speed priority.

2011 was ace

2011 was a big year for the family. Debbie returned to work, Dom started preschool, was diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder and started therapy. Debbie and I wrote an anthology of stories and had it accepted for publication. We took two trips up north to see family, had a few stories published (including the awesome podcast of Debbie's Upon a Star) and generally led busy lives.

Fingers crossed 2012 will have as many highs as 2011, possibly with fewer broken bones and tooth repairs :-)

 
 
 
 

More Dom + Self Portrait

 
 
 
 

Bonus post!

Dom in December

 
 
 
 

It's the holidays! Dom's having his last week at pre-school before a couple of weeks off, Debbie and I are getting some time to relax and unwind, and Dom is continuing to be awesome.

Dance intro

Dom spent a few minutes dancing to the Kung Fu Fighting music video, and with the ability to restart the song at will on his ipad he got good at timing the start of his dance to the music: