Today at school I officially read.  That’s right, read.  We’ve got these little paper books that have an illustration on one side and the corresponding word on the other.  The practice is to cover the illustration immediately and not steal a glance, sound out the word, say the word and then confirm the word against the illustration.  I’m nailing it people.

Today at school, at approximately 4:10PM, I got my 1st bee sting.  The good news?  Seemingly no Epi-pen or Benadryl needed FTW!

Today the family 3 headed out onto Lake Union for a paddle around and gander at all the houseboats and fellow boaters.  Awesome!

We put our notice in at ELDC today that my last day of school there will be September 10th, 2009.  And then it’s on to Pacific Crest.  Boom Shalak-alaka.

Today the Kookaburras and Wombats boarded metro buses and headed downtown to the Columbia Center, the tallest building in Seattle.  Pretty fascinating stuff and the field trip went off without a hitch.

Week’s Theme:  Structures

For the past two weeks we’ve been learning about buildings and skyscrapers.  Ella enjoyed getting out of the school for a bit on our field trip downtown.  Even more exciting than the Columbia Center for her was the bus ride where she laughed the whole time as the bumps jostled her in her seat.

The Dad and I rocked it out while Mama was busy doing stuff for the Chateau.  First up with the finalé of this seasons Storytime Drama.

Then we headed to the Thistle Theathre to check out the “Goblin and the Poet”.  Supah-Cool.  Afterwards the obviously thing to do was to go to The Scoop at Walter’s for some RAINBOW SHERBET!

Today was my last recital for KidzDance during my run at ELDC as I’ll be a student at Pacific Crest Montessori in the fall.  Mom took it a bit harder than most.

Today while Daddy was spending the day with cousin Anna, Mommy and I met up with Lynn Burgess and her two gorgeous guys, Owen and Joe Moriarty at the Paramount Theater to see The Lion King.  I’ve been to puppet shows and The Green Sheep at the Seattle Children’s Theater, but this was my first off-Broadway production and I was absolutely floored.  Wow.

The costumes were amazing and the performances from the actors were superb.  Another thing to watch was Joe Moriarty getting choked up over and over through the whole thing.  The big lug.

Afterwards we headed to Ballard and grabbed some yumminess for our tummies at The Old Town Alehouse.  Herbed fries are the bees knees y’all.

Today the Beelzecchi 3 headed from SEATAC to LAX to our final destination of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.  The flights amount to my first time traveling internationally and were no problem, but certainly exhausting.

Our stop in LAX was a bit curious as we arrived in Terminal 2 and needed to connect with our Qantas Boeing 747-400 in Terminal 3.  The curious part is that you need to completely exit Terminal 2, walk on an outdoor sidewalk and enter Terminal 3.  This mean you have to clear security again.  LAX airport = FULL RETARD.  The time spent laying over in that crummy airport was positively bolstered by chow and margaritas from El Paseo.  The last Mexican food for nearly two weeks?  Likely and it did the job just fine.

I slept (the key) 10 hours of our 15 hour flight to Melbourne and felt great upon landing.  We took our shuttle to the Hotel Media on Queen Street right in the CBD (Central Business District) in the heart of Melbourne.  The room is a one bedroom apartment with kitchenette and washer and dryer with all the amenities we’ll need for our stay.

Daddy spied a bottle shop across the street and wasted no time in procuring a nice bottle of Shiraz for Mommy and a bottle of Havana Club Anejo rum for him to enjoying with Coke Zero while watching Super Bowl XLVIII.  By the time he got back from the bottle shop I was already playing dress up with Barbie and it was halfway through the 2nd quarter.

Not much later Helen Chadwick arrived to show us around Melbourne.  Helen is the reason we came all the way to Australia… Her wedding to Paul Pettigrew will be on Friday, February 6th.   Mommy, Daddy, and Helen all had a great time catching up in our apartment with several “I can’t believe you are here’s” and “OMG!’s” thrown around liberally.

Helen hadn’t eaten lunch yet and suggested we find a place in nearby Hardware Lane.  Melbourne, like so many cool cities around the world (so I’m told), harbors no shortage of little lanes chock full of great restaurants and bars.  Hardware Lane is apparently one of the best in Melbourne and only a ½ block form our hotel… WIN!!

In the European style we sat outside under a giant awning drinking our wines, coffees, nibbling on a nice bruschetta, and people watching at Café Max.  While Mommy and Helen could have chatted there forever, it was just a quick pit stop for our next adventure.

Hel suggested we head to the Melbourne Aquarium as our next stop and played human audio guide as we walked several blocks through the CBD.  Based on her tour and intimate knowledge of this establishment and that establishment, it is apparent that she has an insatiable thirst and that she has tied one on at nearly each watering hole in Melbourne.
The aqurium is situated on the Yarra River right at the end of the CBD and the start of the south end and the massive Crown casino area and Southgate.  The featured exhibit were the Emperor Penguins and they were awesome!  The penguins were very curious and came right up the class to check out all the people.  Their feathers are so smooth and look iridescent as the light reflects off of them.  So cool.

We perused the rest of the aquarium seeing all kinds of seahorses, clown fish, small sharks, crabs, lobsters, groupers and more.  Besides the Emperors, the highlight was walking through and under the massive tank that featured the big sharks and rays.  It is pretty amazing to be standing in a glass tunnel and have a 12 foot wide ray swim over your head!  Our time there was capped off with a visit to the gift shop where Helstar generously bought me a stuffed Emperor penguino.  Thanks Hel!

We crossed the Queensbridge Street bridge by foot at the Crown and began walking down the Southbank Promenade looking at all the restaurants and bars.  Everything in this side of the river appears to be pretty new and was loaded up with all kinds of cool sculpture.

Eventually we made it to the Southgate complex and a restaurant called the Bear Brass that Helen is fond of.  The Southgate complex is actually a property she used to manage, so she is pretty familiar with all of its offerings and loves the brick oven pizzas from Bear Brass.  And now we do too!

After a nice meal like that the only logical succession would be gelato from Tutto Benne for some amazing gelato.  I had raspberry, Hel and Mommy split some Fererro-Rocher and Daddy even got in on the act with some cinnamon yoghurt.  Yee-um!

We continued down the Southbank Prom and crossed the Yarra again across the Princes Bridge and took a look a the very busy Flinders Street Station.  Right across the street are Federation Square and all of it’s interesting looking modern buildings.  And on the opposite corner is St. Paul’s Cathedral, Melbourne’s biggest.

Our walk continued down the very busy Swanston Street where all of the Asian students were keeping all of the sidewalk noodle vendors very busy.  We turned down Bourke Street and walked past a never ending stream of high end shops, restaurants and bars all the way back to our hotel.

Daddy and I headed upstairs for the nighttime ritual while Helen and Mommy had one final glass of wine in our cheesy hotel bar.  What a day and wonderful start to our trip to Australia!

Today Barack Hussein Obama became the 44th president of the United States of America.  We at the Beelman/Nosecchi house say HOORAY!  Mommy got me a copy of this Time magazine in honor of President Obama to be included in my scrapbook.  HOPE.