Our Australia holiday was one of the most UNholidays we’ve ever had. It was the first time we’ve gone for an extended (2.5 weeks) trip with a child and, boy, was it different to our pre-baby holidays!! To be really frank, it was one of the worst experiences ever in terms of sleep deprivation, and has scared me off going on another holiday for a very very very long time :X

Hunter was pretty awesome during the day time, his usual cheery self.  But come night-time, all hell would break loose and he would WAIL himself to sleep – no amount of ignoring, or cuddling would placate him. Then, he would wake up every 3 hours or so, whining/crying until he was patted back to sleep. In the morning, more often than not he would wake up crying too. It was INSANE. Considering he was a sleep-through-the-night baby at the tender age of just over 2 months old, it was a HUGE AND NASTY SHOCK for us, to basically be dealing with a ‘newborn’ again.

Even more bizzarely, the moment we arrived back home in Singapore, he IMMEDIATELY went back to his 12-hour uninterrupted sleep – falling asleep by himself, and waking up cheery. I guess he loves being home and in his own bed, and can’t tolerate being away :X So the whole time in Australia, we were zombies and poor Chris had to deal with an extremely irate wife almost daily… oops.

But, at least we had a TON OF FUN during the day! Hunter was so fascinated with everything, loved going out, and we had heaps of fun catching up with family and friends.

Most importantly, we were there for Chris’ sister’s wedding. This was held in Canberra, so we stayed there for a couple of days first. The weather there was so cold though! It was nice in the afternoons, but mornings and evenings were pretty painful. All 3 of us suffered dry/peeling skin and lips as we had to acclimatize ourselves to the climate. However, the benefit was that my hair and skin loved the dry weather.  Helloooo good hair days! I really noticed it especially now that we’re back in Singapore and I see how the humidity destroys your hair and skin 😉

 

 

The wedding was held in a really lovely high-ceiling cathedral, and I loved the black-and-white colour scheme, which I thought was super chic. It also brought back such nice memories of our own wedding.. and was really nice to see Chris’ sister so happy on her wedding day 🙂

Hunter was supposed to walk down the aisle as well, but it didn’t work out because during the rehearsal, we saw that the aisle was actually really long.. which translated to major distractions for him, and we weren’t confident he would have the focus to make it all the way down, especially with a ton of eyes staring at him!

 

 

I was also delighted to do a reading for the ceremony. I almost pulled out at the last minute, because I developed a bit of a cough and was worried I’d start hacking up a lung mid-reading. But thankfully all went well and I did the reading without any issue – whew!

 

Afterwards, we had photos outside the church and in a park/lake. The skies were GORGEOUS… though the temperature was quite chilly down by the water. But Hunter didn’t seem to care and had a fab time tottering around the lake and running around on the grass.

 

 

 

 

 

The wedding reception was really lovely, with some fabulous food! The beef… OMG *faint*. Chris and I actually shared a large pizza prior to dinner, because we were too hungry. But I still stuffed in appetizer, main, and dessert and cleared my entire plate.. because the food was fab!!

Everyone was having so much fun, and Hunter had an afternoon nap (rare, because he naps 1x/day) so he could stay awake for a bit to join in the celebrations.

 

 

 

 

 

Oh and Chris was MC for the evening! He did a lot of public-speaking when he was younger, and is a natural in front of an audience. And he really nailed it. He’s an awesome MC!

Cutest moment ever: we were seated at the table in front, right where Chris was standing. As he was speaking, Hunter kept pointing to him and going “Da da!!!” loudly and happily, much to people’s amusement. And then he would clap his hands in glee, seeing his Daddy up there. LOL!!

 

Hunter went to sleep at around 8:30PM so I had to go into a back room and sit there with him. Unfortunately no one brought their maids/nannies, so I had to be there the entire time! It meant I missed out on all the fun stuff in the latter-half of the evening.. and because Chris was MC-ing, he couldn’t really be there keeping me company either. And my iPhone had run out of battery. So I spent the entire time just sitting there staring at the wall. D’OH!! But, at least Hunter slept well considering all the music and noise.. so I was happy.

 

It was a pretty epic day, but we all dealt with it really well considering the lack of sleep we had. Hunter was in a good mood throughout, and adrenalin kept us going.. though we did leave a little earlier to get ourselves to bed. It’s so nice being at a wedding and joining in the celebrations!