Amy's Birthday Trip to Melbourne

For Amy's birthday this year she and I had a trip to Melbourne. We stayed one night in the city at the Stamford Plaza Hotel and then had one night out at Berwick  with my mum. Amy had missed out on coming to Melbourne for Pam's 80th so wanted to catch up with her Grandma.After flying in we picked our hire car and had lunch with Bill's sister Hilary, her husband Stuey and son Tom. We had a lovely time catching up with them, We headed to our hotel and after settling in we headed out to make sure the chocolate shops we love were still all up and trading-fortunately they were.

 The lovely Royal Arcade all decorated up for Christmas- it has a Koko Black so Amy had an ice chocolate and I had a yummy hot chocolate. You sit up stairs in and can see all the shoppers wandering along the Royal Arcade.

 Good to see Haighs was still doing well- we helped them along with a few purchases!

Bourke Street Mall was full of people, we stopped and watched this busker for a while- he was so good!

We had dinner that night at a Spanish Tapas restaurant and also had foot massage at a Thai massage place- it was lovely. In the morning while Amy slept I went for a wander along Southbank, down to the Pollywoodside, back into Melbourne for a quick look at the Myer Christmas windows while the city was still waking up. Enjoyed looking at all the Christmas decorations including the Lego Christmas Tree in Federation Square.

After our buffet breakfast at the hotel in the morning and a quick bit of shopping we headed out to Berwick and spent the rest of the day with my mum. We helped out with jobs around the place, took her shopping and then went out for dinner to an Afghan restaurant in Dandenong for dinner. We had a lovely meal and plenty of food!

All that remains of 22 Lyall Road Berwick where I spent my teenage years and mum lived for about 40 years!

The next morning we drove up to Narre Warren North and visited Tracey O'Keefe who used to live in Canberra and now is in mum's ward. I experienced chook house envy when I saw her chook house Amy had great fun with all her animals- a massive rooster and below an even bigger turkey. Tracey had lots of chooks and turkeys and babies hatching it was chook heaven for Amy!

All to soon it was time to head to the airport and back to Canberra- it was a lovely trip away and a nice way to celebrate Amy's birthday.