Fourth of July

   As you might guess, they don't celebrate the 4th of July here. However Melbourne does fireworks on Fridays in July, and last night was no exception. Unfortunately, the girls and I were too tired to head into the city and brave the cold, so we missed out on a fireworks show where they played a number of US songs, including Proud to be an American. So bummed we missed it!
    We didn't miss the other reason to celebrate on July 4, which is Grandpa Larry's birthday. The girls and I spent an evening making a video for Grandpa. Here's the result:

   Alanna's gotten to be quite a pro at editing videos with Camtasia. She even made a screencast for a website, something I used to do professionally for Opto 22. We've really been having fun with technology. We created this video card for my dad for Father's Day.
   Hope y'all had a fabulous fourth.  Cheers!
   

Great Grandma Nalda

From Alanna:

In English class, we were reading Anne Frank, so to get different perspectives of World War 2, each of us had to interview someone living during that time. I thought of Grandma Nalda, but since she is in America and I am here, I sent all my questions to Gram, and she conducted the interview for me. 

When I got all the clips, mom taught me the basics of Camtasia, so I put it together. I received pictures from Gram and Pap, and did some voice-overs to go with them. 

When mom told me Nalda's birthday was about a week after the project was due, I turned in a version for the English project, then mom and I added more stuff to the video for Nalda's birthday. I was very proud of the video!!

Alexi here. My grandma Nalda turned 90 on 04/04/2014. The next day, my mom and Aunt Mary held a surprise birthday lunch for her. My mom put the video on her Kindle to show Nalda at the party. She loved the video. I love that we now have a priceless video of her, telling her own stories in her own words.

Bob, Bob, Bob, Bob

My mom was disappointed that there weren't any pictures of her, but at least she was in the video of Nalda arriving at the party.

A very special day for a very special lady.

I'm Too Sporty (Part 2)

The basketball seasons here last for two terms. We just finished the Summer Season, which was Alanna's fourth and Aliya's fifth season. This year, Andy coached both teams.

Aliya's team

Alanna's team

For the first time, Gram got to watch the girls play. She captured this nice shot of Alanna:

Aliya's team had a big challenge, as they were in the most competitive grading category. They played in a secondary grand final (for teams that ended up 5th-8th) on the ladder. After that game, we were pleasantly surprised that the refs awarded Aliya the Sportsmanship Award!

Alanna's team finished fifth on the ladder, just missing out on the playoffs. For her age bracket, there was no secondary round of playoffs like Aliya had. They really bonded as a team though, and had a lot of fun, and hopefully most of the team will be together again next season.

Last Sunday they held a Presentation Night. The President makes a speech, and each coach gives a brief description of the team and hands out medals/trophies to all the girls.

check out the nice braids, er, plaits!

 Each week during the season, parents vote on the mvps for the game. The scores are tallied up, and the coach awards an MVP, runner-up MVP, and a Coaches Award. As the team manager(and therefore the one doing the tallying), I wasn't surprised at the outcome for Alanna's team, but I was pleased:

Alanna was voted MVP

Even at 5' 6 3/4" she's not the tallest on her team!

Both girls are signed up to play next season, and Andy signed up to coach both teams. We're off for the next two weeks because it's the term break whoo hoo, so we get a little break from sports and activities. It's a great time for our friends and family back home to Skype us!

Cheers, the A-team.

I'm Too Sporty (Part 1)

It's been a seriously sporty season for the girls. The first event was Aliya's swim carnival. Students have the option to compete in four events: freestyle, backstroke, breaststroke, and butterfly. Aliya decided to enter all four events, and had great success in each of her heats:

1st place x 4

Here's a video of her races, and you can see in a few of the events she was way ahead of the pack.

We weren't sure how she did overall until a few days later as some of the events had multiple heats. Turns out she won all four, and was eligible to compete at the next level in Districts. Students are only allowed to enter two solo events plus a freestyle relay, so she chose breaststroke and backstroke.

About a month later she competed at Districts against seven other schools. 

The first event was the freestyle medley. As the fastest swimmer, Aliya was chosen to be the anchor.

Unfortunately, one of the girls couldn't or didn't put her head in the water while she swam, so they were seriously behind by the time Aliya dove in. She gave it her best effort, coming in 5th or 6th I think.

More bad luck came on her breast stroke, her best event. Here she is getting ready to dive in:

She had forgotten her goggles, and borrowed some from a friend. I don't think they were tight enough because they fell off when she dove in:

She didn't qualify for the next level, Divisionals, but she sure had a fun afternoon swimming with her friends while the rest of her friends were at school!

The next activity was Aliya's House Cross Country event. Here is the story in her own words:  On Friday the 21st of March I had my Cross Country! I am in Warren House which is red.

A lot of my friends don't like cross country because it is a lot of running. I like cross country though and I trained for this day. Cross Country wasn't a long run for me since I love to run! We had to run 1.7 k. (easy). The grades 3 and 4 race against each other. I am a grade 4 which is better because I did it last year going against  grade fours Now I am going against younger kids the grade threes. We lined up. 

The pistol went and everybody started to run. 

After a few seconds all the kids were spread apart. Me and this girl called Sasha who is in grade 3 were neck and neck for 1 and a half laps (we had to do 3 laps).

We were in first until I was annoyed and just sprinted in front of her. Yessssssss! After I finished my second lap I was pretty far in the lead and I kept telling my self  'keep running don't look back' and guess what? It worked and I came First! 

I was so happy. I got a blue ribbon. My best friend came second. I think I beat her by just 5 or 10 seconds. My other best friend came third! Another of my friends who is in grade 3 came fourth and another of my best friend came fifth. 

You know Sasha who I was neck in neck with well she came sixth! Our house, red has never won or lost Cross Country. Last year green house beat us by 3 points! This year green came last, blue came third and...........................we came second by 10 points so that means yellow wins. I congratulated them even though I was disappointed. Most of all I was proud of myself for doing my best and that's what you should do even if you don't think you can make it. If you don't get in to district like I did don't be sad there is always next year. I mean we are only in year four we still have two more chances! That's the end of my Cross Country story but don't worry because there will be more sport stories like basketball and more. By Aliya Gray

I really give her a lot of credit, because she set a goal for herself to win. During the training sessions, a lot of her friends walked together. She chose to run with the boys instead, to improve her speed and stamina.

Next up, for your reading pleasure is Alanna, telling about her recent softball game.

All the Year 7 girl soft-ballers plus coaches Simone (on left) and Miss McLean (right).

 It was surprising this year, because sports was optional, unlike primary school. People who opted not to play their choice of either cricket, softball, or tennis stayed at school doing work! Anyway, all us soft-ballers took a bus to Faulkner Park, but of course, because of the Aussie accent, I thought it was Forkner Park! We got there and separated into our 2 teams, black (A) and red (B). How it worked was there was two pools. The winners of each pool played each other to determine who was going to play in Divisionals. We (the black team) had to win both of our games to get into the grand final of this level. We were all assigned positions, and I was super happy with mine because I was shortstop! Our first game was against Mentone Grammar. Since I forget the details of the game, I'll just say, we won!!! Looking good for us! Our second game was played against Cheltenham Secondary.  Oops, I forgot the details of the game again.....but.....WE WON AGAIN! So that meant we would be playing the winner of the other pool. Our other team (Red) wasn't as lucky, and they lost their games. Anywayyyyy. Our grand final started, we were versing Elwood. I won't do long story short this time: I was shortstop again. 

Sticking my tongue out at mom =]

We batted first, and got 8 out of 9 home!

Sneaking (what they call stealing!)

Then we swapped over. A girl hit it towards me, and I threw to third, where another girl got out! 

The next girl hit a pop fly. 

I caught it, so that girl is out, and then I throw it to second where a girl running is out!!! 3 outs, no one got home for them!

Talking tactics =]

And then we bat again. 

Heading for home!

And we get 8 our of 9 home again, including a home run from one of our best players!

SO THAT MEANT WE HAD ALREADY WON!! 

Because there was no way they could catch up to us anyway! 

It was a fun day, and it meant we were going to Divisionals! 

The best Softball team!!!

Alexi here again. Just a couple of notes. One was that I went with another mom to watch the games. Her daughter was on the other team, and after they finished, she was ready to go. A bit of a dilemna for me, as I hadn't seen Alanna play yet, but the other mom drove and I hated to make her wait for me. Then I remembered, this is Melbourne! Just on the other side of the park was St. Kilda road. I could walk over there after the game and catch a tram right to my street! So that's what I did---I love the public transport system here. The other note is that after school last week they had a practice game, the girls against the teachers. I love that the teachers (some of whom who had clearly never played) were willing to come out and play. It was great fun, and good practice for the girls.

I still want to tell you about their basketball seasons, so this is to be continued....

Once, Twice, Three Years in Melbourne

Well, I completely missed our three year expatversary back in January. It's hard to believe we've been here more than three years already! I think part of the reason I don't blog much any more, besides laziness, is that I no longer really think, "Wow, we are living in Australia" because we are generally just living our lives. I'm used to getting in the right side of the car, driving on the left side, using a token to get a shopping trolly, not tipping, using public transport, thinking that that 40 degrees is really hot, and saying "I reckon." Although, I recently referred to the upcoming school holiday as spring break, which was completely wrong, as it's autumn here now.
   Occasionally we do some very Aussie things, like watching the Australia Day Parade last January. The parade was made all the more exciting by the fact that Alanna got to march in the parade with her primary school Drum Corp.

   Here are some pics:

Flinders station

Be sure to read their sign

One of  24 pianos that were placed around the city for anyone to play.

Gram and Aliya in their matching shirts, posing by the Yarra River

Joey wishes everyone a Happy Australia Day!

Martha My Dear

Six or seven months ago, we decided it was time to get a dog. Browsing around various sites, I ran across an ad looking for a dog-sitter. It was for a cute spoodle (cocker spaniel/poodle cross). The owners were a young family with a baby, who were about to start remodelling their house. While the construction was occurring, they planned to live in her mom's apartment, which isn't very suitable for a dog. It sounded perfect, so we met with the family. Their dog, Beth (not a very doggy name, I know!), was adorable, and they could tell we'd give her lots of love and attention. 

Beth

For the next four months, we regularly kept Beth at our place. Thankfully the owner of our rental house agreed to let us have a dog. Occasionally Beth's owners would take her for weekends, or whenever we went away. It was the perfect chance for the girls to prove they'd help take care of a dog. I took all of the money they paid us, and put it in a separate account.
   We grew to love this dog. Beth was the same type of dog I had as a child, although in the US the breed was unfortunately named cockapoo instead of spoodle. When Beth's hair/fur got longer, she looked similar to Alby:

Alexi (aged 9?) with Alby, and Alexi a few years later with Beth

Even Nana loved Beth:

Once our friends found out we were in the dog-sitting "business," we had lots of requests over the next few months, including the following dogs:

Magic and Beth

Ozzie

Beth and Quin

Archie and Ollie

Jessie, Archie and Ollie

   All the while we've been looking for a dog of our own. But the timing never seemed right. We knew we'd have to wait until after our Bali trip in September, and then we knew we'd have to wait until after we watched a few dogs over the Christmas holidays. We knew we wanted either a spoodle or a cavoodle, which is a cavalier king charles mixed with a poodle. Archie, in the pics above, is a cavoodle. Unfortunately, they are heavily in demand as pets because of their loving yet clever personalities and minimally-shedding fur. Hence they are expensive (I saw some as high as $2500, though $1800 was more common for cavoodles), and can be difficult to get. Often breeders run waitlists, and we ultimately went on one of the waitlists ourselves. 

   On Friday, I found an ad online for two poodle crosses. We sent an email, then called on Saturday morning. We arranged to see them at 2 pm that day.

We had some time to kill, so we rented a tennis court so Alexi could try out her new tennis racquet (a Christmas pressie!) Seemed especially appropriate since the Australian Open is currently going on here in Melb.

The girls, Gram, and Alexi also spent some time making rainbow loom bracelets and charm. Rainbow looms are the latest craze, and Gram brought thousands of the special colored elastics used to make all sorts of items.

   Now back to the subject of dogs. This is a story of dogs after all. Even the title of the post is Martha My Dear. That's a song from the Beatles White Album that Paul wrote about/for? his dog Martha.

   After lunch, we headed out to view the dogs. Andy held out his phone with a text message so I could read the address and put it into the GPS. I was quite suprised to find out it was on the same street in a town 30 minutes away where we'd looked at a supposed spoodle a month ago while the Ransoms were in town. The odds of that seem quite astounding, so much so that when we got to the house, I asked her if she knew the people down the street. She didn't. And now, here are the two puppies she was selling:

 
Pretty cute, eh? One boy, one girl. They are crosses of a spoodle and cavoodle, ironically enough the two breeds we'd wanted. The boy had a longer snout, and was much more outgoing. He was also more inclined to bite/chew. The girl had an adorable face, more proportioned, but seemed much calmer and a bit more timid. We spent about 20 minutes with them, but just couldn't decide. We decided to leave and think about it, as we were expecting to hear shortly about the waitlist we were on for another breeder. We got a few kilometers down the road, discussing the dogs and what to do, whether we liked them, which one we liked, if we wanted to wait....In the end, we decided we just couldn't pass up the girl and went back to the house. The price was right (cheaper than the other breeder) and we could only hope she'd be less timid once she got to know us.

   Had to go back out one more tie and find an atm for the cash, but eventually the sale was made and we put her in the car:

and brought her home:

Think we made the right choice? Could YOU pass up this face?? Although, if we could have afforded her brother, I would have taken both of them!

She's three months old, a bit older than puppies typically are when they leave a breeder. Here, it's usually 8-9 weeks old.  She did pretty well overnight, making it until 5:30 am when I took her outside.

   We're still working on names, though at the moment I think it's Tazzie, short for Tasmania, the island state here in Oz. I really wanted an Aussie-type name, since she'll be our ultimate Australian souvenir. We once thought Ozzie would be a good name, but we dog-sat a border collie named Ozzie, so now she just doesn't seem like an Ozzie. Other Aussie names on our list were:

• Joey (sounds more boyish, but hey, remember Katie Holmes in Dawson's Creek?)
• Dingo
• Sheila
• Kiah (aboriginal word meaning "from the beautiful place")
• Miki (aboriginal word meaning "moon")
• Kylie (Minogue, or Western Australian word for boomerang)
• Sydney
• Lucky (some Aussies refer to Oz as the Lucky Country, and we were lucky to get her)
• Vicky (for Victoria, the state Melbourne is in)
• Tori (the other option for Victoria)
• Caulie (short for Caulfield, our suburb. Our friend even went so far as to suggest the royal name of Caufield Latte of Lamington..hmm, Lamington, or Lamb Chop??)

Some think that the A-team should have an A name for their dog. The only A name on our list was Abby, although some suggested Allie or Annie.

Other cute names were Maggie, Molly (name of our previous dog), Dobby (Alanna's a huge Harry Potter fan), Biscuit (she looks just like the dog in the stories), Teddy, or Bailey.

We held multiple elections, even trying to do the results using the Aussie system of preferential voting. At first, we thought it was going to be Lucky. For the last few hours, we've been calling her Tassie. Still not completely sure. What do you think?? Leave suggestions in the comments! And now, I need to go cuddle that adorable puppy asssuming Andy's not holding her:

or assuming Gram's not holding her:

She's super soft since she had a bath today:

Just a few more pics since I can't resist.