Aliya had her jazz class in the morning. Can you believe there's another girl named Aliya (spelled Aaliya or Aliyah, can't remember which) in her class? The girl is in the same grade at school, but in a different classroom than my Aliya. What are the odds? Here we are thinking we have this unique name and we keep running into other Aliyas. Lots of spelling variations of course. While Aliya danced I headed down the street to the local shops. I found a fabulous bakery and loaded up on some desserts for after dinner.
In other accomplishments, I finalized plans to visit Phillip Island. We reserved a nice house on the beach, which we're going to share with another American family. Phillip Island has the famous Penguin Parade (every sunset, hundreds to over a thousand wild Little Penguins--the world's smallest and cutest penguins-- emerge from the sea and march across the beach to their sand dune burrows) the Koala Conservation center, the Nobbies, Churchhill Island farm, and much more. We'll be sure to blog about all of that once we take the trip, but it's nice to have something to look forward to.
After lunch, we headed to the local YMCA pool to take advantage of the warm summer (autumn??) day. We were able to get in free thanks to passes that came with our gym membership. There are four pools in all. One has two diving boards, a low one and a 3 m one. Both girls went off the high one. I suppose if you've jumped off a houseboat into Lake Powell, 3 meters is nothing. Two of Aliya's classmates were there, so she spent a good deal of time pool-hopping with the other girls. I remember bemoaning the lack of public pools to take the girls to last summer, so it was nice to have a community pool nearby.
After a few hours playing (well, Andy and the girls played, I chatted with another mom) we headed home to clean up. We didn't want to be late for our first dinner at a friend's house in Australia. We also didn't want to show up empty-handed, so we brought along two desserts (a flourless chocolate cake and alemon tart,) two bottles of wine (a New Zealand white and my favourite house red from California, Menage e Trois), and one bag of edamame. We brought the soybeans for two reasons. One, I swear my kids must be partially hypoglycemic. They never seem to know when they are hungry, but if their blood sugar gets low they turn into these miserable, irrational creatures. Stuff a string cheese or banana in them, they're once again my sweet little angels, or close enough. I had no idea when dinner would be served, and wanted to be prepared. Two, our hosts had never heard of edamame, much less tried it. I knew this because, as one of my first local acquaintances here, I asked if she knew where I could buy it. Anyway, we explained how we call them "poppers" for fun because we like to pop the beans into our mouths. She thought they were broad beans, but I think those are lima beans?
Dinner was wonderful. She made three roast chickens, leading us to ask what other family was coming! Although one of these days we'd like to try the ubiquitous lamb, for our first dinner together I was a bit relieved the entrée was something both of my children would eat!
The whole evening was quite a treat for us. The kids matched up well and had a good time playing together. Their younger daughter is in Aliya's class, and their older daughter is the same age as Alanna, though in Year 3. In keeping with the apparent Aussie tradition, they have another child, Alexander, who is 4, and who is going to break a lot of hearts when he's older!
Karina and Johnny were wonderful hosts, and we were even treated to some entertainment. Disclaimer: What you are about to hear took place after numerous bottles of wine were consumed. (Incidentally, the Menage e Trois was greatly enjoyed--I've yet to meet someone who doesn't like it. They were unfamiliar with Zinfandel, but it's such a drinkable blend.) His repertoire is vast, and includes Elvis and Italian opera. Here's some of the latter....I think.
Johnny auditioned for Australia's Got Talent, which is in production, so stay tuned for an update on how it goes! We're really excited for him.
All-in-all, it was a lovely, warm, boisterous evening. So much so that the kids, trying to watch Bedtime Stories, kept asking us to keep it down!
Happy
I finished this post, but couldn't quite leave it as is, without mentioning the devastating current events, specifically the 8.9 magnitude earthquake on March 11. As if the strongest quake in Japanese history wasn't enough, it was followed by a massive tsunami killing hundreds if not thousands. Japan now has to contend with damage to nuclear plants causing radiation leaks, and of course the huge humanitarian crisis of providing food, water and shelter to millions. We enjoyed a bit of happiness yesterday, and with the backdrop of the horrible tragedy in Japan, we truly count our blessings once again. As we saw from videos of the devastation
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