Monday was a relaxing day, since we spent the whole day in Apollo Bay.
Alanna vogue-ing on our balcony
Andy reserved surf lessons, complete with wet suits, for him and the girls. I wasn't going anywhere near the freezing water.
Hoping gravity will help get Aliya's wet suit on
Happy 13th Anniversary!
Great walk, with rabbits and chickens at the trailhead
As Alanna told you in her previous post, she unfortunately slammed her car door on her finger, so that put an end to our plans for a nice anniversary dinner. No worries though, we picked up some pizzas and took them back to our balcony to eat. Probably just as well we had a quiet evening, as poor Andy had a 2 am, 5 am, and 10 am conference calls.
We took advantage of the school holiday to head out on the Great Ocean Road. I'll let the pictures do the talking.
Split Point Lighthouse
Lovely view
Leaning against the lighthouse. Photo credit: Alanna
Just in case you forgot....
The official starting point
Not something you want to see in your side view mirror
Friendly guy though...
By late afternoon we'd made it to Apollo Bay and checked into our room. We walked into town to a nice Italian restaurant for dinner. To be continued...
Happy Easter! It was a beautiful fall day today here in Australia. Clearly Easter's occurrence in spring is a northern hemisphere thing. Nonetheless, the Easter Bunny put in an appearance at our house, filling up the girls baskets with books, movies, toys and candy.
Lots of goodies
Fortunately he (she?) was able to find some pastel-packaged Twix, M&M's, Kit-Kats and Reese's Peanut Butter Eggs. Or maybe the Easter Bunny brought them from the States. Based on what I saw in the stores here, you can get any type of Easter candy you want as long as it's a chocolate egg or chocolate bunny. I don't recall seeing a single Jellybean or Peep! We were invited to an Easter Egg hunt at a family whose son is in Alanna's class and whose daughter is in Aliya's. I was curious whether they'd be searching for real hard boiled eggs, or plastic toy/candy filled eggs. Should have known it would be a hunt for chocolate eggs. No complaints from our family though!
Headed to the Easter Egg Hunt
There were lots of games and activities for the kids:
Aliya and Liana (a name that really is a blend of Aliya
and Alanna, don't you think?) making bunny ears
Donut-eating contest
No hands allowed
Fruit and the big Easter favorite: Hot Cross Buns. They served the more common
raisin variety, but I highly recommend the mocha and chocolate chip flavors--YUM!
Egg, er, lime races
Tug of war
Marjo, you'll want to look away from the next picture of our lunch! Not a combination I would have thought, of, but hey, when in Australia...
Sausage with egg and "bacon" (more like ham)
Aussies really like their eggs. So much that they even put them on pizza! Haven't tried that yet, but it wasn't too bad on the sausage. After a few hours, Andy and I left the girls jumping on the trampoline and walked home to continue working on this:
Just a few of our boxes.
This was before the second truckload arrived...
The girls wanted to play the food-on-a-string game again tonight, because, you know, they hadn't had enough junk food yet. So we tied some string around two hot cross buns and let them have a go:
The warm chocolate chips left their mark:
Happy Easter everyone! We hope you have a joyful day.
Last Friday the girls and I went to Fitzroy Garden with our American friends. I really love how easy it is to get into the city using the train, and this garden was just a short walk from Parliament station.
Alanna helping out with the obligatory sign picture
Not "bathroom" or "restroom," they call it like it is!
Don't know what this bird is, but he terrorized the girls who were trying to eat their lunch.
Had to take at least one picture of flowers. (Please don't comment on the actual photography Doug, David or Ben!)
One of the most popular attractions is the Fairy Tree. Copied from this website: From 1931 to May 1934 - Victoria's Centenary Year - Ola Cohn worked on the delightful likenesses of fairies, dwarfs, gnomes, a marvelous jackass, koalas, flying foxes and a host of typical Australian animals and birds. She used all the natural irregularities and curves to transform the tree trunk into a thing of beauty. The carvings were done years after the death of the tree and so the problem of the trunk's preservation presented a problem. In 1977, the trunk was extracted from the ground for chemical treatment and the removal of rotted wood, and during the process, a mummified brush tail possum over 40 years old was found perfectly preserved within the trunk. The tree was remounted on a concrete base to prolong its life.
Close-up of the fairy tree
One of the main reasons we chose this particular park was we knew it had a playground.
Hi. It is Thursday the 21st. The container came at 8:00am and I had to sleep in Aliya's room because our rental furniture went out yesterday. It is like Christmas for us. Getting my guitar and Aliya's stuffed bear and mom's cooking stuff and my dad's rowing boat. 4 or 5 guys are working all day to help unload stuff.
Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday morning we went to the Great Ocean Road. There were spectacular, gorgeous veiws. I went surfing and so did Dad, but Aliya didn't like the wetsuit for the cold water. I must of caught 50 waves and I even learned how to turn! Mom, me, the teacher, and another girl named Paige saw a seal doing its own surfing. Neat. After I was done, me, my dad and Aliya built an awesome sandcastle. Also, when we got here, I touched a real lighthouse. We went to see the 12 Apostles and it was fascinating. They are rocks on the water for your information. Last and least, I slammed my finger into a car door, not on purpose though. I have a blue bruise and blood that is just about gone, under and around my right index finger. Otherwise, I had fun.
Finally, Happy Easter everyone! Did you know that Buona Pasqua means Happy Easter in Italian? Buona Pasqua is pronounced Bone-a Pass-kwa. We take Italian in school. On Sunday we are going to a friend of Aliya's house and do a hunt for chocolate eggs!
Oh! There is the next truck (of stuff)! Gotta go!
Love to family and miss everyone,
Alanna
P.S. When is the baby coming Aunt Carrie?
P.P.S. This is an email I sent but with some changes and mom thought it was good enough to post.
It's been a long long long time since we've seen most of our possessions. But that should change starting tomorrow at 8:00 am when our container arrives! No motorcycle, that's apparently still in Customs or Quarantine, not sure which. Still, we're quite happy to be getting the rest of it. We arrived home today (Wed) from a four day trip to the Great Ocean Road. Can't wait to blog about it, but that will have to wait. The computer is on the floor at the moment as our rental furnishings were taken away this afternoon. Tonight the house is pretty darn empty. That will change tomorrow when they unload 300+ boxes! Since we had no dishes or anything to cook with, we were forced to go out. Found a great restaurant nearby, and they even gave us complimentary glasses of port at the end of the meal. Not sure if it was because we spent so much, or maybe the waitress overheard the girls talking about our 13th wedding anniversary, which was Tuesday. We had a good laugh when Aliya first asked me when my anniversary was, and then she turned to Andy and asked him the same question! We'll try to blog again as soon as we get things under control here. P.S. Happy Birthday to Uncle John!
On Wednesday, we joined several other families for the Melbourne Comedy Festival. First up was a kid's comedy show. Naturally, there was a lot of audience participation. One comedian asked what they had done over the school holiday so far. Aliya promptly raised her hand, and said very excitedly into the microphone: "I went to a footy game!" When asked what teams played, she had no idea, but Alanna helped her out. Although most of the time Aliya sounds very Australian (to my ears) she must have dropped her accent because the comedian asked if she was from America. She said Yes. He said, "Did you come from America just to see this show? Say yes!" and of course, she said, "No!"
Not to be outdone, Alanna volunteered to help the magic gramophone change songs. A child would come onstage, wave the wand and say the magic word of their choice, and the gramophone would "play" a random song. Most were pretty bad, but on Alanna's turn it played Bohemian Rhapsody.
Abracadabra
The last song to come up was Everybody Dance Now, and they did:
After the show, we headed over to Federation Square, hoping to check out the hedge maze or a free comedy show. Unfortunately, bad timing and the rain dashed those ideas. Fortunately, one of the dad's knew about a free activity at a nearby museum. After checking out the display of crazy fashion, the kids were able to create some designs of their own.
Alanna's masterpiece
obligatory group photo
obligatory funny faces group photo
Worn out from a lively game of tag in the museum (bad parents, we know, but who could resist the huge empty space? It was indoors, and therefore dry) we headed back to Federation Square for some refreshment.
While the kids ran around, the parents ordered hot chocolates for their kids, and coffees for themselves. I was the last to order, and therefore our drinks were the last to arrive. When my "kid hot chocolates" arrived, the parents all congratulated me on how smart I was to order kid versions, as the other kids got ginormous drinks. On the flip side, my kids thought I was the meanest mom ever because their drinks weren't nearly as big. Thankfully, they somehow ended up with more marshmallows which apparently compensates for less hot chocolate.
Loaded up with sugar, the kids put on their own comedy show:
When kids say, "Mom, everyone has one...." you usually take it with a grain of salt. But in this case, they are correct when they say that everyone here has a trampoline. We've yet to meet a friend who doesn't have at least a small one. And now that I think about it, even our Aussie friends back in Temecula have one! Clearly Aussies have a love of jumping!
Pretty much the first things my Aussie friends told me, when I told them we were moving to Melbourne, was that we needed to choose a footy team. Footy, as in Australian Rules Football. Nothing like American football (sometimes called gridiron here). It's got the fast pace of a soccer game, with 18 players from each team running around, but a lot more scoring. As we found out on Sunday night, it's a lot more fun live. Andy's company bought tickets to a match, and when the clients couldn't go, the girls and I did. Back to choosing teams though...The first thing you need to know is that you most definitely do not "root" for a team, that words has an entirely different connotation. You "barrack" for a team. But you absolutely must pick a team to support. Andy chose the Richmond Tigers because the son of one of his rowing buddies plays for the team. Aliya, not surprisingly, chose Richmond as well. Alanna chose the Collingwood Magpies because her friends at school do. I chose the Essendon Bombers because they're a safe choice and Ben did, lol. And it just so happened Essendon was playing St. Kilda at the game we went too. The cross-cultural consultants we met with last week mentioned footy scarfs, so I picked up a few before the game. Cheap knock-offs of course, shhh, don't tell! We took the train to the game, and walked to Etihad Stadium. It has a retractable roof, which is very cool, but it was closed due to inclement weather. Once inside, the girls immediately spotted the face painting lines. Can't believe they don't do this in the US:
$2 for face painting. $4 gets you a fully-colored face, maybe next time!
We had fourth row seats, very close to the men action! So yes, there were a lot of women present and they were very very loud.
Essendon vs St Kilda
Since my team was playing, we all chose to barrack for Essendon, a good choice, as they dominated the game. In keeping with our family motto, "Quit while the quitting's good," we left after three quarters. By then the Bombers had more than 100 pts to the Saints 50 or so, so they had the game won. Final score was 136 to 84, just in case you were wondering! We all enjoyed the game, and would definitely go again.
The scarves have proven to be a great source of amusement and entertainment. Aliya's used them to tie laundry baskets together and make trains. She also enjoys creating new fashion statements:
