Getting Better

   I'm just speaking for myself, not the rest of the family, but it's starting to feel like we're really living life here now, as opposed to being on some long weird holiday or worse, just counting the months/weeks/days until we get to go back home again. Seems like we're settling in, getting more comfortable with life here, and it's a good feeling.

   One of the main bonuses to me not really working is that I am free to help out at the school. And I take advantage of it at every opportunity. On Friday I helped with the school's House Athletics competition. It's basically a big track and field day at a local park for the upper grades. Every student is in one of four houses, named for a famous Aussie: Gaze (Green), Dunlop (Yellow), Mitchell (Blue) or Warren (Red).  The house with the most points (based on how members place in the events) wins the House Cup, which was awarded on Monday at assembly by the Mayor!

   It's a fun day for the kids because 1. they get out of school all day and 2. they get to dress all wacky in their house colors.

(from left to right) Charlotte (also in Helter Skelter),  Abby (came in Term 2, and Alanna.

Coach, on the left, giving instructions

   I was given the task of timing the hurdles, which you can see just to the right in the picture above. A bit nerve-wracking, as a number of kids couldn't quite clear the hurdles and took a tumble. 

   Alanna competed with the other 10-year-old girls, and came in fourth for both shot-put and high-jump, and sixth place for discus.

   In the end, Alanna's team came in second place. They were quite happy about it, even cheering when fourth place was announced since that meant they weren't last as usual!

Alanna's house

     Saturday morning, Andy went rowing and I took the girls to another local park for  a new softball program called Batter Up. As we walked over to the group, Aliya pointed out that there were a lot of boys there. Deja vu all over again (Aliya ended up quitting the local "co-ed" soccer team because it was all boys.) Fortunately, here is was half girls. They were split into two groups and spent the next two hours playing various games. None of it involved any actual softball drills, much to Alanna's disappointment. However they both had fun and each made a friend, which is encouraging.
   It's a new program and they're still sorting things out. There will be a couple sessions of this BatterUp program, and hopefully regular games starting in Term 4. We spent a bit of time talking to the coaches and Alanna may well end up playing on a U13 team! We'll keep you posted how this all turns out, it's still in flux apparently as they figure out how many people they get and what level everyone is at. Still, we're rather disappointed with organized girls sports here. It seems that netball is the only option until girls are much older.
   After the program ended, we came home and had lunch. Still wanting to practice "real" softball, we decided to go to the local park and play. Andy and Aliya headed over first, while Alanna and I did a few other things at home. We were able to Skype a few friends which was nice. There's such a limited time frame that works, we have to take advantage of it whenever we can. Eventually Andy called. He was getting tired running after all of Aliya's hits, so Alanna and I joined him in the park. We had a huge space in the cricket oval set up with bases, and all took turns running and hitting. Lots of fun!
   Sunday we headed out on another bike ride. Based on a recommendation from another ex-pat in the area, we rode to Packer Park. Part of the way was through local reserves/nature strips with bike paths, so it was a pleasant ride, and only took about 20 minutes.
   One highlight of the park was a velodrome! We all took several laps around it.

Alanna in the velodrome

   Then we headed over to the playground. We thought at first there was a pillow jump, but it turned out to be this concoction:

Aliya and Alanna enjoying the park

   I didn't take pictures of the rest of the playground, which was well-designed and lots of fun. Who needs to go to the gym when you can follow your kids around on the play equipment?
   One more thing was there of interest, and I really need to take a picture of one someday. It's something that you can find in public places in Australia...
   No wait, I don't need to take a picture because I found something better, a YouTube video. And no, I didn't make it, which you'll know once you watch it. And you will watch it, won't you? How can you possibly resist?

Dontcha love the warning that you only have 10 minutes? The only other thing I wish he had shown was the automated hand-washing station, which, like the Open Door button, will flush the toilet. It's got three separate parts, all hands-free, for soap, water and air to dry. But seriously, who's idea was it to play music in there? Gotta love it.

Mt. Buller

   Last Saturday afternoon, around 4:00, Andy decided that winter was going by fast, and we should go to the snow. Not just nearby Lake Mountain (site of our infamous u-turn) but all the way to Mt. Buller, which is almost four hours away.

   I agreed, if he could find a place to stay that night near the mountain, thereby breaking up the drive. To be honest, I felt that he had about a 0.01% chance of finding a place on such short notice. A man on a mission, Andy headed to the computer, phone in hand. The first few places he tried were fully booked. He tried a place that had Hotel in the name, but was told it was a restaurant. Ooo-kay. But within a few minutes, he had a place in Mansfield. When told it was a backpackers room, albeit one that our family would have to ourselves, Andy cautiously (and wisely!) checked with me first. I gave it the green light, and he quickly booked the room. 

   With the clock ticking so-to-speak, we flew into high gear. Andy started pulling out all the required snow gear. I headed out to pick up the girls from their playdates. We packed clothes and snacks, loaded up the car, and were out the door by 6:00. We picked up pizzas on the way, and put the audiobook version of James and the Giant Peach on the iPod. We got through several chapters before we realized the iPod was still on shuffle....oops. No wonder we were a bit confused!

   Driving at night worked well. Eventually Aliya took a bit of a nap in the car, while Alanna read. Once we were out in the boonies, which surprisingly doesn't take long, we looked out at the beautiful night sky, amazed at how many stars we could see. Alanna stared out the window and to her delight saw several shooting stars, probably from the end of the Perseid meteor shower.

   We arrived at our accommodations without much difficulty. The kids were thrilled that they BOTH got to have the top bunk. Not a problem since there were actually 4 sets of bunk beds plus a single bed in the middle. They also loved the little numbered wooden lockers that could be assigned to each bed. Aliya declared she loved it so much she wanted to live there! Not sure what that says about our house...maybe just that we no longer have bunk beds.

   After sending my mom a bunch of pics from the trip later in the week, she complained commented that I wasn't in any of them. Out of 150 or so pics, I was indeed in one of them. Here ya go Mom:

Our fancy digs

   The next morning, we stopped off at a local place to buy lift tickets, a park entrance pass, and new gloves for Alanna since we'd forgotten hers in the rush. Then we were off to the mountain, about an hour's drive.
   As you can see from the pics below, we couldn't have asked for a better day. Sunny and warm, and the snow was nice and soft--very important for a beginning snowboarder! After renting gear, we took the girls to their lessons  and Andy headed for the chairlift to get in a few runs. I stayed to watch and photograph the girls, which was good because 15 minutes into Aliya's class we were told she couldn't continue without a helmet. I quickly ran to rent her one.
   The girls did awesome. After lunch and a little more practice,  the girls were ready to try the bunny slope! 

Heading up

View from the top

Where's Waldo, er, Alanna?

Just like surfing!

Snowbaby

Bye-bye baby

 Because the day was so beautiful, the kids didn't get cold and wanted to stay later than we planned. We tried to stick with our motto, "Quit while the quittin's good," but it was so nice, and frankly we wanted to get every penny's worth. Skiing, like everything else in Oz, is crazy expensive. Aliya fell asleep on the shuttle bus from the lodge to the parking lot, and they both slept much of the way home. Still, it was well worth it, and a completely successful last-minute trip. It was especially welcome for Andy who really enjoyed the crunch of the snow under his boots and the crisp, thin mountain air. With the crazy hours and his crazy workload, it was nice to really get away from it all.

I Want to Ride my Bicycle

We took advantage of a sunny winter day recently to take a family bike ride to the beach. Andy used Google maps to plot the four mile route. Yes, we still think in miles not kilometers, though we're starting to get used to degrees Celsius.

On the "wrong" side of the road

Our destination was Brighton Beach, to take advantage of a great bike path along the bay, which featured nice views of the city and also had some great climbing trees. We also wanted to visit the famous beach boxes.

In case you're wondering, and, well, even if you're not, they're just simple storage sheds. Not utilities are connected, despite they cost more than many houses. One sold last December went for a "lazy $215,000." Here's some of our faves:

Felt so nice to be at the beach. Alanna took a lot of pictures herself so that she could edit them on Picnik and upload them to SuperClubs. Here's a sample of one she did:

Girls frolicked a bit in the cold water and did cartwheels in the sand. All fun and games until someone lands hard on her backside. Took a lot of persuasive powers and creative distractions to get her to ride the four miles back. A stop for some treats certainly helped. At a snack bar we ordered fish and chips for Andy, paddle pops (fudgesicles) for the girls, and a decaf skinny flat white for Alexi. Yes, Virginia, in Melbourne the beach-side snack bars have espresso machines!
Aliya understandably was tired out as we neared home, especially since her back was hurting. I dipped into my parental distractions bag-o-tricks once more and started singing songs from Mary Poppins. (She and her classmates are performing them in the upcoming school concert, so she's been singing them a LOT lately.) I saw quite a few pedestrians smiling at her as she rode by, singing "Let's Go Fly a Kite" and the ever-popular "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious." A few rounds of each, and we were safely home.
edited to add: spell-check wanted to change that long song title to superciliousness, but I had the expert speller in our family (Alanna) confirm that I did indeed spell it correctly. 

Birthday - Andy's this time

Andy's in Adelaide today, so we don't get to wish him happy birthday in person unfortunately. This will have to do:

But wait, there's more! Alanna helped me create the fabulous artwork below. What do you think? Click on it for a larger view.

I kept a version without the beards, just in case you'd prefer that one!

Happy Birthday Andyman. We love and miss you!

SUPERCLUBSPLUS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ok,
I love SuperClubsPLUS aka SuperClubs or scplus or sc. In Year 4, our teachers got us passwords and everything so now, I LOVE!!! it. My parents love it too because they like the fact that I'm learning HTML. On it, you can earn stars, get Cybersmart Safety badges, write book reviews to get your book badges, design your own page, email and chat with friends, get into the Tech Team, earn credits, and much more. Plus, it's really safe and it has rules about not sending SPAM and stuff. I've gotten 2 warnings, and this girl Casey has gotten 9!

SuperClubs Logo

About it:
Stars and pages and credits and links and awards and gems
You start with one page.
Get your white star
Get your red star
Get your green star (get a second page)
Get your blue star
Get your yellow star (get a third page)
Have 300 credits, buy a new page, then the cost for a new page is 400. I have 5 homepages, plus, my 2 weather pages, my profile, my bird blog, and my 2 cybersmart pages.
You can also, think of links to your page. You just put [code] then type the text, color, size, and or italic, bold, or underlined then add [/code] at the end then save the block, and people will copy and paste the link, cause' if you don't have [code][/code], then it will just be the link. The people will paste the link onto their page and people who go to their page will see the link and go to my page! There's also, SOTW aka Site of the Week and you can vote once a week. And, you can have these counters to see how many people have seen your page. When you get 500, 1000, 5000, 10000, 50000, or 100000 "hits" on your page, then a little badge comes up on  the top of your page along with the stars you get and the other awards you have. They just let out mascots for your homepage and they cost 300 credits. They also let out gems. You earn sections of each gem (for now just the ruby gem) by doing certain things. You get a new page for every full gem you do. To get 2 sections of my ruby gem, I'd have to give up 2 of my pages to do an Instructor Page and a Tourist Guide. A lot of people make and start clubs, and some are really cool. Some Tech Team girls have image shops and now, I know how to do images to! I saw an Instructor Page on how to use Picnik and now I can do it, but I have to figure out how to get the size right. You take a picture you have and transport it to Picnik and then you can add stickers, text, and borders. I am awesomely addicted to SuperClubs. It is the best thing in the world!

This is a picture I made on Picnik!

AlannaG1 is my username on SuperClubs and ********* is my password.

This is what you see when you log in.

There is always a mediator watching you, reading your emails, looking at your pages to make sure you're ok. There are also forums you can post in and activities to get involved into.

This is my first page. We couldn't get it all, so it looks different. 

Look at the top and you'll see all my awards. I forgot to mention my Canada Club badge where you take a quiz on Canada. And below the list of my pages, there are 2 boxes. Those are charters and when enough people sign the charter, it becomes a Webring. My 2 charters that I'm in are called The Converse Club (for a club) and The Beatles. It's always changing. You can also have a little icon. Mine now is a spiral that's black and red and it says Alanna Rocs in the middle. It's also always changing. I'm in Orion house right now on SuperClubs. That's red.

PS: If you want to do it, you have to be registered through a school also if you're a teacher at that school.

BYE!!!

Paperback Writer

   Another thing I find interesting here is the Melbourne paper, The Age, is a little more "folksy" in its writing style. I don't know what the proper term is, but there's writing you just wouldn't find in the more straight-laced LA Times. I found this story hilarious, so thought I'd share it with you.
   The story is about Judy Moran, the matriarch of a criminal family in Melbourne. She's got quite past. Among other things, both her husbands and two sons were murdered. She was just sentenced for the murder of her brother-in-law. This story about the sentencing appeared in The Age on Wednesday. Here are two of my favourite, er, favorite, tidbits
   In a piece of spectacular bad acting, Judy turned up at the murder scene, stamping her feet and crying: "It should have been me, not Des." Witness statements indicated she was unlikely to win a Logie and it was soon apparent that as an actor she made Warwick Capper look like Lord Olivier.


Note: Logies are the Australian Emmys, Warwick Capper was a flamboyant footy player.


Later in the article:


   Then there is Nuts [Alexi's note: Geoff "Nuts" Armour was the hitman hired by Judy]. He pleaded guilty but chose not to give evidence against Judy. This means he will get a sentence discount for avoiding a lengthy and costly trial but did not become a prosecution witness and therefore avoided breaking any underworld codes.

   But then Armour managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in a plea hearing that lived up to his nickname.

His version of events was that he went there to scare Des into agreeing to reintroduce regular payments to Judy.

As an underworld negotiator Nuts appeared to be a tad excitable as he chose to fire seven shots without bothering to say a word to his victim.

   No wonder the measured Justice Lasry simply responded that this version of events was "at odds" with the evidence. This is judge-speak for ''you are a lying loon bag''.

   Sadly Armour's explanation confirmed what many have long thought: that Nuts has fallen so far behind the parade he can no longer hear the band.

In other news, Melbourne (and all of Australia actually) are going crazy for Cadel Evans, the Aussie who won the Tour de France. Melbourne hosted a major "Cadelabration" on Friday in the city. Free valet parking for bicycles was provided. Alas, we weren't able to attend the festivites. Andy had to work, the girls were in school, and Alexi hit the Southern Melbourne Market looking for deals with fellow ex-pats Mary and Tierney.

Little Child

Dad’s and Daughter’s trip to the Wave Pool, narrated by Aliya:

   I don’t know what to say, though.  We really wanted to go with friends, and called all around until I was able to convince my friend Liana to go with us.  None of Alanna’s friends were available.  So we drove down to pick up Liana, and headed for the wave pool.  Once we got there, we hopped into the wave pool, and got thrown around by the giant waves.  Then we went to the warm kids pool, and me and Liana played mermaids.  My name was Annaliese, and Liana’s name was Isabelle.  Then we went over to the freezing cold lap pool to practice dives, races, floating on the big mats, and pretending to be dolphins.

   After a few minutes, we headed back to the wave pool which starts up every 30 minutes.  Dad was a pretty good sport letting us climb all over him, as we did our scarecrow routine (from Indian Princesses), and jumped off his shoulders, and dove through his legs.

   We finally left and went to visit the archery range next door, where we saw Mr. Williams from school shooting arrows at a target really really far away.  Then dad made us stop at the local indoor go kart place to show us the cool race cars for kids. 

   But we were so hungry that we didn’t stay long and headed for Subway to get a “sammich.”  I had turkey with cheese, my dad had a meatball sammich, Liana had a pizza sammich, and Alanna had nothing because she was being stubborn (and tired).  In the end, Alanna relented and had her own meatball sammich. 

   Oh, and there's a kid at school in Alanna's class named Sam. I like to call him Sammich.

   That’s all for now.  Love, Aliya.

Poker Face

   Andy here again, for another in my rare series of posts.  This one deals with poker. 

   So once a month, a bunch of the dads from the local school get together for a poker night.  These nights are a lot like the moms’ bunco nights, but surely with more beer, dirty jokes, beer, good-natured put-downs, beer, chips, beer, and bodily noises.  I’m pretty sure that’s why there’s never been a co-ed game of poker in the history of the world. 

   In any case, this past Wednesday was poker night, ostensibly starting at 8:30, but not really underway until well after nine.  Dave, the local Pom cosmetic surgeon, won the first five hands, and was incorrigible until we managed to beat him back down until his pile of chips was barely visible.  There were several great hands throughout, including poor Chris, who TWICE lost his king-high flushes to Neerim and Dave who were holding the ace.  My proudest moment was completely bluffing Dave out of a club flush.  Four clubs showing after the river card, and I had nothin’.  Dave had a six of clubs which was easily enough to win it, but I bet high and hard, and he folded!  Sweet!

   The best part of poker night, though, came on Friday night, two days later, when I asked Alanna and Aliya if they wanted to play some Texas Hold ‘Em.  My offer to teach them how to gamble was way better than the offer of a movie night with “Escape From Witch Mountain,” and we grabbed a deck of cards and the bowl of coins.  I pulled out all a handful of 10, 20 and 50 cent pieces and gave everybody 5 dollars to start.

   The girls quickly asked if they could keep whatever they were holding at the end of the game.  Pretty clever little imps, these girls.  But, sure, why not?  I was sure I’d be able to clean ‘em out.

   The first thing I had to teach them was the order of hands, from one pair on up to a royal flush.  They generally understood from having played Yahtzee which has the 3-of-a-kind, 4-of-a-kind, full house, etc. 

   The second thing I had to teach them was the poker face.  After dealing Aliya a pair of kings in the first hand, it was clear from her gigantic smile and bouncing that she had a bit to learn about being cool under pressure.  Aliya won that hand.  Later Alanna demonstrated her poker face with a shriek and lap around the table while holding an ace and king of spades.  Unfortunately she lost that hand to Aliya’s pair of twos when the flop, turn and river were all garbage.  But the ultimate poker face came from Aliya, after the shared cards came up with a pair of queens and a pair of threes.  Aliya was holding a queen, and sitting on a full house, and could barely contain her excitement as she went All In!  Well, I couldn’t just fold, so I went in with her and she nearly emptied my bank.

   Now the girls are eager for me to host a poker night so they can sit in and play with the dads.  But with the aforementioned beer, language, etc., it probably would not be a great idea.

Ob-la-di, Ob-la-da, Yum Cha

On Sunday, we were invited to join two other families for yum cha. 

Known as dim sum in the US, it's a meal at a Chinese restaurant where servers bring by all sorts of various dishes and you take what you want. Because we had a large group, we had the upstairs banquet room to ourselves, which was fortunate:

Great chance to try lots of different foods. Lots of dumplings, steamed buns, even delicious calamari. Of course, our kids mostly stuck to rice, though they did like the dessert:

Afterwards, we took advantage of a rare warm and sunny winter day and took the kids to the park. 


It was such a nice weekend. Although we try not to eat out two much, it was a rare weekend as we did it twice. Andy and I joined two other American couples (our friends Tierney and John, and their friends Annie and Colin) for dinner in the CBD on Saturday night. Luckily we were able to drop the girls off at a friends house and therefore we didn't have to pay $18/hour for babysitting! Gills Diner was delicious, and in a cool building. The menus were on chalkboards on the wall. Didn't get a picture, so I'll steal borrow one from another blog. 

The waitress told us of the specials, and some words/dishes, especially in French, were unfamiliar to us. The "highlight" though was when I asked about the "oxtongue pastry" that was served with a porterhouse steak. The waitress explained that it's "a pastry with oxtongue!" Go figure. I was hoping it was something else, I guess. Despite Annie's insistence that it was very good, I couldn't bring myself to order and try it. 
The meals we did order were delicious, but the culinary highlight was the churros served with a cup of orange-flavored chocolate for dipping. Beat Andy's chocolate slice with peanut butter ice cream hands down!