Not A Second Time

Today is ANZAC (Australia and New Zealand Army Corp) Day, the anniversary of the April 25, 1915 landing of Aussie and Kiwi troops on the Gallipoli peninsula in Turkey. The day is similar to our Veteran's Day in that in honours all military personnel and remembers those who died.
   It would have been nice to attend the dawn services, or maybe even the parade to, and ceremony at, the Shrine of Remembrance. Alas, the A-team girls stayed snuggled in their beds, and woke up just in time to cheer on our school's Drum Corp on the televised parade. (In a clear display of insanity dedication,Andy braved the near freezing conditions to row with his team on the Yarra at dawn.)
   It was a very low-key day for us, with many places closed for the national public holiday. Alanna went to another choir rehearsal and playdate. We finished up various projects around the house, played some games, and watched Collingwood (Alanna's team) just barely beat Essendon (Alexi's team) in a thrilling Anzac Day clash. 
   You might be wondering what the title refers to--not likely, but let's pretend you are for the sake of argument. Well, it refers to a leak in our ceiling. Our loyal readers (all five of you) might remember the flooding we experienced after just a week in our house. The rest of you can read about it here. 
   After Sunday's rain, the girls took a bath in the big spa bathtub. Afterwards, we noticed a spot in the ceiling, approximately underneath where the bathtub is located, had gotten bigger. We'd told the landlord about the spot last year, and while we were in the US he'd caulked around the tub, thinking that was the source of the leak. While inspecting the hole yesterday, Andy's finger actually poked through the hole. The landlord came over, checked out the situation, and decided it was probably a pipe leaking. 
   This morning, we noticed a bit of water dripping onto the floor below. The landlord came back over and cut out a section of the ceiling to take a look. Next thing I knew, a ton of disgusting brown water came pouring out of the ceiling. It filled the bucket he was holding. Andy grabbed our kitchen trashcan and that filled up as well before things started slowing down. 
   Needless to say, the house now smelled like sewage. Poor Aliya, who was having a snack, started gagging. We opened all the windows and doors, not ideal on a very cold, very windy day, but we had no choice.
   The landlord cleaned it up for the most part, put a new gasket in the end of a drain pipe that was supposedly the problem, put in a plate/vent to "repair" the hole in the ceiling, and said it just needs to dry out. But he left us with the ceiling that is most likely soaked in sewage water (not graywater as we'd thought) and the house still smells. We want any part of the ceiling drywall that was wet to be removed and replaced. We'll be making some calls tomorrow. Ugh.
   

Magical Mystery Tour (Laneways Tour)

   Last week, a few of us took a three-hour tour of the laneways and arcades in Melbourne. Thankfully it was a beautiful day and the weather didn't start getting rough...

   The first stop was the rather hidden Campbell Arcade, located underground in the Degraves Street Subway. The subway was built for the 1956 Olympics and provides an underground passageway to Flinders Train Station. Most of the shops were closed but our friendly tour guide from Meltours gave us an interesting description of some of the shops. One apparently sells a wide range of goods, including wrestlers masks, perfect for gift giving. 

   Another store, the Sticky Institute, sells zines, which are "independently-produced cheap short-run publications created because of passion not for profit." Or, as our tour guide explained, photocopied books. Browsing their website, the selection is amazing. For example you can get the 12-page "2010 Fruit Toast review," or "The Time-Consuming Adventures of Treasure-Hunting Toby" or even "That Hurt! Tattoo Ideas for the Broken-Hearted." And that's just in the "T" section. You can also take your own artwork and make a badge for 50 cents. What a bargain!

   Since I didn't take any pictures, and you weren't there to hear the guide, you can get an overview of the quirky, eclectic shops at this site or this one. See, I'm here for ya! The area also has 13 large glass cases that are used for public art displays. 

   Next we headed up Degraves Lane. The guide pointed out the artwork on the building below, an urban doologahl. The doolagahl is somewhat of a boogeyman to the Aboriginal people--he steals kids who stray too far from camp. Artists have modernized him in artwork in various locations around the city. The idea, according to the website, is to bring a "traditional Aboriginal story into an urban context. It is a series of artworks that interact with the urban spaces of Melbourne whilst engaging and sparking imagination in the viewer." This version can be found drinking coffee (as shown below) and or in other positions.

Looking north you can see the Majorca building, built in the 1920s, with its Art Deco facade. My photo is quite faded, so check out this link and scroll down to see this beautiful building. 

 Laneways, originally meant for deliveries via horse-drawn wagons, are now vibrant places full of shoppers and coffee drinkers.

I learned that I should look up a lot more often while in Melbourne. Here's the  Melbourne GPO, or General Post Office, which now contains stores instead of a Post Office.

When we reached Hardware Lane, a great laneway with lots of alfresco dining options, I sent Andy a quick text because I knew his office was just around the corner. He managed to sneak up on us and join the group for a few minutes, which was nice since it was our 14th anniversary. (I celebrated by going on this tour. He celebrated by going rowing at 0-dark-thirty in the morning, and then attending a work function that evening. Fortunately, we were able to celebrate together the following Saturday.)

In many locations, graffiti is allowed and even encouraged. Check out this link for more samples of street art. 

 Melbournians LOVE their coffee, and Melbourne is noted for its "cafe culture." And you can find all sorts of unique cafes, like this one with great display of chairs hanging in the front and very good coffee, so I'm told. You wouldn't even know the name of this shop is Brother Baba Budan unless you took a peek at a tiny board inside, or did a quick Google search.

Sometimes it's difficult to tell what type of business establishment you're seeing. Is this a bike shop?

A coffee shop?

Actually, it's both! This place would be a perfect business for the A-team since Andy used to work in a bike shop and I took a barista course!

The Royal Arcade was originally built in 1869 and is the oldest retail arcade in Australia. 

 

It features a huge assortment of shops, including one devoted to tarot cards and another devoted just to babushkas. So if you're in the market for a Russian doll, you know where to go.

The Royal Arcade is also noted for the clock which strikes every hour, and the figures of Gog and Magog.

   The sign below the clock reads: These two 7-feet giants have been striking the time on Gaunt's clock since 1842. They were carved from clear pine and modeled on the figures erected in Guildhall, London, in 1708 to symbolise the conflict between the ancient Britons and the Trojan invaders. Mythology tells of the giants Gog and Magog (also known as Corineus and Gogmagog) having been captured in battle by the Trojans and made to serve as porters at the gateway of an ancient palace on a site later occupied by the Guildhall. It is traditional for Gog to stand to the north and Magog to the south.

    Below is a pic of a great place to get your hair cut. Waaay more interesting than a Supercuts store, no? Which reminds me that back in the Campbell Arcade, there's a barber shop run by a guy who wears a tux and sings opera while he cuts hair...

After 2 1/2 hours of walking, we enjoyed a nice lunch that was included with the tour. I ordered my usual skinny flat white, but I was a bit jealous of my friend's iced coffee, which came with a tall glass of milk and several scoops of ice cream, and a shot of espresso to pour over. Yum!

All I've Got To Do

...is a garage/bake sale, Aliya's First Reconcilliation, girls sleepover at friends, attend show at Melbourne International Comedy Festival, two basketball games, and a birthday party.
   First things first. We started off bright and early with a streetwide garage sale on Saturday morning. Andy went rowing, leaving me to deal with the hordes who swarmed the second I opened the garage door. I hastily set up the tables in the driveway, and piled the boxes of stuff on top of the tables.
   When Andy got home, he immediately started re-arranging, putting the tables along the footpath (sidewalk!) I seriously think he missed his calling as a shop owner. He has a great sense of marketing and knows how to display merchandise for maximum effect. His engineering skills came in handy as well, as he fashioned a clothing rack from a ladder, the pipe from our vacuum cleaner, and some zip ties.

Alanna manned the bake sale for the first few hours. The Costco muffins, croissants, cookies, and sour candy strips were a huge hit. I don't think many Aussies had ever seen muffins that big before though. By the end of the day, the bake sale raised almost $100 for charity!

Aliya and her friend loved working the garage sale. Customers were quite impressed that we had a cash register. Of course, a few wanted to buy the cash register, and a few wanted to know if we accepted EFTPOS (electronic funds transfer at point of sale. Catchy name, isn't it? Think debit cards.) And it was a great opportunity for them to practice their math skills as they worked out the proper change. Shhh, don't tell them!

   By the end of the sale, we'd made almost $300. Not too shabby. Andy was more excited about the new space in the garage and getting rid of things we didn't need. We all really enjoyed the chance to meet a lot more neighbors, as 6 or 7 other houses participated in the street-wide sale. We also got incredibly lucky with the weather. It poured on Friday, and on also Sunday, but more about that later. It was a beautiful warm and sunny day, probably the last one we'll get as autumn (not fall) is in full swing now.
   We'd advertised at the school so a number of their classmates came by. One of Alanna's friends stopped for a brief visit before heading off to a choir rehearsal. She invited Alanna to join her. Alanna did, and loved it. She will be performing at this event, which sounds really cool.
   While Alanna was singing Pack Up Your Troubles, we were packing up the remains of the garage sale for donation to charity. Then it was time to get cleaned up and head for church for Aliya's First Reconciliation. She was quite nervous about her first confession, but she got through it with flying colours, er, colors. Her First Communion will be later this year.
   Then we dropped the girls off at a friends house for dinner and sleepover (aka, free babysitting!) Andy and I took the train into the city to celebrate our 14th anniversary. We got a quick bite to eat at a nearby Indian restaurant, then headed to a show as part of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. Andy bought tickets to see Tom Gleeson, a very funny comic. It was interesting to hear Aussie comedy. Different topics, of course, such as the teenager who got busted for drugs in Bali "Back home, he'd be a young druggie. But in Bali, according to newspapers, he's always a 'Young Australian full of promise!' " Of course, some topics such as new parenthood, are universal. Near the end of the act, he read this article. Go ahead, read it, I'll wait. Have you read it yet? Okay. Next thing that happens is his mom comes on stage and does a bit of an act. Hilarious! Definitely have to see more shows next year.
   The next morning started off waayy too early, as Aliya's basketball game was at 8:15. First game of the new season, and Aliya scored the first basket of the game. Unfortunately, they faced their nemesis from the Grand Final and lost by one point. We had a 45 minute break between games, a good opportunity to snack on some leftover bake-sale muffins, and then it was Alanna's turn. Her first game ever, and she scored a basket! Their team, despite being inexperienced, won handily. 
   She shoots...

   ...she scores, just not on this shot. I was too excited watching her play to capture the first basket! You can see she is head-and-shoulders, literally, above the competition.

Later than afternoon, the heavens opened up and poured down on us. The girls couldn't resist:

Look mom, a puddle!

A double rainbow over our house, though you might not be able to see it in the picture.

The girls desperately wanted to find the end of the rainbow, but we distracted them (really, parenting is mostly marketing and distraction) with a warm bubble bath in the spa tub.
   A great, but exhausting, weekend. I think Alanna was actually asleep by 9:30, which is quite amazing for her. She's often up until 11, much to our dismay, although she's been listening to some Mozart at night to try to relax her.
   Happily it's a two-day week for them, and us. Wednesday is ANZAC day, and the girls have off school Thursday and Friday. I'm sure we'll find something fun to do--stay tuned!

Twist and Shout (Zumba Party)

   Friday the 13th was a great, if busy, day for the A-team. Alanna had the Charlottes--Charlotte K and Charlotte P, who live on the same street and last year were in the same class--sleep over the night before. When they woke up, we had bagels all around for breakfast and the girls watched Chipwrecked, which Gram sent us for Easter. It was a great week for packages. In addition to Gram's package of movies and books, we also got some Clif Z-bars from Nana. Thank you both sooo much!
   A few hours later, we had Aliya's Zumba party. Zumba, for the uninitiated, is a Latin-style dance exercise class. She'd been wanting to do this for the past six months, ever since she went to a Kids Zumba exercise class at my gym. So, earlier in the week I sent an e-mail to a bunch of her friends to see who might be interested and available to come to the party.

   Fortunately, the party required very little preparation. I downloaded a few songs and we created a playlist with some official Zumba songs, some songs that were just fun to dance to, plus Limbo Rock and the Hokey Pokey. I cut up a bunch of veggies and fruit, and set out some Cheezels (similar to puffy Cheetos) and pretzels. Pushed back the furniture, and we were good to go.

   Eight children showed up at 1:00, and the place got loud! Aliya was looking forward to being the teacher. She petitioned for a stage to be built, but we decided that wasn't necessary. And once the song started, she got a bit shy. Fortunately the other girls were good sports about it and they all had fun dancing.

    After a few songs, we switched to some party games. Limbo was a huge hit. Then it was on to the snacks. The kids loaded up their plates and sat at the table. We played more games around the table, including "Chinese Whispers" aka Telephone. Next up was, "I went to the shops and I bought an avocado, a baby, a cricket" where each person repeats what the previous person bought then adds another item. I had to laugh at Alanna's "i" item, which was "an insane footy team." We also went around the table making up a story, where each person adds another sentence. Aliya started it off with a sentence about a magic treehouse. You can guess what books she's been reading lately. Halfway through, another girl added something about a leprechaun. Oddly enough, we played this same game camping in Ballarat last weekend, and I added a leprechaun too (although actually I said leprecorn, which I decided was a combination of leprechaun and unicorn..but I digress...)
   When they'd had enough snacks, it was time for more dancing and more games. About 2:30 we reached a lull, and I desperately looked around, trying to think of another good party game. I spotted a large bag of chocolate Easter Eggs on our counter, and decided to do egg/spoon relay race. That was a huge success, and from there we just did various variations on the relay race, right up until the moms started to arrive. 

   Later that afternoon, we headed to our friend's house to do another Easter Egg hunt with the families that camped with us in Ballarat last weekend. (I will blog about that, just waiting for the group pictures!) The cold and rainy weather prevented us from doing our own hunt, so we decided to do it today.
   As soon as the kids arrived, they all headed out to the trampoline and started playing the circle games they'd played while camping.

   We brought them back inside so we could hide the eggs. In addition to the chocolate eggs, I had a bunch of the plastic colored eggs filled with assorted little toys and stickers that we'd brought over from the US. The Aussies had never seen them (they don't sell plastic eggs here) and thought it was nice to have something other than just chocolate. Some of the kids liked the toys, but one boy only wanted candy and exchanged his plastic ones for "real" eggs!
   We told them no egg hunt until we got a group picture:

Let the hunt begin. It was a beautiful day for it, much nicer than the weather we had last weekend.

That evening we watched a major footy game (Aussie rules football.) It was a hugely-anticipated match up: the Collingwood Magpies vs the Carlton Blues. They've been rivals for over 100 years! A bit of a rivalry in our family as well:

   During the game they made homemade signs and pompoms. Alanna put a number four on her shirt, the number of the Collingwood team captain.

   Unfortunately for Alanna, the Magpies lost by 60 points, ouch! Still early in the season though :-)
   We've really been enjoying the two week term break. This past week their friends back home in Cali have been on Spring Break as well, which has made it much easier for them to connect each other. They really enjoy staying in touch with and chatting with their friends, and often it's hard to do with the time difference and busy schedules. They've spent a lot of time this week on Skype and Facetime, even "texting" with messages on their iTouches. Gotta love technology...Even as I write this Alanna is on Facetime (is Facetiming a verb?) with Patrick. 
   A few days ago she was on Facetime with her friend Ben, and I heard him say, I'll show you mine and then you can show me yours. Of course, they were talking about their progress on a game they were playing.

We Are the Champions (Basketball)

   At least they were in the regular season, where Aliya's basketball team went undefeated. They won their first playoff game, putting them right into the Grand Final. Alas, they couldn't quite pull it off and they had their first loss, making them Runners Up.
   After the Grand Final they had an award ceremony. Here's Aliya receiving her medal.

 

 

The coach was amazing. She'd coached some of the girls last season, and agreed to coach them again even though her daughter had moved up to another age bracket. She was tough, but fair, and taught them a lot in their one weekly practice.

The evening after the Grand Final was an award ceremony, and they were presented with personalized trophies. 

 

It was a great season, although a fairly long one. It started at the beginning of Term 4 last year, early October. They had the Christmas holidays and January off, and then continued through Term 1 of this year. The girls gelled nicely as a team, which made me happy since only one other girl was from Aliya's school. Half of the team was experienced, so the new girls learned a lot from them. Speaking of teammates, would you believe one of the other girls is named Aaliya? What are the odds?

We could see Aliya improve with each game. In February Aliya scored her first basket in a game. Not an easy task since they play with regulation 10' basket height. Her coach awarded her Player of the Day.

   It's interesting (to me anyway) to note the differences between sports teams here and in the US. It's a lot "simpler" here in Australia. No snack duties, for example. In the US, parents take turns bringing snacks for all players after a game. For Aliya's soccer team, I even decorated plastic shoe boxes with the child's picture, colored paint pens, and stickers. These boxes were used for their snacks each week. 
   Also in the US, there was often quite a bit of fundraising, where donations of time and/or money were required. There were opening day activities, as well as formal pictures of both the team and individual. 
   Another huge aspect of sport teams, at least in California, were the constant pizza parties. Usually these were very casual events where the pizza place offered a few free cheese pizzas for the kids. Smart marketing on their part, because inevitably the parents ordered more expensive options, along with the necessary wine and beer, and of course, the kids spent plenty of money on the games and videos that were usually at the back of the restaurant. Still, it was a fun way to socialize.
   No pizza parties here, but we did organize an end-of-season dinner for our team at an Italian restaurant. I made these cupcakes as a treat for the girls. Can you tell what they are supposed to be?

   All in all, we were really pleased with the program, especially our particular club whose motto is, "Where friendship and fun are number 1." Some of the other clubs in the league are a bit more aggressive. Both Aliya and Alanna signed up for next season, so there will be a lot of basketball in our future!
   I was so happy to find this program. We struck out on our attempts at soccer, softball, and even volleyball. The main organized sport for young girls here is netball, a variant on basketball with no dribbling, but I wanted a sport that would translate back to the US.