A Day in the Life, Pt 2

   Saturday was yet another busy day. It started off early, as we had booked a spot at a local swap meet. After living without most of our stuff for three months, we realized we really didn't need it all once it finally arrived. So we've been downsizing as much as we can. We accumulated a lot of boxes of books and clothes the girls have outgrown, extra vases and wine glasses we'll never use, and just random junk we no longer want. Hoping to clear out some boxes from our garage and make some extra cash, we decided to sell what we could. Hence the swap meet.

   The day was mostly a success. We were extremely fortunate it didn't rain, as my attempts to find an EZ Up to borrow failed miserably. Our location wasn't the best, as it was at the very back of the market. We didn't even get that far back when we scouted out the place a month ago, so we knew the foot traffic would be lighter than the rest of the market. On the plus side, at the stall next to us was the lovely Alex Hallatt. She's a syndicated cartoonist and her strip, Arctic Circle, is about three penguins and features environmental themes. She really helped us pass the long morning, and only made fun of me a little when I asked her what that paddle was that she was selling. Yes, it was a cricket bat, duh! Not only did she bestow it upon us as a present, she also began educating us on "French Cricket", which we look forward to playing in the local park if it ever warms up and stops raining! She even entrusted the girls to walk her pooch Billy, and she introduced us to her boyfriend who is from, get this, Sewickley, PA, which is near Pittsburgh, Alexi's hometown. Small world.

   We packed up about 1:00, a few bucks richer and several boxes of stuff lighter. Good deal! We headed home so the girls could get ready for the school disco that night.

Aliya and two friends before the disco

   The girls really enjoyed the dance. They came home with tired feet, blinking mouthpieces and necklaces, and smiles on their faces. 

   For Sunday, we gave Aliya the choice of what family activity she would like to do. Alanna pushed hard for Luna Park, but after rave reviews from her friend Liana, Aliya voted for ScienceWorks. It was an excellent choice. Similar to Discovery Science Center, there were a lot more exhibits as well as a planetarium. We were so impressed we bought the family membership, as well as tickets to see two shows. The first was a 3-D movie about an animated dog going to the moon. The movie included a planetarium show where we learned a lot about the constellations in the southern hemisphere. Afterwards the girls wanted to ask the presenter about Orion. Aliya began by proclaiming that her birthday was on Tuesday, so he gave us a "Planisphere" which will enable us to locate the major constellations and stars visible from Victoria at any time of the year. He also gave each of the girls a poster about the galaxy, much to their delight.

   Here are some snapshots from our day:

Aliya helping with a demonstration of making a cloud

Alanna was fascinated with a set of optical illusion paintings. They could be spun around. The first set included a list of words that could also be read when flipped around. Not sure if that makes any sense but take a close look at the pics below.

Bowl of fruit

Funny man

    Too many exhibits to mention, but another highlight was the Lightning Room which featured a Tesla Coil. Since Alanna did a school research project on lightning, she really enjoyed the demonstration of what to do during a lightning strike. 
   We still had one last activity of the day. The girls helped me make the pretzel candies to hand out in Aliya's class on her bday.

How many can we eat, mom?

A Day in the Life

   Well, it's winter here. That's right, Australia doesn't wait until the summer/winter solstice. Winter is officially defined as June, July, and August here. Of course, if you were to base it on temperature, I would say winter started about the second week of May. It's been many many years since I've felt this cold, this often. Factor in cold days, lack of insulation in the house, and me being too cheap to heat the house just for me, and well, I'm COLD. I might have to stop checking Facebook for the next three months as I see all my American friends enjoying their summer! 
   Slowly but surely, we're moving towards a "normal" life here in Oz. For example, one weekend was in many ways similar to one we might have had back home. Friday night we went to a production of Cinderella at a nearby theatre. A friend and classmate of Alanna was in the show, as one of the young girls. Saturday we  met Andy's coworkers downtown for dinner, and then walked to a footy game, Richmond (Andy's team) vs. Essendon (Alexi's team). This time we were in a different arena, the MCG (Melbourne Cricket Ground) and much higher up in the stands. Nose-bleed section, to be sure. On the plus side, it seemed more family-friendly up there, possibly because the kids tix were only $6, and there were no loud, drunk, swearing moms behind us this time. It was a great game, with the lead flipping back and forth numerous times in the first half. Once again we left early, as the kids were suffering a bit from two very late nights out in a row.
   On Sunday, Aliya went to a birthday part for two twin girls. They had a wood-working party in their garage for, get this, 24 kids! I can only imagine what the mom did with the 48 presents. Aliya had a great time crafting and painting a little windmill. I arrived just as they were settling down for some snacks. Sorry about the poor quality pic from my phone. I thought some of you might find it interesting to see the typical kiddy party fare:

Mini meat pies, sausage rolls, and "fairy bread" aka white bread with butter and sprinkles

  Sunday evening we had Andy's coworkers over for dinner. The girls loved seeing baby Sydney, and they got along well with Justin, who had just flown in from the New York office. They persisted in calling him Justin Bieber, but they liked him a lot, possibly because he brought several large boxes of z-bars with him.
   Another weekend, Andy took the girls ice skating. They loved it:

   That same day there was an auction across the street. Yes, that's how they sell houses here. There are a few preview days, where you have a very short window of time to view the house. Then, on the prescribed day and time, the auctioneer stands in the middle of the street and starts the auction. 

   He gives some background preliminaries, including highlights of the house and basic rules of the auction. Interestingly enough, the auctioneer can submit bids for the vendor (seller) and essentially ratchet up the price. This particular auction was rather disappointing though. The first bidder proposed $800,000. The auctioneer almost made fun of him. The bidder responded that the ad said bids between $800,000 and something else would be accepted. The bidder demanded, "Do you accept my bid?" The auctioneer responded that he did, but that he was submitting a bid for the vendor for $850,000. The first (and only) bidder responded with $851,000. Despite several groups of interested people, along with neighboring looky-loos like myself, there were no other bids. Gee, can't imagine why people wouldn't want to pay more for narrow 3 bedroom, 2 bath (both of which are upstairs) house that's actually half of a duplex. The bidding ended there. According to the auctioneer, the high bidder then had the opportunity to enter a negotiation with the seller (wha??). Apparently the negotiations fell through because the sign now says: For Sale or Lease. 
   Speaking of the signs, I think the For Sale signs here are rather interesting. First of all, they're HUGE. Second, they have color pictures, and descriptions. Third, they have lights shining on them at night. The street lights here are far and few between, so this one actually helps light up our street  :-)
   Aliya's turned into the socialite of the family. She's been to five birthday parties since school started. I felt fortunate to be invited to a girls night out with some other Year 1 moms. Another crappy cell phone pic, and unfortunately I didn't take it when we arrived so I could show the six bottles of wine on the table! It was BYO, so we all did.

A happy and outspoken group of ladies!

    Dinner was at the acclaimed Bombay By Night. Indian food wouldn't have been my first choice, but I have to say it was really good. Thankfully we ordered a bunch of dishes to share. The other huge advantage of the restaurant was it was walking distance, so no one had to worry about driving. It was a fun group, and I'm pretty sure I can recruit a few of them to play Bunco!
   Last Tuesday Aliya stayed home from school. She'd been up most of the night coughing, and was really tired. Trying to make it semi-educational, we played a few games, including Money Bags, which requires you to use American money to generate certain amounts. For example, you might give yourself $0.44 without using nickels. I like this game particularly since the Aussie coins are so different. (20 cent pieces not quarters, and no pennies) She also let me video her sharing her recently-acquired knowledge of sea turtles:

   The highlight for the A-team last week was definitely this:

Andy's brother John, his wife (not "partner") Carrie and baby Fletcher

   The girls are SO excited about their new cousin Fletcher who was born on June 1st. Mom and baby are doing great, we're happy to report. We're hoping to see them in California over the holidays.
   This past weekend was more of the same with playdates, a swap meet, the school disco, and a trip to ScienceWorks, but I'll have to save that for another post! 

Happy Mother's Day, Part 2

My first Mother's Day in Australia was a bit different: I woke up to the sounds of four little girls instead of two! We babysat our friends' daughters so they could have a night away to celebrate their 10th wedding anniversary. It was a lovely day though.

   

Alanna spent a lot of time creating this menu for me, as well as
rhyming riddles to help me guess what my presents were.

No, that's not a huge steak, just French Toast made with Challah bread

Lovely pressies bought at the Mother's Day Stall at school.

Homemade card from Aliya

Happy Mother's Day, Part 1

We want to wish our moms, Nana and Gram, a very happy Mother's Day. We miss you and love you very much. And now, a song from the girls:

Please Mr. Postman

   The postal workers here do not pick up mail from your mailbox. Nope, you have to take it to a drop-off box or a post office! How hard is it to just take an envelope or two?  On the flip side, you only have to post a "No Junk Mail" and for the most part, you won't get any. We actually removed our "No junk mail" sign, since we're so desperate for mail and advertisements are interesting to me. Always curious what shops and restaurants are out there, not that we frequent them very often.
   Another difference is a small thing, but still annoying. I think I've already posted about the shopping trolleys. You need a gold coin ($1 or $2) to remove one from the line-up. You get the money back when you return the cart and attach it to the previous cart. I can deal with that. What I struggle with are the fully rotating wheels on the trolley. It's bad enough that you have to fight to keep the thing going in a straight line down the aisle. Imagine you're pushing a cart full of groceries between two cars to get to your car. But the car park is sloped. So you now have to try to prevent the heavily loaded trolley from sliding down into the lower car. Rather awkward.
   Finally, no paying at the pump for petrol. You actually have to walk into the station and interface with a live human being if you want to buy your gas. At least you can pump it before paying.
   Now for some news. Andy finally got his motorcycle on Thursday. Great timing now that the weather has turned quite cold (not.) Unfortunately, he still can't legally drive it and he has two more hoops to jump through before he can go back to VicRoads and register it. I'll save that whole saga for Andy to blog about once he completes everything.
   Andy also got his Hudson rowing shell delivered. The bad news it has several cracks in the fiberglass, most likely from being tied down too tightly. The good news is we have insurance. The bad news is it $0.60/lb. That gives us about $18. Not exactly going to cover the repairs, unfortunately. We're quite lucky that the whole container wasn't lost. Apparently around 10,000 containers are lost at sea each year. Had ours been one of them, we would have gotten a very small sum of money to replace most of our worldly possessions. You can be sure we'll insist on better insurance on the trip back. 
   Meanwhile, we're still unpacking boxes, and we've got a nice stash of things to give away or sell. Haven't figured out the best method for doing that yet. Yesterday we went to a swap meet held monthly at a nearby primary school. Lots of people selling, didn't see too many people buying. Still, we'll probably do it if we can get a stall space for next month. It only costs $20, and a few vendors we talked to thought it was worth it. We've got a lot of books to part with, and given the high cost of books, I think we should be able to sell enough to get some extra traveling money.
   

Splish Splash

Good morning, Andy writing in here.  After church on Sunday, it was raining and a bit cool, and we were struggling to decide what to do for entertainment.  Then it came to us.  Swimming!  At the nearby indoor wave pool!  Sweet!  So I packed up Alanna, Aliya and a few towels, and off we went.  The facility is a community centre, pretty much like most you’ve probably seen.  Except this one has an outdoor archery range, and an outdoor trapeze school.  You know, just like all those other community centres around.  But rather than go for the trapeze lessons, we stuck to our plan and headed indoors to the heated pools.

First up was the wave pool, which thunders to life every 30 minutes.  We got there just in time to catch a set of waves, and get bounced around like corks in the ocean.  Only it was way warmer than the ocean.  After that, we headed to the adjacent kids pool, which was even warmer, but there wasn’t too much action here, so we headed over to the giant lap pool.  About a third of the pool was set aside for recreation, as opposed to actual laps.  And they had set out these very cool floating foam mats, about 6 feet by 6 feet (2 metres by 2 metres for you metrically inclined folk).  We then spent the next half hour trying to stand, surf, balance, pose and walk across the mats.  Tremendous fun, especially when we stacked up all six mats and had a wonderfully stable raft.

After a while, we decided to change pools again, and as soon as I was out of the water, the girls started begging for chips (French fries).  I put them off as long as I could, and finally caved in and bought a plate of fries for (gasp!) $7.50.  That’s how they get you.  $13 for the three of us to play in the pools all day, but $7.50 for fries.  Smart business.  After the chips break, we headed back into the wave pool.  While the girls thrilled to the rising and falling of each wave, my goal this time was to stand as still as possible to try to resist the waves surge.  Mostly I was just feeling lazy and didn’t want to have to swim around.  But it turned out to be more work standing still.

In the end, my ultimate goal was achieved.  The girls were exhausted and ready for an early bedtime.  This was proven at dinner time with a very grumpy and bleary-eyed Aliya.  She ate her three chicken nuggets and called it a night.  And the rest of us followed soon after.  Sleep tight.

P.S. From Alexi: Did you know you can leave a comment? Yes you! It's easy, it's fun, and it's free! Just click on the link at the bottom of any post that says 0 Comments (or 1 Comment, or some other number if we're luck.) Show us some love and let us know you're out there.

The Long and Winding Road, Part 3

Can you guess what kind of store we're in here?

Pointing to their favorite thread color

Did you guess Post Office? Didn't think so! We went in to buy some stamps and were amazed at the shopping selection. Apparently that's what they do in the small towns.

Enjoying some OJ on our last morning in Apollo Bay

View from a turnout. Much of the landscape on
the way home reminded me of rural Pennsylvania

   The next major sightseeing stop was Gibson Steps. 

100 plus steps. We counted, but now I don't remember how many!

   The girls were a bit grumpy at first, but Andy distracted them in a fun game of follow-the-leader in the sand, and they cheered up.

Next stop was the Twelve Apostles. The "apostles" are actually limestone stacks of rock, and there were never even twelve of them. Good marketing though, as it's hard to imagine anyone bragging about going to see the Nine Stacks of Limestone. One of the stacks fell, so they're actually down to eight, but no matter. 

Entrance to the park. Shockingly, no parking or entrance fees!

Thoroughly drenched, we headed to our lodgings in Port Campbell to spend the night. A cozy little town.