An observant friend noted that my last blog was posted in a not-so-timely manner (Christmas blog in Feb.) Let's see if I can do better today. 11 years ago, Andy and I got the best Valentine's Day present ev-ah:
Best part is, February 14 is not longer a Hallmark holiday for us, it's Alanna's birthday. Lucky for her, the teacher's union here in Victoria went on strike today, so she got the day off of school. At her request, Aliya and I served her heart-shaped pancakes in bed.
Later in the day I took the girls, and a friend each, to Bounce, an indoor trampoline place. She wants you to see the backflip at the end of this video.
Dinner was Alanna's favorites: spaghetti, rolls, and her own creation: Sunburst Salad, a fruit salad she made herself (pineapple, oranges, watermelon, grapes, cantaloupe and strawberries.) We dressed up, lit candles, and the girls drank their water out of wine glasses. A very nice evening indeed.
Alanna just came in and said it was her best birthday ever. She's really been having a great year so far, and she's determined to make the most of her last year at her school, and possibly our last year in Oz. All of the Year Six students (the highest grade at her school) get an opportunity to be student leaders for a term. Alanna is a leader this term, and she got to recite the Student Declaration at the weekly student assembly.
She also participated in the Swim Carnival for her school. Just like the last two years, she came first in breaststroke. She found out on Wednesday that she'll get to compete in Districts in the breaststroke, and also the freestyle relay.
Finally, she was elected to the school's Junior School council, after giving a very motivating speech about helping others, especially children who are less fortunate. Alanna's enthusiasm and happiness is contagious. We're excited to see what this year brings! And now I need to get to bed. Alanna has her first drum corp practice at 7:50 tomorrow morning!
For the A-team, the best day of 2012 was the day this happened:
The kids gladly missed their end-of-year class parties to go to the airport and pick up Pap and Gram. Despite traveling almost 40 hours (door to door,) they said it was worth it just to get hugs from the girls Those that know my parents know they wouldn't come empty-handed. One whole suitcase was devoted to books:
And though Christmas was still a few days away, Gram gave the girls these two beautiful dresses that she made:
There was no rest for the weary travellers. The very next day, after dropping the girls off at school, we did a three-hour bike tour of the city.
The electric bikes were fabulous, as you could pedal as much or as little as you desired. Although we didn't go in the CBD (central business district) we covered over 20 kilometers, and rode around the Docklands, by the Yarra river, around two footy stadiums, by the Royal Botanical Gardens, over to Fed Square, and more (and not necessarily in that order.) They provided headsets, so we could listen to the tour guide as we rode. For my parents, it was a highlight of their visit, and a great way to learn more about Melbourne.
And the pace didn't let up. The next day, Friday, was the last day of school for the girls. We celebrated with lots of their classmates and mums at the nearby park after school. On Sunday, we drove east into the country to ride Puffing Billy, a century-old steam train. The best part of the ride is that you're allowed to sit on the sides and hang your arms and legs out over the edge.
A popular holiday event in Melbourne is Carols by Candelight, held at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl, which was modeled after the Hollywood Bowl. The outdoor concert, held on Christmas Eve, sold out long ago, but Andy discovered that for just a few bucks you could attend the rehearsal the night before. So we walked to the end of our street, hopped on the tram, and went into the city to listen to the singers rehearse.
It was such a hot day, it didn't feel very Christmas-sy, but it got a bit more festive as it got darker and the lights came on.
Some of the singers were contestants from the Aussie version of X Factor, which the girls have been watching on TV, and as we left Delta Goodrem (one of the more famous Aussie singers) performed. Before going home, we walked over to the Melbourne Town Hall, where there is an amazing sound and light show projected onto the building.
The picture doesn't do it justice, you really should check out the video. Stick with it, because the second half is really amazing.
Christmas, well, it just didn't feel like Christmas. It wasn't the weather, since we're used to warm Christmas days. I think it was mainly missing the usual holiday activities we did with family and friends back home. We definitely missed our traditional brunch and volleyball at the beach on Christmas Eve morning. We still went to church on Christmas eve, but it's just not the same. Very few houses have Christmas lights. The streets and malls have a lot less decorations. And it stays daylight until after 9:00 pm. Nevertheless, we had a lot to celebrate and were so happy Pap and Gram were there to share our first Christmas in Oz.
Gram gave me these super-soft, aloe-infused socks...but I didn't get to keep them for long.
The girls wore footy jammies when they were little, those all-in-one outfits that covered up their feet. Now their footy jammies are for Aussie-rules football teams.
Our American friends invited us for a Christmas Day BBQ, an offer we eagerly accepted. Lisa's truffle was amazing!
Proudly wearing the hats that were in the Christmas crackers:
The next day we headed to Apollo Bay...to be continued!
If you follow tennis, you know that the Australian Open
recently wrapped up here in Melbourne. On the Saturday that preceded the opening of the tournament,we went to the Kids Day event. There we got to see Roger
Federer, Novak Djokovic, Serena Williams, Victoria Azarenka, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga
and Ana Ivanova play a friendly game of mixed doubles (and triples, and
3-against-1). It was quite entertaining, not to mention exciting to be able to
see all these great players live and in person, in Rod Laver Arena, for free no
less!
(Image from here: http://hotshots.tennis.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/JC_kids.tennis.day_Web028-580x396.jpg) Once the tennis exhibition wrapped up, the umpire got down from the chair and started singing. It was Guy Sebastion, one of the biggest artists in Australia, and he put on a mini-concert
(along with Sponge Bob, plus Dora and Diego). And after that, we walked outside
to watch a practice match between Maria Sharapova and Ana Ivanova. Let me just
say, they were impressive. Oh, and the tennis was good, too. Not wanting to spend $10/person on a slice of bad pizza for lunch, we walked into the city after the show. At Federation Square, there is a large screen where they will show movies or sporting events or....
During the two weeks of the Open, we spent a fair bit of time watching the tennis matches on
TV, choosing Maria Sharapova and Andy Murray as our favourites to support.
Unfortunately, Maria was ousted in the semifinal against Li Na, and Andy lost in
the final to Djokovic. Nonetheless, enough tennis sunk into the kids heads that
we had to go out to play a bit of tennis on the local courts.
Before Aliya and I went out to play, she rummaged through her closet and
put together a pretty good tennis outfit. The visor is Alexi's. The skirt is part of
a netball uniform. The shoes are from basketball. And the overall combination
made for a very cute tennis player.
On the court, I quickly noticed that Aliya had absorbed the mannerisms of
the tennis greats, including bouncing the ball before your serve, stashing one
ball under your tennis outfit when serving, and wiping your face with a towel
between each point. She even began to grasp the nuttiness that is scoring in
tennis. Love-15? Advantage Federer? Deuce? We played for not quite an hour, and
her forehand kept getting better and better. The backhand was a bit erratic,
but showed potential. And according to Aliya, "Serving overhand is not easy."
I think we can all agree on that last point.
The next time we went to play, Alanna came along, and showed that she
retains some of the tennis skills she picked up at tennis camp in Huntington
Beach. Her best swing was a consistent lob over my head, which I had to chase
and creatively hit back. When I tired of chasing her lobs shots, I switched
over to scorekeeper and ball boy while Alanna and Aliya played. We had just
enough time to play the first six games of a set, and (conveniently) the score
ended up being 3-3. Alanna had a great time, but doesn't want to take up
tennis, while Aliya has asked for tennis lessons. We'll see if we can fit it in between the basketball, swimming, and piano lessons.
As for golf, I get out to play 9 holes before work once in a while with
some guys from work. On this particular outing, Aliya decided she wanted to
come along, and even set her alarm for 5:35 am so she could join me. And boy
was she an excited chatterbox as we each ate a bowl of Cheerios before heading
out. I figured she wouldn't be up for walking the entire 9 holes, so I rented a
golf cart for the two of us, and let her drive once we were out of sight of the
pro shop. That alone was enough to make her day. But there were
many more highlights, including my birdie on a long par 5. As for Aliya, she
teed off with us on each hole, then we'd drive up to her ball and she'd
either hit again, or pick up her ball and move to our shots and take a drop,
proceeding along until we reached the green where she putted in from the edge of
the green. On the ninth hole, though, Aliya decided to play the entire
450-metre hole herself, successfully staying in the fairway and managing to
reach the green in 9 strokes (50 metres or so per stroke), then 3-putting into
the hole for a 12. Not bad for an 8 year old.
When she was driving the cart, I occasionally hopped out just as the cart
came to a stop, which in hindsight was not really setting a good example. So
when it was my turn to drive, she decided to try the same thing, quickly
learning a hard lesson about "momentum." Needless to say, when she hopped out
just as I pulled to a stop, she was unable to arrest her momentum, and fell down
and rolled along next to the cart. She stood up, smiling and uninjured but
covered in grass stains, and said "That was fun!" So THAT moment became the
signature highlight of the outing.
I have some catching up today, so I probably won't write too much. Just want to share some pics from assorted recent activities. In late November, Andy took Alanna and Aliya and a friend to a motorcycle show. He'd done this back home every December, so he was pretty excited to find a show here in Melb. The girls made it their mission to collect posters and cards from every booth in the show. The also posed with some biker dudes...
...and watched some crazy stunts. You can see Aliya and her friend right at the fence if you look closely.
December in Australia means summer. One hot day after school I took the girls to the local community pool. One of the best things about it is that there's usually other kids from school there.
Alanna and friends
Another cool thing is the diving boards, especially the three meter (metre?) one.
The next weekend, we went to a BBQ with two other families who have daughters in the same grades as ours.
Two of the Year 2 Girls
The Year 5 Girls
Both girls love playing basketball. The season runs for two terms, with a break for summer. Alanna has a clear height advantage, you can see she's the tallest on her team. If you look closely, the next tallest is standing on her tiptoes.
Here's a quick clip from Aliya's game, she scores a basket at the end.
The second weekend in December we went camping with a bunch of other families with Year 2 kids. As you can see from the picture, it certainly wasn't a Leo Carrillo-type campground. And unlike Leo Carrillo activities, here we played cricket!
Near the campground was Ocean Grove beach, so we headed there for some surfing and swimming. Amazingly enough, I actually went completely in the water. Probably had something to do with the fact it was 40 degrees (close to 100 F.)
Aliya and friend strike a pose
Unfortunately, the weekend was cut short. Saturday we got a call from our friend that Alanna was sick. Alanna stayed with them for the weekend because she didn't want to miss birthday parties for two of her closest friends. Aliya was distraught when she heard we had to drive back, but happily several families agreed that Aliya could stay with them at the campground. She'd slept in a friend's tent the night before anyway, so it was no big deal. We headed back to Melbourne, about a two-hour drive, and of course, Alanna started getting better. Better safe than sorry though. The next weekend, Andy's company held a Christmas party for the kids of the employees. Can you believe someone got the ages and genders of each child, and picked out a gift for each one? Santa handed out over 30 presents at the party.
The next night, we shipped the kids off took the kids to friends for a sleepover and headed to St. Kilda for a 40th Birthday Party. Shelly always jokes about hanging out with giants, and you can see why.
Next up, Pap and Gram arrive!!! To be continued....
...that we arrived in Oz with way too many boxes and suitcases. We were tired and weary, and also excited and nervous about what the future would hold. The first year was a challenge as we adapted to new jobs, new schools, new foods, new friends, new house, and driving on the other side of the road. By the time the second year rolled around, we really started to enjoy it, and now we feel as if we've settled in. I read a lot of other expat blogs, and many do amazing posts on their "expat-versaries." This isn't one of them unfortunately. I am tired from a long hot day wandering around Melbourne's amazing Royal Botanic Gardens and Shrine of Remembrance. [Quick Shrine story: We'd only expected to walk around the shrine, and were a bit suprised to find lot of displays and a visitors center underneath. A volunteer in the center handed the kids a Children's Tour activity book, with questions about the wars and the shrine. Once completed, they handed in a form to get their show bags. The Anzac biscuits (oatmeal cookies that were traditionally sent overseas to soldiers in WWI due to their long shelf-life) were appreciated. The calendar with rather disturbing wartime pictures...not so much. But I digress...] For the most part, we've adapted to the food. Some things we still get as Costco (Skippy peanut butter, ranch dressing, Mexican-style grated cheese) and a few things we get at the USA Food store (plain Cheerios, canned pumpkin, peach Snapple) and a few things we just do without (spicy turkey sausage comes to mind.) We haven't acquired the taste for lamb or Vegemite. We rarely eat out, because it's crazy expensive, and we certainly miss Rubios and Haus of Pizza, but, when all is said and done, it's just food. Our lifestyle has definitely changed, the pace seems a bit slower. A lot of that is due to the fact that I don't "work" anymore. That means I am always there for the kids before and after school and when they are sick, and they don't have to go to aftercare. It also means (in theory at least) I have time to clean the house and do all the errands and provide fabulous healthy meals each night for my family. Hmm. Well. All I can say is I try. One of my favourite things about our life here is that the girls and I ride bikes to school together almost every day. Feels so environmentally-friendly, healthy, and it's fun! I've also been able to volunteer a lot at the school, attend excursions (field trips) with the girls' classes, and watch all their activities during the school day, such as special assemblies and Alanna's sporting events. I hit the gym regularly after taking the girls to school, and I love that it's just a few blocks from our house. Andy's new job is much less stressful, more rewarding, and requires almost no travel, which means he's happier, which means we're happier. Who wouldn't like a job where they drink beers while working their last hour on Fridays? The kids have settled in as well. They are used to the routines of Aussie life, knowing they always need sunscreen, sunnies (sunglasses) and hats in the summer. They are comfortable using public transportation. They use Aussie lingo although only Aliya has much of an Aussie accent. We've found good programs for basketball, swimming, and piano, which have become part of our weekly routine. We've all made new friends. The girls regularly have playdates with their classmates. Andy has monthly poker nights with other dads and twice-weekly rows with his eight-man crew. I mostly chat with all the moms at school, but we also manage to get together every other week for coffee, and occasional mom's night outs for dinner or a movie. I've hosted a few successful Bunco nights, and hope to do another one next week while my mom is here. One thing never gets easier, and that's being away from our friends and family back home. The tears are less frequent, but the sadness remains, especially for Aliya. Skype and Facetime are great, but it's just not the same as being there. I also greatly miss my job and the people I worked with for 15 years. One of my resolutions for this year is to try and do more freelance work for the company. Our kids have definitely grown, both literally (Alanna is 5'4") and figuratively, so much in these past two years. They've been exposed to other cultures and religions. We've traveled: New Zealand, Queensland and the Great Barrier Reef, Sydney, Ballart, Echuca, Shepparton, Mornington Peninsula, and the Great Ocean Road in this year alone. So how to summarize the adventures of the last two years? Difficult, sometimes painful, but we wouldn't give up this once-in-a-lifetime experience for anything. Suffice to say we aren't so big on the weather or the high cost of living, but the quality of life and the most excellent coffee help make up for it. Happy New Years to all our friends and family out there. Thanks for reading this blog, and a special thanks to those that sent us Christmas cards. We've taped them up on our kitchen door so we can see your beautiful smiling faces often. For the last few weeks we've been blessed with the beautiful smiling faces of my parents in person, so I hope to blog about their visit and our first Christmas in Oz shortly. Watch this space. Cheers!
Of course, it wasn't a restaurant, but I did host Thanksgiving dinner, with a little help from my friends. Our friend's sister-in-law is American, but because they keep kosher, it would have been nearly impossible to do it at their house. I volunteered, warning them that I'd never actually cooked a turkey before. That's what Grandmas, Moms, and Mothers-in-law are for, right? And the Thanksgiving before me moved, we took advantage of one of those "Complete Thanksgiving Dinners in a Box" from the grocery store. Nevertheless, I agreed to try, especially when Melanie promised to come over and help me get it into the often. Turkeys aren't as popular here, at least not until Christmas. Some specialty butchers offer them at exorbitant prices. Good ol' Costco saved the day, having stocked the fresh turkeys specifically for "American Thanksgiving." It was actually kind of fun hanging out at the cooler where they were located, as everyone there was an American. And they were only $7/kg. My $50 bird was clean and ready to go, a bargain compared to what some of my expat friends paid. There was some concern it wouldn't fit in the oven (many Aussie ovens are a lot smaller than US ones) but it did. And it came out beautifully, if do say so myself:
Melanie has asked her husband to purchase lots of decorations on his last trip to the US, so with Andy's help, the dining room looked quite festive.
We divided up the food duties. Melanie's husband made a fabulous butternut squash soup, and she made pumpkin and pecan pies, as well as the stuffing and corn bread. Our Aussie friends brought a salad and smashed potatoes. I did the turkey, sweet potato casserole (no mini marshmallows on top since I couldn't find them and figured the Aussies would be very scared of that!) green beans, glazed carrots, rolls, cranberry sauce, cherry pie, and fudge. It was a little painful to pay $14 for the frozen cranberries, but I was lucky to even find them (thank goodness for the shared knowledge of other American expats.) You can't have thanksgiving without cranberry sauce, right?
Lots of food, lots of leftovers
Sparkling shiraz was the wine of choice on a warm evening
While we greatly miss our friends and family back home, we feel very thankful to have wonderful friends to share this special meal with. Our Aussie friends have introduced us to new traditions and customs, it was nice to be able to do the same for them. Unlike the issues with Halloween, it's hard to find fault with a non-commercial holiday that celebrates friends, family, and everything that you're thankful for.
