House Hunting and Rainy School Holidays

     So, the lease is up the end of July and we want to get into a bigger house.  I spent the last week of school filling in lease applications and worming my way into house showings.  Things are done a bit differently around here.  Open houses are for 15 minutes (seriously, that is it!) and if you like it, you take an application, feverishly fill it in with every bit of personal info you can imagine and the promise to hand over your firstborn, then hope you get it in before everyone else!  I found a place right away, got in the papers in and was told there was an application in ahead, but there had not been a deposit made.  So, we lost that one when the deposit was finally put on the place.  Grr!  It was perfect!  Yard, 4 bedrooms, as a bonus it was all on one level too, and next to a stretch of bushland that would be great fun to play in!  The agency that had it listed had taken our application, and everything was approved, so when they had a place come onto the market just down the street just days later, they called!  I was thrilled!  It has not even been advertised and I love it.  2 stories, 4 bedrooms, 2 living rooms and an enormous kitchen dining room.  It has 3 times the space of this apartment!  Hoping to hear today what the final rent charge will be, but as long as it is in budget, I'm taking it.  It's in catchment for Alex's High School, in a nice neighborhood, and did I mention the SPACE it has!  Now the invite is open for any visitors who want to come over and stay for awhile!  We're less than a kilometer to a bus stop that gets you into town in just under an hour, so Brisbane annex is open for business.  Same rules apply as anyplace else we've been.  24 hours please so we can make sure you have clean sheets and towels and can flip to see which kid gets booted for the time being.  Hope to write about it more next week!  It's not available to move into until August 6ish, but our landlord is willing to work with us.  Thank goodness!
     On the negative, the weather here has been pretty sucky.  Rain for six straight days, and of course, school holidays started on day 2 of the deluge.  Think Seattle/Portland in March and you get the picture.  Cold, rainy, blech.  Today was the first day we had seen the sun, so I took the kids to Movie World.  Apparently, so did everyone else!  The girls were in line for 90 minutes for 1 ride, Ian and I managed to get in 2 bumper cars and 1 merry-go-round.  It was insane.  So, we ditched and ran for home.  The weather is supposed to be beautiful for the next week with temps in the 60's and sunny.  Yeah!
     Lyle will be doing his first half marathon on Sunday on the Gold Coast.  It's a flat course, so he's happy to give it a go for the first time.  We're staying until Monday so he can use the hot tub at the hotel.  Spoiled!  Let you know how that goes next week too!
     Love you all-

Oh, yeah.  There was a birthday this week here too!  I hit the big 4-0 on Wednesday, and at my insistence, did not let the family make a huge deal out of it.  I took a night off from domestic duties and picked up KFC for dinner, and make a yumm-o crock pot chocolate carmel cake. Bliss!  I informed Lyle that my gift will be an entire day to myself at the spa in September when we go to Cairns.  Massage, facial, mani and pedi here I come!  I also went out to dinner with several of the moms that run the fundraisers at school.  Mexican and Latin American fare-Meg's tamales are hard to beat, but this place did a wicked chicken enchilada en mole!

Home Sweet Home, and back again

     We just returned Sunday from our 2 week visit home.  It was soooo worth it!  So nice to see everyone and catch up, even with blogs, Skype, Facebook, email, phone calls. . . you get the picture.  There is just something about actually getting to HUG everyone!
     The trip started with a taxi ride to the airport at 7:30 am.  We had to call for a maxi taxi-minivan!  Us and our bags made for a perfect fit though.  We flew to Sydney, where we were able to board the Airbus 380, a fantastically huge airplane.  They are so big they can't fly out of Brisbane, and the 747 service was not flying on Friday.  Oh, well!  Ian and Annika had some trouble with their ears, but they both have been running colds for a few days, so not unexpected.  It hurts!
     We got on the flight to LA just after noon.  Dinner, lights out, try to sleep!  Most of us fell asleep about halfway into the flight, but Alex, who stayed up the entire time.  The kids all enjoyed the in flight entertainment systems on the seats in front of them.  They got to choose their own movies, TV shows, and even computer games!  Heaven!  We landed about 9am LA time (the same day we left Australia!  Love the international date line. . .) to howling kids-their ears REALLY hurt now!  We have to manually transfer bags in LA to the domestic flights, clear customs, and then start security all over again as you have to transfer terminals by leaving the buildings.  This took nearly 3 hours of our 8 hour layover!  LA is one seriously messed up airport.
     No one slept at the airport, but read books, colored in their books, ran about, snacked, talked, you know the drill.  We boarded the flight to Boise, and Ian and Annika promptly fell asleep.  You go kids! Nice to get in a bit of a nap before we go see family.  We were met at the airport by Baba, Gramma, Megan, and Sarah.  Sarah was so excited she could not contain herself!

     We visited with the family for a couple of hours, and collapsed into bed.  Nearly 30 hours up, and we were exhausted!  Annika kept us up most of the night coughing.  Bad sign.

     Saturday was a nice day to relax and get adjusted.  We were up and a normal time-about 8 am, and spent the day going to Costco (fieldtrip!) and reveling in being HOME!

     Remember the all night coughing Friday night?  It was even worse on Saturday.  I took Annika outside to see if the night air would be any better.  Tucked her into the gravity chair and propped it back, I crashed on the hot tub cover with the dog.  It was as uncomfortable as it sounds, but being so exhausted, didn't really matter.  Got more sleep that way and awoke at 6 am.  A trip to the Doc in the Box was in order, so we traipsed down there at 10 am.  Would you believe a horrid double ear infection with eardrums nearly bursting?  And she claimed that her ears didn't hurt at all!  The pain tolerance this kid must have is amazing.  So, antibiotics for the ears and an inhaler (puffer here) for the cough, and antihistamines for the drippy stuff going down the throat to trigger the coughing in the first place.  Oh, the joy of traveling with kids!  It explained the ears on the flights.  Sunday Mom and Dad hosted a whole famDamily BBQ and we got to see everyone.  It was wonderful!  Here are the kid cousins-trying to get a picture of the whole crowd of them at this age is impossible, but here is the best of them that I got!  Note Ian hiding from the camera and Ryan just trying to make a break for it.  Love them!

     We left on Monday to go to Oakridge to see the Cunningham side.  It was a great trip through central Oregon.  I love the sagebrush flats!  There were some great rainstorms we drove through.  Alex took pictures out the window the entire way there.  One of my favorites is this one-the tunnel of green and the rain pouring down.  The tunnel on the west side of the Willamette Pass was closing at 8 pm, so we stopped briefly in Bend for shopping.  We made up for it in Eugene later that week!

     Typical for the time of year, it rained nearly every day!  Wednesday was the nicest day, and there were rainbows, flowers, and family.  It was good to see everyone.

     We spent 4 days in Oakridge visiting and relaxing.  We took the kids down to the Greenacres park where the bridge picture above was taken.  Lyle did an 8 mile run while the kids played and walked through the trees.  I got some spectacular shots going up the treetrunks.

     On Friday we went to Newburg to visit with Lance, Susie, and the girls.  My, how everyone has grown!  We had excellent burgers for dinner, plenty of drinks and a great time catching up with happenings.  Lance got the Costco Death by Chocolate cake and we managed to get through half of it with all of us.  I think that old age and being more health conscious brought us down here-in the past Sunriver days we would have polished off the whole thing!  Lyle and Lance did a run Saturday morning and we all enjoyed a yummy breakfast.  The girls spent an hour having a water fight in the back yard in 60 degree weather.  They were nuts!

     Saturday we spent the afternoon with my Uncle and Aunt and their family.  I got to rub Steph's belly for luck and can hardly wait to see pictures of the baby when she gets here this fall.  Lyle and Eric always enjoy each other's company and Paula had some store buyer samples which I love! Just waiting for the weather to warm up a bit here to wear them!  We stayed at one of our favorite hotels and went swimming at the hotel pool.

     Sunday we returned via I-84 and stopped at Multnomah Falls and Bonneville Dam.  It's been awhile for all of us since we stopped there!

     The falls were running pretty heavy, but it is spring!

     Herman the Sturgeon, still big and ugly.  At least he doesn't look at the kids like they are lunch like the tigers at the zoo!

     We had Trish, Greg, and the girls over for some of the BEST ribs Dad has ever made!  All the kids had a great time playing in the yard and eating RIBS!  We also hosted an impromptu movie night with me, Trish, Meg, and Rosie.  The Princess Bride is still as funny, and we are still annoyingly good at saying the lines together!  We did a candy run to Walmart where Meg asked a random guy, forever to be known as "Random Man" to take our group photo.  He was pretty scary looking, and his girlfriend got a huge kick out of him doing it!  The fun could not stop, so Rosie and Trish tracked down a copy of Real Genius (Val Kilmer is still so hot!) right before Hastings closed at 10.  Must have been all the Whoppers, M&M's, Skittles, and such, but with all that sugar coursing through us we all made it through the movie.  I had to laugh at the multimedia present as well-smartphones were humming with texts and postings to FB as we shared our fun.  

     We had a picnic sandwich lunch at Great Grandma and Grandpa's house.  Ralph and Carol joined us, as well as Aunt Carol, cousin Catie, and Kim spent lunch as well.  Curt came over to mow the lawn and fix the microwave before we left.  

     Of course, we had to have gun day.  Momma can still shoot pretty well, Alex has a natural eye, and the two littles built rock piles and played in the dirt.  Ian had to pose with his shotgun, so we got a picture of everyone with the guns!  Meg and I also got the grandkids to sit for their group photo.  Here's the result-pretty good looking group of kids if I do say so myself!

     Alas, time runs out and we had to leave Friday night.  Flights were all on time and LAX is still the worst airport I have ever been in.  Of course, I have not been through Heathrow, which I understand is even worse. . . not planning on going there anytime soon!  We landed Sunday morning and made it in time to go to the school fundraiser walk.  Only way to beat jet lag is to get out and play, so we did.  Lunch, naps, back to the park, and a movie.  We all passed out on the couch in a big pile and Lyle and I woke up when we started to snore.  Off to bed, and school Monday for the last week of term 2.

     I'll write about adventures in house hunting next week!  We had a super trip home, and plan to be back about the same time in 2013!  Love you all!