Lost teeth, forts, and lots of RAIN!

We have had a couple weeks of adventures and gear up to starting back to school NEXT WEEK!

The weather has finally warmed up and with it the humidity has skyrocketed.  At least for our perception of if!  The temps were hitting 90 regularly with tolerable humidity, but the rains have begun and with it the moisture level goes waayyyy up!  The AC has been a HUGE relief, especially at night so we can sleep.  I try to not run it during the day as it gets super expensive really fast, and as they only bill you every 3 months here, a $900 electric bill is small potatoes in weather like this.  Me, I prefer to not have those, so ration the comfort.  We just shut the doors to our room and the kids can sleep on the floor in air conditioned comfort!  Just have to watch for them if you have to get up to pee in the middle of the night.  They move from where they started!  With the rising moisture the cicadas really have tuned up as well.  They are deafening at times and go on all. night. long.  Yet another reason to worship the AC!  Shut the windows and turn on the unit and the white noise drowns them out somewhat.

A momentous occasion for Ian this last week!  He lost 2 teeth before our trip to Newcastle!  On was finally pulled out on Friday night, the other on Saturday night.  We were thrilled as was he.  The tooth fairy delivered his dated silver dollars and we traded them for Aussie gold $1 coins for him to spend.  He has been hauling the money around in his pocket for the last week agonizing over what to spend it on!  Here is a pic of the second tooth which he pulled in the bath.  Little dental floss and lots of tugging and out it popped!

This is the first tooth out below.  Please note that he is shirtless because it is really pointless to make him wear much more than a pair of knit boxers in this weather!  When we go out, he does put on clothes. . .

On the change front, Lyle has been working a LOT down in Newcastle, which is about 2 hours north of Sydney.  We spent a week down there with him so we could check out the area as they are interested in having him come to work for them permanently.  It would be a nice position for him as he would be running their technical department.  It was downsized the last couple of years, but they are looking to ramp it back up and want someone who knows what he is doing to get it back.  It is also a facility with plenty of room for improvements which he has been helping with.  It isn't as warm and humid as Brisbane, and some new territory to explore in Sydney!  So, we wait and see what is going to come of it.  In the meantime, things keep trucking along here, and if it doesn't work, we will do just fine here!

I have to close with a picture of Alex's new boots!  She absolutely loves them (frankly, so do I!).  I love her sense of style with them.  She wears with a short pair of shorts, tank and messenger cap.  Thankfully they have zippers, so she doesn't have to do all the eyelets and hooks.  Also, a blast from the past picture here of Alex.  This was our first Christmas in Massena, NY on her bouncy horse.  She was all of 19 months old here!

The weather has been interesting these last few days.  There was a cyclone (hurricane) way north of us that crossed the peninsula above Cairns named Oswald, and with the Aussie penchant for nicknames, it is known as Ozzie.  It is now following the coast and heading south, not quite reforming into a cyclone, but wreaking havoc as a tropical depression/storm.  Lots of flooding in it's wake and some confirmed waterspouts and small tornadoes on the Sunshine Coast.  Just happens to be Australia Day weekend and a big BBQ weekend.  Think 4th of July being rained out for the week and you get the feeling!  Needless to say, we are doing our cooking indoors!

Next blog topic, back to school!  Alex starts High School and the littles continue at the primary.  Pictures will be put on FB, emailed, and put up here next time I write!

Love you all!

Hot!

Well, the summer heat waves and fires that plagued the northern hemisphere have certainly continued Down Under!  Around Melbourne it has been over 40, which is 104, consistently and headed that way here.  Outback stations are reporting temps of 45 and higher.  The national weather service had to add new color bands to their forecast maps as the predicted temps in some inland areas are going to be ABOVE 50C!  These are Death Valley CA temps people!  Unfathomable hot.  Fires have been torching Tasmania.  There is even a picture going around in internet of a grandma and her grandkids taking refuge in the lake clinging to the pier with smoke so thick you can hardly see the people. Grandpa took the pic just a couple of steps away.  They lost their home, but everyone was safe.  Many have lost everything in these wildfires in Tasmania and other Australian states this week, with no end in sight.  Locally there are several fires of concern and the air is quite smokey smelling and slightly hazy, but nothing like Wenatchee was last summer-fortunately for us here.  Brisbane hasn't hit such crazy high temps as Melbourne, but it is trying.  The high so far has been about 95, but indexed for humidity and such feels more like 102.  I'd prefer the low humidity desert 102 to the sticky one any day!  But on a positive note, have finally found an underarm deoderant that actually works!  Nivea has a loyal user for the rest of my days for sure!  Keeps this sweaty person smelling sweet all day long!  That and wearing as little as possible.  Ian has been running around in his knit boxers, Annika in not much else and Alex in string tanks and bike shorts.  Me, I wear flowy skirts with tanks and indecently short, light dresses.  Along with everyone else!  When in Rome, right?

2 1/2 weeks of summer holiday left for us poor saps here.  Swimming starts back up next week and I plan to have the girls swimming most every afternoon to relieve the heat if nothing else!  May have Ian in lessons for those 2 weeks as well, but his session is in the morning.  Bet they'll let him hop in the pool in the afternoon for a quick dunk to cool off though!  He will for sure be back in lessons for term 1 of school in addition to whatever swim schedule they work out for the PE time!  He loves the water now and I am so glad!

Alex now has all of her school uniform elements and school supplies and is ready to go.  The other two fit their stuff still (have I mentioned how I LOVE school uniforms?)  I will be selling Alex's stuff to friends and to the uniform shop for their second hand racks to get a bit back as well.  I'll post up the traditional 1st day of school pics as school starts Jan 29!

Australia Day is Jan 26 (their 4th of July) and the official public holiday is on Jan 28.  Lots of patriotic Aussie stuff going on sale this time of year.  If you have any requests, I can most likely find it!  I plan on scoring beach towels and a plastic backed picnic blanket this weekend!  Fun, Fun, Fun!

Christmas 2012

Hello everyone!  We survived the end of the school year with break up parties, goodbyes, and hello to summer break!  Alex went to a fun party where the girls took the bus to Southbank to play in the riverside swimming pools and then had dessert at Max Brenners, a divine chocolate themed shop.  The girls were smearing their lips with chocolate and dipping them into sprinkles!

Our adventure started with Lyle able to catch an earlier flight out of Newcastle so we were able to get up to Noosa at a very reasonable time.  By the way, things have really heated up for him around here.  Lyle was on the road all three weeks prior to the holiday and was READY for some time off!  Back to Noosa--

3 days of beach and relax with NO COOKING for me was just perfect!  We were able to stay at the same place as last month when we did the aerobics competition with the girls, just a short walk to the beach.  Even got the same apartment!  Ian got so into using the body boards for the girls we stopped in at Target and got him his own.  He LOVES taking the waves into shore and running back out for the next one.  We enjoyed a lunch at the local surf lifesaving club that overlooks the beach (we had to go back to get cleaned up and changed though!  no swim attire allowed!) and a sunset walk along the boardwalk and into the forested areas and back into the shopping district.  The kids were tired!

We built our Gingerbread House while in Noosa.  I think I just prefer gingerbread cake!

A general beach shot here.  The surfers worked the area off the point on the left of the photo and the swimmers were kept to the left out of the photo.  We got to watch the surf club do a mock offshore swimmer rescue with a helicopter and a tethered rescuer dropped in to get them!

This was built just off the boardwalk.  Candles in the alcoves made it very pretty at dusk as we were walking by.  Popular to sing for money on the street, build castles, etc.  Also saw plenty of kids sleeping on the beach.  Relaxed to say the least!

We had to get back in time for Santa to visit the house and to get ready for our lunch guests on Christmas day.  Santa and parents did not disappoint either!  Ian has a good supply of Star Wars and race cars now.  He got a batteries not required race track he cranks and it shoots his cars on their track!  Love!  He and Dad built the Tie Fighter together and he flies it around shooting bad guys.  Annika scored on the craft kits and can hardly wait to make her soaps and bath salts.  Alex got a lot of iTunes music and sock monkey makings.  We all got awesome t-shirts from my family with assorted animals on them-Lyle a bald eagle, me an owl (thanks for the Hooters Dad!), Alex a guinea pig, Annika a meerkat, and Ian a great white shark.  They look great!  We had a lovely family over for lunch that we enjoyed eating a visiting with last year at their home.  I made a roast turkey breast, steak, lots of cold salads, and assorted desserts, including an American Pumpkin Pie.  I was thrilled to have the taste of home here!

As we were recovering from Christmas we got a call from Lyle's workmate, Chris, inviting us down to Byron Bay for an overnight stay at his father in laws place.  Yep!  We'll be there!  The house is right on  the beach just behind the dunes and we had a great time.  Played ping pong, Uno, played on the beach (but not as much as Noosa.  The rips are notorious on this stretch so knee deep was all we allowed) and took a nice drive into the hinterlands to look over a waterfall and enjoy the scenery.  I am still amazed at how green everything is!

This is a goana-a native lizard.  It was about 3 feet from nose to tip of tail!  It was just off the observation deck down about 3 feet on the rocks on the edge of the cliff.

The view looking over the edge.  Vertigo for sure!  This was over 100 m up from the gorge bottom.

We didn't do much for Lyle's 43rd birthday, but relaxed and enjoyed a play at the park.  We made frosted brownies (yum!) which we all enjoyed.  We also have gone to the movies a few times-the whole family went to see the Hobbit in 3-D and were riveted.  Can hardly wait for the other 2 movies to come out!  Lyle and I went to see Skyfall on New Year's Eve.  Loved it!

Lyle is back to work on Wednesday (tomorrow) and heading back to Newcastle.  Looks like he will be traveling a LOT for the first quarter of the year, so we will be looking forward to getting him home every week!

Have a happy and safe New Year Everyone!  Much love!