Science Projects and a day at the Beach

I'm a little behind this week on the blog. We had a nice weekend. It was spent with completing science projects for the boys, a day at the beach, and another trip to downtown after Church on Sunday.
We've experienced a warm up this past week and a half. The highs reached the mid 80's (and it's still winter here. They say it's abnormal August weather. Nevertheless, we've had to turn on the air conditioner and the boys have broken in the backyard pool. Last Saturday, we decided to take advantage of the warm weather and test out the beaches in the Gold Coast (south of Brisbane). The kids all had a great time and the boys especially enjoyed trying out their new boogie boards.
Jonah made some green slime for his school science project, with Mike's help. My contribution to the project was looking for and purchasing the borax. In the end, I found some at the hardware store after learning what it was exactly. (It's a chemical, in powder form, that is used in household cleaners and pest control). Lucas got to make a volcano-- he got a lot of help from Mike. It was very good to see how much the boys enjoy these projects, not to mention the time spent with Dad. Lucas has another project he is working on-- a water cleaning system, in conjunction to what he is learning about environmentalism. We made another trip to the Science museum downtown on Sunday to get some ideas for this project. They have an Earth section with an exhibition showing how a water filtration system works. This time we drove instead of taking the train.
Zoe continues to adapt to her new routine at school. It seems as though all the students and teachers know her and greet her every morning. We will be attending the Australian 4p- national conference next weekend (Sept 4-6th) at the Gold Coast. They also hold the conference every 2 years, but on odd years. It will be interesting to see how the group here compares to the one in the States. (We went to our first one last year in D.C. last summer.)
The last we heard, our sea shipment was in Sydney and its arrival to Brisbane was delayed a week. Once it arrives in Brisbane, it'll spend another couple weeks going through customs. It'll be nice to have our furniture and all our "stuff," although I'm not looking forward to the unpacking.
Well, I hope all our friends are doing well as the new school year starts!

Nature in Australia

I braved a beach trip with all 3 kids by myself on Wednesday (Ekka Day and holiday from school) and had a great time. We hit some traffic on the way to the Sunshine Coast. I wanted to check out the area of Caloundra, where we planned to go for a week in September for the beach and a surf camp for the boys. This is to follow through with a couple of promises to the boys that we made to them before we moved. Fortunately, we had warm weather (it got up to 80 deg) that day and the rain forecasted stayed away until it was time for us to drive back. We went to a patrolled beach, popular with the local surfers. We had a crash course in what the colored flags meant on the beach. Swimmers are only allowed to swim between the red and yellow flags to stay separate from the surfers and strong rip tides. Needless to stay, the boys loved the waves and wasted no time jumping in. It took them a little while to get used to the salt water (they ran back a few times to chug from their water bottles), but had no other complaints. I had to drag them away when it was time to leave. I also had a hard time keeping Zoe from running into the water. She loved standing and sitting in the water as the waves came in and went back out. She would smile every time the wave brought water splashing at her feet. She got a bit dizzy as she stared down as the water rushed back to the ocean and loved it. The boys have been to the beach when we lived in NC (Sunset Beach) but they have no memory of it. This was Zoe's first time. (This is not counting our trip to Lake Michigan; there were no waves there.)
We went from the beach to the mountains on Saturday. We went to Mt. Coot-Tha (or Kuta, an aboriginal word meaning "honey," for the honey that they used to come to get on the mountain from hives of stingless bees). We took a little hike (another first for the boys), which they loved, and we admired the views of all of Brisbane from the summit. We enjoyed the view as we snacked on some ice cream and some hot chips with tomato sauce (french fries w/ ketchup). We had to promise the boys that we would go back and let them hike all the way down the mountain. The weather was perfect and it was beautiful. We saw a huge white parrot fly out of a tree as we approached.
I think we finally found a parish that we feel comfortable at. Third time's a charm, I guess. We didn't have to sit next to a homeless person and there were other families with young children. The church is in Manly, same suburb as the kids' schools. We drove down the hill to the shore after mass to check out the Sunday open market there. The boys enjoyed a snow cone as they watched some miniature sailboats racing in the marina and then they played in the playground. I got to buy some fresh veggies and browsed some hand crafts. We had some errands to run, so we headed to the shopping center. Mike bought some dress pants (he didn't bring any in his luggage) for a dinner reception hosted by the office of the Prime Minister of Queensland (like state governor's office). I shopped for groceries and the kids shopped for their science project items. Lucas is making a model volcano and Jonah is making slime. We did all this shopping and had lunch in one mall.
We got home to relax and get some housework done. The boys decided to jump in the pool for the first time. They lasted maybe 20 minutes jumping in and out because it was so cold. We sat down to a nice dinner of pork chops and discussed what we wanted to do next weekend...

BTW, Skype is a great tool. Helen, it was great to see and talk to you in Korea! Kayla, it was great to catch up with you for the first time since I left. If you have skype, please look us up!

Celebrating 1 month in Oz

Time seems to be flying by these days. Another week has come and gone. The boys and Zoe are getting quite used to their school routine, and Mike has begun traveling for work again. He was in Melbourne for 2 days and will be going again this week.
Brisbane is celebrating Ekka this week. Ekka is short for Exhibition Day or it used to be called The Royal Exhibition. Back in the day, it was an opportunity to show off the new developments in industrial and agricultural advancements in one place. It's very similar to a state fair with the animals, rides, displays, and lots and lots of food stands. The kids are out of school on Wednesday for the celebration (Different regions of Brisbane get diff't days off). Unfortunately, Mike will be in Melbourne that day so we will wait until next year to attend. I may just drive them up the coast to the beach for the day instead. We will see what the weather does. The boys are just happy they get out of school for the day. Mike actually took today off for Ekka and spent the day with me. We ran together in Manly on the shore and we went into the city for lunch. It was quite the date day. We enjoyed seeing a flock of cockatoos in the trees and a group of pelicans on the water as we ran.
I still quite often have to stop and think, "We are in Australia!" I do feel though that we are quite rapidly adjusting to our new lives here. I even found myself saying, "How ya' goin'?" without even thinking about it. I didn't realize I said it until a few minutes later. It was when I was volunteering at the boys' school Open Day on Friday and greeting parents of prospective students. Of course, this was 2 hours into the day and about 30 other greetings. I also had a chance to meet a few of the other mums from Lucas' 2nd grade class on Saturday. They were very nice and welcoming. I found they are not much different than the Moms in the States, except for their accents.
We decided to take advantage of our season passes and went to check out Warner Bros. Movie World on Sunday. The boys had heard from their classmates that Movie World had the "cool" and fast rides. There were thrills to be had by all, including Zoe. She surprised us all how much she loved the kiddy roller coaster, the flume ride, the Batman simulator ride, and the bumper cars. We had to buy the picture of all of us on the flume ride right at the drop. I had my head down, my arm around Zoe's shoulder, bracing for the drop and splash... and Zoe just had a huge smile from ear to ear. She got splashed at the bottom and that was when she stopped smiling. We were also surprised to find that Jonah was tall enough (140 cm or over 55 inches) for all the intense rides. He is only 8 inches from catching up to me. He and Mike went on "Lethal Weapon," a rollercoaster with the top of the carriage attached to the rails (your feet are dangling). The park was nice but a lot smaller than any Disney park. I was impressed with how much shade they had though. The picture below of the parade is on Main Street and you can see how the whole street is tented. They had this kind of tenting in all the bleacher areas of the shows as well (or they were indoors). It was another great weekend.

Few more Aussie tidbids: 1. The punctuation "period" is called a "full stop." I learned this from Lucas' teacher at the parent/teacher conference last week. He explained that when they were discussing it in class, Lucas got this glazed look on his face and he had to explain when he realized why. 2. A "pacifier" is called a "dummy." I learned this from the Mums when they were talking about the kids. 3. To give you an idea of how much things cost here (I've converted the cost to U.S. dollars): gas is about $4.73/gal; a gallon of skim milk is about $5 while a gallon of whole milk is about $3.10 (yes, the less fat there is in the milk, the more expensive it is); I just bought 2 cases of 18 cans of Coke products for $16.78 on SALE. I paid $42 for 4 for the movies (Harry Potter) but only about $11 for a medium popcorn and 3 slushie like drinks. I bought over 2 pounds of tomatoes for about $1.50.

Happy Birthday, Jonah!

Jonah turned 9 on Saturday! What a treat to celebrate in Australia! He got to invite a couple friends from his class for some pizza and cake and the new Harry Potter movie. It was nice to see the boys getting along well. They seemed to enjoy the movie too. The celebration continued the next day with a trip to Sea World. We were going to wait until Zoe's birthday in September to go visit the Sesame Street characters there, but there was a chance to get a resident season pass for 3 parks for $100 AU per person. She absolutely loved the show and seeing the characters up close. We will definitely be going back soon, esp. for her birthday. You can see how happy she is at the show in the pic below. She was clapping and dancing. When the show was over, I told her to say, "Bye, bye," and she kept shaking her head. We couldn't leave until all the characters were off the stage. She also had a chance to meet Ernie, Bert, Elmo, and Grover up close and get her picture taken. She gave each of them a big hug. It was very cute. Seeing her so excited and into the attractions made it all worthwhile. She got to go on her first flume ride, and watch a short 3-D film (but without her glasses)-- she loved both of those as well.
The boys were tolerant of the Sesame Street show, but they got their turns with the crazy rides and animal attractions. Both boys' favorite was the Corkscrew rollercoaster that looped around upside down 3 times. I felt my age when I just felt rattled after that. The whole family had a great day. We can't wait to do it again.
Jonah's birthday was not the only thing we celebrated last week. Mike and I celebrated our 15th wedding anniversary. Has it been that long? Mike surprised me with a huge bouquet of flowers delivered earlier that day, and cooked a lovely meal on Saturday night. For those that are curious, he cooked lamb chops with a mint yogurt sauce for us, pork chops for the kids, roasted potatoes with cherry tomatoes, roasted asparagus and broccolini, and fresh strawberries w/ ice cream for dessert. He also bought some ginger beer for us to try. Are you hungry yet? I am reluctantly admitting the following... I said I was quite surprised when the flowers arrived because I had completely forgotten it was our anniversary. Yes, I felt bad and I own up to my neglect. So, here I publicly apologize to my man, a great husband and father.
Some other firsts in Oz this past week: the boys got to play rugby with a junior league (it's the end of their season, but they will pick up with them next Feb.); I signed up for my first race at the end of August (Bridge to Brisbane 10K). This week, Mike will be traveling to Melbourne for work, we have a parent/teacher conference w/ the boys' teachers, and I will be going to my first Mums get-together on Saturday.