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.