Sri Lanka and the Maldives 2013

Ten years ago at the end of our gap year we spent a few days in Sri Lanka and a week at Asdu island in the Maldives. We really enjoyed our time in Sri Lanka and always wanted to go back to spend more time. We loved Asdu island and always thought it would be the perfect place for kids. It has been almost three years since we have seen Latha too, and we have been unable to get her a visa to come see us. All these factors conspired to inspire us to take our first holiday with the kids somewhere that wasn't home to family.

Emma and the kids took the last week of school off to fly to Sri Lanka to see Latha. They spent a few days in Colombo and then went to stay with Latha in Kandy. They got to meet all of Latha's friends and family. Emma will have to share the rest of the details. I flew into Colombo after I finally finished school for the term. I got in very early on Saturday morning and met them at the hotel. The next afternoon we all flew to the Maldives. It is about a 45 minute boat ride from Male, the capitol to get to Asdu. Alex was very impressed that it was a speedboat with 2 engines that was faster than Uncle Brad's boat. It was almost ten years to the day since we were last on Asdu and it has changed very little. Even the towels were exactly the same. It is a small island with only about 30 rooms. No TV, no hot water, toilets barely flush, but it is paradise. Even though the island was full, sitting on the beach it seemed almost deserted. As it turned out, there was another couple there with their son who had been on the island ten years ago before they had kids! Days were filled with snorkeling, kayaking, swimming, playing on the beach, ping pong and lots of card games in the down time. 

The snorkeling is the best we have ever seen and starts only a few meters off the beach in knee deep water. On our first snorkel Alex quickly pointed out a stingray swimming just next to us. Over the week we saw every single fish from the 3 fish charts hanging in the restaurant. The coral is also amazing. On one snorkel on my own I saw a black-tip reef shark as big as me and an eagle ray that let me just follow him around. In the shallow water the kids quickly found the local baby black-tip reef sharks that spent their evenings swimming up and down the length of the island. Ellie soon had to discard her snorkel because it was keeping her from talking. Without the snorkel she could talk and discuss every single thing she saw. Alex loved snorkeling but we are now worried we have spoiled him as it will be hard to find many other places in the world where the snorkeling would even be close. Every evening we could follow a small black-tip reef shark as he cruised up and down the beach just a meter from edge of the water. He was frequently joined by a sting ray or two also. The wildlife added great excitement to the nightly sunset show out at the narrow end of the island. The sunset and sky colours were spectacular. The sky on the opposite side of the setting sun looked like the sun was rising it was so bright and colourful! Every night all the guest walked out to enjoy the beautiful show and all the kids watched the sharks and rays and played in the waves.

They also had a great time kayaking and one day the the kids and I kayaked around the island. (It only took about 20 minutes!) One day while Emma and I were snorkeling Alex and Ellie were each kayaking in a single kayak and Ellie ended out in the deep water past the end of the pier. She was calling for help and Latha doesn't swim so she couldn't do much. Alex went to her rescue and kayaked out to her and pushed her kayak around and pushed her into shallow water. Alex was very proud of having rescued his sister and Ellie likes to play it down and point out she helped rescue herself a little.

The island caters to mostly Italians. The chef has trained in Italy and most of the guest and the dive instructors are all Italian, as they were when we were there ten years ago.  The meals were at fixed times and in the European tradition, dinner was at 2000. It was fun to see the kids begging for bed even before dessert and falling asleep at the table. Nothing can break them from arising early and after a full day playing in the sun, sand and water were barely able to stay awake until 2000. At the beach we were all covered in full rashies (swim shirts), hats and sunscreen as is preached and practiced in Australia ( the kids learn at school early on to slip, slap, slop, seek, and slide) and relaxed in the shade at midday. The Italians, even the men, were all out in the sun in their bikinis and speedos! There were several older kids and Alex kept trying to play with them even though they didn't speak English. He just loves to play with other kids and make new friends.

Without TV we had lots of time to play ping pong and some new card games we brought. There were lots of hours waiting for dinner while playing "Wig Out" and "Too Many Monkeys".  I highly recommend them as a family game to play with younger kids that event the parents can enjoy.  Alex has also fallen in love with the movie "Mama Mia". During rest time he would watch it over and over on the ipad and sings and dances the song all the time. I even noticed him singing "Dancing Queen" in his sleep instead of the usual talking.  The kids frequently asked if we could stay for several months or even move there. Alex and Ellie do love to travel and always feel at home wherever they go. After a week in paradise, without having worn shoes for the entire week, it was time for one more speedboat trip back to Male and our flight back to Sri Lanka.

We spent a quick night at the Green View Hotel hotel near the airport in Colombo. It was a nice hotel but the power kept going off every few minutes most of the night. The kids still managed to get a swim in. We went to the restaurant for dinner as there was nothing nearby and it was getting late in the evening already when we got there. Even though it was empty, it still took a very long time to get our dinner. It seems they probably went out to the store to buy the food after we ordered. We were off south down the new expressway to the south of the island for our next beach sojourn near Galle. We hired a van and driver for the trip as we found that was the easiest, quickest and just about cheapest way for the five of us to travel around. It took a while for the driver to find the villa as the streets were not well marked. We stayed at Villa Hibiscus. We stayed in the large villa which was just beautiful. It was a large two bedroom open and airy villa that was decorated beautifully. It was right on a small bluff overlooking a stunning beach.

The beach was different from Asdu as there were lots of waves. The kids enjoyed this and spent hours playing in the waves, being smashed and dragged across the sand and scaring Latha and the villa staff who thought they were being a little too daring. Every afternoon there was a group of local boys who came down after school for a swim. They wanted to borrow the kids goggles so they could look at fish and the coral. They were also a few surfers out in the waves every day too. The kids thought seeing one of the cows that hung out at the end of the beach pee was a highlight of going to the beach in Sri Lanka. One afternoon Ellie popped up from the swirling backwash of a wave, covered in sand and asked me "What is a democracy?" I answered and then after the next wave she popped up and asked "What is a constitution?" She asks the most interesting and out of the blue questions for a five-year old! We spent most of our time hanging out at the villa and playing in the waves.

There was a a full staff at the house including a chef who would prepare whatever you wanted for the meals. We had lovely dinners each night. Our favorite was the local Sri Lankan chicken curry with all the trimmings. Breakfast was a huge plate of fresh fruit along with eggs, toast, pancakes and more that we could not even consider eating as it was just too much food. We didn't need much for lunch. I found a new game for the kids to play on their ipads for the times when they were too tired to run on the beach anymore. Mystery Math Town is a ipad maths game that we had to force the kids to pause to come eat dinner and make them stay at the table and finish their meal as they wanted to get back to the game.

One day we made the 30 minute trip into the town of Galle. It is a beautiful old town centered around an old fort. The fort was so well built it survived the tsunami in 2004 even as the wave wiped out most of the new part of town and killed hundreds. The architecture is a combination of British, Dutch and Islamic as Galle was the major trading port in Sri Lanka for several hundred years. We walked along the top of the old walls and wandered through the narrow streets. We had a lovely lunch at the Crepe-ology Restaurant. It was a very warm and humid day and Latha treated the kids to some yummy gelato as ice cream treats from Latha were a daily ritual.

On our last afternoon we popped in to the nearest town, Weligama. It is a bustling regional town with music blaring from most shop fronts. We took a tuk-tuk into town. Alex was thrilled with seeing so many tuk-tuks and any chance to ride in one was a thrill. We wandered along the beach looking at the fishing boats and all the fish and other sea creatures in the little stands. After an interesting stroll and some ice cream, all five of us squeezed into one tuk-tuk to head back to the villa. On the trip home we were stuck on one of the narrow back roads behind a funeral procession. It was quite a circus trick to all unpack from the tuk-tuk that we forget our backpack with Emma's wallet in the tuk-tuk. We didn't even realize we had left it until the driver found it and returned to the Villa to return it to us a couple hours later.

Eventually our time was up and our van came back to take us back to Colombo. We had two nights at the Hilton Residences which is where Emma and the kids stayed for a couple nights when they first arrived at the start of their trip. The hotel has a lovely pool and the kids loved swimming and made lots of friends with all the other kids that were there. We wandered around town for a morning to see a lovely lake and a temple with an elephant. Emma and I were able to have a date night and went to dinner at the Galle Face Hotel. It is a beautiful old hotel on the beach which is where most famous politicians, royalty, actors, writers and astronauts stay when in Colombo.

It was a fantastic trip and our first real family trip to somewhere exotic. Our worries about what our picky kids would eat were never realized as they were quite adventurous and never went hungry. They were not keen on sightseeing for too long but relished seeing new things, people and places. The people of Sri Lanka and the Maldives were just as friendly as we remembered from our first trip. They really love kids and the kids enjoyed meeting and talking to so many strangers in a strange place. They also loved seeing Latha again and it was like it had only been a few weeks since we had seen her last. As I mentioned, Asdu has not changed in 10 years. Sri Lanka has changed a bit. A big change we noticed is how even the tiniest hotel, well outside any big cities, all seem to have wifi now! We used to have to search for an internet cafe and pay for a really slow connection to stay in contact with family and friends. The kids now have the bug and want to go on more trips, especially back to Sri Lanka and Asdu! Who knows if the travel bug infection will remain! (PS, since it has taken me so long to write this, Emma has taken the kids out of the last week of school for this term and they are in the UK again. I won't be able to join them this time but it is the kids 4th international trip in a year!)

Paradise Resort

I hope everyone is warming up slowly. We are cooling down as fall has arrived down under! Three weeks back from our big trip and we are back into the routine of school and dreaming of another trip. The kids still start their homework when we get home without too many arguments and get upset if I pick them up from after school care too early. With the arrival of a new term and a new season, some of our activities have changed. Swimming is the one constant, still at 0700 every Saturday morning. Ellie has finally moved up after a frustratingly long time for Emma (one step away from becoming a swimming mom from down-under!) at her current level and Alex is just about to move up again away from lessons into the start of the developmental squad. Alex is taking a break from soccer and has started tennis. He is loving it and there is lots of room for an Aussie, or American male, tennis player on the big stage. Ellie dances away the rest of Saturday mornings with her ballet, modern jazz, and tap.

A couple of weeks ago we all went to some friends house for a wine tasting event. The kids had other activities, but we learned a lot about Australian Rose wine and had a lovely time. A week later we were back at the same friend's house for a birthday party for the kids. They had a petting zoo set up in the yard with goats, pigs, sheep, chickens, ducks, and guinea pigs. The kids loved petting the animals. We had ANZAC day off from school and work so we went for a family hike. At the end of our road you go up some stairs and you are into the hills. Our suburbs name of Ferny Hills is very apt. We had a great hike up and down some serious hills. The kids were running way out in front of us and didn't slow down until the last monster hill when Ellie needed a little bit of help.

The next Sunday, 28 April, we went to watch the netball. Emma is temporarily working at ANZ and the bank is one of the major sponsors of Queensland's professional netball team, the Queensland Firebirds, so she was able to get some complimentary tickets. It was a very close game, but in the end the Adelaide Thunderbirds won by one point. The kids really enjoyed their introduction to netball.

Since it has been three weeks since we have been away from home we decided we needed a weekend away. This weekend, after all the kids activities were done on Saturday, we headed down to the Gold Coast. We stayed at the Paradise Resort. The hotel is appropriately named as it may be the best hotel ever for a family with kids. The water play area is amazing and the kids spent five hours today playing on it with their only breaks to sit in the large hot tub for kids to warm up a bit. (Alex and Ellie were the only kids running around in wetsuits as apparently even Queensland is not warm enough for them year round.) As part of the cost of the room you get up to four hours for each kid in the amazing kids club. We took full advantage Saturday night and wandered around Surfer's Paradise and had dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe. We haven't eaten there since we use to have dinner regularly at the Hard Rock in Cayman. It was a fun night and our second Saturday in a row out for a date-night dinner. (The Saturday before Aunty Kat watched the kids while Emma took me out for a birthday dinner to MooMoo, an awesome and fancy steak restaurant in the city.) The kids had a fantastic evening also. They had a yummy dinner, drove the peddle go carts around and want to go back everyday. The whole hotel is designed for kids. The hotel is a little old and dated but you don't even notice because the kids are having so much fun and you get kids club everyday. The kids already want to know when we are going back. Can't recommend it highly enough if you have kids, but DO NOT stay there if you do not have kids!

Emma is hard at work planning Ellie's birthday party, as these events require extensive detailed planning starting months in advance. After last years party she has very high standards to exceed this time round!

Happy Mothers Day in advance to all those special ladies out there. Hopefully we will have more details from our Easter holiday trip up soon so stay tuned....

Term over already?

Emma and the kids are airborne on their way to Singapore and then on to Colombo, Sri Lanka. The last half of term 1 has just zipped by. The kids have actually finished school a week early so they can have more time in Sri Lanka. They will spend a couple days in Colombo and then go to Kandy to stay at Latha's house for a few days until I come in. Unfortunately, us teacher can't do the same thing. The last couple weeks have been busy with setting exams, marking exams and assignments, and now getting the reports done by Thursday. The kids at our school finish on Tuesday and then we have two teacher days to get reports done. On Good Friday I will follow Emma's route to Sri Lanka and then the next day we fly to the Maldives for a week with Latha too. From the airport in Male,(The capital of the Maldives) we go by boat to ASDU island, where Emma and I stayed when we were there almost exactly ten years ago.

The last few weeks have been a blur of school all week and then the kids activities all day Saturday. We have had several friends sleep over with the kids which they have really enjoyed. We had Kobe stay while his parents were at a family wedding in Brisbane and then many of the Nunn's who were up for the wedding all came over on Sunday for a BBQ brunch. The next weekend was Ellie's best friend Laura from school. We all watched E.T. which the kids thought was a bit scary, but really enjoyed. It was the first time the kids have seen it and we can report it is still a classic for a new generation. The rain on the weekends finally let up and Alex was able to have some good T-Ball sessions the last few Friday nights. Last Saturday they had a big BBQ and passed out awards to all the kids which Alex was very excited about. This past Friday was their last Aussie Rules session after school and Alex now wants to sign up for a club where they compete against other clubs. He also complained, for the first time, that he never gets to watch Aussie rules because I am always watching American football. (He was just upset that he had not won one of the two footballs they were raffling off. The seasons don't match up and we can watch all the Aussie Rules he wants!) Before Emma and the kids left today the kids had their swim lesson at 0700. Then we all went to Ellie's last dance lessons of the term. On the last day of term the parents are allowed to watch. (You quickly realize why the teacher doesn't let parents usually watch. The girls spent a lot of time waving, smiling, showing off and running over for a hug!) It was lots of fun to watch Ellie. She concentrates so hard when she is dancing. I am not sure how she does three 45 minute lessons after her swim lesson in the morning. She does ballet, then next door for modern jazz, and then back again to the main studio for tap.  We then headed straight for the airport where we all had lunch before it was time for them to board their Singapore Airlines flight.

As usual, the kids are really excited to go flying again and to see Latha again after almost three years. That leaves me at home on a Saturday night to tidy up the house and catch up on my recorded NCAA basketball games. (There is a pool going in the staff room at school and I have Duke to go all the way.) Tomorrow will be more chores around the house and lots of marking.

school fun

We have been back in school for three weeks now and the kids are loving year 1. The classes were rearranged so some of their classmates are new but many were in their class last year and others they know from out-of-school hours care. They have just started having homework. They have reading and spelling words to work on every night. They have a homework book to write out their words and they are very excited to sit down each evening to do their homework.

We are back into our busy weekend routines. By Saturday afternoon the kids are usually knackered. After school Friday they both do Auskick, which is Aussie Rules Football for kids. I think Ellie just loves all the kit you get for signing up, a backpack filled with goodies such as a football, water bottle and a collection of magnets, trading cards, kids magazines and other little things which are now littering up the house! After that they do martial arts. I usually pick them up before 1700 and we just have time to run home and get changed for T-Ball. Alex just loves T-Ball and unfortunately 3 out of the 4 sessions  this year have been rained out. Ellie enjoys watching and we get some time to chat. Last night it poured rain and Alex was the only T-Baller there. They couldn't play baseball but he had a blast playing rugby in the pouring rain with the big boys who help coach the sessions. We had our usual hotdog for dinner afterwards while waiting to see if they would cancel the A league game (the top amateur level) scheduled for later. We usually hang out and watch the men come in and start to warm up for the Friday night game. Last week Ellie correctly identified a quote played by the DJ as part of the pre-game trivia contest. She just walked right up to him to identify the movie the quote came from. She hadn't even told me she was going to answer the question. Saturday morning we are at the pool by 0700 for swim lessons. Alex is now swimming laps in the 25m pool for his lessons and they have just started learning breaststroke. Ellie is content to stay in the "warm" pool and is still improving although backstroke is what is keeping her from moving up a level. Later Saturday morning Alex has an hour soccer practice and Ellie is now doing three dance classes back-to-back-to-back. She has continued her ballet and modern jazz from last year and has now added tap. By the time we are done with lunch the kids are really tired!

Last Saturday night Emma and I went to the wedding of one of her good friends from work. The ceremony was held at a gorgeous church right by the river, St Mary's Anglican Church.

 The ceremony was lovely and drinks on the front lawn afterwards had a stunning view of the city. the reception was as the Green Papaya. The food was amazing and we all had a fabulous evening. Rick Swart and Cian and Niamh came over to watch the kid for us while we were out. Alex and Ellie have a blast hanging out with Cian and Niamh who are so good with the kids. Ellie got to work on lots of her art and craft projects she has and Niamh did an awesome job on her nails. Emma forgot to clean Ellie's nails before school on Monday so Ellie has already gotten in trouble for wearing makeup to school! (As Ellie said her teacher just gave her a warning and we had it off by Tuesday. )

Alex has become more studious already and loves to tell us how he goes to the library to read at lunch time this year. Last year he spent every minute he could playing on the playground. He loves playing sport, anything that is available. A new favorite now is water polo in the pool against me. We spend most of our pool time playing and the games get quite physical. It is perfect for him as he cannot stand in the pool and is getting good at dribbling and shooting. He has gotten so serious we had to go buy a real water polo ball as the soccer ball we were using just wasn't cutting it. He is getting much better at keeping his glasses on and thankfully we spend less time every week searching for misplaced glasses.

Ellie makes me forget everyday that she is still only five. This week in school her teacher asked for a "gr" word and the first word that came to Ellie when it was her turn was "gravity"! The other day she was talking with Emma about how she wants to go and build-a-bear at the bear shop at the mall. She told Emma that you can get a bear on credit and so she needs a credit card so she can go get a bear. At dinner tonight she and Alex broke out some of their jokes. It is nice that they can now actually tell real jokes. Ellie asked me how turtles communicate. The answer was "with shell phones"! After I chuckled she actually asked me "Do you get it Daddy?" then went on to explain why the joke was funny.

It is fast approaching three years since we said goodbye to Latha. We have tried to get her a visa to come visit us here but the application was rejected by the Australian government. So we have decided to go to Sri Lanka to see her over Easter Holiday.  Emma and the kids will leave a week before school lets out and I will join them when I finish. We will also spend a week at the same resort in the Maldives that Emma and I stayed at almost exactly 10 years ago while we were travelling. We will have a week altogether in Sri Lanka after our week in the Maldives before we travel back for the start of term 2.

One more day to rest up and then we are back to school!

End of Vacation

Summer vacation came to end for me this week as teachers went back to school on Monday, 21 Jan. We had a week of planning and getting ready for the start of the new school year. As a result the kids went to vacation care which they were very excited about. On Wednesday, Ellie went into Brisbane on the train with her best friend Laura and Laura's mom. They had a lovely lunch at South Bank and then went to see the stage production of "Hairy Maclary." They all had a lovely time and really liked the show. Alex was at vacation care and they went on an excursion by bus into the city to the Queensland Museum and Science Centre to see the Dinosaur exhibit and the rest of the activities.

Friday brought ex-cyclone Oswald and lots of rain and heavy winds. The rain and winds continued until Monday. Saturday was Australia Day which is celebrated here much like the Fourth of July in the US even though the reason for the holiday is different. It celebrates the landing of the first fleet. Monday was a bank holiday since Australia day fell on a Saturday this year. Of course the entire weekend has been a complete washout! There has been lots of flooding and trees blown over. The flooding fortunately has not been as bad in Brisbane as the great flood of 2011 but some places in Queensland have had record floods. Just driving around it is shocking how many trees have been blown over. We live just up the hill from the start of Cabbage Tree Creek. We have never seen it more than a little trickle up where we are but it was a roaring torrent by Sunday afternoon. We all put on our raincoats and wellies and went down to see how high the water was, trees blown down across the walking path along the creek, all the way up until the first foot bridge over the creek which had white water crashing over it.  Sunday night at about 1900 we lost our power. Fortunately it was just about bedtime for the kids. The power did come back on just in time for the grown-ups to go to bed at about 2200.  We have discovered today how lucky we are because lots of areas still don't have power back yet.

The damage has been extensive all over Brisbane. Kids at my school were supposed to start on Tuesday, 29 Jan but that has been pushed back a day because there has been damage to the school and they still did not have power back by Monday afternoon. There are lots of schools that will not be starting on Tuesday but it appears Alex and Ellie's school has been spared and they will start on Tuesday. They are very excited to be starting year 1. Emma has taken advantage of a weekend stuck at home to cover all their books and stick a seemingly never-ending supply of name stickers on every pencil, coloured marker, glue stick, and everything else in the huge book-pack for a year 1 student these days.

We are all looking forward to a busy week with the start of school, and the kids are very excited to be going back to school.

We're Back!!

We’re back! The blog has been silent for almost a year-and-a-half and I apologize for that. I think that after a while life felt normal. We were not in an exotic location like Oman or the Caymans and life seemed routine. I will try to keep up the blog this year. Most of you who read this probably know what we have been up to so I will keep it short. We are in the midst of the last lazy days of a warm summer here in Brisbane.  The kids finished their first year of school here called Prep in December. (The equivalent of kindergarten.) In December I also finished up my first year of teaching here in Oz. I am teaching maths at St Peter’s Lutheran College. Last year I had two classes in year 9, two in year 10 and a year 11 Maths B class. I go back to school on Monday the 21^st of January. I am scheduled to have a year 8, year 9, two year 11 Maths B classes and I will continue with my year 11 class from last year as they go into year 12.  The kids start in year 1 on Jan 29. They are in the same year at school since the cut-off date for school here in Queensland is June 30, and on that date they are the same age. They are in separate classes at the local primary school which is a lovely school. 

The kids and I went to Carlsbad, California for two weeks at the start of December to see my parents who are there for the winter staying at my brother’s house.  We also got to see my brother and his wife Songul, my cousin Barbara who came down from Portland to visit, and my sister Tamara who surprised us all by coming out from Minneapolis for a long weekend. The kids really enjoyed seeing the USS Midway, Legoland, SeaWorld and the Safari Park. They also enjoyed playing on the beach and in the surf even though it was winter. Emma is enjoying banker’s hours as she is on a secondment from her law firm to ANZ Bank to cover a maternity leave in on one of their legal teams.  I will try to be more regular with my updates of life in Oz this year. We hope everyone had a wonderful holiday and your new year is off to a good start. 

Its the end of the world as we know it

It’s the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine, ( I actually feel much better than fine!) The title of the blog has nothing to do with confluence of religion and maths that happens tomorrow, 21 May, but with the end of nappies. Granted, Ellie has only been wearing a nappie when she sleeps at night, only pees in it, and takes it off and puts it in the bin when she wakes up, It is still the end of our world. On top of that we have bought a house and move in on June 2! In light of the approaching end of the world and to honour REM’s song of the same title here is our long delayed blog. (Read it really fast!)

Emma and I went to see John Williamson, an Australian icon, and had a fantastic time! The kids are loving their new teacher at school for 3 days a week and swim lessons every Friday. Alex continues to improve and Ellie has gone from being afraid to put her head under to swimming like a fish and showing off to her class. She also progressed from clinging to me during lessons to doing her lessons without me in the pool. Eric started swimming a couple days a week with the Gold Coast Tri Squad in Southport on the Gold Coast even though it is quite a long drive. I also did my first open water swim at the Cooly Classic, a 2K swim in Coolangatta on the Gold Coast. It was lots of fun and I placed near the top of my age group. We spent lots of weekends over the last few months looking at houses and after selling our house in London we finally bought a gorgeous house. We close on May 31 and move, again!!, on June 2. For the Easter holiday we went to Sydney.  Emma’s family from England were all over in Sydney visiting. I drove down again with the kids. As we were getting in the car the DVD player broke so I spent 13 hours with the kids throwing things, fighting, and asking “Are we there yet?”. Emma flew down for 2 weekends as she had to work. In between we enjoyed Sydney. The kids love the ferries and there is a large selection of “fast” and “slow” ferries as the kids call them. Hard to believe Alex needs a new US passport already so we went to the consulate in Sydney to get the paperwork done. Later we went up the Sydney tower and enjoyed the spectacular views. The kids got Nintendo DS’s from nana and cousin Beth and Ben were quick to show them how to play. Ellie especially was soon inseperable from her DS! I was signed up to do 2 different ocean swims but both were postponed due to poor weather. It rained for most of our trip to Sydney. We went to Luna Park and Alex loved the Ferris Wheel and Dodgem (bumper) cars! We went to Manly and enjoyed the fish in the Aquarium, especially seeing that they all had Easter eggs in their tanks! For my birthday I wanted some good American chow, so there is no place better than a trip to the “Outback Steakhouse”! for a yummy time. Everyone went into the city to see “Hop”. The kids all loved it and as we were leaving they were rolling out the red carpet and setting up the champagne as a couple hours later they had the world premier for “Thor” since the lead is an Aussie! Eric went with the grown ups to my second Aussie rules football game to see the Swans and the Sydney Cricket Gorund. I rudely discovered that Sydney is a little more formal than Brisbane and I needed to make a trip to the merchandise store to buy a shirt with a collar! I also got to see my first Rugby Union match as we went to see the Waratah’s win! Easter Friday we had a wonderful lunch at the Creech’s with the whole clan that had been there for Christmas lunch as well as everyone from England. It was quite a feast with fabulous company! The kids went crazy hunting for chocolate eggs on Easter morn and then we all went to a great park for a BBQ and lots of running, cricket, climbing, and sliding. With poor weather we didn’t make it to the Sydney Royal Easter Show (like the state fair in the US) The kids still got their show bags, one full of airplanes for Alex and a little pony one for Ellie. We got to see lots of friends and had a fantastic time with the English side of the family. The kids loved seeing their cousins, auntie and uncle and of course, nana and da. Emma’s holiday was finally up and time to drive home. Emma enjoyed her drive back up sans car DVD! Not long after getting home I finally got my teaching registration for Queensland so I can start looking for a job! To celebrate Emma’s birthday we all went to see Hi-5! The kids have watched nothing else in the weeks both prior and since. We may be done with nappies but it will be a while until we outgrow kids shows! It has been a couple hectic months and still lots more to go. It is the end of the world as we know it, and we feel fine...

Summer Fun

Brisbane is slowly getting cleaned up from all the flood damage. Emma’s office building was one of the last and even then the fire systems in the building were not working for several weeks so they had to have security guards on every floor with whistles in case a fire was spotted. The car park under the building is still not ready yet. Just last week some of the ferries started running to most of the ferry stops although there are still some not repaired yet. Our favorite park, New Farm park, which is right by the river is all cleaned up and we spent last Sunday morning there with some friends. The dads had the kids while all the women enjoyed brunch. Last Friday night we went to see the movie “Tangled” under the stars in New Farm park.  They have a large screen on the side of one of the Powerhouse Art Centre buildings. You can rent beanbag chairs or bring your own blankets and pillows and sit on the grass and watch the flick.  We had a blast watching the movie while watching the moon rise and the bats fly over head. Several of the kids friends joined us and everyone had lots of fun.

January 26 is Australia Day and celebrated much like the 4th of July in the US. If you are close enough you head to the beach or else have a barbie with friends and enjoy the sunshine. The day is to honour the landing of the first convict fleet. We headed out to the beach on the Sunshine Coast with Aunty Kat and had fun playing in the sand. The waves were a bit too big to swim for the kids but they had fun making sand castles and getting their feet wet. We are fortunate to be right between the Gold Coast to the south and the Sunshine Coast to the north, both with lots of nice beaches. With all the nice weather we have had we have spent lots of time at the pool. The kids just love spending the day at the pool and we are spoilt for choice! They also have swim lessons every Friday and they are making really good progress.

On February 12 Emma and I celebrated Valentines day with a nice dinner and a show.  Our friends the Swarts were nice enough to volunteer to watch the kids. Alex and Ellie just love playing with Cian and Niamh so are always happy to see them. We had a lovely dinner at The Fox.  It was nice to have some really good American style ribs! Then we walked over to the Queensland Performing Arts Centre for the show. The centre is right by the river and the show’s opening had been delayed by two weeks. The night we were there the car park was still closed. We saw “Wicked” and it was wicked good! We are really enjoying being in civilization again and being able to go to shows. It was an awesome night out and a lovely Valentines!

We have been looking at a lot of houses and finally come to a big decision. We have put our house in Stratford up for sale so we can buy something here. If anyone is looking for a house a short walk to the new Olympic Stadium, Aquatic Centre and athlete’s village in London then give us a shout. It was hard to decide to part with the house.  Although it is very tiny and we would never live in it again, we really enjoyed living in it when we were in London pre-kids! Based on what we have heard it should sell quickly then we can get serious about houses here!

We are all still loving life in Brisbane and in Australia. I have come up with one more complaint for Australia Post.  This is the first place we have lived since London that delivers the mail right to your house. The kids love it because the postmen ride motorbikes down the sidewalk stopping at each house to stick the post in the postbox. Since they usually have to reach they usually only stick the letters half way into the box, leaving a bit sticking out.  It does tend to rain here a lot, especially on short notice a rain storm will sweep through.  That means that we frequently end up with wet mail which is getting very annoying.

I find the Aussie slang here very amusing. They of course have a penchant for shortening words and putting a long “I” on the end. The famous one is barbie, for BBQ, or eskie, for a cooler, or cossie, for a swim suit, or Aussie, for Australia. They also like to put an “o” on the end of a lot of words like speedo, for speedometer. As in most countries, different regions also have their own slang. Cossie is the most common term for a swim suit. Here in Queensland they call a swimsuits “togs”. I have come across my favorite term though, many times. They have used this term in the papers and the radio when discussing Tony Abbott, the leader of the federal opposition, who is athletic and does triathlons and swims. I found it hilarious when I came across it recently though. We are going to Sydney over the Easter break as the Tonks and Taplins are coming out from England to visit.  There is an ocean swim in Bondi during the time we are down there that I am going to sign up for. While reading the website for all the details I came across this discussion of what you are allowed to wear. This has been a big issue in the sport of swimming the last couple years so of course they wanted to be sure everyone knew what was allowed. I have copied it exactly as it is written on the website and highlighted my favorite term for a men’s swimsuit.

Cossies

To qualify for points in the series, swimmers must wear only conventional cossies. This means no fastskins, no wetties, no cossies that cover any part of the arms or legs. Blokes must wear conventional budgy smugglers, and laydees must wear one piece or two piece, but without arms or legs. No hi-tech material, either, and no material with any flotation property.

A budgy is a small parrot native to Australia. You have to love the Aussies!

Vanuatu

 A couple weeks ago we finally received notice from the Australian embassy in Washington D.C. that my resident visa was finally ready after five months. In order for them to issue my visa, I had to leave the country for at least three business days. We were never able to get any explanation as to why this had to be done. Maybe they have a very slow internet connection between the embassy and Australian immigration and it takes that long for the info to get there. Whatever the mysterious reason in this day of technology, I had to leave. Now I know what most of my Aussie friends would recommend, but I did look it up and technically, Tasmania is NOT a separate country. Since it was short notice and we already had a nice family holiday over Christmas, it was going to be just me. After doing some research we determined that Vanuatu is the closest foreign country to Brisbane and also the cheapest to fly to.

I knew very little about Vanuatu when I booked my flight with Air Vanuatu.( The Air Vanuatu flight was very god. Good food, good service and only a 2.5 hour flight.) It consists of 83 islands with a population of about 240,000. The biggest island, Espiritu Santo, was home to numerous military bases and tens of thousands of U.S. troops during WWII as the primary staging base for operations in Guadalcanal and the Solomon islands. At the end of the war most of the left over equipment was tossed into the ocean and now makes for some great diving sites. It is also where James Michener once lived and wrote “Tales of the South Pacific” that would become the musical “South Pacific”. My flight stopped off in Espiritu Santo both on the way out and on the way home to drop off and pick up passengers. I didn’t get a chance to get out here.

Pentecost Island is home to land diving, the inspiration of bungee jumping. You can go and see the land diving on Saturdays from April to June. I didn’t make it to Pentecost this time round as it was not land diving season. Tanna island has the world’s most accessible volcano where you can see the spectacular lava bubbling and spitting. Tanna is also home to the John Frum cult.  You really need to read the link explaining how this cult evolved after WWII as the islanders hoped to get the Americans to come back with their unbelievable quantities of supplies. You can still watch the ceremonies as the cult is still alive and well. This is just a taste of what Vanuatu has to offer. I headed to Efate Island and the capital of Port Vila. The international airport in Port Vila is named after LTCOL Bauer, a US Marine who oversaw the building of the first runway at the spot of the airport in Port Vila.

I stayed in a pleasant budget holiday, the Holiday Hotel, just a short walk from town. The island is beautiful, lush green, with towering hills. There is a huge choice of options to partake in without even leaving the island. I had arrived on Tuesday evening, Jan 18, and had a lovely stroll through town and a nice dinner by the water. Wednesday morning I had my first ever stand up paddle board lesson. I met the instructor from Vanuatu kite surfing at Bodega Tapas Bar by the water.  We spent the morning paddling around the calm lagoon as I tried to stay on the board. After too many dives into the water, I started to get the hang of it. Thursday morning I was off to Lololimo Falls with Ecotours.  We had a lovely drive up into the hills around Port Vila to a large organic beef ranch owned by the Catholic mission in Vanuatu. We trekked down to the spectacular falls. I enjoyed swimming in the falls and exploring a large cave around the side of the falls. There were huge stalactites and stalagmites as well as bats sleeping on the ceiling. Then we climbed right up the falls and trekked down the river. There were smaller falls to climb as we travelled up river. We then headed into the jungle and ended up back at the base of the falls. One of the good things about Vanuatu is there are no poisonoues creatures so as we trekked through the jungle you can put your Aussie instincts aside and not worry about snakes, insects and crocs. Pascal, who owns Ecotours, and his guides Henri and George were very knowledgeable and took great care of us.  We had fun swinging into the river on the rope swing until it was finally time to head back to the hotel.

Transport to the falls

Wednesday night I went to the movies. The movie theatre in Port Vila is by the water at the Nambawan Cafe. As the sun starts to go down they put a big sheet up and once it gets dark they show the movie on the large sheet. The Nambawan Cafe is also a great place for pizza or some awesome fruit smoothies and free WiFi. They show a movie on Wednesday, Friday and Satuday. The Wednesday movie I saw was “Winter’s Bone” which I had never heard of before but was very good, if a bit unusual. One of the most interesting sites in Port Vila is the fruit market which is in the centre of town on the water. It is open 24 hours a day, six days a week.  I was too tired every night to investigate who was buying fruit at 0200 or 0300 in the morning. There is a mind-boggling variety of fruit that has just come from the jungle or the farm. The market is bustling during the day and you can entertain yourself for hours just wandering through and watching the people. The best place in town for either breakfast or lunch is Jill’s Cafe. (It is not open for dinner or on Sundays. Jill’s Cafe is the American way!)

setting up the movie screen at sunset

Friday I was off sailing and diving with Sailaway Cruises. We had a drive up to the north side of the island. The hills are really steep and we were concerned the van might not make it to the top with 15 people in it. Going down was like being on a roller coaster. We got on the trimaran “Golden Wing” in Havannah Harbour and we were off. There were only 12 of us on the boat and had a comfortable trip relaxing on the deck sailing through the waves. The owner, Australian Peter, and local crew Eric and Silvano, ensured we had a terrific day. We motored out to Hat Island (not much wind in the morning). We anchored and Peter and I went for a dive. It was awesome to dive without a wet suit the water was so warm. It has been a long time since I dove without a wet suit. The coral was amazing. A cyclone had gone through just a couple weeks before and lots of coral had been broken off and was lying littered on the bottom. Even with the cyclone, the coral was amazing. After we came up lunch was ready. It was very tasty home cooking and filled us up. Then we put the sails up and sailed back to the main island and anchored of Survivor beach. This was one of the beaches they lived on when they filmed “Survivor Vanuatu”.  (Of course the opening sequence of the TV show shows the volcano from Tanna, no where near where the survivors lived and competed. We also learned lots of other juicy details of how different “reality” and the reality TV show actually were!) We went ashore and wandered around and saw the freshwater stream. Then we were off to a reef out in the open water. I did another dive with Peter. (I was the only passenger diving, everyone else just snorkeled.) The fish at this site were unbelievable. I don’t think I have ever seen such a humongous variety of fish in one dive before. There were also some cool swims through narrow canyons. Peter had briefed me that there were some spectacular swim-throughs. At one point I thought he signalled to me that he was going into a cave. I thought I must have misunderstood his signal because I couldn’t see any entrance, just the under-hang of some large coral. A few seconds later he had dropped in and completely disappeared. I followed and we swam through a long, very cool, tunnel that was barely shoulder width wide. You had to be careful not to let any of your cables or hoses get caught in the coral on the side. After some tea and cake, we were sailing back to the harbour. It was an incredible day and a definite highlight if you ever visit.

Hat Island dive spot

Saturday I went out with Ecotours again. Pascal couldn’t make it but George took us out kayaking. After picking us up at the hotel, we drove east along the coast to where the Rentapao River. We paddled up the Rentapao river. It was just lush green the whole way with no signs of civilization. We stopped a couple times for a dip in the river or some tales of local traditions or information on the flora and fauna from George. At one point George hopped ashore into the jungle and showed up a few minutes later with some fresh picked grapefruit which were delicious and nourished us for the paddle back down the river to the coast. It was another excellent adventure and highly recommended for anyone visiting. Vanuatu is known for its organic beef. There are lots of large cattle plantations and plenty of well watered, fast-growing grass. For my last dinner I thought I would have some nice beef. I went to the “Flaming Bull”. The bar in the restaurant is called the Kelly Bar with the appropriate armour out front. Anywhere there are lots of Aussie tourist you will find some reference to the infamous criminal, Ned Kelly, who is a national hero. I had some yummy beef fajitas while listening to some Reggae and enjoying a nice cold Tusker beer while watching the sunset across the bay. No matter how small the island it will have its own beer.  

fresh picked grapefruit with George

Port Vila shouts down for the weekend at lunchtime on Saturday. Only a few restaurants are open. Emma and the kids were fortunate that a cruise ship pulled into port on Sunday morning. When a cruise ship is in town, many of the shops open. That means I had a chance to do some souvenir shopping. This is a priority as shortly after giving me hugs when they picked me up at the airport and saying hello, the very next question is “What did you bring us?” Sunday morning I also did one more paddle board session. After a rocky start I finally got it and had a beautiful paddle around the lagoon. One of the other guys paddling with me saw a large dugong (manatee) swim by just off to the side. It was another peaceful trip home on the flight. This trip is the first time I have flown without at least one kid in four-and-a-half years!

sunset in Port Vila

Vanuatu is an amazing destination. It is beautiful, relaxing and full of adventure opportunities. The people are so friendly and laid back, they never hassle you or pressure you. They also have an interesting, unusual and long history and culture which they are very eager to share. If you are ever in the area, or looking for that authentic South Pacific experience, then head to Vanuatu. They have something for everyone and you will be both tired and relaxed and chilled. I had no problems with my visa upon arriving home in Brisbane. It seems the three business days is enough to have a visa ready to issue. I was expecting a big party and celebration when I went through immigration. The officer just looked at my passport and his computer and then stamped my passport and handed it back. I was a bit worried that maybe my resident visa hadn’t come through and he had just found my tourist visa on the system. After asking he assured me I was fine. So I became an official resident just in time for my first Australia day on January 26. Now the next task is to get the mounds of paperwork done I need so I can get registered to teach here in Queensland. Having to leave to get my residents visa wasn’t such a bad thing after all.  

The Great Flood of 2011

It has been such an interesting week that I have had to change the title of this installment as unforseen events turned a short, slow story into the headline of a century. Last Saturday, Jan 8, we went down to the Gold Coast to see Disney Live’s “Princesses” show. It was a live stage musical with Mickey and the gang telling short versions of “Snow White”, “Cinderella” and “Beauty and the Beast”. The convention centre was full of little girls in their favorite princess outfit. We all enjoyed the singing, dancing and stories. After the show we discovered that there is a monorail in the Gold Coast that runs from Jupiter’s Casino to a shopping centre. Since we have a young boy who loves monorails, we rode it a couple times with a break for lunch. Last Sunday it appeared it was going to be a quiet week so I had already labelled my blog “Princesses” since it was obviously going to be the main event of our week. 

waiting for Disney Princess show to start

 Before Christmas we ended up with our first family pets. Aunty Kat gave the kids her two goldfish. They had really enjoyed feeding them every time we were at Kat’s house so this was the next logical step it seems. Alex named his fish “Golphy” and Ellie demonstrated just how sharp she is by naming her fish “Flushy”.

We don’t have a dryer so I am very attuned to the changes in weather. With all the rain we have been having the last two months it has been difficult to get the washing done sometimes. Last week I was sitting upstairs on the sofa with the kids when it suddenly struck me that it had started to rain. With a load almost dry on the line, I didn’t want to lose another batch. I jumped up shouting “Its raining, the washing”. The kids just burst out laughing at me. My concern over rain and washing is still a running family joke.

Sunday night, Jan 9, we were having dinner over at some friends house. Paul and Michelle have twins, a boy and a girl, who are exactly between Alex and Ellie in age and they get along really well.  The live in New Farm, which is right along the river, in a ground floor apartment just a few metres from the riverbank. We were sitting out on the patio watching the river go by, the rain falling and the bats flying around the huge fig trees. They moved here from Oregon and were commenting that the rain here in the last couple months was much worse than the weather in Oregon.

Wednesday evening, Jan 12, they were all over at our house for a BBQ. The rain had stopped the day before but it was more than a visit for dinner and some play time. They were here to stay for a couple days, evacuees from the Great Flood of 2011. All the rain in the last couple months was too much for the Brisbane river. The last great flood in Brisbane was in January, 1974. Partly as a result of that flood they built the Wivenhoe dam upstream. As a result of almost ten years of draught in the region, 18 months ago the dam was at 17% capacity. The story goes that the experts were saying it would take ten years of above average rain to get back to 100%. By Tuesday, 18 months after being at 17%, the dam was at 200%! As a result of months of rain, not even the dam could keep back the floods anymore.  

Tuesday morning, Jan 11, with pouring rain, I took the kids to Chipmunk’s, a large indoor kids play area.  After a fun morning of playing, sliding, and climbing, they made an announcement about roads closing and flooding. I thought maybe we should get in the van and head home. As we were leaving, Emma called to say they were evacuating the Central Business District (CBD) and she was taking the train home.  As we pulled into the wall of inching traffic, the radio announced that Strathpine was one of the towns that everyone should evacuate to avoid the rising creek. We managed to outrace the flood home and it only took an hour-and-half to get home to find Emma was already home. I headed to the grocery store to get some supplies and many of the shelves were already bare. Wednesday morning Emma went to the store to get some more food and it took her an hour-and-half to get through the checkout line.

The Brisbane river was rising slowly and they were predicting it would surpass the flood level of 1974. The peak was predicted for 0400 on Thursday morning for Brisbane. We woke up Wednesday to a beautiful sunny day. Unfortunately it was too late to stop the coming flood waters. Paul and Michelle's apartment was just at the expected peak level so they hightailed it out on Wednesday as the power was switched off to come stay with us. Our suburb is far enough north of the river and high enough that we didn’t get any flood water. We watched in awe the footage of things being washed down the river, including floating restaurants washed away. Thursday was another gloriously sunny day and the only good news was the waters had not reached the record level of 1974. Unfortunately huge swaths of Brisbane were underwater by then. The underground car parks in Emma’s building which is right next to the river were completely flooded and the whole CBD was a ghost town. The scenes of devastation are heartbreaking. The waters have started to recede and the entire city has come out to begin the cleanup. The CBD is still closed and it might be another week until Emma can get back to work at her office. Some people are heading to the firm’s office in Melbourne so they can do some work and Emma will work between home and a temporary serviced office until the CBD is up and running again. One of the stories from the flood is a goldfish that was flushed out of his bowl when the flood waters flooded the house and after the waters receded a couple days later he ended up in the bathtub. He has been renamed “Lucky”. The waters completely inundated some neighborhoods with water over the roofs and up into the second story of many homes. Some shopping centres were completely underwater and SunCorp stadium, the major stadium in town looked more like a location for a swim meet than a football game.  There are still many bare shelves in the stores as 75% of Queensland has been affected by flooding and much the infrastructure is flooded or damaged. Paul and Michelle, John and Julia went home Friday when the power was turned back on at their complex. They were fortunate that they had no flooding, not even their underground car park.  We had a fun couple nights flood sleepover, but that was tempered with the fury and might of the flood waters we saw going on throughout Brisbane and the surrounding valleys.  The clean up will take months and years.

In the midst of the events going on around us, I finally heard from the Australian embassy in Washington DC that my visa was finally all set. In order to issue my resident visa, I need to leave the country for at least three business days. The closest and cheapest option for me is Vanuatu, so I am heading off for a little holiday by myself on Tuesday, Jan 18 for 5 days.   Emma will be able to now report on how it feels to be a full time working single mum!

One last note on rumours that I am somehow connected to “unseasonable weather events” as the Omanis so politely called Cyclone Gonu. It is true we survived Cyclone Gonu in 2007 back in Oman, the biggest storm to ever hit the country, just a few days before Ellie was born. And now we have survived some of the biggest floods to ever hit Brisbane. We did have one of the quietest hurricane seasons they have ever had while we were in the Caymans. It has been an unforgettable week and I am inspired by the spirit of Brisbane and its people as they have jumped right back up after the great flood of 2011.