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.
Having fun in Brisbane!
January 28, 2013
January 17, 2013
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 21st
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.
May 20, 2011
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...
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...
February 24, 2011
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.
A budgy is a small parrot native to Australia. You have to love the Aussies!
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!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)