Long Overdue

Yeah Yeah Yeah, I know I'm overdue to post, but I'm REALLY overdue to put these pics up. This was a while ago after church when Gabey decided to go for a something a little more sexy than his usual attire. It was hilarious. Little Boy has quite the shoe fetish. Don't tell the Grandpas, especially Pop Pop. They may start to wonder. The thing is though, that Gabe is so BOY that you really can joke comfortably about these things.

This was Laine around the time of her birthday when she wore the aprons that Grams Riley made her. Are they not uber-ADORABLE?? You can't see the other one, I know I have pics of it somewhere but can't find them and she's at school today so no chance for a totally real photo op... Anyway, Laine and I both love the aprons and we use them all of the time and here are the pics for Grams finally!

And how sad are these pics??

You remember the pics of the back garden from before I assume. Here is what it looks {and SOUNDS!!} like today, which is even worse than the pics I posted yesterday on HG. I should have snapped them a half hour ago when they excavator was on the fence line and the massive tree grinder was obnoxiously grinding those beautiful trees that used to line that fence line!

Welcome Welcome Terrible Two's... Bring it on!

Happy Birthday Manchild!

PS -if you've seen Ben's neck, let us know where to find it, we've looked everywhere!

The other night we had this great impromptu pizza party with our neighbors and we ended up discussing that Gabe's birthday would be on Monday. The ladies were a little tipsy, and suggested pulling the neighborhood together for a street party for Gabe. It all sounded like the kind of idea that seemed great...when drunk. And for a second I wondered if anyone would remember the grandeos plans the next day. I didn't have anything else planned, I felt bad since I didn't do anything for Laine's birthday a few months back, it was just too much at that time to put something on...

To my relief / horror / joy, they did remember. And Monday, it was on. It was some work for sure, but was so worth it and was probably the greatest birthday party we have thrown to date. That is not saying much. I'm not nearly as festive as I should be, and with most birthdays happening overseas or while pregnant or just on the verge of moving or having just moved, it hasn't helped.



This was great though. Everyone brought some nibbles and there were presents galore. Gabe was surrounded by his favorite ladies who he just adores. The tall one is Amberleigh of whom he is in love with and even calls 'Mummy' sometimes. He follows her around where ever she goes, arms outstretched and whining until she'll pick him up. It's a crack-up.

I made a mountain cake with some hills and country roads. Gabe is so into cars, so I thought he'd like it. It was probably the ugliest thing I've ever seen, not being modest, but the girls all went apey for it and thought it was magnificent. And it did taste incredible... it was a raspberry almond cake with coconut, of my own creation. I made it with half flour and half almond meal and the recipe will be on HG tomorrow if you're interest has been piqued.

Happy Birthday to the best little boy a mom could ask for. You keep me laughing and smiling and I just don't know what to do with myself I love you so much. I just want to squeeze you all day long. In fact, to quote Paula, you're ridiculous. I just want to squeeze you, squish your head off and dangle you from my rear view mirror.

You are so fun and have such a joy about you. Your little chicklette teeth and deep husky voice with accompanying lisp keep everyone cracking up. And you run like a girl, which is hilarious /adorable now but we do hope you grow out of it, but not too soon.

You are a Wildman, and you grow more and more wild everyday. It's been very eye-opening as a Mum who grew up without any brothers! But we love your antics and none of us can get enough of you. You're one in a million my little bebe! Kisses!

He pooped on me, but it's cool

Yep, he did

PS I just discovered the phone has been off the hook for the last 859 minutes. Congrats to us, a new record.

So here we are, back from our trip. I can't say that I really should even be blogging with the mountain of laundry, emails, and phonecalls waiting for me. But I don't think I need to remind you people that I like to live life on the edge.

The first few days were a little rocky, what with the rain, sick kids, Ben's nerves about how the convention was going to go and all of this going down in a tiny hotel room. But once the convention was underway, things started to look up and they only got better from there.

It was so great to see some faces from home and there are so many distributors that I was looking forward to seeing as well. There were lovely dinners, beautiful awards nights, dancing, breakfast cruises. And it all took place 50 meters from Surfer's Paradise on the Gold Coast.

Here's a little story to boost your self esteem:

Jason Norton {who somehow manages to get on this blog more frequently than most of our family...} had flown in from SLC via Tahiti on a 36 HOUR flight with Bianca Lisonbee, one of the co-founders of the company. We had dinner all together with them and Moira and Reg from the Sydney office and then everyone retired to their rooms. There was only one more day of prep before the big days started, so Ben suggest I do anything I needed to get done before I was deprived of the internet for the next few days since he would need his laptop 24/7.

So after putting the kids to bed, including Ben, I stayed up late blogging, facebooking, emailing, trying to get as much done as I could. I was just about done, and so beyond tired I could barely see straight, by then it was 1:30 in the morning. Then it occured to me that I hadn't checked my old yahoo email account, which really has mostly turned into a spamfest. However, there is the occasional golden nugget -like a forward from an estranged relative- that keeps me coming back for more.

So I open it up to see and urgent email from Jason's wife, Kim, relating that I must have him get in touch with her ASAP. Not knowing more than that, my groggy brain tried to process the information and what to do with it. Since he had just flown in, I figured he had jetlag and would possibly be up in a few short hours. I, on the other hand, was sure I was afforded sleep until 10 {didn't happen anyway, not even close} since I was on vacay, so by then it might be too late! Immediate action WAS necessary I decided.

I woke Ben up to ask if he had seen Jason talking to Kim or if he had mentioned anything about getting in touch with her. He said he didn't think so. I then asked him what room Jason was in, hoping he was right next door and this could be easy. Nope, he was 8 floors down. Oh well, this was an emergency situation, one of which Jason may need to catch the next flight out of town. I emailed Kim, assuring her that she did the right thing to contact me, and that I would ensure Jason got the message. I wrote a note, put on the hotel bathrobe, and trudged 8 floors down to Jason's room, barefoot and barefaced. I was just going to leave the note, WHY didn't I leave the note!? but then I heard the TV on, so I figured so much the better, he was up, and I could relay this most important message now! I knocked, and waited for a good 30 seconds, realizing he probably had NOT been awake, that he had fallen asleep with the TV on and that I've now just woken a man up with jetlag on the eve of a very important convention. I should have turned and ran, instead, I waited to greet his groggy face {seriously groggy face, the next morning he had to double check that he had put clothes on, which he had} and then hear that he had already been in touch with Kim. So I didn't save the day afterall... Well, my heart was in the right place! My intentions were good!

The latter part of the trip was the best. Theme parks, Water Parks, Wildlife Santuaries, dining out sans kids with fun friends. Life couldn't be any more grand.

Breakfast cruise. My fly is down at this very moment, but I haven't yet discovered it...

No the 70's are not back and double no, I am not wearing blue mascara -despite what it looks like

Riding the train at the Currumbin Wildlife Santuary

It's a little blurry, but I love this pic of Jason and Gabe. Though you'd think it was monkey's in the background, not Koalas...

So Sad!

This bird was sitting on this ledge and sweet little Laine went up to touch it and the nasty thing lunged at her with it's x-tra long Gumby neck and needle sharp beak. She was SO scared, and I screamed as I saw it happen out of the corner of my eye. She shouted 'I don't like it!' and I ran up to her and cradled her little trembling body as she whimpered. I swear she'll never be the same. Nasty bird!

This little Kanga had a precious little joey in the pouch. So cute! We can't get enough of the roos. They are fascinating to watch as they bouce all over the place!

Laine wasn't so sure...

Lookout point on the border of Queensland and New South Wales. Captain Cook did something here that was significant... wasn't really getting it...

Humpback whales who were migrating back to the Antarctic were breaching in the distance which was awesome

Good times...

'family pics' and some whingeing

There are just some things I won't miss about living here {and to be fair, there are some that I will miss so, *SO* much}. But one of my all time biggest peeves about being here, besides the fact that the 80's are back in a rage {not kidding, even mullets}, is that EVERY shop but select grocery stores and petrol stations close at 5PM! EVERY DAY! Except for Thursday, when you have the privelege of going out to shop until 9 PM! It is the most unreal phenomenon. It is 4:59, the mall is packed with people, and shopkeepers, rather brashly, are all but shooing you out with a broom. People, customers, cash in hand -they don't care!

Thursday nights ALL shops are supposed to stay open until 9pm. So you get one day out of 7 to shop in the evening -if you call 'till 9 'the evening'. So this week Ben and I thought since it was heating up, and we've got about a bajillion families we want to have over for shrimp on the barby, we better get a sitter and go pick out our very first 'real' patio set so we don't embarrass ourselves with our current one that I will be embarrased to have my garbage man see when I throw it away.

So Ben left work, I picked up Nikee, and we headed off for our very intimate and romantic date night. It took about 1/2 hour to get to what was supposed to be the bees knees of an outlet shopping center, and as we pull up at 7:20 the place looks like a friggin ghost town. Most of the shops are closed with the remaining few looking as if they're looking for their broom to swat people away.

After 9 1/2 minutes of frantic searching for the Freedom outlet, we find it and our rather friendly salesman greets us at the door with a 'you've got about 30 seconds people'. Nice. So we quickly survey the scene, they have one style of outdoor table and it comes in large and larger, so after about 15 seconds of banter back and forth on how large our parties are going to be multiplied by the price difference in the two sizes divided by the level of optimism over whether either of them will fit in our car with 6-8 chairs we decide to go with the large size so I shout -Okay, we'll take that one and six chairs! Followed by us whipping out our card and marching to the checkout. At this point we are frustrated, and I see more than a few things I would have liked to take a closer look at -if only it weren' freaking 7:31 we might have had time... Or perhaps it would help if these people were PAID ON COMMISION so they gave a damn about paying customers with fistfulls of cash!

It was at this point that he let us know that we still would have to come back later to pick it up, since no one would help us to our car with it. I huffed 'fine, we'll carry it ourselves!' I let them know that the WHOLE entire point of our evening was to come here and get this table, and we even got a sitter to do so. He said he wouldn't allow us to do it, it wouldn't fit through the front door and the service door was locked. Great. Nice. Wonderful. In the words of Meg Swan of Best in Show, 'Thank YOU for your help!...You stupid... Freedom Furniture Store Manager!"

Yeah, so, we still have no table. I'll let you know when that little situation is remedied and I may even get around to taking a pic of our current table and 2 chairs, if I can even call them that. You would really feel bad for me then.

Okay, and here are of our recent 'family' pics. Ben was 'sick' that morning and I had already gotten {is that a word?} myself at the kids ready at 7:30 in the morning -so we went with it!

They were taken by the very fabulous Sals Crosbie of Eden Lane Photography for locals. I highly recommend her! She was so great to work with, we had a blast, she was beyond focused on getting me what I wanted and she is just a doll. Stay tuned for more pics when we get the real ones taken when she gets back from her trip in a month!

To the DC of Australia

Ben and I decided to take a little roadtrip to the Floriade Festival {we didn't and possibly still don't know what is is either, but it was fun!} in Canberra, ACT.

Ben called me on like Tuesday or Wednesday saying our friends, the Hall's, another American family here in Sydney, were going and wondered if we wanted to join up. We said GREAT! And packed our bags and went road trippin'.

Due to our late notice, we paid through the nose for a little dive called the Embassy Motel, ya, you read that right MOTEL, but it was all good. We saw the sites, ate the food, drove around, walked a bajillion kilometers, and basically just enjoyed learning new things and seeing patriotic stuff from this land of Oz.

First stop was The Questicon Science Museum. This is MY kind of Science museum. Rides, games, crazy wierd science stuff that makes science look alluring and cool and exciting.

Ben about to do the death slide -jumpsuit & booties and all

Me, Gabey, my comb over... Isn't she lovely...?

Seriously, look how talented my boy is! I said, 'C'mon Gabe, we're at a science museum, make a dorky face!' He did so well!

What's up -cool girl is back -er maybe Ben snapped the pic and I was unawares, you decide...Here's when we decided to park on the grass at the Questicon 'cause that's how we roll... er maybe because all of the spots were full, you decide

Laine snapping a pic outside the War Memorial -good girl Laine

Ben at the pool of reflection, he looks so peaceful. You probably can't see the eternal flame in the water, but it was beautiful and reminded me of the 80's.

Inside the Memorial in the Discovery Center

Ben and the kids taking off, much to Ben's apparent surprise

Oh yeah, and Laine driving a submarine


Oh, right, and how could I forget the Floriade Festival, of which we were there for in the first place!? I thought with a name like that we would be seeing a lot of dental products or flavored sports drinks -nope, just a lot of flowers and home-grown products and carny rides, and carnys

Not a great pic, but the best we could do with a cheap point and shoot with fingerprints all over it that we discovered at the end of the trip and the kids being all pictured out by this point. This is the closest we came to everyone looking at the camera, sad as that is...

... And a little petting zoo! I decided to spare you ALL of the cuddly, fuzzy, and adorable pics. It came down to one with this really, REALLY cute little brown goat, another of Gabey white-knuckling Ben while being forced to pet a lamb, or goose, or bunny rabbit -there were several white-knuckle pics, or this one of Laine with gooses. I just like this one! My little ragamuffin!


We stopped by this delightful and charming park on our way out of town. Gabey growling at Ben over the pizza. In his defense, it was woodfired Italian, and it was delicious

Ciao!

Junior Fire Brigade

Up in the truck

Third from the left in the bottom row

Looking a little bored

Oh, there, she perked up

Okay, I'm all outta funny and crazy, for the time being. Sorry. I honestly can't think of anything in the last few days to report, such a shame. If I think of anything in the next few hours before ya'll wake up, then I'll come back and edit this post.

For now, this is mostly for my Dad, Pop Pop, who as you should well know by now is a firefighter.

Last week the 'Fire Brigade' came and did their thing at Laine's school. So here are the pics of our little Jr. Firebrigaders.

They take skin cancer seriously here, and all of the kids always have to wear hats. They make me giggle.

Free? Not so much...

There she is, what a beaut...

And the swing set looks good too right? No seriously, the kids were lookin' hot after swim lessons this morning

I held back on the details I had to suffer through to get this beauty, and there also was some new developements in the story over the weekend...

The Dad was creepy, weird K, just creepy. I think I shall just refer to him as 'the Pear-Shaped Man' because that is what he was. When I first went to see if they still had the set, they invited me in to the house to see it. I had to laugh at PSM's unfunny jokes, and graciously act like his entire DVD collection and model airplanes were the most fascinating things I'd ever seen while he held me hostage for 20 minutes with my friend in the car. I am the PERFECT victim for this. I'll smile and laugh and make you feel like what you're doing is 'normal...'meanwhile having '000' button ready on my cell phone, and wondering why you're acting like I'm the first human being you've seen in 15 years, which I swear to you PSM was. Yeah, little scary. I was relieved he wouldn't be there when we came to pick it up and haul it home the next day, fearing he may well have his finger and toenail collection all shined up for me...

We went and got it, and Ben set it up for the kids the next morning and we've been enjoying it in the sunshine all week. Until Yesterday.

About 11 in the morning there is a knock at the door. To my horror, it was Pear Shaped Man, who is fresh into town after being on a trip all week long. He was furious his wife gave the set away and didn't take any money for it. We were floored, for several reasons, the top one being that they put a poster up in front of their house saying they were giving it away and them trying to give it to my friend who didn't have room in her yard for it... He said he paid $1000 for it {1. yeah right! 2. ELEVEN years ago, your kids got plenty of action from it, trust me} We still have no idea how he found us, and it makes me a little scared.

He ended up leaving with 30 bucks {pathetic}, mostly in change, since that was all of the cash we had on us {besides the hundred dollar bill I didn't want to let him know about -oops, I've said too much, he's probably already found this blog}

Okay, onto the next matter. Oh yes, my car battery is dead, no, really dead. You have to jump the car EVERY time you start it now. Which for a late person such as myself does not add a bright spot to your day. The other morning I was so flustered after having to jump it for the first time on my own, that I left charging out the driveway to get Laine to preschool on time and left the tailgate up and didn't notice for about 3 minutes! The trunk {boot} was full of stuff and I don't know how we didn't lose it all. It actually was hilarious, only because I had to laugh at my stupidity for leaving it open in the first place, then not noticing for 10 blocks, and then the fact that I first noticed it after hearing the wind sound and I kinda dismissed it at first and then scanned the windows, nope nothin', and then finally I see out the rearview mirror that the back of my car is gone. Holy cow, oops! I pulled over, shut it hoping not too many people noticed even though I was on a busy-ish street. I race off and get another 10 blocks before some car behind me is riding me like Seabiscuit and honking / brighting / waving. We pull over and they give me back my swim noodle that had flown out, THANK GOODNESS it was returned safely right? Acutally I would have given it up to not have to face anyone in my embarrasement but thanks anyway.

The next day Laine cut Gabe's hair again, to the scalp in 4 places. Yep, family pictures are tomorrow... Perfect. I won't go into the details for the parental beatings, but let's just say she swears she is never doing it again...



Here are some pics of Gabe's lovely new haircut, which looks worse than when my Dad cuts the family dog Cujo's hair, which is really saying something. We all affectionately call her 'Nick' after her cuts, partly because she is covered in nics, and partly to tease bro-in-law Nick. The pics are flattering, really, it looks much worse in real life. This is AFTER I've fixed it the best I can by the way. And it's so short now, mama likes it with a little bit of shag...


'You're welcome for Gabe's haircut Mom, it was my pleasure'

Better get used to the hat kid