Australia - Day 2, part 1

On Wednesday we drove a bunch on their bumpy, skinny, generous speed-limit roads to Wilson's Prom. Through lots of rolling hills and pastures of cows... to this area. It was flooded out back in March 2011, so many parts of the area were closed, but we saw plenty... Our eyes were peeled for Koalas in trees, Roos crossing the road and anything else that would catch our eye... here was our first find: Echidna who darted into the bush as soon as he caught sight of our carthen we came to this view - breathtaking! At this pullover we talked to a couple from Britain who is travelling AUS for 3 months! Nice!!and then we could have run over this little guy but didn't and stopped to photograph him -and a stop at Squeaky Beach - the sand was marbled, so gorgeous!at our next stop, we went on a loop walk which took us on a beach for half of it. We found these little crabs all over the place and found out that they cause the "brown sugar" looking sprinkles overtop of the sand! Unreal! So they put a little bit of sand in their mouth, roll it in a ball while pulling out the organisms they need for nutrition... leaving the sand covered in these little balls! Wow!(wouldn't be a good beach to hang out on - but sure neat to walk past)A Crimson Rosella from the Parrot Family - we were in a "caravan park" (campground) and these birds were flying around. This one let us get pretty close - so unbelievable to see this in the wild!a GalahWe stopped at a opening where we were told we might spot some wildlife - sure enough down a path we came to a clearing and there were a number of Emu'sand a Magpie that tried to dive-bomb me twice - freaked me out! (we later learnt when we talked to a local that the kids even carry branches with them on their walk to school this time of year as the Magpies are in mating season and I guess dive-bomb them?! crazy bird...

then we saw our first Kangaroowe continued on into the country - a lot of the rolling hills gave us the feeling that we were visiting Europe; it was beautiful -and lots and lots of cowsto be continued...

Australia - Day 1

Wow - I haven't blogged in ages!! Life has gotten so busy I guess, and I just don't make the time for this anymore! As I sit here in Australia on a rainy night - I may as well take advantage of the bit of time I have and free wi-fi in our room to try to complete one post.
In September Jason was invited to come to Australia by one of his Vendors - paid trip - of course he couldn't say no! So we worked it out that we would go a week early so that I could join him for a week of sightseeing - and this all came to fruition a week ago!
We flew out from Vancouver on Saturday November 19th to San Fransisco on a little puddle jumper of a plane. This plane was not allowed to land in San Fran until the weather cleared - we circled and circled and ended up going East to Sacramento to land to re-fuel as they said the airport was closed! What a lie. What was a supposed to be a 1hour40min flight turned out to be 4 hours on the plane! Wow. We missed our connecting flight to Sydney because of all of this. We didn't get stressed just tired and annoyed at the lies. The Airline gave us a voucher for a deal for a neighbouring hotel - which we took advantage of. So by 2:00am we got to our Best Western and had ourselves a good sleep. United only flies at 10:39pm daily to Sydney, so we had a full 24hour delay. The next morning we had our free big breakfast at the hotel and took our time checking out. We took advance of the free shuttle to the airport and brought our luggage to get it checked and out of the way. We spent the afternoon in the airport looking around, people-watching, using free wi-fi and relaxing... finally flying out at 10:39pm.
We thought we'd get right to sleep shortly after take-off, but they fed us dinner! At 11:00pm! Weird, but maybe that's their attempt at getting us on AUS time. We ate our meal and watched Larry Crowne (Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts) - well, we both fell asleep before it ended which is too bad! We now want to see how it ends. So we slept for a good length of the trip! We were pleasantly surprised to look at the clock a good 8-9 hours into our 14hr flight! Not so bad after all!
Arriving in Sydney and then flying to Melbourne - by now Tuesday, Nov 22nd Australia time. We grabbed our little rental car and started on our adventure - which was interesting right off the bat with Jason driving the right-hand drive and a manual-speed!!! Ahhh! He's so capable though and does amazing! driving on this side seems soooo wrong and takes a lot of concentration of where we were driving and turning! See Costco?!Jason had booked us 3 nights in Frankston, Victora, AUS - so we made our way that way stopping first at an Information Building and then exploring the first part of the peninsula - here is Mornington Beach...We ended the day by driving to Peninsula Hot Springs for a discounted dip in their 20 mineral pools - so relaxing! The only time we've worn our suits all week - didn't really realize the water here is colder than Vancouver's beaches! At least the weather has been sunny and warm enough with the wind.

Mire

This week we welcomed Mire (Me-ray) into our home from Japan. She is here to study English and finish off her High Schooling; so she could be in our home for around 2 years!

Spring Break

We are having a lay-low Spring Break this year! It's quite nice actually. All 3 kids were in swimming lessons last week for 45minutes a day (M-F @ 9:00am), and then mainly we played outside the rest of the time! We have a little "spring break list" which we really haven't accomplished much of yet b/c the weather has been nice enough that playing in our cul-de-sac is sufficient! Yea!

However on Thursday we did join Jason and headed into the City - first stop was Ikea for lunch and frozen yogurts - and to pick up a wardrobe for "the students bedroom". Then into the City for some sunshine in Stanley P. We walked and raced beachcombed, saw clams squirting water up out of the sand almost in a "show" sort of fashion... great day - here are a few shots just to keep you updated with my growing babies. We are welcoming Spring with open arms! My daffodils and tulips have been out of the ground for a good 6-8 weeks already - and they are growing taller each day - I am excited to see the colourful bulbs burst soon adding splashes of colour to our yard!

I just went over to the blog, inCourage (in my sidebar) and read this blog post on LOVE - how do you measure your year, by how many cups of coffee, by how many inches, in daylight -- but what about measuring the Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes by LOVE???
Here is the blog post with the lyrics posted and some additional thoughts... Measure Your Life in Love

and here is a video from the RENT Musical of the song called "Seasons of Love" - give it a listen and think how many minutes you spend loving... (note the video is 3minutes 16seconds long - coincidental?!! LOL)

Lunch

Yesterday (hey! I'm caught up!!) - we hosted a little Valentine's Lunch here for some of Sam and Gabi's little friends (mainly Gabi's and 1 friend for Sam). We missed Isabella and Kaylee due to feeling under the weather - but did enjoy the company of 4 other Friends and their Moms! Thanks for coming!
We ate lunch together and then made a crown and Hershey's Kiss Mice. Here's Gabi and Erin:
Mrs. Sherry and Luci-Annand Marayahand here's Sam:Matthew - a preschool buddy of Sam's

As soon as I even move a pan from the cupboard or hint at getting out the Mixer, Gabi is right up here on the counter ready to help out! Here she is placing 3 chocolate chips on each of the muffins - still classifying them as Banana Oat Bran Chocolate Chip Muffins - but cutting back on the chocolate a bit!
And the following photo I would have used as my new header photo - another one in which the kids asked me to take their picture - not sure what is in Sam's mouth, otherwise it's a cute one!

music class

I have had all three of my kids in the same music program in a Woman's house nearby. Elijah went for ages 3 and 4. Sam went for age 3 and is now in a age 4/5 split, so he is doing a bit different work than just a straight-4 year old class.

I was amazed a couple weeks ago to see that he was supposed to write some rhythm segments in his homework (just a single page with a tiny bit on it each week) using quarter notes (ta), eighth notes(?I can't remember!!!) (ti-ti), and a rest. I was just so impressed at the information he is learning!! I'm not sure if I'll put Sam in it again this Fall as he'll then be receiving this same form of music in school. We'll see.div>Here is Gabi doing her music homework too - she's in age 3's this year and I do plan to put her in this Fall for a second year with Mrs. G.

S-a-M

I posted in December a photo of Sam's first example of his name written down on his own doing... since then he has been writing and writing and colouring and colouring... it's so great for me to just observe him and see how content and into it he gets!! He received a Spiderman colouring poster package for his birthday from one of his buddies - he just loved all his gifts and takes great joy in each one - like spending time on this poster, colouring it in just perfectly. Today, Feb 12th, he was sitting again at the table colouring and drawing and writing - and asked me to tell him how to spell "outer space"... then he wanted to write "Outer space is a good place to live"... it just amazes me that this interests him and that he is doing this before Kindergarten, LOL. I know it's totally normal, but it's not what I've experienced so far - so I am just loving his interest in ABCs, colours and paper!

sleeping beauty

Sometimes my kids like to sleep in strange places rather than their beds - and whatever, it doesn't bother me - so if they find it comfy, by all means... here is Gabi one night camping out on her bedroom floor (not comfy IMO) -

new Header Photo

One day in January my kids asked me to pull out the camera and take a picture of them... with their two special guests: Hippo (or sometimes called Hippie) and Dog. LOL.

party

On Friday, Jan 17 we had Sam's party -- at an indoor playground... it was fantastic, but very busy that morning! I thought I was doing good by choosing a week-day-morning but it was just packed with little ones! Jason and I both drove in to this neighbouring City with children in each of our vehicles... we spent 1.5 hours playing here and three of the boys (Triplets) got picked up for their afternoon preschool class - , and then we went to McD's for lunch, gifts and cupcakes... (I asked them to be dressed in red so I could more easily keep track of them on the play structure)Sam was soooo happy and full of excitement!

snow

Going back a few week or even a month already, we had a snow day in January... Jason told the kids how snow can taste so good (sometimes)... so he got each of the kids a bowl of snow and a sucker and away they ate... it wasn't nearly as good as snow in other areas, but the kids still enjoyed it!

Samuel

Happy Birthday to my Dad and to my Son, Sam!
2011:2010:2009:2008:2007:With every birthday that comes for each of my kids - I am excited to plan and prepare for it, but terribly sad that a new and older age has now been reached. :( Sam is such a joy - full of questions and answers, such a brilliant boy. He loves to Eskimo Kiss his Daddy and still play with my hair when he is tired. He loves preschool and his friends that he has made within his class. He loves to wrestle with Elijah the minute he walks in the door from school. He prefers movies over TV shows and can watch one over and over again. He likes to build Lego cars and keep all his little treasures organized in little buckets, containers, treausre boxes. He loves his sister to bits and plays quite nicely with her everyday. The next page to turn is letting him go this Fall to Kindergarten - thankfully I can choose a part-time option for him and ease the umbilical cord a bit. (don't get me wrong, I am all for letting him do this and that, but new chapters make me sad and excited all at the same time!)
Bless you Samuel, this next year of new adventures for you!!

Year in Review

Is this possible - to only pick 1 photo from each month? We'll see...
January - right off the bat Sam turned 4; we had a Little Einsteins party for himat the beginning of the month our Student, Lily, arrived from Korea for 7 weeks. She was in grade 5.
At the beginning of February we attended the "torch run" as it was passed through our City, for the Olympics. That lit our fire and we were pumped for the next weeks to follow; getting into the City about 3 times to partake...first to Richmond to see Uncle Matt sing the City's Official Olympic songand other trips into Vancouver:Go Canada Go!
March - the kids took their first flight to Anaheim where we all joined Daddy for a Trade Show and 7 days at Disneyland!April - Elijah lost his first toothMay - Jason and I joined Geoff and Diane for a few days in Vegas; Jason and I saw The Blue Man Group; here is the drummer now with Blue Man Group but Jason 'knows' him from a 90's Band named Slaughter June - playing outside in our cul-de-sac; it's a huge draw to this house!July - our baby girl turned 3!and we went on a week-long Missions Trip to the OkanaganAugust - already in May when the boys both learnt to ride their bikes with no training wheels it wasn't long before Jason and the boys were riding on our local BMX track; they went there quite often this summer September - our annual trip to Salmon Arm; highlight was seeing the spawning salmonOctober - Elijah turned 7!and we had the privelege of hosting Ana Maria from Guatemala for the month which was a new experience for usNovember - MAUI with my Family; here we are at a LuauDecember - of course, Christmas and all that comes with the entire month is a highlight; here's a photo on Christmas Morning having our birthday party for Jesus and now we're already into 2011, which is hard to believe... it's been a busy day already today celebrating Sam. Never a dull moment! Happy New Year!