Halloween!

This year I put my foot down; going on four years of no Halloween is ridiculous. In addition my kids are at a freaken cute age (7, 5, 2). and by the time Halloween picks up out here (if ever) it will be too late! I started by splurging on a pumpkin. In Australia the word pumpkin includes squash so I had to make a special request for a "Halloween pumpkin" (orange ones). I bought one the day before Halloween and got a killer deal (under $30.00...I think it was like 2 kilos). Just remember it is spring over here and pumpkins are out of season and must be imported! We CARVED IT!! Afterwards we couldn't find any candles so we put blue Christmas lights inside and it actually looked creepier than a candle--score!

Secondly, I found/ made/ bought costumes. YES, all of us had a costume this year! Olivia was tinker bell (made it) Mary was Angelina Ballerina (had/ found it) and Thomas was Batman (bought it). I bought Stan a scary pumpkin mask and I wore orange black everything and topped the outfit off with buying plastic tacky jack-o-lantern earrings!

I decorated my house, with all the black balloons I never use during birthday parties. I bought candy for trick-or-treating and even found some Halloween wrapped lollies at a dollar store--score!!

So now we are usually all dressed up with no where to go, but this year I organized trick-or-treating! I taught people how to do it and even made a check list for those worried and sent around a sign up sheet. I got 8 houses to participate in about an hour (or more) radius! Just thinking that my kids will come home with 8 pieces of candy this year, and we will have spent $30.00 in gas!! Luckily they came home with a ton!

The morning of I started talking to people only to find out they were kind of stressed and that they had spent countless hours decorating. Seriously, their door would only be knocked once in the whole night...by my kids! I was like really? These people are going ALL OUT. It made me smile because I only decorated my door frame. I wonder if they realized it was supposed to be fun/stress free and under a minute. (1) knock, knock! (2)"Trick-or-treat!" (3) put candy in bag and shut the door! Did I miss that in my Halloween orientation? I know I covered that the candy had to be wrapped and NO, you can't give them a game if you don't have any candy...just HAVE candy, you know they are coming etc...I did mention something about decorating and possibly being dressed up to scare the trick-or-treaters but lets not all be over achievers! :-)

Either way, what cool friends I have hu? My kids had a blast and I can't wait for next year! I wish I had more international friends in the USA so I could celebrate their holidays.

ps. Since Halloween was on Sunday this year I just told everyone Halloween was Saturday (because they wouldn't know the difference) and we celebrated a day ahead!!

Mardi Gras!!!

This year for the girls birthday we had a Princess and the Frog/ Mardi Gras costume party (combined). We handed out beads at the door and had the kids decorate their own masks and then had a parade. We hit a pinata, had gumbo & benyas and cake (yes I made it--first time using fondant) and then finished by projecting Princess and the Frog onto a wall and eating popcorn. Well that was the plan...I thought it was a good idea until I handed out the Mardi Gras invitations only to have parents give me mixed responses. Turns out Mardi Gras is not a mascaraed/ party in Australia but instead a Gay Rights Parade; yes, I know a mature theme for a 5 & 7 year old birthday party. In addition, I accidentally invited all girls and one boy...named Bailey...I thought it was a girl name, and given the theme of the party the poor guy would have been surrounded by 20 princesses if I didn't act fast so I called up some mom's and asked them to bring their boys. The boys came but only to run around (like boys do) and one split his head open about 10 minutes into the party. Next year I am keeping it a girl party even if one boy comes!

The rest of the party was ok but in Australia parents tend not to drop off the kid and pick up in two hours-- they all camp out. One mom brought all her kids (4) and her mother in law and then I didn't have enough masks and party favors for everyone. When it was time to project the movie I was so excited except for two things (1) When I picked the time and sent out the invitations it was before day light savings. A week later all the clocks were moved forward and it was too light to see the screen in the club house (where we held the party) oops! and (2) I couldn't get the movie to work (think of 30 kids trying to sit in a chair longer than 5 minutes with nothing to look at). WHAT?! Note the whole party theme is after this movie and now it won't play!!! plus this was my chance to show the parents what USA Mardi gras is about.....ummmm! We had to default with Swan Princess and the kids were not interested, but who cares it took so long to get through everything else that we only had 30 minutes to watch the movie anyway....so I just let them watch until their parents came then cleaned up!

Aside from the bumps I think everyone had fun, and it was great to get a 2 for 1 deal with the girls birthdays so close together!

Happy birthday Olivia & Mary!

Holiday in Melbourne--Part 2

Sorry my last post was too long, and sadly this is too long too but I had to sum up of the rest of the week! Thursday (Day 4) I braved three kids alone in the city. We rode the tram (think of the trolleys in San Fransisco) around Melbourne and got some more sightseeing in.

The city circle goes in a square :-) and it is free; so you can hop on and hop off!

and then I took the kids to the Melbourne Museum.

Thomas and I outside the museum!

Stan met us there for lunch and afterwards we took the tram back and swam in the pool. Later that night, Stan and I went out to dinner on Lygon Street with my high school friends Candace and Wes and left the kids with a bbser. Only after dinner did I realize Candace, Wes and I were laughing our heads off and Stan was bored to tears hearing about people he didn't know! The street we went to eat at is famous for really good and reasonably priced food (http://www.melbourne.com.au/lygon.htm). The competition is fierce so the chefs stand outside of their restaurant and let you taste samples to coax you into their restaurant.

Friday we checked out and drove back along the coast (14 hours) back to Sydney. The dive is more scenic but 4 hours longer than the way we came down. The kids were borderline between bad and horrible. Olivia threw up in the car and the fighting did not stop. We made a lot of stops along the way. First we stopped in Snowy River (from the movie, the man from Snowy River) we got to see where the movie was filmed and then drove along the river until it went into the ocean. Here are some pictures!

Thomas and the Snowy River

Here is where the snowy river meets the ocean (not in the movie). We were the only ones there and it was perfect for clamming. We showed them where the bubbles where and they would dig them up with their hands.

Thomas and his belly button

my kids little foot prints!

After that stop we drove over to merimbula were we stayed the night. I am going to retire here by the way! The next morning we stopped over at Bateman's Bay (in my opinion it was way over rated)

I found this on the sand, bluebottle Jelly Fish...OUCH!

and then Jervis Bay--which was breath taking.

Jervic Bay has the whitest sand in Australia (think of fine snow but sand, and because the beach is so white the water looks aqua green/ blue). I was in awe and the whole thing is protected by a national park so you have to pay to get in but it is in immaculate condition! We saw a wallaby and snake on the trail up to this light house, and once up at the light house we saw a whale!

We will be coming back come summer as it was still a bit cold and windy even though it looked like paradise--the pictures don't do it justice!

We made it home Saturday night and had Sunday to recover, unpack and do laundry. We listened to conference during the drive and got every session done. From now on this is how I want to do conference weekend! It was great!!

Holiday in Melbourne--Part 1

The beginning of October is always a two week holiday as it is the end of the school years term 3. One more term left, (Oct--Dec) and then our school is out and we have summer break/ Christmas break).

Usually we don't go on holiday until Christmas, but this term Stan was working in Melbourne so we thought we would join him. Melbourne is 10 hours south of Sydney (Yes, we drove it--and the kids were surprisingly good....ok they were amazing and the scenery was beautiful!)

Melbourne is completely different from Sydney. Melbourne is very trendy and artsy and high class cosmopolitan. . ..Where as Sydney is like a mix between Hawaii and San Fransisco. On the drive down outside of Melbourne their highway bridges were lit up with purple, red and blue lights. There were really abstract artsy statues everywhere and shimmery walls--I don't know how to describe this one. I was impressed! I like each city for different things. Melbourne uses trams and bikes (you have those rent a bike, bike racks everywhere) while Sydney uses the ferries. The water in Sydney is so tropical, while Melbourne's harbor water is very dark grey/brown with the industrial factories right on the outskirts of the city. Sydney has moved all it's industrial stuff so it seems really clean.

Stan has been working in Melbourne during the week for about 3 months so he keeps getting upgraded at his hotel (crown towers).

I no longer feel sorry for Stan staying in a hotel and missing the family. This hotel is posh. There is a plasma screen over the bathtub. When you fill up the bathtub the water creates this waterfall effect to fill up. The curtains in the room open and close with a remote! The breakfast buffet has a breakfast table that appeals to just about every culture; British (eggs, fried tomatoes, bacon, potatoes and mushrooms etc., French (platters of cheese and fresh bread and fruit), American (pancakes, French toast etc.) Asian (smoked salmon, these really spicy hot noodle things, fried rice, yum-cha dumplings etc.) Juice of every kind. I could keep going, it was pretty cool! Below is a picture of the pool--the kids swam at least once every day for a couple hours!
Accommodation aside, we also got out around the town. The first day we went to the Science Museum and the Melbourne Zoo. Stan had the day off, some kind of public holiday in NSW.

Here is Olivia going backwards on the race track, it times you against Olympians

Stan helping Thomas dunk a net ball (game in Australia, like basket ball without a net mixed with ultimate Frisbee)

Stan pushing Mary in the hover chair

Racing Olivia on the bikes

Doing the simulated airplane game

Next the Melbourne Zoo (smaller than Sydney so we didn't get tired as quickly and we could actually see the animals!) This was inside a bird arboretum, which felt more like a botanical garden.

Olivia and the Emu

Getting ready for the aquarium part

A cute little red panda fox

The second day was Olivia's birthday and we hit the aquarium (see earlier post). The third day I met up with some high school friends who moved to Melbourne earlier that week. We did some sight-seeing since neither of us had been around Melbourne and they were able to help with my kids. First, we went up the Eureka Tower which is an outlook point of Melbourne.

Wes, Candace, me & Mary (Wes and Candace went to HS with me and married each other!) Then we walked over the Yarra River to get some lunch (it rained a bit so lunch was longer than we expected).

Next we walked over to Federation Square (a really eclectic groupie of buildings with shops and exhibitions).

From there we walked back over the bridge through to parks to the Royal botanical gardens

it started to rain again so we didn't hang around long and started the walk back to the hotels. Overall I had so much fun reconnecting and hanging out with old friends. I realize now, there are about 6-8 people from my graduating class (Bozeman, MT) who live in Australia...crazy hu!