9 Stitches, 6 Nuggets and 1 Very Long Day

Of course the morning after camping, we woke at the crack of dawn. No one had slept very well, and it was cold. I was able to get the fire going again (which sounds more impressive than it actually was since I only uncovered the embers and stuck more wood right on top). Breakfast was fried eggs, bacon and toast. Then we broke down the campsite, got everyone together and drove the hour back home (sighing relief when we hit the driveway).

While the grown-ups were unloading the trucks, the kids went about their merry business wreaking havoc on the neighborhood. Cole went to ride his bike up the street with friends. The next thing we know, Cole comes limping home with blood running into his shoe. After having gone down a steep driveway "faster than he's ever gone before" Cole ripped a huge jagged cut into his upper calf. (That of course is this Mother's way of making his boo-boo sound to you about how it looked to me at the time) So Jason, Cole and I spend the next few hours in the Alice Springs Emergency Room getting him stitched up. It's going to leave quite a scar. And of course offered to feed him whatever he wanted, hence the nuggets.

Camping at Ross River

Camping Ross River

Our first camping adventure. We opted for one night away to test all the gear. Ross River Resort is a great little spot about an hour east of Alice Springs. Since Fred has joined Mom here now, we had to take two cars. With all the equipment, people, and food, there was no car space to spare. On the way out, we made stops at a couple of the gaps, gorges, and rocks that are on the list (where the list came from I don't know) to be seen.

Once there and set up, we roasted marshmallows and sat around the campfire telling stories. Well, technically, I fell asleep with the kids around 7:30ish (long day) and spent a few minutes by the fire with Jason later in the evening when I had to get up to pee (luckily the facilities were clean). Jason decided to sleep by the campfire but came stumbling back into the tent around 3 in the morning complaining that the "dingo's won't leave me alone". Sure enough, in the morning we found one of his shoes beside the fire and the resident dingo (who comes rummaging for food) carried the other one off. Luckily it wasn't so far off that we couldn't find it.

Brady Meets the Bishop

This is Brady and the Bishop of Darwin at a school mass. This was one of the photos in the school newsletter. She's a star! A pious one of course.

Relay

These are pics from the Relay for Life that I participated in. Our team won the highest community fundraiser award. We held a Mexican food fundraiser - we cooked lots of enchiladas and burritos! Yummy and profitable!

What? No Baskets?

Easter

It was a fine Easter at the Cavanagh house. A little odd since Australians don't seem to do baskets. Lots of chocolate eggs and bunnies, but no baskets. So I found these "egg hunting bags" at one of the stores and decided to use those. Of course Cole's tore midway through the day so when we actually hunted eggs, he used a grocery bag. So ghetto!

As if no baskets wasn't enough, they also decided to charge $10 for a 5 pack of plastic eggs (and I only found those after searching 3 stores). This wasn't because they had a run on plastic eggs - they just don't do plastic eggs. So I decided to use the chocolate ones (you know..."when in Australia..."). Note - it is still pretty hot on Easter here. So egg hunting had to be conducted with a speed like we've never experienced. And still we were thwarted by my attempt to find good hidey-holes in our small backyard. I didn't think through what would happen when I stuck them next to the A/C units - squishy eggs! Every year I hide money in our plastic eggs so this year I just wrote amounts on the outside of the foil. Since Grace was lucky enough to find the golden $2 egg, she was our big winner totaling over five dollars.

The top group of picks have the kids in jammies, right before bed, having an egg race. Not our normal attire for egg races but, oh well, had to squeeze it in before bed.

Easter Parade

These are pictures from Grace's Easter Parade at school. Too cute!

Give me a C......!

Hi all! Ooops. Quite a while since my last post. A lot has been going on but I'm sure I won't remember it all. Mom's still here and we're having a grand old time. We won't start our sightseeing/camping until Fred comes in next month. Then I think we are going to plan an excursion to Ayers Rock and Kings Canyon. We'll camp, it will be fun. In the meantime, we've just been doing our normal things. Baseball ended (hooray) and we held a picnic at the old Telegraph Station. Cole fell down a huge rock formation and scratched up his legs pretty badly, but at least he didn't crack his head! Brady started ballet and loves it, Grace is still taking gymnastics but now she wants to change to ballet. It figures. Brady's little violin came in yesterday (it's tiny and pink - so cute). She'll begin her lessons soon. I'm still searching for a guitar teacher for Cole (won't he be cool?).

Cheerleaders

The cheerleaders came! They were so great! And of course gorgeous. That too. The camp went really well and the girls got to perform on stage with them at the show. They were in heaven. We were able to hug them goodbye the day of their flight since they were a couple of houses down. When the phone rang later that afternoon, Gracie asked if it was the cheerleaders calling!

Mom and I got lots of pics. If you look closely at some of the last ones you will see pics of when the cheerleaders got the grownups up to do the dance routine. Yes, I shook my groove thing with the Tampa Bay Buccaneer Cheerleaders! They asked me if I would come to work with them - I was that good!

The first pictures are some of the kids playing Trampoline Dodge Ball out back. There are over 100 pics in all so sit back and enjoy.

And videos!!!!

Cheer Videos

The videos are only of Brady because by that time Gracie had opted out (too hot). But they both danced on stage.

Funny things that happened: Cole refused to hug one of the cheerleaders goodbye (I told her to give him a couple of years and he would be all for it). During the performances, Gracie wanted to know why the cheerleaders shirts didn't cover their bellybutton and Brady wanted to know if she could have one of said shirts.

The Beautiful People

In a couple of weeks, the Armed Forced Network will be putting on a show/party for everyone here where they will be bringing in a comedian, a rock group and the Tampa Bay cheerleaders to perform. The girls and I are very excited because the cheerleaders will be putting on a short cheer camp for the kids. Later that evening the girls will be brought on stage with the cheerleaders during their performance to show what they've learned. Isn't it exciting?! I'm going to try to get lots of pics.

The boys are excited too. Especially Jason. The icing on his cake was when we found out all performers will be staying two duplexes down the street from us. And let me tell you, the duplexes aren't that far apart. These close-to-perfection women will practically be sleeping in our front yard. We'll probably be able to hear them snoring if we listen closely enough (because if there is a God, surely he will make them obnoxiously loud and ugly sleepers - that way it kind of evens out). The only people who are more excited are the neighbor's husbands. Since their duplex is between ours and the ones reserved, they'll be a few feet closer.

Banana fanna fo fanna

Mutant Naners & Plastic Hands

Couldn't resist posting pics of a double banana found in the bunch we recently bought. Now if any of you are ever asked, you will be able to say that yes you have seen a double banana in your lifetime. Quite a boast if you ask me. Of course, Mom asked "Are they all like that here?" when I showed her. Wouldn't that be something? Australia: Land of Mutant Naners.

Make sure to check the the other pics of Gracie helping Grandma with her hair color (or rather playing with the gloves that came in the box).

Grandma's Here!

Grandma's In

And Poppa had a birthday! Well, truthfully, I realized today while I was shooting pics that I forgot to post Jason's birthday pics (or even mention his birthday at all). What a good wife I am. For those of you who don't know, Jason's birthday was way back on Feb 8th. Considering he never checks this blog, I'm not going to lose sleep over it.

Anyway, Mom's in and completely exhausted. She keeps saying that if it weren't for "her babies" (of which I'm pretty sure I'm not included) that she would have turned around 1/4 of the way into the trip. She ended up having a middle seat on her 14 hr flight. I've barely been able to get a word in edgewise around the girls.

Gotta go get Cole. We'll post more later. Click the Alice Springs pic to see the rest.

Can't pull the trigger on the purchase pistol!

Jason always makes fun of me for my spending habits (or lack thereof). For those of you who don't know, I'm cheap. So cheap that Jason's running joke is that he could send me to the mall with $200, I would spend $5 on something for the kids and come back with $195 to spare. This is not altogether true but it's close - I am a reluctant shopper. I spend in spurts. And I hate paying full price. Anyway, during my sleepless night I decided to go shopping. For me. I need jeans and some boots for winter, new tops, etc. So, now 6 hours later, I have 5 tabs open from various stores, items in each shopping cart and I can't seem to bite the bullet and pay (even though I'll be using mostly gift cards given to me on my birthday and Christmas). I found three pair of boots that I like (one really kicking pair of cowboy boots - impulse buy). Two pair of jeans (admittedly $80 a pair is high, but they're really cute). All together, I probably have $600 - $700 worth of clothes stuck in limbo-land. Just waiting for me to bring them home. Which is where most will stay. Maybe I'll treat myself to the cowboy boots and jeans. What's your opinion? And what brings on my usual reluctance? Feel free to psychoanalyze.

Yeah, yeah, I know!

I can hear you all now. "It's about time". Seems like I spend half my time on the blog apologizing for my inactivity! Well no more! Well, no more apologizing at least. I'm sure I'll continue to be just as inactive as ever!!! Anyhoo, right now it's about 5 am our time. Couldn't get to sleep until about 12:30 last night and Jason set the alarm for 3:30 the morn to go in early. I've been awake ever since. I'm gonna feel like poo the afternoon!

Mom's on her way in. Should be here about noon today! Hooray! I wanted the house to be perfect (or as near to it as I can get) for her arrival but I tweaked me back lifting Gracie into the truck yesterday (should have lifted with my knees) and had to take some meds (hence the sleepless night - they always screw me up) meaning I was unable to do much of anything (since we all know I wait till the last minute). Of course, Mom wouldn't know what to make of it if she came in to find all the laundry done and floors mopped. Who am I and what did I do with her daughter, and all that.

Haven't taken many pictures lately. I'm sure we'll get started again now that Grandma's here. Maybe I'll be in some of them this time! We'll post them as we take them.

I'm sure there have been many interesting things happening over the last couple of weeks but I can't seem to think of anything interesting to write! So I'll head off today with the self-imposed responsibility of digging up something cool or funny and posting again later!

If it wasn't so hot, we'd walk.

Oil - Engine $27.68
Washer - Sump Plug $2.00
Filter - Oil $16.35
V Plus Engine Coolant $6.50
Oil - Gear, LS90 $3.35
Wiper Refill $18.60
Washer Additive $1.10
Cleaning and Materials $6.00
Labour $105.00
GST $18.66

Total cost of "Oil, Lube, Filter" Servicing for a 1994 Toyota 4Runner:

$205.25

Priceless? I think not.

What a Week!

Or at least it feels like a week (very long week) but it's only been, what?, 5 days since I posted. OK, the biggest happening has been the start of school, Transition (Kindergarten) for Brady and Year 2 for Cole. My big kids!!! Gracie of course started preschool. The pictures in the below album have shots of all on their first day. There are also shots of Brady and Cole on their second day (Friday) in their Sport's Day uniform - every Friday is Sport's Day. I think it's just a big racket to get you to spend an extra hundred bucks (per kid) in the uniform shop!

First Day of School

Luckily the uniforms seem to be quite sturdy. And if Brady's dress seems a bit big - well, it's because I'm cheap! Want them to last (before you think I'm mistreating my angels, everyone - or a least lots of people - do it). So, Brady and Cole are making friends quickly and seem to be loving school. Today Brady told me that, although she's nervous, she doesn't want me to walk her into her class, just drop her at the gate like I do Cole. Damn but I wanted to cry. It doesn't help that her too big uniform and the massive backpack that tips her over, both make her look like a little munchkin. I really wanted to walk her today because yesterday I dropped her at the gate and walking down the sidewalk (way away from Mommy) she fell and skinned her knee. She actually got back up, brushed off and walked on (this from my normal drama queen). But of course, me being crazy Mom, flew out of the Kiss-and-Go line, threw the Toyota in a side street parking place and ran full speed up to her classroom. She was, of course, fine and looked at me like I'm insane. Insane, no, under-appreciated, yes.

I spoke with Grace's preschool teachers today and (don't beat me) volunteered to be on the board if they need me. I know, I know. Maybe I am a bit crazy. At least I drew the line at President, expressing only interest in the lesser jobs V.P. or Secretary. (For those of you who don't really know me, responsibility - even the smallest of - tends to stress me out). But I thought it would be a good way to meet more people and start working on getting my Skills again! Haha! After all, in a couple of years I'll be going back to work (doing who knows what - what do I want to do with my life anyway?) and I'll need to put something on a resume now won't I. See, way ahead of you naysayers out there.

One last thing before I go. I'll be starting a new feature on the site called "What I miss about home". Yeah, I thought it was catchy. For my first installment...pay-at-the-pump. God I miss pay-at-the-pump. All the gas stations (called fuel or petrol stations here) look like something you'd find on a long winding country road. You know, the ones that seem to be the only thing available for miles and smack dab in between where you left and where you're going - a long, long way away. And they all seem to spurt back on me. I'm sure that's just user error, but hey, it's still crap!

Hooray, Hooray! It's off to School Today!

Developing...

Mother Mary meets Mother Goose

Brady saw a painting of Mary at Mass one Sunday. This is the conversation that followed.

Brady: "I saw Mary at church."
Cole: "Mary is Jesus' mother."
Grace: "Yeah, and she lost her sheep."

Happy Australia Day!

"On Australia Day we come together as a nation to celebrate what's great about Australia and being Australian. It's the day to reflect on what we have achieved and what we can be proud of in our great nation."

January 26th is an official national holiday for Australia, celebrated much like our July 4th. It commemorates the establishment of the first European settlement (a penal colony) on the continent of Australia. In January 1788, the First Fleet arrived in Botany Bay and, deciding it was not a suitable location, moved further up to Port Jackson's Sydney Cove and raised the flag in the name of King George III. Sydney Harbour is where you will now find the Opera House and Harbour Bridge.

Admittedly, I'm no expert on the subject but I did run across one thing that I thought was interesting. Wikipedia stated that the British saw establishment of Australian settlements as "necessitated by the loss of colonies in North America". Of course there was a lot more to it than that but it's interesting nonetheless.

Unfortunately, many Aboriginals don't see Australia Day as warranting celebration. It has been dubbed "Invasion Day" and was recently declared Aboriginal Sovereignty Day - considered the day of British invasion.

We spent part of the day at a reception for a new Australian head honcho taking over where Jason works. It was a nice little event, although I was unable to concentrate on grown-up things. I remember meeting a few people, shaking a few hands and making a bit of small talk - but mostly I just chased the children around and tried to keep the girls pacified and quiet. Later, when I drove through the streets of town, I ran across (not over:)) lots of people draped in Australian flag clothing and, in some cases, the flag itself. They were a lively crew. It made me smile and wish for our July 4th celebrations!

Career Aspirations of the Middle Child

Cole knows he wants to be a scientist and Gracie doesn't quite grasp the concept enough to answer the age old question "What do you want to be when you grow up?". But Brady, now there's one with some real goals in life. In the order they were given to me:

1. Taxi driver.
2. The girl who hands out the donuts at Brumby's. (Our bakery)
3. Astro Girl

I think she just wants to fly around without her shirt.

Also...

A few of you made comments regarding the dancing prowess shown by the girls in the earlier posted videos. I believe "They need a pole" was heard more than once. You should all be ashamed! I think it's quite obvious that a platformed corner cage would be more appropriate. Poles wouldn't showcase their talent.

And just in case you were wondering - the girls watch nothing but kid's TV, no late night shows or videos. In fact the music was from a Bratz cd - all about fashion and friends. So I really have no idea how they honed or perfected their dances (unless you count the innate ability inherited from their mother.)

Oven Updates (as in It's an Oven Here)

Never thought I would picture a 102 degree day as a reprieve from the heat! I suppose it's all how you look at it! We've obviously been spending a lot of our time indoors!

The kids had a playdate scheduled for Tuesday but I called it off at the last minute for bad behavior. We rescheduled for yesterday, and since the neighbors arrived from New Zealand at the start, we had a house full of kids (as usual). Nash left us and is sorely missed. What a good dog! He slept in the girls' room and I kept finding Gracie curled next to him on the floor in the middle of the night. Made us long for Dixie-dog although I know she's in good hands.

School starts next week - WooHoo! Grace and I are terribly excited - Cole and Brady are enjoying the leisure time a bit much I'm afraid. No matter what our feelings, getting to school by 8:30 will be an adjustment for all of our lazy rears!

I keep trying to pin Jason down to schedule our two R&R's (short trips in or around Australia) and our big trip home (probably early '09). As soon as the calendar is planned, I'll post the basics to let everyone know what to expect. I'm excited about the R&R. I'm going a bit stir-crazy. To be expected, I guess, with school out and the heat. I can't wait until the weather cools and we can start exploring more and camping.

The social life if still going strong. Our neighbors came over a few nights ago and Veronica (whose Mexican) taught me how to make a red chili pork dish with mexican rice! My mouth waters just thinking about it! Our friend Lance came into town with his boss and we had them over for dinner along with a few others. As usual, I cooked too much food but it all went well. We have a celebration to attend on Saturday for the new Australian head of something-or-other. Then the kids will go swimming at the hotel (where the reception is being held) and then Tripoly with the ladies hosted at our house Saturday night. Don't hate me because I'm popular and beautiful!

Hope this finds you all well!

Argument Topics #836 and #837 in Girl-land

Regarding the television show "The Fairies": Who gets to be the blue fairy that lives on the beach.

Regarding the television show "Hi-5": Who gets to be Charlie (a girl).

I try to explain that in make-believe land there can be more than one character but for some reason they don't buy it and add insult by saying (in all seriousness) that I get to be Nathan on "Hi-5". Nathan's a boy. At least it's a distraction.

Dancing Divas

and The Shootout

Dance Videos

The girls decided to put on a show - well, they decided to dance. Not too much planning went into the "show" as you can see. But boy did they groove!

The boys put on their own show (after relentlessly trying to ruin the girls'). I think we have the making of stars on our hands. One day you'll see these videos on a show called "We Knew Them When".