Nicoles Adventure

England - finally!

2010-07-13T09:48:00.001-07:00

Hello!

SO finally we've made it to England. Only 18 months after we first forecast that we'd be here (back in september 08). Anyway - its very lovely here.

We've had bit of a bum of a time finding 6 months accommodation. Either places were gone, or wouldn't be ready in time, or they wanted people for more than 6 months, or you had to have been in the UK for 6 months (for credit checks), or the agents wouldn't answer. So we ended up having to stay in two seperate lots of holiday rentals. Eventually we found a place which is near bridgnorth of Shropshire.

Its a grade II listed house attached to a huge old mansion with beautiful gardens all round. The place came furnished, which is very convenient, and they've done a really good job at making it nice.

We've also bought a car, a Zafira by Vauhall. (Yes Susan, we've joint your club). Finally I'm out of fuel guzzling beasts and it something a little more pleasing to the environment.

Anyway, my photos here are all back to front - starting from Saturday and working back.

This is at an historic estate that we went to, where the kids had a go at being servants...

This is the house, with the mansion in the background, with our new car in it.

We went on a road trip to Wales, and there was so much to see! The kids had a swim at this gorgeous beach (I thought beaches were meant to suck, but very much not so).

This was some of the mountain scenery. We had a little walk some of the way up one of these mountains, and one day we'll come back and climb to the top of the biggest one (now that I've written it, I'll have to!)

This was a water fall along the way. You had to pay to see it, which was new. There was a fence and a gate where you had to insert the coinds to get in. I didn't have the right change but some pepople came along just after us, so I asked the guy if he had change for 5 dollars. He gave me a funny look, and asked his wife what the exchange rate was. Woops- so I promptly corrected myself and said pounds. The waterfall was well worth it.

This was a beautiful little Welsh town, whose name was completely unpronouncable. Have the Welsh not heard of vowels?

This is some canal boats, we went on a ride on the blue one at the front.

This was the second cottage that we stayed at, which was right on a canal.

This was our first ruined castle. Very cool. Played kings and queens with the kids, they had a marvelous time, which is good because I'll be taking them to many more.

This is the first cottage we stayed which was a gorgeous little town called Chelmorton.

This is Dave and Tracey, some great neighbours that we met at our first house.

Just a very cute photo of a sheep.

This Tallis making friends with the cows (in her pjamas of course)

Another lovely secnery shot...

This was a little walkway in Chelmorton...

Heres some cows that held us up one day - seemed very Brittish and Rural, which I found very entertaining...

This is a further off view of Chemorton - note the stone fences...

And thats it!

Hope everone is well,

Keep in touch,

Nic

Ney York, New York

2010-05-18T12:11:00.001-07:00

Hi Everyone.

So finally I'm sitting down to do my blog! Its taken more than two hours messing around uploading photos, so I hope its appreciated. We've been doing heaps! Right now we're in New York City, but I've done the photos backwards again, so I'm going to start back at Christmas. Also, I should mention that when I started with the New York photos I was very motivated, but as I progressed, I got less and less motivated, so theres very few early photos, and probably a few too many current photos. Oh well.

We had a really lovely Christmas, Lake Badin where we were staying at the time was gorgeous and the house was so peaceful, which really suited Christmas. Because it was just us, our day got a little late and by the time we'd got around to Christmas dinner, Ainsley was fast asleep on the ground. We decided to wake her up for dinner, but she kept falling asleep at the table, so I relented and put her to bed.

On Boxing day, our friends Bob and Celeste came for a visit. We decided to adopt them as our American Family. It was very nice to have some visitors at Christmas, because I'm not really used to spending Christmas with out anyone but us. Had a good time and stayed up well past our bedtime having fun.

In January, I went my friends Tori from North Carolina on a trip to Biltmore house. I couldn't take photos from the inside, but this is the outside.

It was built in the late 1800's, but the guy that had it built had very classical tastes and had antiques from all around the world. I was most impressed by the leather wallpaper from spain that had been hand embossed.

This photo was on my birthday where we went to old salem. Its in the north of north carolina, and its a town that was settled by the Moravians, who were a religious group from Europe. The were still living their very basic lifes, and they made it so that you could go around and see everything that they were doing. In some ways it was much better than a museum, because the people really knew what they were talking about because the did it every day. They were a bit funny about photos, so I only got a couple. This is Tallis and Ellery carding wool.

Two days before we left for the snow in Canada, it snowed at Lake Badin. I did hope for a white christmas, but the weather seemed to want to be ironic instead. This is the house we were living in.

This is one of the gorgeous sunrises that I managed to rouse my early enough to take a photo of.

On our way up to Canada, we stopped at Washington DC. We went to the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History and the Aeronautics museum. The natural history museum was great - has some very cool and large fossils from before there were living animals on Earth.

This is the white house. We saw a couple of helicopters land, maybe one had Obama in it - but I guess its also possible that it was just the kids coming home. Do they all travel by private helicopters? Anything is possible...

This is the kids walking across the national mall (can't remember if that was what it was called, but I think so), with congress in the background.

The next day when we woke up to leave for Canada, theres been a huge dump of snow. This was just before the all that snow that was on the news. Good thing we got of there when we did, because apparently it was Bedlam a few days later with all the snow. I really love the look of trees covered in snow - it never lasts long though.

This was at the Blue mountains in Canada. Everyone had a great time skiing. Tallis and Ellery I got to do a couple of black hills (which are the hard ones) before we left - I was very proud. Lindsay got up to doing intermediate hills after a few lessons. Ainsley had a lovely time, she had a few goes of skiing, but it she couldn't really go down by herself, so I'd hold her between my legs. This is Lindsay at ski school.

And Ainsley at ski school.

Heres Tallis and Ellery after a morning of skiing.

This is Lindsay with an icy pole (popsicle if you're American) he found hanging of a bush. All very convenient. Tallis Skiing. You really had to cover any exposed skin, otherwise it'd get really painfully cold.

This is the ski village at the Blue Mountains. It was very pretty.

This is our back door after a big snow storm.

This is our windscreen at -20 degrees. I had tried to remove as much ice as I could with an old library card (pretty much all I had that wouldn't scratch the windscreen), and managed to scrape enough of a hole to see through. Luckily it didn't take long before it melted away with the heating.

This was at ice festival that we went to in Toronto. The kids all got a big chunk of ice with a toy inside and they got to crack it open to get their prize.

The ice festival...

This was a very cool owl that we saw at bird of prey demonstration.

This is the kids sitting in front of a frozen lake. We were on our way to the pool, which had an out door area (well heated) with a water slide. Going up to the water slide was a bit agonizing in the freezing cold in bathers, but the adrenalin rush and the awaiting hot water made it worth it.

This is looking down the ski hill. I've high lighted where we were staying. It wasn't a very long walk to the chair lifts.

Lindsay at ski school.

Tallis and Ellery had a go at snow boarding. They found it really hard and resorted back to skiing. Must say - watching them do it, instead of the pros, it really did look impossible.

Ellery doing night skiing. The slopes were open until 10 every night. Came in very handy with all of Pauls work.

Some wild turkeys (stuffed, in a cabinet) looking very cool. This was on the drive to New York from Canada. We stopped for a couple of nights at a place near the Allegheny state park. While we were there we stopped at the state park (of course), but also in the area were some Amish communities which we visited. They didn't like people taking photos, so I didn't, but we had a great time. They have no power, so all the homes were candle lit and the crops were all tended with horses. Seemed like a fantastic way to live, but I think all the religion would drive me insane. I had a really long talk with a guy there, who seemed to think that it was the religion that made it work, and stopped all the pettiness that often comes with small communities. I'm sure he's right.

This is some very cool boulders as the state park.

Then we arrived at East Hampton. We had planned to go to New York City, but we stuffed up our accommodation, so we decided to have a bit of break at the beach. It wasn't peak time, so a lot of restaurants and attractions were closed, but it also meant that our month there was only $4500, instead of $25000! The house we stayed in was slightly run down, but it backed onto the beach, so all was good. We decided to do no TV or computer while were here, seeing as they had the beach to play at, and it was great! I couldn't believe how creative the kids were with keeping themselves entertained. This is Tallis on her birthday.

This is Ellery on the beach that our house was at.

This is also at the beach here, I absolutely love this photo!

This is theview from the back of the house. It was very peaceful. If I ever decide to write a book, this is the place I want to do it at. (Although I may have to write a bestseller first, so that I can afford it).

This is Ainsley enjoying her Easter Eggs.

And Again, on her birthday.

A sunset out the back...

This is a house on Shelter island, which is an island in the hamptons. It was a very typical house. (theres sooo much money here, its a bit frightening)

And this is spring blossoms blown across the street.

Now we're in NY city. Wow! Theres so much variety here. The amount of pedestrians walking by is just amazing. So many people the place is just buzzing all day and night. This is Times Square at night.

This is the kids running across central Park. Central park was like a beacon in a storm. Paul and I have a theory that the city wouldn't have a grown the way it has with out the calming effect of Central Park. It's such a huge park - theres hundreds of places you can go, where you can't even see the city on the out skirts. I did get a bit camera happy here - so theres heaps of photos.

Ainsley beeing a butterfly (thanks to Emma for the cute costume!)

Lindsay in a tree...

For Ellerys birthday we all got dressed up (very much) and went a very fancy restaurant for dinner and then on to Cirque du Soleil. The girls had their hair done in rollers (although Ellerys curls onl lasted about half an hour) and had make up and nail polish done. They were very pampered and they really loved it. This is the big kids at the restaurant...

This is Paul and Ainsley waling to the restaurant. We never drove anywhere in New York - always the subway or walking and the odd death defying Cab ride.

This is the city from with in central park.

Heres just some cute photos of the kids...

This is the crazy tiny apartment that we first stayed in. This was the entire living area...

...and this was the kitchen. Mum was visiting at the time and had to stack up the dishes (in a very artistic way) just to serve the dinner.

We actually ended up moving apartment because this was a bit of a dive. For starters it was adifferent aoartment to what was advertised when we paid for it, and there was exposed power points (without cases) and the lights had no switches so the only was to turn them on and off was to pull the cords out of the sockets (power sockets in the US have no off switches). This apartment wa on the upper east side, and we moved to greenwich village, which a much more vibrant and interesting community anyway. What I didn't account for was the five pubs directly across the street - but we happened to have a very old and noisy air conditioner in our room, so if we turned that on it would drown out most of the outside random noise with a consistant hum. The mood was cool though - you could open your window in the evening and feel like you were living in the middle of a party.

This is in a store - Lindsay and AInsley were having a great time...

This is in the foyer of the Museum of Natural history in New York, which was easily my favourite place here. We paid for a family member ship which was great value because we ended up going back 6 times. I especially loved the hall of Human Origins, featuring REAL neanderthal skeletons and a family tree of skulls from all breeds of hominids (humans).

This was at the Metroplitan museum of art - they'd built this huge bamboo construction on the roof, and people could walk up on tours! The kids desperately wanted to go up, but you had the be the right height and age (which they weren't). I was kind of glad.

This is Mum and the kids being very absorbed...

This is a crazy guitar the had there. What I want to know is, who had four arms to be able play the thing?

This is Tallis at the play ground drawing with chalk on the pavement, wearing 3d glasses that works with the chalk. A huge novely which we all enjoyed.

This is at a home school sports day - Ellery is in the blue singlet.

Heres the kids in central park on their scooters...

This is my friend Tori in front of Murrays cheeses. She came and visited us with her two girls, and we went to this amzing cheese store that she knew about. We bought a nice selection of cheeses and cured meats and had tasting night with the kids.
This is Lindsay and Ainsley on the giant key board at FAO Shwartz...
Ellery riding a bike with square wheels at a science festival.
Lindsay and Ainsley on the subway being very cute...
Tallis playing soccer at the park...

AInsley being a priness at the park. I really like this photo and couldn't resist including it.

One of the last things we did in New York was go to Coney island. It was a bit of dump, I guess because its so old. We went with some friends from Texas that were visiting, so it was lovely to catch up with them. This is crazy ferris wheel that we went on. On the inside the carriages were on a track and they would slide along it as the wheel went around. I didn't go in one, but the kids went with Seanna (our friend) and I could really hear them screaming!

Anyway,

Enough for now,

Cheers, Nic

Merry Christmas!

2009-10-31T08:35:00.000-07:00

Hi Everyone,

Merry Christmas and apologies for being so slack. We are still alive and well. You'll have to excuse the order of this blog - I put all the photos in first, and forgot about order, so I'm starting at now and working backward.

We're near Charlotte in North Carolina right now, and its absolutely beautiful. We're in lovely lake cottage that is so peaceful. In the morning we can see the sunrise out of our window. Normally I'd be bothered by all the light coming in, but the sun over the lake cancels that out. We're all set for Christmas, (nearly anyway - I don't think I ever am ready until maybe 2 in the morning Christmas day). We're not getting the kids much, because we're going to go skiing in Canada in february, and its expensive (althought we got a really good deal), so they understand that we spent their christmas money on lift tickets.

The house we're in is kind of in the middle of nowhere. Its a bit over an hour to get into the nearest big town, so I've been spending a lot of time at home witth the kids, which has been really nice - I don't think I've gone through a hermit phase since I left Australia (wow - over a year ago), and I think everyone needs one every so often, Anyway, so we've been doing heaps of cooking and crafty things. Ellery and Tallis have decided that when they grow up they would like to open a small bakery in San Francisco. They're being very sophisticated. Obviuosly something has changed, because this year our ginger bread house worked out way better. More of a rustic cabin than a disaster zone. Heres a photo:
And heres Ainsley, totally caught in the act. I think we all know what shes doing -

Also at this house is an x-box 360. The kids have been loving it - its got guitar hero and Paul and the kids compete with each other. Anyway, I caught these photos, and realised - like father like daughter. Check out that tongue!

I couldn't resist.

Heres our christmas tree. Its such a nice shape and the needles are totally different to what we get in Australia. Its very easy to work with and hang things from. Must be something to do with pine trees being native to this area. You can even choose which breed you want. Its looking a bit empty in this shot, but we keep adding stuff all the time - it looks like a kinder display

Before we came to this house near Charlotte, we were in another house near Charlotte. Anyway, thanksgiving crept up on us, and we hadn't booked anywhere, and then the house we were in got booked out, and I struggled to find anywhere else. So, we ended up camping. It was absolutely freezing. Luckily it didn't rain (or snow) on us, but I think we were going to bed about 7:30 because it was just too cold to stay up.The scenery was nice though. We managed to get a campground right on the river, so the kids could play at the river while Paul and I sat by the fire. Which was perfect, because we don't have their ability to ignore the temperature while distracted. Anyway, Tallis worked out how to catch fish with a bowl. I think she caught about 20 by the time we left (which was 4 nights).

This is the house that we stayed in first, obviuosly very nice. We got to see all the leaves change colour while we were staying here and it was the perfect place to do it. Inside was also really nice, only problems was that there must have been a cat living there before us, and we just couldn't stop sneezing and sneezing.

There was a nice little jetty of this house, where the kids did heaps of fishing. This is cat fish that Tallis caught. We never ate any of them, we would throw them back. As someone thats very fond of fish, it was rather difficult to get the hook out of the fish - but after much research on the internet and some practice, I got it all worked and managed to get not to be floating away on the surface.

This is anevening shot from out the back of this house. Paul and Ellery were setting up a fire in a pit that was right near the edge of the lake. I just really love this photo.

Then of course there was halloween. We were invited to go to our homeschooling friends house where they had a big street BBQ and then we all went trick or treating. And again, there were an unimaginable amount of lollies (the temptation to write candy there was very strong, but I resisted). We had a great night though. The kids all made their own trick or treat bags and carved pumpkins.

This is just a cool thing that I saw at an art gallery called the Mint Museum of design. I think it would look great in the foyer at my house.

One day we went for a 10 hour drive and we down some of the 'blue ridge parkway', which is very famous scenic drive in America, especially in Autumn. I love this photo because it just looks so American, especially with that ute.

And this is back to the pumpkin carving. Its quite a process trying to get all the seeds out.

Also we went to 'the Amazing Maize Maze'. It was very cool. Took us nearly an hour to get out, and that was aparently a very good time. I spoke to a couple inside that had been in there for 2 hours. We loved it though - as you went through you could collect bits of puzzle that you stuck on your map and you could start to work out the way out.

Mum came over as well, and she spent a week with us at the house Charlotte, and a week with just me and the kids just the the Great Smokies National Park. In between we went to what was meant to be our first house at Charlotte, and it was an absolute dump. The place reeked of a mix of animal wee and dead animal, there was brown sticky muck all over the kitchen floor, the bedding wasn't washed, we couldn't find towels and then found them in the dryer with someone elses undies. And then we tried to light a fire and the chimney was vlocked and the whole house just filled with smoke. The whole experience was very unpleasant. But the next house was so lovely that it more than made up for it.

Anyway this is on the drive from the smokies to Charlotte...

And this is the house we stayed in the smokies for a week. Inside was all decked out like a log cabin straight out of the movies. Very picturesque. The view of the deck was great too, Mum and I would sit out there with our coffees and catch up. It was really nice having Mum stay, just hanging out together somewhere so beautiful.

This was on a drive that we did through the national park to a town named Gatlinburg. It was really wet and foggy, but in some ways it really added to it, because the fog really highlighted the silhouettes of the pines along the ridges of the mountains. In the bacjground of this photo is a huge water fall. It was almost surreal.

This is just another photo of the scenery at The Smokies. It was so amazing to see all these plants that I'm used to perceiving at introduced in their native habitat. Along the side of the road in this photo is a huge grove of rhododendrons.

Then, before I met up with Mum, I went on a camping road trip with the kids, while Paul went on a work trip to Chicago. The last place I stayed, which was Fall Creek falls State Park, it rained nearly every day and every night. My tent leaked and I was counting on a fire for cooking, which I couldn't light because of all the rain. I was very close to just packing up taking off to the nearest hotel. However, I hooked up with our campground neighbours, who were very cool, and had a huge roll of plastic to put up over our tent. They also fed us, and gave somewhere dry to sit (they had a big shelter set up over a picnic table). They were really great and every night we would stay up philosophising about the world. This them - Bob and Celeste -

This is scenery from Fall creek falls. We hiked to the bottom of this water fall and then went down stream a little where the kids played for hours. Tallis is at the bottom of the photo and you can just see the falls through the foliage at the top.

And this is the water fall from the top. The leaves are all just starting to change. When I was there, I thought that what I was seeing was the all the autumn colours and I was starting to stress that they woul all of passed before Mum came. But after relaying to this to somebody else, I found out that this was only the beginning - which I later had confirmed with my own eyes as Things were still chaging when Mum left more than 2 weeks later.

This is the kids on a suspension bridge which I though was pretty cool. Unless anybody was stomping. Then it would quickly become not cool at all.

This is where we camped before Fall Creek Falls, at a place called chickasaw state park. The state parks in the US are vastly different to what we have in Australia. They're really well set up here (too well set up in my mind) with man made lakes for fishing and boating, sporing grounds including baseball and golf, visitor information centres, playgrounds, swimming pools, cabins, stables, stores. Because I was camping at a not peak time, I always managed to find the nicest places to camp though, and still felt very away from it all.

The is a water fall at the first place we camped at, Petit Jean state park, in Arkansas. When we camped here, some of our friends from Dallas joined us, which was a very nice start to camping. Again we'd sit up late discussing the world. It was also nice for the kids to be able to play.

This is back at Chickasaw again, where they had a huge bridge going the whole way across the lake and this little covered section in the middle. It was on this bridge that Ainsley accidentally dropped Lindsays shoe in the water. The kids all just stood there watching it float away, while I tried to convince someone to jump in and get it. In the end, Tallis absconded, and swam to get it. By this stage it had drifted quite a considerable distance.

Also at this park was a lightning storm on our first night. I ended up with Lindsay sleeping on a single mattress with me, not sleeping. So Ellery snapped me having a rest on this swing at the play ground. It was very lovely with the sun on my face.

This a a photo of all the kids just before we said goodbye to our friends from Dallas. We were sad to say goodbye.

Well, thats about it for now. I know I've been very brief, but I'll try to keep up from now. Maybe I'll make it a new years resolution. I missed out on lots of stuff - like our car breaking down, my computer breaking and me replacing the hard drive (all by myself - I've very proud), my credit card being cancelled because of possible fraud but the bank not telling and me finding out at starbuck when I went to buy a coffee. I had to borrow money of Ellery to pay for it. And many other fun things like that.

I hope everyone is well, and not too hot. We're freezing here with many days not even hitting 5 degrees.

Hope your cCristmas is great and that you all get everything you wanted.

Thinking of you all,

love Nic

We're coming back!

2009-08-20T09:10:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone,

We're coming back to Australia for 1 to 2 weeks, arriving first thing on september 4th. Absoluelty can't wait, I'm most looking forward to eating Bakers Delight bread while reading the Good Weekend. And seeing everyone - of course. Hopefully I'll get to see you all.

Anyway, we've been having a nice time here in Texas. I've put the photos in first and I did it backwards, so the time line will be a bit off.

We just got back from a short holiday to Wimberley (which is between Austin and San Antonio in Texas). Paul had to go away for a few days to Chicago, so I decided I may as well see some more of Texas. We had a really great time. Being me, I didn't waste a minute of time and dragged the kids around seeing everything I could. They were pretty happy though. I think they like getting away from the usual schedule just as much as me. Went to these amazing caves called the natural bridge caverns. They had this set up where the kids could buy a bag of dirt and gravel with some rough gemstones mixed in. Then they could sieve away the dirt and gravel and pick out the gemstone - they absolutely loved it. I though it was bit fake seeing as the stones were planted in the bags, but the kids had no such notions. As you can see on Lindsays face...

We went o n a tour through the caves and saw some really awesome formations. To give you an indea of the size, check out the handrail sin the background...

It was all pretty amazing, but still really hot (you guessed it!), Ainsley was on the verge of being really scared, so I had to carry her most of the way and it was along way down and then up again. At the end Tallis was questioning me about why I was so grumpy. I said that if nobody talked to me for a good 5 minutes, I'd be right again. Still had a great day though. Afterwards we had to drive for 5 hours to get back to Dallas. Was a rather gruelling drive - I couldn't find my Ipod, only had one CD that I'd been listening to the whole time we were away, my classical station was playing some obscure opera (bleaugh), and my Jazz station shared air waves with a rock gospel station and didn't come into range until we were nearly home. Also the kids were watching DVDs on my laptop and so were useless for conversation. I remember the last hour I kept looking at the clock about every 3 minutes, each time being sure that way more time than that had passed.

This is the log cabin that we stayed in while we were away. It was very cool, and very authentic. The kids were a bit scared at night with all the animal noises, other than that, they said they'd like to live here. It was great being out of an apartment or hotel and being in the outside. The time we spent at the house was all spent sitting on the seats on the porch, or with the kids just poking around. Made me realise how badly they've had nature deficit disorder since we've been in Dallas. I was thinking about staying at a hotel in San Antonio for our little holiday, I'm so glad I didn't. Even though all the websites stated that it was only a half hour dirve to get to San Antonio and it was actually an hour and 15 minute drive, and thats with me sitting on the speed limit the whole way. Oh well...

We visited the city of San Antonio one evening and it was really gorgeous. There was this river walk that went for a good 2 mile, with beautiful gardens and water features the whole way along and restaurants and little stores as well. Felt like I was in another country. We went on a boat tour down the canals and there were heaps of scenes just like this...

We had dinner at one of these restaurants and a little 3 piece mariachi band came up and played the chicken dance song for us. The kids were very impressed, I though it was great too, but the poor guys playing just looked like they wanted to go home. I'm not suprised because guess what - it was super hot again. Its got to the point where 35 degrees is cool outside.

Also visited the Alamo. Didn't quite know what it was all about, something about a stand off between some white settlers and the mexicans and the whites fought off the mexicans from within the walls of the alamo for 15 days. It was all nice to look at though, misguided as we were. We wound up getting there really late, because Tallis forgot her shoes and din't realise until we were half an hour down the road, by which time it was too late to go back and get them (without missing out all together, so we had to stop off at a store and buy her a pair, which wound up taking half an hour. Anyway, heres a delighful photo of them all at well that was there.

In wimberley just near our little log cabin was this swimming hole. It was really deep with all these rope that the kids could swing off, and with beautiful big cypress trees with roots twisting down into the water. We really loved it here - this is Ellery swinging into the water.

So that was our trip to Wimberley.

Before that, from Dallas, we went a visited a diamond mine. It was totally different to what we expected. When I heard about it, I was expecting caves and picks and little miners helmets. It turned out to be huge ploughed up fields in an old crater of a volcano, in the middle of nowwhere. Its the 8th largest diamond mine in the world, but its owned by the parks and recreation part of the local government (in Arkansas), and people can just go there for $5 each and look for diamonds, which they get to keep. The day before we were there people found 8 diamonds, and sometimes people have found 5 carat diamonds. We didn't find any, but we did find some cool bits of Calcite and Quartz. And some broken glass that we were very hopeful about (oh dear). Heres what it looked like...

We also saw some more dinosaur footprints, at dinosaur valley state park. Heres Ainsley standing in one -

People keep asking to put more pictures of wierd and wonderful American things. So heres a normal can standing next to a bigger American can. Pauls pretty happy about this one (being beer and all). Some how its fosters, but I've never seen fosters like this in Australia....

Also, it was the 4th of July. Independence day. We went to a very amazing display of firewoks with a bunch of the homeschoolers. This isn;t a great photo, but this is how the fireworks started, out the back of a plane doing twists in the sky. You can see the smoke trail from where its been, and the huge crowds of people. It reminded me a lot of new years when I was pregnant with Ainsley (3 years ago) where it was in the low 40s. When we got back in the car afterwards, at about 10:30, the thermostat read 41. Ouch, but we had a great time anyway.

Well, thats about it for now. I'm a bit sick of writing, we've done way more than this, but mostly we've just been hanging out with our homeschool friends here.

Cheers,

Nic

Dallas, New Orleans, Houston

2009-07-02T15:52:00.000-07:00

Hey Everyone,

I don't quite know where to start, we've been doing so much, and its been way too long. We're in Dallas right now, we've been here for 2 weeks, after going on a road trip to New Orleans and Houston. So we were in Dallas for 6 weeks before we left, and now we're here for another 2 months.

I've met some really nice people in Dallas, I even went on a camping trip with some of them. Paul stayed at home and I took Tallis, Ellery and Lindsay. The camp ground was right out of a movie. There was a big lake with this dock off the shore that all the kids were jumping from, the sun was glinting on the water and there were beautiful big native oaks and pines all around the lake. Unfortunatley I didn't take any photos, as I was too busy having a nice time. On the way home though, we pulled over for Lindsay to pee and found this old suspension bridge. It was this crazy old metal thing with wire hanging off all over the place and missing bits of wood on the ground. After watching the kids go across (with much tripidation) I found the nerve to cross too. It also looked straight out of the movies - heres a pic:

Also in Dallas we went to Medieval times, which was a dinner show where you sit around an arena, we were in the front row and really really close, and knights (in shining armour) had sword fights and did cool stuff on horses. Heres a photo:

It was very cool. Ellery had her birthday and turned 8. We went to Hurricane Harbour which is a water park that was huge. There were so many different types of water slides and stuff. There was a huge playground with water spraying off everywhere. Paul and the girls went on a nearly vertical water slide and Paul put his back out (again). I think I need to ban him from joy rides. But the best thing they had was called the lazy river. It was like a river that went in a circle, that I would guess was at least half a kilometre long, and it had this current that pushed you along. It was pretty gentle on the kids, so Ainsley could go in, the only thing was getting them off at the stairs (there were a handful of entrances). You had to get to the stairs before them, grab onto the rail, and then grab them as they went past, and put them onto the steps. Which was kind of hard with 4 kids. Anyway, didn't really matter, because I would have quite happily have stayed in there all day. I guess you could compare it to running while theres an industrial fan blowing behind you. All the fun with out all the effort. So Ellery had a great day.

Also went to the Fort Worth historic district, which was kind of like cowboy town. We watched some long horn cattle being herded down the street, the kids all went on a bucking bronco (hilarious) and through a cow pen maze. It was really fun. They had some authentic cowboy stores too. Thought briefly about buying myself some cowboy boots. They had some really nice ones with leaves and flowers sewn all over and in great colours. I really like the look of them, but just couldn't imagine ever wearing them, so I didn't make any purchases (they were also $600). They'd probably look nice on a mantle piece though. Or I could go as a cow girl to every dress up party for the rest of my life.

So that sums up Dallas, then we went to Houston. We went to the space centre which very cool. Saw a real life saturn 5 rocket. It was HUGE! Saw the mission control rooms. Went onto a space shuttle and learnt heaps about humans and space. Learnt all about what they've got planned next. Currently they're building an outdoor experiment area on the international space station, so that they can really do science experiments in space. Its not quite the same when they do experiments inside the station (apparently). Yet again I managed to get no good photos, because I was too busy. Also it was super hot.

In the last 4 weeks here, I don't think its been below 30 in the day. Today I got in the car and the thermometer read 49 degrees. Once I started driving it went down to 43. I'm really suprised that the components didn't start to melt. I'm pretty sure I was starting to melt.

Anyways, onto New Orleans. It was easily the most interesting city that I've been to so far. It was settles by the French and remained cut off from the rest of America until the the early 1900's (or something). We were staying at ahotel right in the French Quarter, which is the historical area, and the entire area is listed as national heritage. Heres one of the streets:

The place was a little bit like Amsterdam. As Paul very nicely put it, there were 25 flavours of sin. Our hotel had a couple of brothels next door, and apparently the busty lady that stood out the front was part man. You're legally allowed to walk the streets with alcohol. And Bourbon Street, they would shut off at night, and it became one huge party. Every second shop was either a nudie bar or somewhere to buy huge amounts of alcohol. There were numerous stores had like 20 super size slurpy machines lined up behind the counter, with many different flavours of margarita, that sold in only sizes that could be descibed as large. We got a baby sitter one night, and went down there. It was totally crowded and kind of crass and scary. But then we stumbled upon some great little jazz clubs that were really great. The audience totally got into it, and would cheer and whistle every time there was a solo. Even saw some jazz banjo which sounded awesome. Ended up having a great night and didn't want to go home.

We also went on a swamp tour, where they took us through a swamp on a boat, where they had all the swamp cypress with spanish moss hanging all over them. It was really fun, and there were heaps of huge alligators. The guy had this metal prong that he would put bits of sausage onto and the alligators would leap up and grab them off: At first it was really scary, I mean these alligators were jumping above the height of the rim of boat and easliy close enough to reach out and touch them. One was 15 foot long too. It didn't take a huge reach of the imagination to see one tipping the boat right over and the swarm of alligators laying into us. I settled down after a while though, when I realised how totally docile they were. The kids loved it. I really liked the scenery and the beautiful trees.

I also went to a couple of historic sugar plantation homes with Ellery. We learnt all about the slaves, and how the people lived. Heres a photo of one of the homes:

I really loved the huge oaks lining the path. The lady said that they're more than 300 years old.

It was pretty horrifying hearing some of the stories of what the slaves went through. You've really got to wonder what could have been going through the minds of the slave drivers. No wonder Africa is so screwed up, white people basically took all their working men over for more than a century.

Anyway, thats about it for now.

Cheers,

Nic

Big Road Trip

2009-05-02T13:17:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone.

Well - things have been very eventful. We've been on a huge road trip. Drove over 2800 miles. We're all so adept at long car trips - I swear I can drive anywhere now! So from Whistler, we drove back through Canada, across Washington, into Oregon, Idaho and then Utah, where we stayed at Salt Lake City for 5 days. Paul had work there, which was only meant to go for one day, so we stayed at a hotel. Some how it morphed into 5 days, which was a long time staying in a hotel. All up we stayed 2 weeks in hotels, which was kind of a pain in the bum. All the kids were sleeping in the same room, in two double beds, which worked remarkably well. The thing that was the biggest pain was having to live in bedrooms with 4 kids. Especially when Ainsley was having a sleep, which meant there were 5 of us (Paul was working from the hotel) hanging out in the one room. Also the eating out kind of sucked. The first few days were great - I though 'yay - I don't have to cook!'. But it wasn't long before I craved for a home cooked. Not one thats either deep fried or expensive and soaked in butter and crap anyway.

But all in all, the experience was very worth it. At Salt lake city we visited the salt lake, which was pretty interesting. There was all this dying shrimp on the shore that smelt like a fish market at the end of a really hot day, and the water was freezing and a funny murky sort of a colour. Tallis was the only one that braved going in. She said you could really float - I would love to be able to say that I went in - I'd love to know what it felt like in a salt lake, but I couldn't convince myself it was worth. The whole scene was a bit yuck.

After Salt Lake city, we drove down to Bryce Canyon National Park. It was really amazing. There were these canyons (an exotic name for valleys), that had hepas of rock pillars that were formed by the minerals around being washed away. They said that something like 300 days of the year would have above 0 temperatures in the day and below zero temperatures in the night, so the freezing water would expand and crack off the rocks. Heres a photo:

That night we went and stayed in Kanab. It was a really crazy little town, where they make lots of the cowboy and indian movies. There were huge red rock formations all over the place. We stayed at a lovely little hotel that night called Victorian Charm. It had no shower. And then at breakfast the we had to sit at a communal table with outbackish type yanks, and the guy cooking the breakfast kept grunting to himself. I'm not sure I've summed it up very well, but the whole thing was a bit creepy. I couldn't help looking round for the barrels where they hide the bodies.

That day we drove to the grand canyon, which pretty much took all day. It was a really beautiful drive, with the most amazing landscape. Alomg the was we passed through Navajo nation, where the native Indians Rule. There was crazy little sign flapping around on the side of the road that directed us to where there were dinosaur footprints. So we went and had a look. We had to drive a bumpy windy little road, and then there were some shacks set up, a couplf of cars, and some Indains hanging around. Paul was convinced that it was an elaborate plot to rob us everything we had. But no - sure enough, there were Dinosaur footprints. One Indain guy showed us around and really knew what he was talking about. Heres a photo of the prints and what we saw when we drove up:

Also on the ground were heaps of mineral - just bits of jaspar, obsidian and even petrified wood. Heaps of it! We asked the Indians and they said we were more than welcome to collect some, so we did. I'm sure that if this site wasn't run by the indians there would be some huge museum, the footprints would be roped off, or cased in glass - if not gone. The whole thing was pretty weird, but nicely suprising.

Anyway, we finally made it to the Grand Canyon. And it was HUGE! Very amazing. We checked into out hotel, then picked up some take away pizza and watched the sun set over the canyon (along with a couple of hundred other people, but it still felt special).

Essentially the Grand Canyon is just a view, but a very very beautiful view. I was thinking that we would hang around for a couple of days, but there wasn't a lot to do except just look at it. So the next day we headed off again. I would have liked to have done a mule trip down the canyon but theres a ridiculous 13 month waiting list. And I certainly had no clues that I'd be here 13 months ago.

So off we went to monument valley. Got caught in a massive dust storm that spanned over 180 miles. Kind of spoiled the views but we got some pretty cool photos that you wouldn't ordinarily see. Included is that really famous view, but visibilty sort of sucks.

That night we stayed in Cortez which is in Colorado and the next day we went to Mesa Verde National Park. This is where Indians from 1000 years ago had built cliff dwellings. We went on a tour of one and it was really amazing. We all learnt heaps about Indians, but the best was just looking at these places they built. I was thinking I would have liked to have lived there with the Indians until the guide told me that their average life span was only 35 years.

That afternoon and night we drove down to Santa Fe, in New Mexico. It was a very cool town, that was sort of like and artists enclave or something. There were heaps of cool shops, that seemed very genuine, selling Indian wares and art etc. All of the buildings were adobe with ancient bits of timber hanging out. I guess it was kind of like going to mexico with out the bother of actually having to go to Mexico (who wants swine flu?).

After Santa Fe we made the delighful 10 hour drive into Dallas. I was a bit concerned with what Dallas would be like. It is the home of george Bush after all. On the way on the edge of the hwy were heaps of sign saying 'praise the lord', 'God bless america' and 'Support our troops' (as if sending young men of to die at war is somehow supportive, but we won't go into that). But Dallas is very pretty and green, in an almost tropical sort of way, and I haven't seen any cowboys toting guns around (yet).

So alls well, we're in a nice little apartment, set in gardens with a pool and a playground, so I think we'll just have some down time here.

Hope you're all well, thinking of you and missing you all heaps,

Love Nic

Whister in Canada

2009-04-13T19:59:00.000-07:00

Hi Everyone

I've been having the best time!! We're at Whistler in Canada and have been skiing for the last two days. It is absoluelty spectacular here. Just beautiful. I feel like I'm living a fairytale with all the snow covered pines and gorgeous chalet houses. Pictures speak louder than words - so heres some:

I think I'd like to live here! Tallis just loves skiing and has said that she would do anything other than die to be able to go skiing again. Ellery loved it to, but was a little scared to go too fast. Tallis and I both skiied from the top to the bottom of both the mountains here, which pretty much took all day. Its so much fun. I'd love to be able to ski everyday. I forgot how fun it is. Paul and I have only been downhill skiing once before, and now I can remember how afterwards we were planning to come every year. We promptly forgot - but now I remember again. (I'll probably forget shortly).

So I won't keep raving on - I'll switch to Portland. We didn't do an awful lot in Portland. The weather was bit crappy. Tallis and Ainsley both had their birthdays. Ainsley chose to go to the zoo, which she loved, but I think I'm a bit over zoos. We've seen three since we've been away and its really just not that interesting to look at a bunch of really bored (and boring) animals do very little. I've pretty much seen every animal, and I don't really need to again. But she had a nice time and thats what counts. Seeing as I missed out on a photo of her above, heres one on her birthday.

(Somthings going wrong here and I can't move the picture, so its at the top)

For Tallis, we brought a cake to a home school group meeting at an indoor playground and everyone sang Happy Birthday for her, this was the day before and then on her birthday day we went to the movies and saw monster vs. aliens in 3D. This whole 3D movie thing is very cool, very worth seeing. I hear they're doing it in Australia aswell. We also saw Coraline (by the same guy that did nightmare before christmas) in 3D which is meant to come out in Australia in August. Very strange seeing as we saw it in february, but monsters vs. aliens came out at the same time. Corlaine is definately worth seeing. I really loved it. It was a little scary, but surely if Ainsley can make it through anyone can.

Other cool things we did was go ice skating at a rink that was the bottom floor of a huge shopping centre. We went down the Columbia River hwy, which went past some of the most beaufitul waterfalls. The best was Multnomah falls, which strangely enough, I've actually got a huge framed picture of at home., so it was pretty cool to see it in real life. It was huge, really way high, I struggled to capture it in the one photo. I took some photos intending to join them together to make a mega photo, but still haven't got around to it and probably never will. Such is life.

We went to a book store named Powells, which was a new and used store that took up an entire block, and was mostly two story. I found books by my favourite authors that I didn't even know existed. It really romped all over borders. I could have spent days in there, but I'm really trying not to buy stuff. The first time I went in I took a bunch of our books to sell and off load some of our luggage. But of ocurse, being in bookstore like this one, I came out with just as many books as I sold. It was irresistable really. But I've always had this sort of relationship with books.

I know I'm a bit scant on detail about Portland, but I'm also a bit lazy, so there you go. Thats it for now,

Cheers,

Nicole

We made it to Portland!

2009-03-19T13:29:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone,

We finally made it to Portland after 4 days on the road.

It was a struggle to get away, we just had so much stuff. We ended up using the roof rack on the car which made a huge difference. We only left 3 hours after we had aimed for, which I thought was alright going, knowing us.

After leaving we needed to stop and pick upa tarp and proper ropes for the stuff on the roof, we evntually found somewhere, and as we drove up there was a huge bunch of mexicans on the side of the road. They were looking at us kind of funny, and kept motioning at us, which was all a bit scary., Turns out they were looking for work. Anyway, so Paul went and bought a tarp, which was all they had, and it was really thin. I was on the roof of the car and it flapping all around in the wind. Then some guy pulled over in his ute, and told us he had something much better. Turned out he had bags that are used to transport asbestos off site. They were really strong and we could just put our suitcases in and tape the ends up. Very handy. It rained monsoon style the whole way, and the only suitcases that got wet were the carry ons with the kids toys. On day 3 I checked the baggage and there was huge puddle at the bottom of that bag. So I just cut a slit at the bottom, a torrent poured out and then everything was fine. For once I was thankful that kids toys are all made of plastic - very easy to dry.

We saw somne really beautful scenery, especially the red forests. It was a shame that it rained so much, as we didn't really get out to look at stuff much. We did go for a bush walk in the red woods, in the rain, which was fine, except our shoes got so filthy and wet. It took more than a day for the kids shoes to dry, so because they only had one pair each, they didn't really get out of the car at all on the last day.

Anyway, heres a couple of photos from the trip:

Thats our car down the bottom there.

Threre were a few funny thing we saw - such as a casino in the middle of no where, in a huge big tent. Bigger than any circus tent I've seen, but a tent all the same. We figured there must be some by law about smoking in tents and Indians. Also funny was the sign advertising cage fights out the front.

The other funny attraction was a huge building on an Indian reservation advertsing the sovereign nation of elk valley. Seems we've now been to our second country.

Anyway, our house in Portland is quite nice. The only issue was that our car doesn't fit in the garage (stupid big beast), so I've paid to rent a car park in a parking complex about 5 minutes away.

Thats about it for now. Hmmm, bit of a boring blog. I'll do something interesting next time.

cheers,

Nicole

Yay - new blog

2009-03-07T20:34:00.001-08:00

Hi Everyone, sorry, I've been so slack at doing this blog. I just realised that its been two months.

So, heaps has been happening. We're still in San francisco, but we'll be leaving next Saturday. I'm pretty sure we'll be going to Portland, which is meant to be a really cool city like San Francisco. Theres also heaps of beautiful forests and waterfalls around there, so I'll be loving it!

Obviously we've been doing heaps, and theres no way I can put it all down here. So I'll keep it to the highlights. I'll start with now, and go back as far as I can be bothered.

So right now I'm totally preoccupied with having to pack up and leave. We've go way more stuff (with Christmas and birthday etc.), than when we arrived here, so I don't know how we're going to jam it all into the car. Ellery kindly said that she'd have a suitcase on her lap, so if I can get all the kids to agree to do the same, we might be able to take it all with us. If not, I'll have send to box back to Melbourne. I'm pretty sure thats what it'll come to. Thanks Mum.

Last week end, our upstairs neighbours Cynthia and Michael, who have two kids, Eli and Eva, offered to mind our kids for the weekend so that we could go away for the night. Very very nice of them. Anyway i organised a jam packed weekend with golf and horseriding and stuff. Had to pay upfront for it all too. It was classic when I rang the horse riding place - they couldn't understand my accent at all! I need to quote my credit card nunmber and they just couldn't get it so I asked if it would for me to put on an American accent. They agreed and I put on the corniest accent ever, read it out, and they got it straight away. The kids were laughing their heads of at me. Soon I'll forget how to say mate and g'day.

So on Saturday I jumped up, very excited at the prospect of going away only find that Lindsay and Ainsley had both thrown up. ARGHH! My hopes were dashed, my money spent and I plummeted into a very foul mood. Anyway - these saints upstairs said they were still happy to mind them! It was amazing! So we went! I did kind of feel like a bad mother, but oh well.

The place we went to was immensly beautiful. Very rugged coast line with jutting cliffs and red wood forests. We made it on time to have a hit of golf - my second game ever, and nine holes really seemed to take forever. Luckily the scenery was beautiful enogh to keep my occupied. I'm sure if I was a bit better, it would have been more entertaining. But 15 metre shots just wasn't quite satisfying. We stayed the night at the inn attached to the golf course. Any way - heres a photo of the golf course. Thats Paul putting the ball.

We had a great night at the inn, there was a hot tub outside which we sat and drank in all night. Realised we loved each other again, which was all very nice. Then in the morning we went horse riding. Yet again, I was totally inadequate. I was having a lovely old time, but I think the lady that took us thought I was no good, so we did hardly any cantering, which was a bit of a shame, because for me that was best bit. Paul thought I looked scared, which is probably what the lady thought. Oh well. We rode for 4 hours and our muscles were totally wrecked for the next few days.

Ainsley threw up again while we were away, and then Cynthia wound up really sick the next week. I felt a bit guilty. And then I got sick. Paul was away too, so I told the kids that if they did absolutely everything I asked all day, and cooked and cleaned and looked after Ainsley, then they could spend $1 at the milk bar. Which I know sounds kind of stingy, but you wouldn't believe how many lollies you can get for $1 here! It made me sicker again just watching them stuff their face - but you do what you need to to survive, and they fully deserved it.

Ummm, I'm running out of steam here - so just quickly - we had lovely birthdays. Paul took me to the symphony orchestra here - we heard some amazing prokofiev music that I'd never heard before. It was very inspiring and I decided that I needed to sit down and write a symphonic peice of music. But it wore off after a couple days- unfortunatly before I had the chance to do anything about it. Maybe one day...

Lindsay had a great day - Paul hired a porche boxter and they drove around together for the day. The next day we had a little party for him with the neighbours and a home school family that we met. It was a nice little affair. He was very pleased with it. And the American weere very imoressed with pass the parcel. Apparently nobody plays it here - and they'd never heard of it!

We met a lovely home school family - Cindy with her two boys Jack and Callum - and we've been doing heaps of stuff with them. Shes an actor and very cool. Tallis went on her first date with jack. They went to the movies (chaperoned by me and Cindy - we sat behind them), and Jack gave Tallis a big heart shaped necklace full of lollies. She was very happy.

The kids have stopped saying lollies, they now say candy. They also can't say 'r' anymore, they can only say 'rr'. Love that American accent. Lindsay taught the girl upstairs to say 'bunurnu' instead of' 'banana', which they all think is hilarious.

We became members of a fantastic museum called the Exploratorium. Its got a huge workshop, like out of mythbusters, where they make all these science experiments for the kids to do. Its all very rustic and the kids just love it. Heres some photos -

We've also been to some really gorgeous forests. Towering redwoods with ferns and streams and waterfalls. Everything I dream of and more. The kids really enjoy being out in nature - I'm sure theres an innate way of kids learning important things about being human by being in nature. I'm not sure that makes sense, but I know what I mean and I think its really important. Apparently theres some book called nature deficit disorder which I think probably explains what I'm trying to mean in much better detail. Heres some photos -

Anyway, thats it for now. I'll try to be a bit better at writing these blogs.

Hope evryone is well in Australia.

Mandy and Merri I hope your new little bubs are doing well. I'm sure they're very beautiful and wish I could be there to have cuddles. Jo - congratulations on your wedding.

Love Nic

2009-01-11T00:30:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year!!

We've been having a really good time. Its such a great city theres so much to! I ahven't written in ages and so we've done to much to go back into, so I'll start with today and work back as far as I can be bothered right now. Otherwise I might never keep writing this.

So... Today we went for a bit of a drive. I had to drop Paul at the airport at 8:30, so it meant we were all in the car and ready to go nice and early. So I decided it was the perfect opportunity to go just a little bit further. So I though I'd drive us to half moon bay, which I suppose is the equivalent Torquay in Melb. Anyway, we arrived there at before 10:00 so I though - nah, I can do better than this! And I'd remembered reading about a cove down the coast where you can collect Jade. So off we went. It was one of the most breathtaking drives I've ever been on. Like the great ocean road, just winding along the edge of the ocean for hours, and the weather was absolutley perfect - beautiful warm winter sunshine. Well, the drive ended up being a bit more than I'd catered for, it took 5 hours to get there! It was such a glorious drive that it didn't bother me, and I'd bribed the kids so that if they didn't whinge once all day, they would get an ice cream. It worked a dream. Heres some of the scenery:

Theres a bridge if you look hard -

Well, we're driving along having a merry old time, and nothing was sing posted, and then I saw the only sign I'd seen for mile and miles:

YAY! So I slammed on the brake and pulled over. It was quite a hike down to the water - there was even a section with rope to climb down, that was rather a bugger with Ainsley, but after five hours, there was no way we weren't going down! We finally made it on the a tiny little rocky cove, but sure enough there was heaps of really amazing rock. We did find a few tiny bits of jade, but there was lots of serpentium, which is just as cool to look at, but not as valuable. Heres some photos at the cove:

The kids had a great time, playing with all the rocks, and bits of sea weed. I forgot how good for them it is to be with real nature - they just totally chilled out and had a great time, they didn't want to leave.

Anyway leave we had to, as I had another 5 hour drive ahead of me. So on the road again, had a great time, the sun was setting across the water (what a novelty for those not living on a west coast), put some Benny Goodman on, wound down the windows and off we went. Well off course - the sunset! I decided I just had to stop to get out of the car with the kids and actually watch it go down. the kids weren't that keen, so I figured I'f just pull over with minutes to go, we'd all scramble out, watch for 10 mintues, and jump back in. Well, just my luck, I hot a bit of an inland bit just before that moment and din't know how long it would go - then we passed an offshoot road to the beach! Hooray! So off we drove, down a little wooded single lane road - and on and on it went. We finally got there, and there were all these people just returning from the beach. Clearly we'd missed it. Anyway we soldiered on and walked to the beach anyway - it would have been a lovely little beach had the sun not just gone down and the bitter cold returned. So we didn't stay long.

Heres a photo I took just before the sunset:

yeah I know - why did I stop driving at this point - I swear it looked like ages away before the actual setting.

So finally we were on the road again and the bloody oil light came on. It had popped on a few times before but it always went off just as quickly - but this time it stayed on. I've never put oil in a car before (yes its true), and didn't quite know what to do. Two service stations later, I found somewhere with the right oil, and who would do it for me. Ah. Anyway, I kind of realised that its really not the big deal I had thought it was.

So it ended up being nigh on 10 oclock when I finally got home. The kids dropped of straight away. And I can't stop hunchung from all that time in the car.

Anyway, You'll have to wait til another day before I recount anymore, because my tiredness has crept up me and I need to go to bed.

Hugs and Kisses to everyone

From Nic

Christmas cheer all round

2008-12-27T18:18:00.000-08:00

Hi Everyone - Merry Christmas!

Wow, I can't believe its been nearly two weeks since I've written. We've done so much! We went to a fantastic science museum which had a living roof, and an albino crocodile. The kids had a ball, and so did I. There were two huge domes built into the architecture, one which was an indoor rainforest, it was clear and the roof was clear, so it was more of a glass house, and the other one was a planetarium. We went to see the show at the planetarium, but unfortunately Ainsley freaked out with the dark and the creepy space music, so we had to leave. Tallis and Ellery stayed though, and we met them afterwards. They said it was the best show ever. They were a bit hazy on the details though. We also saw a 3d bug movie which was really well done. It was the life pf a butterfly and a preying mantis, where eventually the preying mantis ate the butterfly. Quite amazing to watch in 3d. Somehow Ainsley sat through it no worries. Never could predict a 2 year old. This is her with her 3D glasses...

This isside the rainforest dome...
And this is the living roof...

Ainsleys been going through an independent phase. One where she can't quite do everything for herself, but desperately wants to. Which is nice, because she getting dressed by herself, at 2, while Lindsay still quite happily wants me dress to dress him - at nearly 6! But its also difficult, because she really shouldn't be making her own toast, no matter how well she could do it on her own.

We've been to a few really nice restaurants. They're all over the place here! We staying in an area called north beach, which is the italian zone, chocked full with italian restaurants and little cafes. The stand out restaurant experience for me was called the 'Stinking Rose' - a restaurant dedicated to garlic! I think between us we ate about 100 cloves of garlic. After that I was walking around in an aura of garlic stench for days. It was leaching out of every pore of my body. But thankfully I love the smell of garlic, so it really wasn't an issue for me. Too bad about those around me.

We've been getting on really well with the neighbours upstairs. They've got a 5year old and a 6 year old. Lindsay has been loving their train track. A lot of the time the other kids will all be down in our house, and Lindsay will be up at their house by himself with the train track. He really is like Paul - totally oblivious to ther people. So they went away for christmas and brought down the track for Lindsay to play with while they were gone. They've also offered to babysit if we need it, which is great, there seems to be great night life going on around here.

We built a gingerbread house for christmas, which I was expected to be fairly simple. I was soooo wrong. I had no idea how long it takes for the icing to set, and just though it would just glue together nicely. Instead I ended up with everything sliding off, and then bits broke, and the the whole thing kept collapsing. It started off all beautiful and neat and symmetrical, but after many rescue attempts, it looked like there had been a blizzard of lollies. Even poor santa out the front got snow in his eyes. Eventually I got it to stand by itself after bracing it over night with all sorts of tinned food and boxes etc.

So we ended up having a really nice christmas. It was just a simple one, we didn't go anywhere. But Santa was particularly creative with a hunt for little chocolate santas around the house. Even Tallis commented on how well santa did this year. I told her it was because of the good behaviour, and that if they behave even better next year, Santa might get even more creative! The presents were all a hit, a few board games for entertainment and we bought the kids an electronics kit, which is a great one, with hundreds of easy to make projects. The kids have been really keen so far. Paul bought me a kit which teaches me how micro controllers work, so that one day I may be able to build a robot (a big dream of mine). Mum bought the kids some presents when she was here, which was nice to add a bit of flavour - everything else was from us and Santa - she gave ainsley some playdough which has been a huge hit. She calls it her volcano, and just sits at the table for hours with it. And shes so clean too, which really helps with how often shes allowed to play with it. We had a nice roast lunch, and were so full that we didn't end up eating any of the desert, and then we had the roof of the ginger bread house for dinner. Very nutritious, but thats christmas for you.

Yesterday we went on a tour in a ww2 submarine and on a liberty ship. The sub was pretty cool, but I don't think I could spend more than a day on one. The guys that did it in the war were out there for months. Like a prison. In fact, if I had to choose I'd probably prefer alcatraz. Heres a photo of us in the dining room...

On the ship was a bit scary. They engine room was the one used in the movie titanic. I felt so famous by association. But there were all these narrow high little walkways and very steep stairs. And with Ainsley being little miss independent, she wanted to go up and down the stairs by herself. It really freaked me out. The posters about danger and enter at own risk didn't help either. So I jumped ship with the girls and left Paul and Lindsay to it. We found an antique parlour game museum which was really fun. Everything was still operating too. There were races where two people had to wind their wheels to get their horses to the end first and a great little excavator which you could pick up gum balls with and drop them down the shoot for yourself. This provided the most entertainment as we filled our pockets for only a few quarters.

Then Today we went ice skating. It was great fun, but soo tiring. It didn't take too long to get the hang of, and even Lindsay ended up being able to go around without holding the edge. Tallis could spin in a circle too. Heres some photos of the kids...

We had a great day. Hope you have all been having a good christmas, and that everyone has a really good new year, and that you all have a drink for me on new years eve.

Cheers, from Nic

Yosemite

2008-12-14T11:58:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone,

Finally got off my bum, and am updating my blog. The last week in LA we didn't really get up to much. I had to do a bit of advertising stuff for Paul, and that took a lot of time. We said farewell to our homeschool friends which was a bit sad. I really started to like everyone there. On the last weekend we went to a really cool science museum. Forgot the camera so no pics, but some of the hands on exhibits were great. They even had a little set up for making time lapse animations, with plastic animals. Very cool. We watched a 4D movie(3D with smoke machines, smells and special lighting effects) about dinosaurs which also very cool, even if a little bit scary for the kids. The dinosaurs really seemed to come out.

Getting out of the house in Hintington beach was painful. As usual I totally underestimated the amount of time that everything would take. By a factor of 5 I reckon. So I was totally frantic by the end, rushing around trying to extract all of our stuff that had gotten mixed up with their stuff. Then, as I got into the car to drive away a message on the dashboard said that the boot door wasn't closed properly. So I got out, and reopened it to close it right, and all of my groceries fell out. Two bottles of dressing broke on the floor, with glass everywhere, honey mustard all splashed over my leg. So we didn't end up leaving until about 11:00, after I'd really commited myself to leaving early. So off we went to Yosemite. I was very excited.

And I should have been because Yosemite was just amazing. Massive granite oucrops, and vast pine forests. There was a huge valley with the towering granite on either side, and waterfalls dropping over the sides. Heres a couple of the hundreds of pics that I took.

We saw heaps of wild life too, heres a coyote and some deer that we saw.

Luckily we didn't see any bears. There were heaps of warnings about how they could bend back your car door just to get at a chocolate bar wrapper. I did kind of freak out a little bit, but I decided that they must be hibernating, being winter. On the first day when I was unloading the car, by myself, in the dark, in the middle of a pine forest, my heart was beating so hard I swear I could hear it. But then on the last day, we were all inside eating breakfast, and the car alarm went off. I went out, and it looked like there were bear pawprints on the car. Very freaky. This is the house that we stayed in.

We also saw some of the largest trees in the world. Giant sequoias. WOW! It was through one of these trees that they made the car tunnel. But that tree fell over in the 60's and they haven't done it again, because they're trying to look after the trees. Apparently a lot of them are falling over because they have very shallow roots, and all the tourists damage them by walking around the trees. They have set paths now that you're not meant to go off, although heaps of idiots were. Grrrr. Also, they really need wild fires to help keep the other trees down so that can get the right amount of sunshine, and because people have been putting out any fires for the last 100 years, the popluation of these trees have been dwindling. So they're just starting doing controlled burns to help with this. You can see the burnt bit at the bottom. Those little specks, also at the bottom, are the kids (you might need to enlarge it). Thats how huge these trees were. This one was over 3000 years old.

Its also a very popular place for rock climbing. Theres a famous climb that people do here, that take 3 days, and they sleep on the rock face. Eeeek. This is Lindsay ahving a go.

Good Luck!

So now we're in San Francisco. I think I'll really like it here. We're very much in the thick of it here. In a nice little apartment with in walking distance to everything. We went to Alcatraz yesterday. It was really interesting, but kind of in a state of disrepair. I don't think they get so much money from the government for toursim in the same way that Australia does. There was a bit of a drive to get money from visitors to save the rock. It was still really good though. We did an audio tour that told/showed us where those guys dug around the side of an airvent with their spoons to escape. Nobody knows what happened to them. Mostly they think they drowned in the trecherous seas around the island. Yet again, I forgot the camera.

The other day Ellery was telling me that she'd rather go to Jail than pay a fine, because that way she gets to keep her money. After our visit to Alcatraz yesterday, shes changed her mind.

Well, I need to go and buy some food, we've got next to nothing here right now, and I really need to find a supermarket. I'm a bit scared to drive to one, because I don't think there will be parking. Not around here anyway. But I've got to buy too much to be able walk to one. I need a wheel barrow or something.

Anyway, hope all is well back in Aus, cheers

from Nic

Thanksgiving

2008-11-27T16:46:00.000-08:00

Hi Everyone and happy Thanksgiving.

I'm a true American now and I went all out for thanksgiving. Thought I'd let the kids have a taste of America. I was a bit scared of pre packaged things, after many bad experiences and ended up quite enjoying making stuffing, pumpkin pie (even the pastry), cranberry sauce and other things from scratch. I'm very proud of myself! The turkey was massive. The drumsticks were nearly the size of a whole chicken - check it out...

And in the forground is our veritable mountain of turkey. Turns out thanksgiving is about the help that the Indians gave the pilgrims with food, because they were all dying of starvation. Which is lovely, but I can't help thinking about how the pilgrims then went and stole all their land and waged war on the Indians. I wonder what the Indians think of thanksgiving day. Anyway, we enjoyed it.

We went to Knotts Berry Farm on Monday, which is another HUGE amusement park. There were some killer rollercoasters there. One of them left a massive bruise on my arm where I had braced myself against the side of the wagon. This is a photo I pulled of the internet because none of mine worked out.

It was totally rough, and bumped around all over the place and went at 55 miles per hour in some places, which is 88 km per hour. It was so shocking to the system that my brain froze and I couldn't even think to be scared. We went on a bunch of other rides, paid $70 US for a very dodgy lunch and that was about it.

The Le Brea tar pits were something totally different, however. Smack bang in the middle of LA are these tar pits. Huge black masses of ashphalt , suplhur bubbling up to the top like wind in the bath. It was in this ashphalt that wooly mammoths, sabre tooth cats, dire wolfs, bears and American lions found themselves stuck more than 40,000 years ago. The tar preserved the bones, and there was a huge museum stocked with the rebuilt animals. Very fascinating. The most amazing thing was all this tar seeping out of the ground. I forgot to bring my camera, I got these photos off the net aswell (I'm beginning to think I don't need my camera, I'll just get all my photo keepsakes of the net).
There was a huge lake of tar, and then there were places where it just bubbled up from the ground...
A homeschool family told me that theres quite a lot of it in LA, and that sometimes after going to the beach they would come home with tar stuck to the bottom of their feet.

Anyway, we're out of here (Hunting Beach in LA) on Saturday the 6th and then we're off to San Francisco. Paul has to go to Texas in between, so I though I'd take the kids for a trip to Yosemite national PArk.

Cheers, From Nicole

Pirates and Indians

2008-11-19T10:12:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone,

We've haven't really done much lately. The kids and me are a bit tired. I'm going to start taking my iron supplements again. Hopefully then I'll wake feeling like I want to wake up.

We went to an Indian Museum last week. It had a small indoor area with relics from when Indians were living in the area, and explantions about what things were. There was stuff going back as far as 1500BC! We read about their diet, (laregly animals and acorns) and I really wondered how it was they weren't all suffering from nutrient deficiencies! Why am I? Anyway, there was some fantastic basket work including a tight fighting basket cap that a lady indian mannequin was wearing. I thought it looked pretty cool, I'd wear it.

Then there was a huge outdoor area with indian huts, massive old oak tree groves, a games arena, caves with Indian Paintings (we didn't make it to these, but plan to go again), and huge flat rocks where the Indian ladies had left holes from where they'd been grounding acorns for flour. So the kids had ball pretending to be Indians. They ground acorns, had taste aswell - very bitter - ground face paint, painted themselves, and then we decided that we'd like to live this way. Well, I decided that a long time ago, but haven't really done anything about it, and then I had to explain to the kids why we couldn't live like that. Though I'm not sure I really convinced myself or them! Dreams of living self sufficiently rose to the surface.

It was on this day that I needed to pick Mum up from her tour to the grand canyon. I passed the pickup point on my way to the Indian Museum, and timed that it was only 40 minutes away. However, on my return, at only 3:15 in the afternoon the traffic had picked up remarkably! So I thought I'd be smart and take a shortcut. I passed a sign saying Mullholland Drive, it clearly wasn't the famous part, we'd been on that, but I did remember reading somewhere that it extended all the way to the coast, so I thought it would pop out way further up the freeway, where I'd been on it before. So off I went. Next thing I'm on a dirt road - still Mullholland - and then there was a gate into a state park blocking my way! So I dug out my map, which was extremely low on detail, and found that without the gate, it would indeed have been quite a short cut. But there was no helping now. I was meant to be meeting Mum at this point! I'd already made a major detour from my original route, so I ended up taking a cross mountain route that then led me through Santa Monica, Mailbu, and Venice Beach. I ended up being a dramatic 2 1/2 hours late to get Mum. My Mobile was out of batteries too, so I couldn't let her know or anything. It was all extremely stressful. Poor Mum.

Anway, she stayed the next day and then had to go out to the airport to fly away to Hawaii. It was a bit sad saying goodbye, sort of like the last vestige of my life in Australia for a long time. When we drove out to the airport there was smoke everywhere! There were huge fires on this day, and the sun was totally red from all the smoke. Many houses were burnt down, but we were a long way from the danger. It did, however, make the comparisons between fires in Ferny Creek and fires in California seem very overstretched. These fires were each larger than 600 acres, and apparently fires such as these rage every year, often more. It was very eerie with all that smoke.

On Sunday we took the kids sailing. They had a great time learning about steering with the rudder and which heading you need to take into the wind to make the boat go at its fastest. We saw a huge big old wooden ship, which was firing cannons. THe guy at the boat hire place told us that there a few of them around, and that sometimes the go out together and hold mock battles. There must be quite a few rich eccentrics around here. We decided that it was a pirate ship though - more fun for the kids.

We also saw some dolphins, which was quite surprising. I've never seen dolphins in the wild before. The kids had a great time nad there wasn't a sign of sea sickness, and thats fantastic because it means a long sailing trip really is a possibility, as we've been dreaming for a while.

Anyway, thats about it. Tomorrow we're going to the la brea tar pits, where prehistoric animals were preserved for thousands of years. So that'll be in my next post. Also, if people would email more that'd be so nice, I'm starting to feel a little home sick.

Cheers, from Nic

Huntington Gardens

2008-11-10T17:11:00.000-08:00

Hello.

Very aggravating day today. Because of this gated community, we can't get mail delivered to this address - theres some complicated mail system happening here, and we're not part of it. Anyway, to register our car I need a mailing address in california. So I went to get a post office box, but I can't because I need a physical mailing address in the US to be able to get one. Grrrrr. So we can't get mail here. At all. I'll have to really get friendly with some of the Mums at home school group and see if I can get them to help me get a mailbox. Anyway...

Mum has gone now, shes on a tour of the Grand Canyon. We had a really quiet day and I decided I'd get the vacuum cleaner out for the first time. (The place was tsartinf to look really grotty with out Ptuni to clean up after us and with carpet under the dining table). It was a big heavy beast of thing (like many things here in the US), one of those upright vacuums. I struggled with it, but the place looks way better. I realised that just because I'm away doesn't mean I don't have to do any housework.

On Friday we went to some really beautiful botanical gardens. They were so well designed and they went by themes. The photos explain it all -

This was inside a huge conservatory where there were plant science exhibits set up...

This was another area inside the conservatory where you could learn about sub tropical rainforests...

There was a childrens garden that had this misting area, the kids loved it!

Then there was a Japanese garden that was just exquisite - there was a zen area with a huge sand raking area, a bonsai gallery - with heaps of HUGE ones, and this really pretty bridge...
And heres just a cute shot of the kids...

On Sunday we went to the aquarium, we were really tired so it was a bit of a mistake, because I don't think we appreciated it properly. Although I've never really appreciated fish... and Paul definately doesn't (he's allergic).

Heres a couple of photos of us at the aquarium - just for good measure.

This was at a touch pool, with sharks! Yep they could touch sharks. Very slimy by the way.

And this was in a cool fish tank.

Anyway, everyone else is leaving for the pool, and I want to go too!

So bye, from Nic

2008-11-06T20:46:00.000-08:00

Hello, finally got around to another blog. We have been hardcore tourists in the last week, with having Mum here. Sooo tired, but we've seen heaps.

I guess it starts with halloween. I've never seen so many lollies (caindee) in my life! Neither have the kids, not in their wildest dreams. Check out all those lollies...

And these were just Ellerys - mulitply this by 4! I was kind of hoping that if I let them have free riegn over how many they ate, maybe they would learn that lollies are not so great as what they imagine. Unfortunatley it just didn't work - this is what I woke to the next morning - at least they ate breakfast first.

They managed to demolish all these lollies injust two days - every single one - and nobody threw or complained of sore tummies or anything. They never cease to amaze me. Anyway, for weeks I'll have a great excuse not to give them anything sweet.

So we went to the nice ladies house for halloween and the trick or treating was just amazing. People go to such a bit effort. One house had a garage set up as a scary maze, with all this black plastic and strobe lights going, and people that stuck bloodied hands out through the plastic at you. The scariest house had dressed up people lying on the lawn and really scary friday the 13th type music going. There was someone in the wheelie bin bumping the lid up and down, a guy on the roof dressed up like a zombie and bloody finger prints all around the windows. When we walked down the drive the people on the lawn slowly got up like living dead and wandered towards us. THe kids absoluely freaked! The people realised and took of their face masks and apolgised, and brought more lollies which salved all wounds. This was just one of the houses we saw, there were many that were equally if not more impressive.

The kids wore these costumes.

The next day Mum minded the kids while Paul and I went out for the day. We went for a sailing trip and then went into Hollywood and Beverly Hills for dinner. We had a good squizz at the houses there (felt very corny), they were huge! Made our house look like a little cottage. Must cost an absolute fortune. WE saw a celebrity tour bus going around which we followed for a bit, so I'm sure we were seeing famous peoples houses, just not sure who.

Then we went for a cruise down Mullholland drive. THe views were just amazing. As you drove along you got views of LA in all directions. Talk about urban sprawl, the lights seriously went as far as the eye could see (mind you that could have more to do with the smog than the sprawl). Anyways heres the best photo I took. My camera really struggles with out the flash on, and with the flash I could only get the fore ground.

The next day Mum and I went to the Getty Centre with Ainsley. Its a massive art centre which was a collection belonging to John Paul Getty (or something) and he left it as a trust. Its completely free and amazingly well kept. The were works by monet, van gogh and the well known artists (whose names escape me at this moment). Great viewing, but you can only walk so far (the place really was huge) before it all starts to look a bit the same.

There were also these amazing gardens. Really artistic stuff.

Election day on Tuesday - Obama won! Yay, I'm sure the whole world is breathing a collective sigh of relief. I sure am. Had to pick Paul up from the airport late this night, he'd had a trip to boston. Got there too early and decided I'd go get some petrol. Drove down the wrong side of a very busy main road to get to the petrol station, had heaps of cars honking me. Everyone stared at me at the petrol station. Then my card didn't work in the pump (you have to pre pay here), so I went and pre paid my petrol, but did it for the wrong pump. Then I'm standing at my car with the nozzle wondering why nothing was coming out. Took a while before I realised and had to drive round to the correct pump. Der! Just can't make it past about 9:00 at night here with out suffering from severe brain fade.

Then yesterday we went to San Diego Zoo. We had a really good day. They had much the smae animals that Melbourne Zoo has, but the viewing was so much better. It wasn't because of small enclosures (unlike Sydney Zoo), must have just been really well designed. Also the gardens were absolutely immaculate. Most beautiful tropical jungle type stuff. I took this photo from the chair lift -
When we were looking at the reptiles, Tallis was looking at a snake, and I was holding my head above hers looking at the same snake, then she tossed her head up and gave me a massive fat lip, blood and all. Ouch is the polite way to explain how it felt.

Afterwards we went into Sand Diego city and had dinner at Hard Rock Cafe. They had these plastic cups for the kids, that were quite good quality. Ainsley wanted to take hers with her because she hadn't finshed her drink when we were ready to go. I wasn't quite sure whether the cups were given out with that in mind, so I asked the waitress if they reused the cups or not. She said no. Which was kind of shocking because they were definately way better quality than any disposable cup I've seen, and because the whole kids pack thing with coloring and mazes and that they give out to the kids had a theme of save the planet. It wasn't until I got home and had a proper look at this cup that I realised it had re-use and recycle slogans plastered all over it. Grrrr, it really riles me. Overall the meal was really nice though.

Then we went through the mall back to where the car was parked, and we stopped to look at a childrens wear shop, and Ainsley pooed all over the floor. She had no undies or nappy, because all ready on the way back to the car she'd ripped of her nappy, and we binned it thinking we would soon be back at the car. It was extremely embarassing. I cleaned it all up with paper towel that the lady gave me in the shop. I really just can't wait until Ainsley is fully toilet trained. After changing nappies for 8 years straight, I've really had enough of this poo thing.

I just realised how whingy this whole blog has gotten, and its past 9:00. I'm way too tired to keep doing this, I really must go to bed...

Hope everything is going well back in Australia, cheers from Nic

Bigger is better

2008-10-29T20:35:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone,

Things are going really well here now. I went through a small adjustment period, but now it all feels normal. We've done heaps in the last week, its hard to write it all.

I guess I should start with the rock pools, that we saw at a state park, and there was so much wild life! It was quite amazing for somewhere that has such a huge population. How does life manage to thrive like that in all the pollution? And there would have been even more if there weren't a bunch of idiots with their buckets making their own personal collections - despite all the signs explaining the fines they would get if caught. I started trying to tell one lady that it was illegal, but then I noticed a massive biker dude doing the same thing, so I promptly shut my mouth. Even so, the rock pools were great, heaps of hermit crabs and anenomes (wish this blog writer had a spell check) and urchins.

Then we went to Disney Land again to use up our second day. Went on a week day which was vastly better. Minimal waits for rides made all the difference - and really it was all about the rides for us, the kids had sub zero interest for parades and cartoon character autographs. Paul managed to put his back out on a huge rollercoaster there. He said that when it went upside down his neck jerked and he just felt daggers in his shoulders. Luckily we found one of the only places in Disney that served alcohol so he could dull the pain enough to last out the day. It tooks days to return to normal. Poor Boy.

The next day I picked up Mum at the airport. Shes with us for two weeks, which will is nice. Went to the LA Museum of Natural history which was gerat. They had a spier pavillion going, which was like a butterfly house, but with spiders. They were all pretty harmless, but some were quite impressive. The visitor spider from Malaysia was huge! Saw a few live tarantulas (not on loose - phew), theres something just so creepy about those spiders, must be all that hair. They also had the most vast gem and mineral collection I've ever seen! I'm always so amazed that these rocks are created in and by nature - some of them just look so man made and glitzy. Very very impressive.
Went to the homeschool group again aswell. The ladies there are so nice, we've been invited to one of their houses to do trick or treating on halloween with them and to borrow some of their costumes. This crazy little gated 'community' forbids it here. We're also not allowed to recieve mail. You have to organise with the people that run this place to have a special little mail box, the post man can't deliver to the houses here. So the costumes I bought from ebay won't be coming. Who knows what'll happen to them. Waste of $22 (read $40AUD).
Then today we went to a colonial spanish mission. I really loved it. It was nice to go somewhere that was real, not all this artificial entertainment that seems to be the skeleton of LA. The buildings were more than 230 years old and they had great little exhibit rooms in them full of the type of furniture and clothes that they wore.

Clearly we were all very happy here.

I've also come to the conclusion that America is very similar to Australia, except that everything is just bigger. A lot of LA actually looks like Dandenong. With big buildings for shops and take away food etc. Anyway, I took this great picture of an onion. When I saw it in the store, I just had to buy it. Such a novelty. Its sitting on a piece of A4 paper, with a $2 coin. And believe it or not - its organic! Try sitting on anormal onion on a piece of A4 paper and see the difference.

Also got this great pic of the sandwich I had at the museum. Note the 10 layers of ham, and the toothpick they needed to hold it all together. (Click it to see life size). Its just so American!

The other massive American thing that we bought was this beast of a car. I feel a bit ashamed of myself, after all my whinging about the Landcruiser to have gone and bought something equally bad, if not worse. I'm consoling myself with the fact that its only very short term. Functionally though, its great. We can have all the seats down and still fit all our luggage in the back. We also got a bargain! 2001 and one luxury model (leather etc.) for $6500 Australian! After selling our 1993 equivalent for $10000! We may even make a profit when we got to sell it at the end, because the dealers had this model for about $12000 Australian.

Which brings me to our plummeting dollar. Its all very depressing, I've taken to doubling everything to work out the exchange rate, which really makes me cringe when I pay $9 for a 200g block of cheese, or $7.50 for a coffee. Some things are quite a bit cheaper, but its not really the everyday stuff. Theres not a lot I can do though. Maybe we can get the Brits in our house to pay rent in American dollars.

Anyway, I'll try to blog again sooner, cheers, from Nic

Pumpkins

2008-10-20T10:37:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we went to a Fall Festival at an environmental centre. The centre had plantings representing the 8 different ecosystems of california. It was really well done and beautiful. Strange to look at plants that I'd normally consider as introduced and know that they are native to where I am. The kids did a whole bunch of crafts which were set up picnic tables around the forests, and plants (i'd call it a garden, but it wasn't quite). The crafts were managed by girl scouts who all had tanned freckled skin, were skinny and had blonde hair. It was disquieting. There was a really cool 'pumpkin patch' where you could choose your pumpkins for halloween carving. Anyway heres some photos.

I found a really great organic store here. Its just huge, with nearly everything you could think of in organic. The prices were reasonable as well. We've been feasting on organic sweet potato chips, they're so yum! The birds at the beach agree too, we were there the other day and they pecked through a pack of unopened chips and ate them all! At this store, there was a dispenser near the trolleys, of disinefectant wipes, so you could wipe the germs of the handle of the trolley. They really are paranoid here. About half of the TV advertising is for cleaning products. The other half is for prescription medicine.

The beach here is fantastic, the sand is perfect for building castles, we built a canal city the other day, the waves are perfect for boogie boarding and the weather is perfect too. Its in farenheit, but I'd guess about 25-28 everyday. (Slightly too hot for me, but great for swimming and the beach).

We're mostly over jet lag now, which is great. I'm getting used to the driving too. I don't think I'll ever get used to the bread though. Theres so much sugar in that it's putting me off toast and sandwiches, which is a bit sad, because that was more than half my diet in Aus. Its also a waste of the six tube of vegemite that I brought. Its like trying to have vegemite on a scone.

Anyways, I shouold be educating the kids right now, so I'd better be off. Cheers, Nic

2008-10-14T12:18:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I forgot to explain why its boobooadventure.com, it was because all the reasonable names were taken and this was a last resort. At least it is memorable.

I also wanted to put in some photos of disneyland... it was hard to take great photos, with out getting someone esles bum in the picture, it was that crowded, but this is the best of what I managed.

Had a shopping day today. Went to walmart. WOW! It was vast. It was the size of about 3 bunnings, but still I struggled to find the stuff I wanted (like a some proper coloring pencils such as derwent). Everything was dirt cheap! I picked up a 24pack of crayola textas for $2! A mobile phone with 300 minutes phone credit including intenational for $30! Bargain city. I almost became a shop lover again, but I managed to stay restrained and only bought what I needed. When I paid I used credit, I swiped my card and then waited for the lady to give me the docket to sign. I stood there stupidly for about a minute before asking the lady if I needed to sign. She kindly pointed out that I had to sign using the elctronic pen on the little eftpos screen. It was such a novelty which made me laugh, and she just looked at me like I was a fuitcake.

I also went to a supermarket which was also huge. It was tough going, because I didn't recognise any of the brands, and had no idea what anything was. I basically had to read all the labels and healthy options were few and far between. There were a few wierd and wonderful oddities like grapple... the grape flavoured apple. There was also a starbucks store with in the supermarket. You really need that caffeine kick just to make it from one end of the store to the other.

Anyway, I'm keeling over with tirednesss, even though its only lunch time. This morning I decided to set the alarm and get up early (at 8:30 instead of 11:00) but because I didn't really get to sleep until about 2:00. The idea is that if I wake up early, I'll get to sleep earlier and it will all work out. Same goes for the kids. Yesterday Paul asked Tallis (an hour after she woke up) why she hadn't bounced out of bed. She replied 'I did bounce out of bed, but now I want to bounce back in again'.

So I'm going to have a read on the couch. Cheers, Nic

My first real American Venture

2008-10-13T19:02:00.000-07:00

Hi Everyone,

I amazed myself and actually did make a blog. How long it will last I can't be sure, but for now its on!
We went to Disneyland yesterday, we planned an early start to the make most of $300 (yes thats right) it cost, but somehow didn't make it there until midday. Its that dastardly jetlag. Anyway, the place was absolotuley crowded. It took close to an hour to get on some rides, and they only went for about 3 minutes. Not including the walk between rides, that works out to 6% of time on rides. The rest was spent battling the crowds and trying not to spend money at one of the many money holes. Thankfully the atmosphere was quite good, the gardens were absolutely immaculate, and there was not a scrap of rubbish to be seen. The best ride was the space mountain which was an indoor rollercoaster, that went through space, it was all dark with stars and that so you couldn't see what was coming up, and it was all sharp corners and dramatic drops. I also discovered that my fear of rides and rollercoasters etc., has nothing at to do with the ride flinging my body around, and everything to do with the rickety looking structures they are built upon. That was the great thing about disneyland, everything seemed so strong and secure and safe.
After Disney, I took my first drive on the wrong side of the road. The wierdest thing, which I didn't expect, was that I kept veering over to the right, because I thought the middle of the car was actually the right side of the car, and that the left side had another half a car hanging out. So i drove up few gutters, (lucky we had huge 4wd american beast) but it was otherwise smooth sailing. Today I went for a short drive down the wrong side, but another car quickly alerted me as to my error, by driving at me head on. Its a sharp learning curve.
I met the home school group today. THEY WERE NORMAL! They understood sarcasm and laughed at my jokes and everything! I was stoked. I was previously concerned that my talent for sarcasm and dry wit would be totally lost, and that I'd have nothing to go (I generally rely on wit to make new friends). Yesterday at Disneyland somebody told me how well behaved the kids were, and how do I do it? So I gave them my usual response and said "with a big stick" and they looked like they were going to run and tell social services or something. I tried to laugh and say only kidding, but I'm not sure they were convinced. Anyway, with the people today I really like them, and found myself fitting in quite well, I even found myself talking with a slight American Lilt (Arghhhh!).
Anyways Pauls here, he's brought home some more Mexican take away, its everywhere here! I'm sure I'll tire of it eventually, but in the mean time Viva la Mexicano!
Bye