We're coming back!

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

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

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

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!

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

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

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