Australia Day... 26 January

We had a wonderful Australia Day! We spent the holiday with our friends from Canada, Naomi, Berrill and their son Ryan who is the same age as Anna. We all headed down to Darling Harbour and then on to downtown Sydney and Hyde Park for the day. We enjoyed lots of food, some beer, and beautiful weather. Here are some pictures:

Blake and Brady (wearing my sunglasses) on the ferris wheel at Darling Harbour:

Allison and Anna on the ferris wheel:

The Watermeier family on the wheel (Brady wasn't too cooperative):

And finally we got to see Brady's favourite, Dorothy the Dinosaur...

Dorothy was just too exciting, so he settled in for a nice sleep in Hyde Park...

It was nice to celebrate a great holiday in a new country and to live as the Australians do in the middle of the summer! (Yeah, I know all of you suffering in the cold are jealous!)

We found a house!

Well, after a lot of searching we have finally found a place to live! We are SO excited to finally have somewhere to call home, even though it will be a few weeks until we're moved in. We were fortunate enough to find a lovely 4 bedroom home in North Sydney, just blocks away from 3 of our favourite suburbs... North Sydney, Crows Nest and Neutral Bay. We will be directly across the street from St. Leonard's Park, so the children will have plenty of room to run around and play on the playground. We'll also be able to walk to views of the harbour and will be 2 train stops (5 minutes) away from the Olympic pool and the Sydney Harbour Bridge. It will be so nice to be in town and so close to everything... much closer than we had ever hoped! Our house was built c1900 in the Victorian Era and has beautiful stained glass and original tiled fireplaces (although we can't use them due to fire regulations). It was just re-painted both inside and out and has new carpet in the bedrooms and polished timber floors in the rest of the house. We'll have some gardening to do, but that will be good for me! Hopefully the Sydney Funnel Web spider won't come out to join me at that... I have hiking boots and long shovels on the plan, and as you know, I'm not much of a gardner, so this will be a real treat and scare for me!!!

We'll be moving in by 11 February and hope to have our computer in place by then. As my laptop is officially dead now, I can only use Blake's during the evenings and won't be able to post any pictures until our desktop arrives by sea, so bear with me! I'll be sure to post the pictures from our Wildlife extravaganza by then as well.

Love to all and Happy Australia Day on 26 January (the day the Brits docked in Sydney with their prisoners in 1788 and began a city/country)!!

Also, Blake is being taken to the mens finals of the Australian Open in Melbourne on our Sunday night by one of his clients, so look for him on TV!!

Our wildlife experience

We visited the Sydney Wildlife Museum last Sunday in order for us to see some "touristy" things around here. Besides the discovery that we have the 3 most venemous snakes in the world we did pretty well! The Inland Taipan snake is the deadliest and one bite can produce enough venom to kill 100 humans!! Guess we're screwed if we run into that one. The good part is that they live in the northeast part of Australia, so we should be OK. I have to say, though, that the most poisonous snakes here look pretty unobtrusive... we also discovered that we are the only continent in the world where the venemous snakes outnumber the "friendly, non venemous ones".

We also got to see the Sydney Funnel Web spider up close (through glass). This spider is the deadliest spider in the world. Since the anecdote came out in 1980 no one has died... but before then you were dead if you got bitten. If you get bitten you need to immediately dial emergency at 000 and tourniquet the bite so the venom doesn't travel to your brain and send your nervous system into an uproar. Sounds fun, doesn't it?? We've been told we didn't need to go to the museum to see one, we'll likely see one on our own fairly quickly. Fabulous.

Around the townhouse

Daddy and the kids after work

Now that we're getting settled in a bit, the kids are getting adjusted to our life here. Brady has learned to share with Anna... especially when it comes to food. Since at 9 1/2 months old baby girl still doesn't even have 1 tooth, I have to be constantly watching what he tries to feed her. He tried BBQ pork when she was 3 months old, and lately he's been trying to feed her grapes (gulp) so I watch him like a hawk.

Brady discovered that Anna is quite fond of salt and vinegar potato chips...

Caught in the act...

Brady is also up to his usual silly antics, as shown here:

Anna's a little ticked about him having her pacifiers,

especially since he doesn't even like them and she's completely addicted.

As for what's new with us over here, we're still busy hunting for a place to live. The rental market is absolutely insane around here. We found several places we liked last Saturday and put in our applications on Monday, only to discover that the place we liked the best had been leased to an applicant who submitted their application immediately after inspection on Saturday! We now realize we'll need to apply more quickly to get what we want. We're finally going out with the relocation agent on Thursday, so maybe we'll find something on that hunt.

We went to the park today and it reminded me of something else that deserves mention in Australia. Flies. The best way for me to describe them is to quote American travel writer Bill Bryson in his book In A Sunburned Country : "Flies are of course always irksome, but the Australian variety distinguishes itself with its very particular persistence. If an Australian fly wants to be up your nose or in your ear, there is no discouraging him. Flick at him as you will and each time he will jump out of range and come straight back. It is simply not possible to deter him. An Australian fly will try to suck the moisture off your eyeball. He will, if not constantly turned back, go into parts of your ears that a Q-tip can only dream about. He will happily die for the glory of taking a tiny dump on your tongue." This is all quite true, and also note that if you've never read a Bill Bryson book, they are very worth reading! He's funny as heck! We've all been "attacked" by flies here and it's especially annoying when the fly is on one of the kids and WON'T LEAVE. Blake assures me that the flies in Melbourne are worse than in Sydney, and I believe him... they actually had a story on the news about it the other day.

More to come on Australian wildlife!

Before I forget...

Just amazing, aren't they?? Here are some photos taken by one of Blake's co-workers at midnight 2008...

New Years Eve

OK, let me just say that this city's fireworks blow away any other that I've ever seen. Let me also follow that with the fact that we didn't actually SEE the "real" fireworks except on TV, with doors open so we could still hear all the hubbub and cheers. We did, however, get to see the 9 o'clock fireworks that Sydney does especially for families at the same location as the later ones. We're planning to start looking for a sitter for next year's midnight fireworks very soon, as we believe it will take that long!! There actually IS a reason that Sydney's fireworks are publisicised all over America... I guess being the first major city in the world to celebrate the New Year makes for a great show!

Blake worked on the 31st but came home in time for us to take the kids down the rail a few stops to Milson's Point just under the Harbour Bridge for the fireworks. We wound up sitting right next to the first Americans we've met so far in Australia! They were very sweet and have lived here for a year but his job is calling them back to Indiana in April, so I'm kind of sad to meet someone who's about to leave so soon! They had 3 lovely daughters, twins who are 4 and a 13 month old who looked big enough to eat Anna for lunch! We had heaps of fun though, and are so glad we did it. The kids actually behaved wonderfully. Here are some pictures:

Happy New Year everyone!!!!

Brady joins the Hare Krishnas

This past weekend we enjoyed a lovely day at St. Leonard's park, in between St. Leonards, Neutral Bay, and North Sydney, all areas we'd love to live (or stay in, as we live in St. Leonards now). Brady had a blast playing on all the toys at the playground.

Here is a picture of him in the climb through:

Anna and Mummy at the park:

Brady with the "digger":

And finally, the Hare Krishnas came around in a sort of parade through the park which Brady was delighted to join.

We had a blast, in addition to the screaming Cockatoo that Blake was trying to capture on camera the entire time. It's amazing that an "exotic bird" in the US is overwhelmingly in abundance and rather annoying here... they are truly everywhere!

Last but certainly not least, we were able to capture a picture from the park that demonstates how lovely this city is, even in the near suburbs where we live. This is a picture of Neutral Bay, an area we are strongly considering (as well as it's neighbour, Cremorne) for our home:

I have more coming soon from New Year's Eve... I hope you aren't sick of our pictures yet!

Our latest adventures

We've had a lot of fun over the past week. First, we took the kids to the last live Wiggles Show of the year at Darling Harbour on December 23rd. Brady, who is quite taken by the Wiggles as of late, only watched a few minutes before busying himself looking under the seats. Anna loved the show until she passed out near the end. We all enjoyed singing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" in the dark with only cell phones and other small lights to light up the large auditorium.

Santa made his way early (I think he has a brother in the South Pole, but Blake thinks he starts on our side of the International Date Line and works his way around) and we had a lovely Christmas morning here, despite not having a Christmas tree for the first time. The kids loved their toys and didn't want to leave the apartment when we left to go to Sydney Harbour on Christmas Day. (See pictures to the side of blog). It was a fairly cool and cloudy day for summer and we didn't stay too long before returning home to cook Christmas dinner. Everyone was tired and an early sleep was had by all!
The day after Christmas here is known as Boxing Day and we all enjoyed a beautiful, beachy holiday. We drove out to Manly Beach and met our friends Nicky and Jud and their two daughters Lucia, 4, and Millijana, 21 months. They are from New Zealand but have lived in Sydney for 5 years. We had a wonderful time on the beach with perfect weather with plenty of sunshine and wind, no humidity! The problem arose when we busied ourselves slathering sunscreen on the kids and barely any on ourselves. The rumour about the ozone being thinner here is true, we discovered... Blake and I got baked! I'm still recovering from my sunburn and am looking for a good melanoma clinic nearby! Blake was smart enough to keep his shirt on, so the worst he got was on the back of his neck. Alabamians will be proud to know that he is a real "redneck" now!

We've spent some time house hunting over the past week as well and are pleased to discover that we will be able to find a house or duplex with a bit of a yard or courtyard for the kids that is still nearby to shopping and parks. Of course it is very important that we also are close to transport for Blake to get to work. Several options include taking the train, the bus, or the ferry to work. We plan to purchase a car after our house in Birmingham is sold, but we don't want to have to rely on that for day-to-day needs. We'll see what pops up after the market "opens back up" on 3 January. It's amazing how everything literally shuts down over the holidays around here. Even the realtors are closed from 22 Dec to 3 Jan!!!

Well, that's about it for us over the past week. Cheers to all!!

Here we are, halfway around the world!

Wow, all kinds of things have changed since June... we are now living in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia due to Blake's hard work and a big promotion with FedEx Kinkos, who he's been with for 5 and a half years. We've been here for a little over 2 weeks and so far we love it here! It's a bit unusual for it to be 2 days prior to Christmas and it's 80+ degrees (29 C). Due to us having just moved and still occupying a temporary rental home we are without a tree... so it just doesn't feel like Christmas here!

We've had quite an adventure getting here... we flew from Birmingham to Dallas, and then changed planes in Dallas to Los Angeles... that flight was "fun" with both children making themselves known to the rest of the plane... fortunately our surrounding flyers in coach were understanding of our plight. After landing at LAX we spent about an hour and a half renting a car and finally made our way to our hotel, which was very nice. We drove through Beverly Hills briefly and had lunch (after we finally got on our way... we lost 2 hours in the transition) and then made our way back to LAX for our flight to Honolulu. Luckily this one was first class! The kids slept most of the way there, and again we lost another couple hours of time arriving in Hawaii at around 9 pm.

After renting a car (again... not easy when you're traveling with 9 checked bags, a double stroller, and an infant and a toddler)... we found our hotel and gratefully fell asleep! The next day, December 4th, was our first day without travel and we looked forward to exploring Waikiki Beach and Pearl Harbor. Unfortunately, the island of Oahu had different plans... it rained 3 inches in an hour! We were still able to see lots of great surf and enjoy a nice dinner on the beach. Brady was more interested in the "big trucks" of the landscape crew than the amazing island of Oahu!! He enjoyed a great time running on the beach, however.

Finally it was time to make our final journey to Sydney. We boarded our plane in Honolulu at about 10:30 am Wednesday, December 5th and landed in Sydney at 6 pm on Thursday, December 6th! The flight was 10 1/2 hours but we lost a day crossing the International Date Line... very strange, I must say! Anna enjoyed having a fold down bassinet in front of her brother in the first row... and I must say that Blake and I enjoyed not having to hold her for that long on our lap too!! We took turns taking our meals in the "adult" section which was separated by an aisle, while the other one tended to the kids. Brady was fortunate enough to get 2 bags of Wiggles goodies from the nice flight attendants on Qantas... which is a great airline, by the way!

Well, that pretty much wraps up our journey here... although there are several other funny things... one being that Brady learned what the word "DANGER" means by trapping his hand in an elevator in LA... funny because he didn't get hurt and still calls all the lifts around here "DANGER"... Anna has officially made friends on every leg of the trip with her crooked little smile and charming ways... but won't sleep through the night to save her life, even after 3 weeks of not being in our house in Alabama... ahh, I could go on but I won't!

We've had many friends ask how the trip over was, so there it is. I'll add more as we get more into our life here in Sydney. So far we've already traveled by pram, rail, bus, and ferry... also known as "BIG TRAIN! BIG BUS! and BIG BOAT!" He doesn't have a word for pram yet except that "Eaya" (Anna) goes in the back and he would never let us forget her... he's always asking where she is if she's not in the room!

Happy Holidays to all and I hope to update more frequently from now on.

Note: All the pictures from our journey are to the side of the blog

A few pictures

Wanted to add a few pictures of the Watermeier family from the past couple of months. These are from birth through Memorial Day weekend, so bear with us! Anna is now 2 months old and our dainty little girl weighs 1.4 pounds less than her brother did at this stage. Dr. Glasgow says she is healthy and growing well. She's grown some pretty eyelashes over the past week and rolled over once, although I didn't see it. The evidence was in her position on the floor from where I laid her down... and no, Brady wasn't awake! So please meet Annakin Paigewalker!

Edited to add: I have finally figured this whole blog deal out and have left the pictures I originally put in this blog to the side... edited 12/27/07