A few more pictures

I think we have finally settled into a bit of a routine around here, for the most part. Blake is getting settled into his new role and is hoping to find a new central office that will be conveniently nearby (not planned, but lucky for us!). The kids and I are meeting new people and enjoying the Aussie lifestyle more and more each day... all is well here in Sydney!

We had a great visit with Uncle Larry and Aunt Claudia although it was unfortunate that Larry was quite ill the entire time they were in Sydney. Fortunately we were still able to visit with them for a couple of days during their stay and unfortunately we didn't get any pictures of the family! We really enjoyed spending time with them and can't say enough about how great it is to have a family visit so soon after moving to Australia.

Larry and Claudia also got to meet the latest addition to our family, our friendly Golden Orb Weaver spider we named Matilda (Mattie for short) who lives between our roof and tree in front of our house:

Don't worry, she's totally harmless.

And here are a couple of Annakin, being silly around the house

Finally, we spent last Saturday taking the ferry up to Manly beach again... this time just for some sights and a little family relaxation.

Here is one of Brady playing in the "spider web" in the centre of the play park there in the Corso:

And a funny one Blake took of Anna while I was looking after Brady.. she was NOT happy she couldn't play with the big kids...

And one of the 3 of us on the beachwalk:

We miss everyone so much and love getting news from home!!

She took steps today!!!

I promise more pictures soon, but I have to share in my excitement from today... Anna took her first steps on her own!!!

It started this morning when we went to our first developmental check-up at the Crows Nest Child Health Care Centre. A free service to all local residents, they do regular checkups for all babies and children and I'd been advised by several friends to take the kids in for registry. While speaking to the nurse about our relocation and how the children were adapting, Brady and Anna were playing with all the toys in the room. I glanced down and looked up at Yvonne (our nurse) and said, "Did she just take a step??" and Yvonne exclaimed, "Yes, she did, I saw it too!"

I was so happy and gave Anna a big kiss, but continued on with our conversation about the childrens' development. After a very thorough and impressive 2 hour conversation, weigh-in, measurements and immunisation check (they are on track with Australian shots, so we will continue on our same path, yay!) we finally came home. (On another note, I was very impressed with all of the nurses and the thick development books I was given for each child with their names on them... not to mention that I can drop in and weigh and measure them whenever I'd like.)

So now we're home and are expecting Uncle Larry and Aunt Claudia from Atlanta any minute. Out of nowhere Anna gets up from the middle of the floor and walks over to me! I couldn't believe it...

She hasn't performed for Daddy yet (was too excited to take an afternoon nap, so she was worn out when he got home) but I know that soon my excitement will wear off and I'll be wishing for the days when she stayed in one spot and I only had to chase Brady around... ahhh, times they are a changin'!!!

Some everyday pictures

Here are some photos of the kids from the last month since I haven't been able to download pictures until now...

Brady is worn out from running up and down this ramp at a play park in Darling Harbour. About 100 kids were around him (this is also from Australia Day) but he didn't care, he just needed a break!

A couple days later Naomi and I went to one of our usual parks nearby with the kids. As we were sitting on our blankets with the little ones I looked up to see where Brady had gone (he had been right next to me and had run towards the slide... this is a fully fenced park with no way out unless you are an adult). After looking frantically around the small area I found him in the climb through with an older woman, just chilling out... so here are a couple pictures of Brady's first date (he even took his hat off for her...what a gentleman.)

He seriously sat like this with this girl for 15 minutes, and anyone who knows Brady is SHOCKED to hear that he sat still this long!!

When Mommy cleaned the kitchen in the old townhome in St Leonards the kids liked to have fun in the living room...I heard Anna fussing and looked around the corner to find this...Brady had buried her in toys...she was pretty happy overall while she ate his toy screwdriver.

Last but not least, we love getting packages from home! Patty and Boo Watermeier sent some Hot Wheels to both kids, and Brady wasn't too sure about Anna getting her own... but now when he sees her cars he says "Eeya" which means Anna in Bradyspeak!

Much more to come on our house and getting settled in very soon!

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!