Bushfires

The news about the New South Wales bush fires has made international headlines.  Even with the fires burning about 1.5 hours from here, the air quality is poor and it is just a haze of smoke many days.  All of Sydney is at risk with high temperatures and high winds.    Here is a picture from Matt’s office.  We are hoping for some serious rain soon.

The Birthday Boy

Cade celebrated his 6^th birthday on October 18^th.  He celebrated at school with Lego Ninjago cupcakes.  Thank you Mama Rosie for your help.  I found the idea online, but could not have made them look this good.   He received hundreds of Legos and has been busy building ever since.  We went to his favorite restaurant, Jamie Oliver's Italian for a big spaghetti dinner (his all-time favorite), followed by an outdoor movie at our local Mosman Sqaure.   It was a pedal powered movie which means all power was provided by views riding a dozen different bikes.  We watched Finding Nemo and picked up on several new one-liners after living here.  Happy 6^th Birthday Cade-Man!

Paige's Purple Glasses

After a year of suspecting something was not right with Paige’s eyes and seeing different doctors who dismissed her behaviors, we finally saw a pediatric ophthalmologist who confirmed that Paige is severely near-sighted.  One eye is -11.00 and the other eye is -13.00. The doctors are amazed it hasn’t impacted her development as she was likely born with this.  It makes me sad every time I look through her glasses as I just can’t imagine how she has seen the world up until this point.  Doctors say she will be a different child…more active and more talkative.  Wow…she is already our wild child!   She required special order lenses from Japan and she will cost us a small fortune, but I am so thankful that we know and that she can see now.  She picked out a very cool pair of purple glasses and is wearing them proudly. 

A Great Visit With My Mom

We were so excited to pick up Mama Rosie from the airport early Monday morning.  The kids made a big welcome sign for her the night before and anxiously waited for her to get through customs.   This was her first international trip ever so I especially appreciated her making the longest flight in the world.  She probably left with a false sense of our everyday lifestyle as we tried to show her the best of Sydney.   We have a lot of highlights from her trip, but the downtime was just as great.  Matt was here for the first week and then he left for Cerner’s annual conference in Kansas City for a whirlwind trip.  It was nice to have some extra hands for a week along with kids.   Highlights included:

·    Taking a water taxi near our house to Doyle’s, an iconic seafood restaurant at Watson’s Bay

·    Dining at an amazing Belgian Chocolate Café after walking through the Botanical Gardens

·    A day at Taronga Zoo

·    Fish, chips and beer picnic at Balmoral Beach.  She even got to experience a pigeon stealing food straight from her hand.  The birds here are relentless

·    Sitting in the passenger seat nervously as large busses passed by in our extremely narrow lanes

·    An architectural tour of the Sydney Opera House and performance

·    Happy hour and outdoor movie seaside at Darling Harbour

·    Lots of flat whites after morning beach walks

The International Fleet Review  which celebrated 100 years of service of the Royal Australian Navy was on during her visit.  Navy ships representing countries across the world all entered the Harbour in unison.  Matt said it looked like a game of Battleship from his office window.   We got tickets to North Sydney pool and enjoyed an evening of swimming, music, face painting, a harbour side picnic and the spectacular fireworks display.  People said it was similar to the 2000 Olympics celebration and NYE fireworks.  We were so sad to take her back to the airport, but loved her two week visit with us.  It was time to get back to reality and go on a diet!

 

Wildman Boy's Athletics

Big congratulations to Matt for completely the Blackmore’s Half Marathon last weekend.  It was a perfect day, great scenery and we only heard a few rumblings following the raceJ He caught a bus at 5:00AM and we picked up from the ferry station later that morning.   It would have been better if he wore the white tank top that they gave him for race day.

The Nippers Program is an institution in Australia.  Thousands of kids participate in Nippers across Sydney’s beaches every Sunday morning.  The program is designed to teach children to have fun on the beach, gain some fitness, and learn some good safety techniques.  Balmoral Beach (our neighborhood beach) is the most popular Nippers program in all of Sydney with over 600 children (ages 4 -11).  Therefore, they have a ballot process that is incredibly difficult to get into, and our dumb luck landed Cade on the list for this season.  The program starts late October and we are excited to be a part of it.  Stayed tuned for more pictures.

Cade finished his holiday tennis camp this week with a few of his friends from school.  My Mom arrives on Monday and we have lots of fun planned before Cade starts Term 4, his final term of kindergarten.

Noosa

Matt has been spending a lot of time in Brisbane lately so after a long week away, the kids and I flew up north to meet him for a long weekend.    I had to request special permission from Cade’s school for him to miss 1.5 days.  It involved a formal submission to school’s Headmaster and formal approval of our request.    We met Matt at the Brisbane airport and drove 1.5 hours north to a cute beach area called Noosa. 

We spent three nights there and enjoyed the warmer weather, beautiful beaches and lively community.  The main street, Hastings Street, is full of cute beach shops, open air cafes and local art galleries.  The kids are happy as long as they are swimming and we had a great pool at our hotel.  We enjoyed great meals, cocktails and mocktails at sunset, and nature walks through the Noosa National Park.  Noosa has several beach rivers where the water is calmer.  Many of beaches in Australia are surfing beaches so they put me on edge with the kids in the water.  We 'hired' (rented) a boat and cruised the rivers. We attempted fishing but unfortunately didn’t catch anything.  The kids loved taking turns driving the boat.  The Great Barrier Reef is visible from Noosa and it was beautiful to see the different colors in the water.   We even had a whale sighting.   I didn’t realize that the reef extended 1500 miles over the coast of northern Australia.  It becomes more vibrant the further north you travel.    

On our last night, we were walking back on Hastings Street to our hotel and an acoustic guitar player was outside playing great music.  He attracted all of the kids in Noosa for an impromptu dance party, and it was the best entertainment of the weekend.   Cade’s class has been practicing hip hop dance this term so he showed us a few of his moves.

We returned on Monday.  We love Qantas Airlines.  The friendly and quality service is not typical for Australia, so I really appreciate them.  Cade has just a few weeks before his next term break and we are making big plans for early October when my Mom is here to visit for a few weeks.   

Biker Rider and Long Jumper

Soccer season wrapped up and we ended with a Sausage Sizzle party (what the Australians call a BBQ).  Now that our weekends have freed up and the weather is warming up, we are spending Sunday afternoons at the nearby Oval.  An oval in Australia is a large green space/park.  Franklin Park would be considered an oval.   We took Cade’s training wheels off and have been practicing on the grass.  We were so proud last weekend when he went all the way across the oval.  It was one of those great parent moments.  While Cade was learning to ride his bike, Paige spent her time practicing her long jump.   Last weekend she was trying to compete with 10 year old boys. 

Last week was a busy week at school.  Thursday was Grandparents and Special Guest Day.  I was Cade’s special guest and we did some activities talking about how school is different now compared to then and we had a lot to talk about!  The boys treated us to a concert and then joined us for morning tea.  Here is Cade’s kindy class picture...too bad their shirts only stay tucked in for the first hour of the day.  

 

 

Saturday night was the Great Gatsby themed fundraising party.   We started the evening out at a cute wine bar with a smaller group of parents and then headed to Cade’s school where they transformed the Hall into a Gatsby party.  We came away with a few gift certificates- one being an energy healing session that we won on a spin the wheel game.  Here is the description, “Our energy healing sessions combine auric cleansing, shamanic journeying, harmonic sound chimes and crystals from the earth to heal the body from a mind, body, Spirit and earth perspective. Energy healing aims to clear away stuck energy and create a strong and flowing channel through your body to open up your heart centre, creativity and intuition.”  Yeah, I will report back on that life changing experience in a future blog update!

Hope everyone enjoys the long Labor Day weekend.  It is Father’s Day weekend here.