Melbourne trip - Last days

Our last two days in Melbourne ended up being pretty busy!  I guess I wanted to squeeze in as many visits with people and activities at the same time as I could.

But, we "squeezed in" a sleep in first :-D

Most of the morning was unplanned so we had a sleep in and did a few domestic duties, then jumped in the car and went to find a motorbike gear shop.

See, since the Little Big Fella has started riding his motorbike by himself, my heart has often been in my throat watching him.  And while that will probably always be the case, safety gear can go a long way to making me feel a bit better about it!

We found the shop and found these funky motorbike pants (with appropriate padding) and a pair of little gloves.

We've since found some elbow pads that fit him, and decided that the gloves are actually too big for him, so found some that fit even better.  For now, we've decided that we're not getting boots.  Partly because they're ridiculously expensive and his feet are growing an an equally ridiculous pace, but mostly because he's riding pretty slowly still and there's no logs or anything where he rides, so covered shoes are okay (for now).

After the motorbike shop, we went to a camping place and found me a new winter jacket.  I'd bought the jacket I had when I first arrived for my year in America - in 1998!  Definitely time for an update.  Sorry, no pics for this one, but it was a bargain $50!!!

We got a call from the Big Fella's sister and partner and agreed to meet at a nearby shopping centre for lunch.  We ended up at a place called Outback Jack's.  There was a big crocodile hanging from the ceiling!

We had a great (BIG) lunch and a good chat then headed into the shopping centre.  While the girls were sorting some stuff out with their phones, the Little Big Fella was entertained on a car ride and by going up and down the escalators a million times.

We picked up some gorgeous pork chops to cook up for dinner then it was time to say goodbye until our next visit to Melbourne.  Obviously the adults wanted this to last just that little bit longer, but the Little Big Fella strongly believes that when we say goodbye, we're actually going.  So he headed up the stairs toward our car!

So we said our goodbyes and had one last hug.  I hate goodbyes :-(

We had a bit of time before needing to be "home", so we dropped in on Cadbury J and her kids for a last play.

You know the saying, "two's company, three's a crowd"?  There was a little bit of that going on for the first while, but thankfully (after a fair bit of frustration) it settled and they played well together again while us mums caught up some more.

Then it was time to say goodbye.  Have I mentioned that I don't like goodbyes?

Sigh.

Back at mum and dad's place, I made dinner, then my sister called to say she'd be coming over.  We ended up watching Origin 3 (kind of like a grand final for rugby league), which is kind of funny given that my family isn't very sporty at all and Victorians don't tend to watch rugby.  Dad totally got into it!

Just for the record, Queensland won, making it 8 years in a row :-)

Afterwards, my sister wasn't really keen on leaving and we ended up talking till pretty late.  Dad also pulled out a bunch of old letters between his parents.

I found out that they lived in a suburb of Melbourne when they first married, and we found the place on the map.  That area is now very hoity toity!

Eventually it was that time again.  Time to say goodbye.  I really hate saying goodbye.  Hanging with my sister (especially at P!nk) was really awesome.

But that's just the reality of life when you live in a different state, isn't it?  Goodbyes just become part of your life.  I guess they're a part of life anyway because even if you stay in the one place, others come and go.

Okay, time to move on again.

The following day, our last in Melbourne, was another friend day.  In the morning the Little Big Fella and I met up with my best friend to see Despicable Me 2 at the cinema.  Definitely a movie that will end up at our house!  It was very funny and entertaining.  Unfortunately, my friend hadn't seen the first movie, so some of it wasn't as fun for her.

After the movie, the Little Big Fella got excited about the games in the foyer and pretended to drive the cars, ride the motorbikes and shoot the guns.  We had a game of air hockey, which was pretty funny because he could only reach the smallest part of the table.  Obviously I tried to make it fun for him and not get the disc in the hole too many times ;-)

Again with the stinking goodbyes!!!

Then it was into the city to meet up with another friend.  K was my best friend for about a year in high school before I moved towns.  We met up last time I was in Melbourne, when the Little Big Fella was 1.

It turned out that the place we decided to meet had some snow for kids to play with/on.  The Little Big Fella would have literally spent the whole afternoon there!!!

Thankfully he got hungry so we went and had some lunch and had a really good catch up.

One thing I found difficult by the end of our time in Melbourne was being constantly in parenting mode.  At home, the Big Fella is there to take some of the weight of parenting, and the Little Big Fella has kindy so I get a break then too.

But in Melbourne I was constantly in parenting mode - thinking about distances and how far the Little Big Fella would be happy to walk, thinking about what kinds of food he'd actually eat when we were out, finding toilets in a hurry, dealing with the fact that he gets bored with stuff I like doing.  It's all part of being a parent, but it got a bit wearing by the end of our trip.

After lunch it was straight back to the snow to play, while K and I chatted some more.  I'd noticed a little earlier that the sky was starting to get quite dark, but hadn't paid that much attention.  All of a sudden it let rip!  The rain came down hard and fast and we ran to find some cover.  Thankfully it settled down a little so we made our way to K's car, because it was closer.  Then she drove us around to our car (although, I was a bit disoriented and we went the wrong way initially).

Then there was another goodbye.  Sigh.

You know, my biggest problem with goodbyes is that I'm a terrible long-distance friend.  I try to keep in touch, but I'm really just not good at it.  Life gets busy and it slips further down the to-do list.  And I'd understand if my friends felt that they weren't important to me.

But I honestly treasure each of you!  At various times in my life you've been the very reason that I love living!  Friends (and family - but they're my friends too) are my favourite thing about life.

So, I'm sorry that I'm such a terrible long-distance friend.  I will try harder to make time to call or write or text or send you a Facebook message.  Because I think you're awesome and I'm incredibly grateful to have had you in my life.

Back to the story ;-)

We managed to head home in peak hour traffic.  Woo hoo!

Okay, another side note.  I don't know how you guys stand driving that far, in those conditions, all the time!  I mean, I only drive a couple of days a week, for about 15 minutes each way, on the highway and it's plenty of car time.  But you guys drive up to an hour each way, often in the dark, with crazy people all around you!  Hats off to you!

The saving grace on this particular drive was the massive double rainbow!

Mum and dad have recently moved and now have a couple living across the road from them that they get along with really well.  So this night we had dinner at their house.

G & K are pretty cool and it was great to finally meet them in person (we would have met them when we were heading back to our old town, the day we had our little roll).  I can see why mum and dad get along with them so well - they're the same kind of crazy, as one poster I read recently put it.

We had a lovely dinner, and the Little Big Fella had a play with their dogs, then we retired to the front room and sat around the fire.  K had bought some American marshmallows and made some awesome little marshmallow toasting sticks.  So the Little Big Fella cooked them up for everyone (he only likes them uncooked) until we all felt kind of sick.

Then it was time to say goodbye and go "home" to finish packing, ready to head home the next day.

Random ramblings

I'm quite tired so I'm just going to put a few random thoughts together tonight.  I wouldn't be surprised if you don't want to read them, but I'll enjoy writing them and reviewing my day anyway.

I watched the final of The Voice Australia last night.  Most of it was pretty average for me.  But I quite enjoyed the top 16's rendition of John Farnham's, "The Voice".  And I absolutely LOVED Ricky and Luke's "Roxanne"!  What a brilliant performance!  And wonderful voices!!!  I've had that song in my head all day and I'm really enjoying it :-D

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I've discovered that I have several interesting parts in my emotional cycle.  There's the grumpy, keep-away-from-me-or-I'll-rip-your-head-off part, and the I'm-going-to-eat-everything-in-the-house part, and sometimes the bawling-my-eyes-out-because-someone-ate-the-last-of-the-mushrooms part.  But my favourite part, which I only realised existed in cyclical form yesterday, is the creative-and-excited part!  That's the couple of hours (or sometimes days) where I get all interested in a project and think up all the variations and possibilities.  I normally start planning and making lists (and lists of lists - I am a list girl, remember?) and setting timelines.  Ah!  It makes me happy :-)

And yes, you guessed it!  I had a creative day yesterday.  See, I just realised that this is the last week before school (read: kindy) holidays.  That's two weeks with the Little Big Fella at home with me 24/7.  No friends, no planned activities, no brain food!

Well, that just won't do, will it?!?

So we're going to have a mini vacation school at home.  With a jungle theme! The idea is to make jungle animals (masks, finger puppets, pictures etc.), decorate his room a little (kind of like our Under the Sea adventure a little while back), and maybe learn another letter or two in the process.  I'm also planning to have friends over (when the Big Fella is at work), and meet them at the park or whatever as well.  I suspect there might even be some cooking involved.

Today it sounds like a lot of work.  But last night it was true inspiration!  And meant I didn't get to bed until well after midnight.  Which probably explains why I'm so tired now (and why it took me several attempts to write each word in this sentence!).

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It's starting to get cold here!  I know you southerners won't believe me, but we've had to start using the heaters!!!  And wearing long-sleeved clothing!  And multiple layers of clothing!!!!  I'm seriously in shock ;-)

Unfortunately, it's also introduced a bout of pants and bed wetting by the Little Big Fella :-(  I guess he's learning the important lesson that, even in winter, we still need to get to the toilet and yes, face the cold seat.

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The Little Big Fella had photos taken at kindy this week.  Given the prices of having childrens' photos taken these days, I was surprised at how low the price was.  And I'm keen to see what photos they ended up taking of my boy (and if he did a nice smile or a super-cheesy one).

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I don't think I've mentioned that the Little Big Fella and I are going to be flying down South in a few weeks.  I'm going to the P!nk concert with my brother and sister (excited much?????) and we'll visit with family and friends as much as we can while we're there.  The Little Big Fella is SO excited about finally going on an aeroplane, after all our visits to the airport and watching everyone else coming and going.

Okay.  This is probably one of the least interesting blog posts I've written in a while.  Sorry.  I'll try to be more awake and interesting next time ;-D

Sweet, blessed rain!

I wrote this post the day our internet went down - 4 or 5 days ago.  Thought I'd share it with you anyway :-)


It's been raining in our little town for about 36 hours, the last 24 or so being constant, soaking rain.

Our back and side yards are flooded.

The road opposite us, that leads across a little river, has been closed.

The road to the coast is closed in several places.  The road between us and the next town has water over it in several places.

We are stranded!

And you might think I'd be worried about it.  But I'm not!

"Why not?" I hear you ask!

Well, a couple of reasons really.

1. We've got plenty of food and other necessities packed away because I was aware of the possibility of getting flooded in once the wet season started.

2. And we have been desperate for the rains to come!  It has been SO dry around here.

3. The rain has lowered the temperature to the point that I'm wearing a t-shirt with sleeves and a long skirt!  After weeks of being so hot I had to prepare the evening meal in the morning before the house got too hot to bear, the cool is such a relief!

4. I now have a clothes dryer!!!!  Yay!  So, even though it's wet, I'm doing loads of washing :-)

I just re-read that last one and realised that I am such a stay-at-home mum/housewife!!!!  Lol!

No doubt I'll be sick of the rain soon enough, but for now I'll enjoy it... and the lazy, sitting-on-the-couch-with-my-fellas-watching-movies time :-D

The weather has turned quite warm since then - I even had the fans on at 7:30 this morning!  Amazing weather, here in Central Queensland!!!

The power's out

Have I mentioned that it gets hot here?  Oh yes, I have mentioned it once or twice.

But yesterday was definitely up there on the hot scale!  40 degrees (104 Fahrenheit) inside the house (yes, inside)!

After being at our old, seaside town with its milder weather, humidity and sea breezes, I've been finding it a little hard to get used to this, more extreme but dry heat again.

And then it happened!

Right in the middle of the hottest part of the afternoon!

And there was NO breeze!

And the air was as hot and dry as an oven!

The power went out!!!!  (Imagine dramatic dah-dah-DAAAAAH! music here!)

Uh oh!  That means no airconditioning!

Oh NO!  Not even fans!!!!

Oh boy!  We only have electric cooking!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ah ha!!!  We have wine :-D

The Big Fella had been having a sleep after a night shift so when the power first went out I went downstairs and put the sprinkler on and cooled down a little.  While I was down there, I saw that some neighbours in the road behind us were out in their yard, so the Little Big Fella and I went over and had a little visit.

It was really nice to have an excuse to go visiting too!  And before we went away, we delivered our Christmas cards and various treats, and I'd really enjoyed visiting then too!  Turns out I like to visit ;-)

Anyway, after a bit of a chat and a taste of a range of their recent baking, we came back home to find the Big Fella had woken up (surprise, surprise) so we sat out on the little verandah and drank wine and talked and watched people walking past (occasionally even deigning to speak to them!).

Eventually it got dark and we lit a few candles and fed the Little Big Fella some tortillas (luckily he likes them with nothing on them!).  He ended up falling asleep in the chair (what a cutie!) so we continued to enjoy the evening until the power eventually came back on.  Then the Big Fella cooked me some lovely dinner and we went to bed.

It turned out to be a lovely afternoon/evening and I noticed that having no power caused a lot of people to get out and about and talk to their friends and neighbours.  Which, obviously, is a good thing.

This afternoon the power went out again.

Let me tell you, despite the enjoyment of yesterday, having the power go out again today (twice!) was not exactly met with joy!

And when the power came back on we quickly ironed a work shirt and made dinner.

Which was lucky because the power went out again as we were eating said dinner!  Grrrrrrr!

On the plus side, we finally had a temperature drop and a little bit of rain with this evening's power outage, which were very much welcomed!

Unfortunately there was no wine tonight though because the Big Fella had to go to work.  Sigh.

You never know, there may always be tomorrow!!!  ;-)

From the mouths of babes...

The Big Fella had another day off today so we'd planned to go and check out a new swimming spot on the river, about an hour away.  When we woke up this morning, we didn't really feel like travelling that far.

Yesterday we'd taken the Little Big Fella to his swimming lesson at the pool in the next town, then stayed and had a bit of a splash around together.  That had been fun so we decided to pack a lunch and go there instead.

So we got up and did a few things around the house and packed the lunches and the water and the towels, then eventually headed over to the pool.  Somewhere along the line the food bag was left behind :-(  Luckily they do pretty yummy hot dogs with onion, bacon, cheese, mustard and sauce :-)

While we were swimming around a young lady came into the pool at the stairs where we were playing.  The Little Big Fella pipes up and says, "she's taken her swimsuit off!".  To which I had the dubious responsibility of replying, "no honey, that's her swimsuit.  It's called a bikini."

We've had a couple of moments like that just recently.  Somewhere along this parenting journey I've developed the skill of not being embarrassed about stuff that used to make me blush profusely!  Not quite sure if it's a positive or negative addition, but it's rather useful at the moment.

This afternoon the Fellas were sitting on the couch.  The Little Big Fella has been talking about all his friends lately, saying how old they are by holding up that many fingers.  So he was telling the Big Fella that one of his friends is "this many", holding up one hand with all fingers and thumb sticking out.

"Daddy, are you this many?"

"No, I'm more than that."

"How big are you?"

Daddy puts his hand on his head and says, "this big".

"How fat are you Daddy?"

(By this point I'm giggling away around the corner.)

Daddy puts his hand on his tummy and says, "this fat!" and has a little chuckle himself.

You know, there are some pretty cool surprises being a parent.  Watching and listening to the way their little brains work and how they figure things out is amazing.

When we're driving the Little Big Fella often asks, "are we on the highway?"  And just recently we were not on the highway when he asked so his follow up question was, "are we on the low way?"  I just thought that was fantastic reasoning for a 3 and a half year old!

Yeah, there are some pretty cool moments as a Mummy.  But my favourite has to be when he just comes up to me, gives me a hug and says, "Mummy, I love you".

Expiring!

Remember when I wrote about it starting to get hot here?  And that I didn't know how I would cope when actual summer comes along?  Here's the link if you want a review.

That was in September.  Now we're half way through November.  Still not summer here in the southern hemisphere.

I was talking to Mum on the phone the other night and apparently in Victoria they had heaters, slippers and warm sweaters on.  I was sitting in my shorts and t-shirt feeling a tad warm.

Yesterday it got to 37 degrees inside the house!  That's about 96 degrees Fahrenheit for those of you who need the translation.  And it was another degree or so on top of that outside.

We've had three days of really hot weather.  It was about 30 degrees at 7:30 in the morning one of those days, and this afternoon I was sitting reading my book under the fan and just... fell asleep!

I'm expiring!!!!

Thankfully the Big Fella bought a little blow-up pool that we've got set up on the grass and we've all spent a good amount of time in it the past few days.  I've taken to walking around in my wet swimmers because otherwise I feel like I'm going to lose the plot.

And once again, it's not even summer yet!

I quite like warm weather.  I don't even mind it being hot.  My biggest problem with it is that I'm going along just fine and then suddenly (and without realising what's happening) start over-heating.

Then I get cranky.

I mean, seriously cranky.  Like PMS on steroids!

Last night I was attempting to cook dinner in just such a state.  All of a sudden the Big Fella dumped a sopping wet cloth nappy over me!  After being cranky about that for a moment, I started to cool down and was able to finish making dinner without losing the plot at anyone.  And I was able to appreciate my wonderful, thoughtful husband who knows me so well and is able to deal with my... less-than-ideal moods.  Thanks honey :-)