A few highlights and some pictures!

This is going to be another wordy post... There is just so much to cover that I don't know another way to do it!  We found out our boat shipment won't be coming until end of September or early October, so we'll be using my phone camera here on out which means that there will be pictures this time.  So for those that aren't interested in the details you can just do a quick skim of the pictures and get a pretty good idea of our goings on.

Just a quick note to say Aubrey bounced back pretty quickly from her bus incident, and Aiden and Aubrey are both really enjoying school.  Aubrey doesn't like the uniform.  At all.  But Aiden hasn't complained about it, so I don't think he minds it.  They have made friends very quickly and even share some of the same friends.  I love hearing them talk about classes and share funny things about their day and their friends.

Derek is attending a public school that came highly recommended.  Even though it's public they are still required to wear uniforms.  He likes the school, although he is pretty tired at the end of the day.  He's coming in mid-year first grade so aside from having to do a bit of catching up it's a bit of a jump going from half-day kindergarten to a full regular school day.

People in Alice are really nice.  And really genuine.  And really trusting.  For example, when Jeff decided to buy the Rhino, the lady let him drive away with it as soon as he said he wanted it with only promise he would get a bank check to her within a couple days.  She didn't ask for a down payment or a promissory note, or any kind of anything.  She just let him drive away with her car and a promise that he would pay her later.  It's pretty much like that everywhere.  Your word is your honor.  Anyway here is Rhino!  I know not as big as I made him sound, but he sure is hard to park in the tight little spaces available.

Ok working out.  I went to the pilates/yoga studio here in town on Thursday.  It is pretty much someone's shed converted into a studio.  I had to stifle giggles throughout the workout, because it was really just so... rustic.  We also got to workout with Marshall Faulk and his team of trainers.  They came as a morale boost for the troops and did some fun things with the kids as well as the adults.  It was an awesome workout!!

One of the things I really really love is the clean air, clean water, and natural food.  Australian's don't dye their foods including cheese (this drives Aiden crazy because he can't tell which is the cheddar and which is the mozzarella).  Their foods are minimally processed and they taste a little different which is taking some getting used to, but again I like that I can feel good about what we are eating. This picture is of all of the citrus that Terry picked fresh for me (free organic fruit - how great is that?!!).  Food is all super expensive and hard to find things that we are used to (they don't have corn tortillas here, at all and they are a staple in our gluten free diet), so we already made a big amazon food order because it's actually a lot cheaper to get most things that way.

In this first picture of Derek you can see the MacDonnell mountain range in the distance.  It is right behind our house.  It's been fun to hike and Jeff and I have both seen kangaroos while out on our runs.  We took the kids the other night, but it was too dark by the time we got out to see much of anything (other than the city lights).

We celebrated Aiden's 15th birthday this week.  When I asked him what he wanted for his birthday he said: "I'm really pretty content.  I mean I have pretty much everything I need.  All I really want is to eat nutella out of the jar with a spoon."  Wow!  Really.  That is coming from the kid who is never satisfied.  Ever.  If nothing else that right there makes this whole thing worth it.

Happy Birthday Bud!