as the sun sets. . .

Another adventure comes to an end. With less than two weeks left, I am excited to go home! Yet I can't help feeling a bit sad. I will miss this beautiful country and the opportunities it has allowed us. I will miss looking out over the lake each morning and seeing the hot air balloons go up at dawn. I will miss watching the sun set over the mountains and seeing Telstra Tower light up at night. I will miss our walks around the lake, to Questacon, the Museum, and even the shopping center. I will miss the coast, the gum trees, and the kangaroos. But most of all I will miss the people and the friends we have made. I will miss playing with Kalista, the Seaches, and the Olsons. I will miss Mary, Lucy, Penelope, and Monique and the love and patience they have shown working with my children. I have never been one to linger over goodbyes, and I don't see the point in prolonging the inevitable, but I find myself wishing I had just a little more time here. Even so, I am grateful for the experiences, the friendships, and the memories, and I'm glad I can take those with me!

Getting into character

We love role-playing and facepaint makes it all the more fun! We found free facepainting at a mall so we have gone a couple of times. AJ always wants to be a cat while AP prefers alien creatures of his own demise (it's funny to watch the painter's face as he describes what he wants). Below his face is on fire.

Here AP is an alien from Jupiter and AJ is, as I'm sure you can tell, a very ferocious tiger.

Bollywhat?

Bollywood dance (modern Indian dance) is really popular here. I found a class down the street from us taught by Krisha (pictured left), and with some encouragement from J decided to give it a try. It has been fun learning the dances and meeting people. I'd forgotten what a great creative and social outlet dance can be! At bollywood class I have met people from Australia, India, England, and Canada. And thanks to a bollywood friend, I got to attend an African dance workshop a couple of Saturdays ago. The teacher, Tuza, (pictured right) is from Ghana and he was amazing! He had so much energy and was hilarious. The movement was awesome; so joyful and BIG. I got there late, but worked up a sweat in no time (and had SO MUCH FUN!). And not only did we get to learn a cool dance we got to do it to live African drumming. Talk about motivating. Anyway thanks to the dance scene here in Australia I've had quite the multicultural experience, heh, heh.

We go together!

Kalista took us to this cool lake park and was so sweet to follow us around taking pictures so we could have some Australia shots with us all together. This is the first time D made it into a family picture! A sweet shot of my little ones. . .

And we can't forget the silly!

I love this one! What's funny is that she is always trying to prove how strong she is by picking him up from behind. I'm pleased that it looks like a nice hug though, heh, heh.

This cracks me up! He has so many funny expressions.

I love my kids!

This is J's favorite of all of us. . .

and this is mine. I love that she caught us all laughing! Thanks Kalista--we love you!

Last beach trip

Canberra Day was Monday so we decided to take advantage of the long weekend and head to the coast for one final hoorah. We found a last minute rental at Long Beach called "The Sandcastle." It ended up being overcast and a bit stormy, so we didn't get to play in the sand and surf much but had a lot of fun in the hot tub!

We also took full advantage of their huge selection of DVDs and had a great time lounging around; we all loved the bean bags and the blue sectional was quite comfy as well (in fact the first night AP, AJ, and I all ended up on it).

Even though it was stormy we had some really nice walks on the beach

We even saw a pod of dolphins and were able to walk/run along with them! I couldn't get a good shot--they were too quick and the waves kept getting in the way, but there you see J pointing at them. I did get some video, but couldn't get it to download, so that may come later. . .

And talk about planet strange! We saw some of the weirdest sealife wash up on shore. We are still not sure what these blue things are. They were all over the beach and we couldn't decide whether they were more like slugs or jellyfish. . . and then we came upon this clam conglomeration that kept spurting tentacles. If anyone can enlighten me, I'd love to know what these things are! Also AJ found these spongy things (not pictured) that would squirt water if you stepped on them.

J sporting his new hat that he got at a rugby game he went to with some work buddies two weekends ago. Isn't he handsome?

After all the fun we were pretty worn out. Driving home AP fell asleep in the car. That hasn't happened since he was a baby!

Over the rainbow. . .

For those of you who don't know (I didn't before we came here), Aussies call their homeland OZ. So when we saw this rainbow AP exclaimed, "Oz really is on the other side of the rainbow!"

Sometimes it actually feels that way and, while much is similar to the U.S., much is very different. So here are some of the little “tid-bits” that I keep meaning to mention, but never quite get to:
1. Canberra is very clean and as a whole Australians are very environmentally conscious
-they line dry their clothes (and dryers here are really small)
-people take reusable fabric bags for shopping
-there are recycling bins at the store for your plastic bags
-the dry cleaners reuse your hangers
2. Food is similar, but not quite the same
-groceries (along with everything else) are SO expensive
-HUGE selection of gluten-free food at the grocery store
-Middle Eastern and Asian cuisine are common; Mexican not as (we miss our corn tortillas!)
-You can get baby food in Capri-sun type pouches with a valve for sucking (great for on the run!)
-No velveeta here (AP asked someone at church where we could find some and the response was, “Is that something Italian?”
3. Driving
-on the “wrong” side of the road
-confusing roundabouts
-the roads go in circles or change names suddenly and it’s easy to get lost
-tons of people walk, job, ride bikes everywhere; we do too and the exercise has been great for all of us!

My great find

Being the Queen of Cheap, the cost of things here has been discouraging to me and shopping for anything (from groceries to clothing) hasn't been much fun . But on Saturday (while everyone else was at the beach), I took the opportunity to walk D over to the shopping center and and get a few things we needed. While there I walked past a shop advertising everything under $10. Unheard of here, so I had to take a quick look! There wasn't much, but I did find this dress for $7! Woohoo! J was so proud of my find he had to get a picture (hee,hee).

Since we were already taking pictures, I had AJ snap this one of J and I. And while I was very excited about the dress, I was reminded that my greatest find has been the sweet, sexy, strong, smart (and sometimes silly) man that I married! Love you babe!