First Day of School

Nate's first day at school

After a five month hiatus due to the move Nate started his new school today. I've been concerned that it would be a hard separation after being home with mom and dad for so long. We've been reading books about going to school, going over the routine plans, etc...

Apparently my concern was totally unwarranted. There was no push back or whining about getting ready this morning. Not even our typical battle of to wear or not to wear jammies out of the house (especially flannel in the 80 degree heat) and no squirming during sun screen application. Was this really my son? Within two minutes of arrival at school he was seated at the computers with headphones on trying to learn a new game. He couldn't have cared less if I was there or not.

(aw mom not another photo)





I guess it was only a hard day for me. Nate loved his new school and said that everyone was nice.



Sister dropping me off (I think she wanted to stay and go to school too)

Reese

Let's face it - it isn't easy being the younger sibling. I know- I am a little sister myself. Poor Reese- Nate wrote monthly family letters, has zillions of baby pictures, is the subject of many blog postings, etc.... let's face it he sets a high bar. The boy is a rock star...he eats anything, has a mellow disposition, is a gifted athlete already and his an around nice, smart funny kid. Heck he's Natedog. It will be both cool and suck to have him as an older brother (the movie Ferris Bueller comes to mind). So it is time to dedicate a blog entry to all about Reese. If you tuned in hoping to read about a new vacation sorry- just ho hum kid news. Try back again soon.

Reese loves her brother- wants to do (& have) everything he does

So all about Reese...here we go. Reese started walking shortly after our Aussie move and has already mastered walking in the sand (advanced of her brother at this age). She recently got her first haircut- hopefully those beautiful curls will grow back but she is a lot cooler. Michael thinks she looks like a boy now but she wears so much pink I don't think there will be any confusion. You be the judge. Poor little kid is teething up a storm. But finally she is getting teeth- she's had only 6 for months now. Not that its stopped her. It is funny how kids are different. Nate has always (in his long 4 years) been an adventurous eater. Reese on the other hand is picky (just like her mom as a child)- likely a revenge curse put on by my parents. Hopefully she'll grow out of it soon.

She is a good communicator. She can only say mommy and dada and Na-Na but gets her point across with grunting, head shaking, and her baby signs. She even invented her own signs- one for Wiggles (or any video really) and one for swings (her favorite thing to do). She clearly understands what you are talking about and follows instructions. I won't be surprised to hear full sentences come out one day soon or a full song since she loves music. Likely one of the first ones will be Nate get off me :). She puts up her fair share of hugs that turn into wrestling from her older bro. She is going to be one tough chick. This pleases Michael who is already concerned that our daughter will be this smoking hot blond with blue eyes and big boobs who has an Aussie accent hangs out with surfers and loves to dance and flirt. Time will tell....we'll keep you posted :)

Reese playing in the kitchen (yes she is sitting in the frying pan)

Reese testing out her new potty-helps if you are undressed. She is making the sign for going potty.

A chocolate lover just like her mom- ummm chocolate pudding- a special treat

Happy 2009!

Happy New Year! Hope you all enjoyed your holidays. We watched the New Year ring in in mellow fashion. But as it turns out we had a front row seat to the Manly fireworks show right off our deck. For a small town I was impressed with the show. This country does love their fireworks- maybe the love of explosions are related to the criminal past? Of course I passed out before midnight so I missed the big Sydney show. OK so I am a lightweight- 2 glasses of champagne and I'm toast. There is always next year ;)

I'm looking forward to all the new beginnings that the fresh year brings. Nate starts school at the end of January, we move into our rental house (knock on wood) and hopefully I'll get a job (requires me to get off my butt and start looking). Plus there are a ton of places for us to explore and discover in and around Australia.

Keep checking back to the blog for new photos and tales of adventure.
Best wishes for a healthy and happy new year.

Season's Greetings!

Sam the holiday elf

Happy holidays to all our avid blog readers (our 2 subscribers know who they are) and first time visitors. Sorry for the non-traditional holiday letter. I enjoyed creating our past holiday letters but printing and mailing from overseas presented complications.

I hope you all weathered this tumultuous year. 2008 certainly had some big events- global markets crashing, a new US president (so happy to be done with campaign ads), and our move to Australia. OK so, so it wasn't a major enough event to warrant a news report on CNN but it was our big story of the year.

Hopefully we reached out to all of you but in case we missed you here is the brief recap: we had an opportunity through Michael's work to move to Sydney and we jumped on it. We've been here since September and so far we're loving the experience. The kids have handling the move like champions. Every once in a while Nate will say that he wants to return to Seattle (usually for very interesting reasons like he misses the supermarket). For those who may be wondering-Sam our 5 year old black lab is here with us. He probably had the hardest move of anyone (definitely the most expensive) and after a month of quarantine is out and eager to mark every tree in every park in Sydney.

We've started to explore some of Sydney neighborhoods and even took a couple of vacations. Check back on the blog every once and while for stories of our adventures. Of course the frequency of blog postings may slow if I am able to find a full time job :)

Hopefully 2009 will bring economic stability or maybe even a rebound??? (we can hope at least). Enjoy your holidays and best wishes for a healthy and happy New Year. Please stay in touch and think about a vacation down under.

fondly,

Mimi, Michael, Reese and Nate

Turkey Day 2008

our feast

Sunday November 30th, 2008
Happy Thanksgiving! Thanksgiving on a Sunday? Did the holiday change days you ask. No, but here in Sydney Thursday (Thursday in the US is actually Friday here) was an ordinary work day- not a national holiday. Our fellow Seattlite ex-pat friends invited us to a Thanksgiving feast.

Thanksgiving is one of may favorite holidays- right up there with Halloween. When else do I spend weeks combing the web for new recipes, become glued to food network (OK so that happens a lot), spend hundreds of hours cooking and cleaning, actually set the table just for a dinner that everyone inhales in about 20 minutes. Note that I said dinner- as in 6 pm. I am not a huge fan of the 3:00 Thanksgiving meal....this is usually a big debate at our house as Michael is a fan of of the Thanksgiving supper (he claims it is because then he gets a leftovers meal later that same day).

Any way, I love Thanksgiving and was sad not to be hosting as we had for the last 8 years or so. What would Thanksgiving be without some traditions- football, waking up earlier to get the bird in the oven (trying not to drop the bird), Michael's famous stuffing, the Macy's parade, etc... So we may not have hosted but some of our traditions continue. Thanks to the magic of Slingbox we were able to watch both the Macy's parade and football.

All this week we searched in vain for corn muffin mix (or any similar product-corn bread, corn meal, etc...crap anything other than canned corn would have worked). You see corn bread is the secret ingredient for Michael's stuffing recipe. After a dozen calls, hours of web searching, and going to every local supermarket- no luck. Is it too much to ask for a box of Jiffy. Australia sometimes feels so much like the US that you're surprised when you can't find common US items (like corn bread, mini marshmallows, etc). I did come across an ex-pat internet supermarket that would ship me some but they are located in Melbourne and I needed it same day. (I might have to splurge and buy a box of Captain Crunch for Michael & Nate). In the end I think our stuffing came out just fine- tasted good to me at least. Overall a decent result given our sparse kitchen - consisting of 2 pots, 1 knife, no peelers, etc. I did manage to cut myself within the first 2 minutes of chopping...it isn't Thanksgiving unless there is bloodshed (perhaps a subliminal homage to the suffering of the early settlers and Indians :))
Since we weren't hosting we were able to enjoy our day and not spend it all cooped up in our tiny kitchen. We spent the morning walking to one of my favorite spots - Shelly Beach. Beach? - well it was 80 degrees outside. It is odd celebrating fall/winter holidays without falling leaves, chilly brisk evenings and wearing sweaters. Christmas/Hanukkah will be even stranger as it might be 90+.

Manly beach walk

our destination Shelly Beach

Hope you enjoyed a great holiday filled with laughter, a bit of chaos and great food!

Great Barrier Reef

Sorry for the absence of blog entries….but we were out of town. We’ve just returned from a fantastic vacation to the barrier reef- Whitsunday Islands. We spent 10 nights on Day Dream Island (nice name huh) and Hamilton Island. It was extremely restful- thanks in part to our ratio of three adults to two kids (thanks Jen for joining) yet full of fun and activities. Day Dream (just a 2 hour of flight from Sydney) is extremely small with just one hotel on the island and you can walk from one end to the other in 10 minutes. They had a cool reef lagoon with tropical fish and small sharks. Nate was able to participate in the morning fish feeding- he fed a baramundi and touched a ray. Our daily routine consisted of buffet breakfast, morning nap, pool time, lunch, nap, dinner & hot tubbing (plus lots of drinking)....much like the koalas all we really did was eat and sleep. It is still hard to get used to the wild life of Australia -even on this small island the lorikeets, cockatoos, and kangaroos roamed free and weren't scared of the tourists at all. Check out the video below of Reese and Nate following the kangaroos.

After Day Dream we took the ferry back to Hamilton island....a much larger island- it takes you 15 minutes from end to end via golf buggy. Nate truly enjoyed his role as designated driver and by the end of week was seated in the driver seat by himself steering all alone (you can imagine the look of the on coming tourist drivers- pure horror). Feeling a bit more motivated and energetic we did more on Hamilton- hugging a koala (only allowable in Queensland), renting a tiny catamaran boat off the beach, snorkeling & diving at Reefworld (a floating station at the edge of the reef- with diving, snorkeling and a small mini submarine) and renting a bare boat and sailing to the famous whitehaven beach. There was still a lot of lounging at the pool - they had a cool swim up bar with a good happy hour. Side note, new favorite drink- Summer Love- 1/3 strawberry liquor, 1/3 vodka, splash of OJ and splash of champagne (I recommend going heavier on the champagne)- yummy!!!!! Sorry- back to stories...where was I? Oh yes, pool time. Reese is a water girl- she loved the pool. And Nate the seal (self selected nickname) learned to float and swim with no vest. With a mask and snorkel he was invincible. We'd throw one of his cars in the deep end and he would swim to search for it.

All and all a wonderful time was had by all. Too many pictures to post to the entry- but here is a link to our album http://picasaweb.google.com/northshorerentals/WhitsundayIslandsVacation

Nate at Reef World

Hugging- no pooping on my head this timesailing fun- (this picture is the only time I wasn't clinging to mom)

evening sunsets at the top of the island-tons of bats flying

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween! Halloween is one of my favorite holidays so I must admit that I was a little bummed that it really isn't a celebrated holiday here in Australia. It is gaining in popularity but aside from some drunk partiers and girls looking to dress up as slutty pirates, slutty police officer, slutty princesses (you get the point- it is 80 degrees so bare costumes work well) there wasn't much activity. We searched and searched but the only kid friendly activity was a lame holiday party thrown by the library and a bit of trick or treating in the ex-pat neighborhood. Of course we didn't let that stop us. After all Nate has been dressing up in his spidey costume practicing since July. But when we got to the actual day he changed his mind and decided that he wanted to dress up as the dog from Shaun the Sheep, his new favorite show.
If you haven't seen Shaun -check it out this site http://www.shaunthesheep.com/ - you can download episodes- they are only ~10 minutes each. I am not sure who laughs more and is the bigger fan -Michael or Nate. So with only a few hours to shop and create a costume out of nothing we set off on a search for required pieces - clipboard, dog nose, collar, etc. Check out the photo- I think we did a pretty good job. The rest of the family printed off sheep masks and went as Nate's flock.
Pure joy and happiness can only describe his glow at his doggie look. He was giddy hopping and blowing his whistle down the corso. He and Reese enjoyed just watching the other kids at the lame party - choosing not to participate in any of games. And our shy boy gave up on trick or treating which required talking and asking for candy (I guess I am happy with the fact that he didn't want to talk to strangers) after receiving 1 lollipop.
So much for this Halloween. Hope you all had a great time.

Bitzer the sheep watch dog