New & Improved?

I need to find a blog that is easier to post photos to. Let's see if this works!



One year ago today . . .

I can't believe it has been a year already! It has been a huge adjustment but a very exciting one. Everyone seems happy and settled in our new temporary home!We've started a new blog that is easier to post photos to. If you are intereseted in getting that address please email us and we will send you the link. We would really like to know who is reading our blog!
Cheers from Down Under!
The Witt Family


Jesus Loves Me!
Today when we got out of the car to go to church Elijah said "Jesus Loves Me!" It is such a thrill to hear our sweet little boys voice saying those words. Just a year ago I don't think he could say any of those three words -and now he is sharing his joy that Jesus loves HIM! Yes Elijah, Jesus loves YOU and so do we!
posted Sunday, 22 April 2007leave a comment mate? (1)


An Octopus in your pocket?
Yesterday we went to Chinaman's Beach right in Sydney. Jonah and Matt were snorkeling and picking up shells from the bottom. When Matt came out of the water he screamed and threw something - It was a blue ringed octopus! very venomous! crawling out of his pocket! It must have been inside one of the shells. It was a few seconds of fear as we thought he had felt a sting. He assured us that he was just startled to see an octopus crawling out of his pocket! We played with it for a few minutes and watched as its rings would turn blue when it startled - and change back to a very easily camoflauged brown when unprovoked. You never know what you'll find swimming in the ocean!
posted Tuesday, 10 April 2007leave a comment mate? (1)
Martha made this comment,
Yikes! I read your entry to Anthony, our resident marine life expert. He was very impressed.

Happy Easter!
Your Easter morning is just beginning as I write this blog entry - while our entire Easter day is over and the kids have been in bed for almost 2 hours. We had a wonderful day. Jonah woke up at 3:20 am (or so Matt tells me! anyone who knows my sleeping habits will realize that I would be in my coma at that time of the night - my husband however is not as lucky.) We allowed the kids to go downstairs and search for their baskets at 6 am and then it was outside for the egg hunt. It was raining here in Sydney but that didn't stop my eager kids from racing around the yard, happy to brave the rain for the promise of a good sugar high the entire day from the contents of those plastic eggs. It was a blast! Its fun to have these traditions, the kids have been anticipating this for days and I think the familiarity of the way we celebrate is really comforting and exciting to them. How magical childhood can be. How fun to be the parents.
It was incredibly meaningful to celebrate the resurrection of Christ in a country on the other side of the planet from our home. He is Risen! This faith that we share unites the millions of Christians all over the globe today. He is Risen Indeed! Have a blessed Easter.


Thanksgiving and a busy week.
We wish everyone a wonderful belated Thanksgivng! We enjoyed a great evening with American friends who live nearby - We met the Gill family at our church - though Isabella recognized Kristen from her class at school! Isabella and Kristen have become good friends and Jonah and Elijah enjoy playing with all 3 of their children as well. We were very thankful to have such wonderful friends in Australia who we could share Thanksgiving with. One funny thing - Our turkey cost $68.00 (that would be about $53. American) and was only about 11 pounds! We celebrated on Friday so the men could watch the Thanksgiving Football games (what is Thanksgiving without football?)
Saturday we started the day at Jonah's baseball game. He has been pitching really well and started the game out for his team. They had a great game and won. We headed home to get ready for Isabella's debut perfomance in the Pymble Ladies College Prep School Production.
Well it is official! Isabella was born for the show! On Saturday she participated in her Prep School (k-2) production called "The Land of Rhyme" at the beautiful theater of her school. It was an amazing show with each class doing an act in full costume. In Isabella's act the girls were spiders and they did a dance with a white elastic band (spider web) they stretched between them in a very well choreograped routine and they wore white gloves- the elastic and gloves glowed in the dark when they turned off the normal lighting and put the black light on. It was very cool! Isabella really stood out with the big happy smile on her face and the attitude in her dance movements. We always said she was "born for the show" and it was obvious to everyone that she was in her element during the school production!
Sunday started with Jonah again playing baseball, this time for the Rep Team. The team lost but Matt said Jonah again pitched a good inning.
A little later on Sunday Isabella had her first Australian Gymanstics meet. She did very well and came away with two second places two third places and a fourth place. She had a great time!
Monday during the Assembly Isabella was awarded a trophy for "Best Gymnast in Prep School". She was so excited she said her hands were shaking all day long! We are very proud of Isabella but mostly we are so thankful that she is beginning to feel at home in Australia!
Isabella has only a couple days left of school finishing on the 4th of December. She'll be off until January 29th as this is their big break and it is getting hot here in Sydney - we will celebrate our first HOT Christmas! Jonah and Elijah go to school until 2 days before Christmas so Isabella and Mommy are looking forward to some quality girl time!
We miss everyone especially now that the holidays have arrived, we will try to keep you updated as to how the Aussies celebrate this time of the year. One thing they do differently is celebrate Christmas openly! We are thankful they celebrate Christs birthday here and don't have the goofy laws where Christians aren't supposed to talk about why we celebrate like they do in America!
Here's a funny Aussie expression. "Diarize this date . . . ." (put it in your diary, which is what we call a planner or calendar)

posted Wednesday, 29 November 2006leave a comment mate?
October 2006
Jonah was informed earlier this week that he had a place for Year 5 in Knox Prep School. Knox is the brother campus to Pymble Ladies College which is the school Isabella goes to. Today Jonah went for testing with the other 55 boys that will start in January. The school "streams" the classes which means they basically test them and take the first 22 boys and put them in the first class, the next go in the next etc. It's definitely different for us. Jonah said the math wasn't too bad but the writing was a little tricky. They had them define words (one was vivid) The funny thing was there was one test where the boys were supposed to imagine that they were standing outside a cave and they were supposed to describe what was inside - what they saw, felt, smelled etc. They were not supposed to tell a story. Jonah said he wrote that inside the cave was a bear and the bear was sleeping but you could see the damage he had done to the stalagmites and stalagtites - he said he "felt" the marks on the walls where the bear had scratched (I asked - did you think you were supposed to say if you felt scared or happy? - he said he did write that he was scared.). That is so Jonah - what a funny kid! I thought that was an interesting test! I guess there's an advantage to teaching the class so everyone understands the material without getting bored. Knox does get good results. I think as a parent its a little nerve-wracking thinking your child is being "labeled" as having a certain ability level. I suppose it is not much different than the different math or reading groups they have at other schools. Anyway we'll find out in January which class Jonah fits into!
http://www.prep.knox.nsw.edu.au/knox/

YEAH CARDINALS!
We are celebrating the Cardinals Baseball Team World Series Victory! It has been so much fun watching all the games - they were on the Fox Sports channnel here. Wishing we were in St. Louis for all the festivities but we're
Saturday, 28 October 2006 01:44 PM


Byron Bay
This beautiful bay is the eastern most point in Australia - From the lighthouse area you can see for miles out to sea. It is supposed to be a great spot to view Humpback whales during the winter months. We did not get the opportunity to see any whales, but the bay and the Pacific Ocean were breathtakingly beautiful. Here are some photos: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byron_Bay

Dreamworld - Gold Coast Trip

Dreamworld is the closest Australia comes to Disney. It was a little like 6 Flags - but more eclectic. The kids and I all rode on this swinging car that went upside down - Elijah was crying and I was trying to focus on something to keep from throwing up. Isabella felt about like me I think - Jonah, well I'm pretty sure he loved it! Matt was smart and took care of the cameras and just watched the rest of us! The Wiggles area (the Wiggles are an Australian TV show that is also popular in the US) was a big hit with Elijah as he got to ride in the "Big Red Tar" (Car) It was 45 minutes of waiting to look at the different rooms in the house of the Wiggles. Elijah loved it - I loved that he loved it :). The big kids enjoyed the Nickelodeon ball area. It was like a 2 story playground where you gather and shoot those ball pit type balls from canons at other people.
Spring Holidays!

We went on our first road trip here in Austalia over the kids Spring school holidays. The kids have 2-3 weeks off between every term at school. Term 1 begins in February and Term 4 ends in early December and then the Chirstmas holiday break lasts about 8 weeks . For our holidays we had the wonderful opportunity to work our way north (it gets warmer the more Noth you get here in the Southern Hemisphere!) all along the coast. We stopped at different Beach towns along the way and were able to visit Port Macquarie, Coffs Harbour, Coolangatta (the town we stayed in for most of the trip) Surfers Paradise, The Australian Zoo (Croc Hunters Zoo) Dreamworld (a 6 Flags like theme park) Lamington National Forest in the Hinterland (rainforest) and our last stop on the way home was Byron Bay. We had a wonderful trip and were able to see everything we ever wanted to along the coast - we are already planning our next big excursion!
3 Sisters
We visited this great National Park just 2 hours from our house a couple weekends ago called 3 Sisters. The 3 Sisters are a rock formation in the Blue Mountains which run along the west of Sydney. You have to pass through them to travel that direction - noone was able to cross them until the 1800's! We had a great time with the kids just hiking along, looking at the beautiful scenery and learning some of the legends of that area. There is always something new to see or do here in Sydney - Why don't you come visit?
Here's a link to a photo and the legend of the "Three Sisters"
www.bluemts.com.au/tourist/thingsToDo/threeSisters.asp


Royal National Park

Sunday, September 24th Jonah played his first game for the Hornsby Ryde Rep Baseball Team. Unfortunately the team lost but Jonah played well. The game was played in Crunella which is south of Sydney (we live about 45 minutes North of Sydney)and so we decided to take advantage of this opportunity to see a new part of the city. We headed to a spot on the map marked "waterfall" - sounded interesting :) ! After entering what turned out to be a National Park we stopped in a little town for fish and chips (french fries) we ate at the beach and got back in the car to find the waterfall. After driving a few minutes we pulled into a parking lot and headed through the "Bush" towards the beach. Soon we arrived at the falls - they were on a cliff that was covered by Cliff Jumper/Divers landing in a beautiful lagoon that joined the ocean a few hundred meters away. The kids couldn't resist the water and they made their way down the hill and into the lagoon as quickly as they could (as always they were led by the ever-exuberant Jonah!) This was one of those beautiful places in the world! For pictures of Wattamolla Beach where the falls are go here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_National_Park Unfortunately for us the wind picked up and the sand cut into our skin like little daggars so we had to head home (Jonah of course was very disappointed as he didn't seem bothered by the piercing sands!)
We had such a great time on our little exploration of the "waterfall".
posted Sunday, 15 October 2006leave a comment mate?

Gotcha Day and Zeke's birthday.
It was two years ago today that we were declared the family for Elijah Matthew Witt! It was of course ordained from before the foundations of the world - but the Ukrainian government just had to get on board with the Creator of the Universe! It's amazing to think that this little person was created with the knowledge that he would be grafted into the Witt Family Tree. We are grafted into Gods Family Tree and that is even more amazing.!
This is also the happy occasion of Zeke's second birthday - yep he was born the very day we adopted Elijah - though he wasn't adopted until late November. Here's another odd fact - Zeke's registration papers are dated February 4 - Elijah's birthday! They were just meant to be together :) Really, Zeke has been so good for Elijah - it's hard to believe Elijah was petrified of dogs when we met him - and so we got a rambunctious large puppy - now an 80 pound wild dog -- and he is forever rid of that fear! If anything Zeke is afraid of Elijah! We really believe Zeke has been the one to teach Elijah how to be affectionate - it's hard to remember that he wouldn't even relax in our arms 2 years ago and now he wants to spoon with us whenever he crawls into our bed at night!
Happy Gotcha Day Elijah! We're so glad we gotchya!
Gotchya Pie: (we celebrated tonight with this invented-for-Elijah treat) Elijah says "For ME!"
1 ready made pie crust, baked and filled with
1 pint of strawberries sliced and sprinkled with sugar and mixed with
1 pint of store bought pourable custard (probably won't be able to find this in the US)
topped with homemade whipped cream - YUMMY! Whip up a pie and celebrate with us!
posted Wednesday, 27 September 2006leave a comment mate? (2)

Guana (GoAnna) & Black Cockatoos
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We are really enjoying the beaches here! Last Saturday we headed to West Head - a beautiful look out in KuRing Gai National Park about 20 minutes away. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Barrenjoey_Head_from_West_Head.jpg After enjoying the amazing view of the overlook we headed down the path on the very steep walk to the beach. Matt had an extra 30 pounds on his shoulders much of the time - in a certain 3.5 year old named Elijah. The big kids have now surpassed us in agility and stamina - ahh. . . . the joys of getting older . . . :) I guess the good in that is that we did not have to carry them! The hike was very well worth it when we got to the small beach at the bottom and there were about 10 other people there. (Jonah was jealous of the 4 or 5 men fishing - he reminds me of Grandpa Gene and Uncle Joel). We had a great time walking on the rocks, playing in the sand, making powder out of rocks (Isabella's latest favorite activity!) and generally taking in the view. We were thirlled to see 3 black cockatoos enjoying the views with us. A highlight of the day was when Matt spotted a 3 foot long Guana lizard sunning itself on the rocks about 15 feet above us. We had a great time watching it for a while until it scrambled away into the brush.
posted Thursday, 21 September 2006leave a comment mate?


Birthday Thanks
I would like to thank everyone who sent birthday wishes to me last week - I had a very good party celebrated with friends and family. Ellie went out of her way to make it great and despite a rainstorm blowing in at the time, the party went off without a hitch. I am especially grateful to those of you who found it humorous. While I may be getting old, I will remember who you are and remind you that paybacks will be awful. It's still nice to know that we have friends (and family) who have not changed since we left.
We have had another good week - we were able to sign the kids up for "Little Nippers" which is a lifesaving and swimming course on one of the beaches. The kids get to compete in swimming and running events and learn about the riptides and marine life as part of this program. They have to wear swimsuits with a matching cap as well - very life-savory if I do say so. They look really cool. And we get to spend our Sunday's on the beach - not bad eh.
Thanks to all and hope all finds you well.
posted Wednesday, 13 September 2006leave a comment mate?

Spring has arrived!

September 1 is the first day of spring here in Australia! what a lovely day it was. The temperature was 24 degrees (75) and sunny. It was so hot on Saturday (about 85 degrees) that I was thinking I had previously complained too much about the rain :) I was very thankful that today (Sunday) was cooler and perfect spring weather!

Today (September 3rd) is Father's Day in Australia and New Zealand. On Friday morning Matt and Jonah participated in the Father's Day breakfast at Jonah's school. They enjoyed "sausage and egg sizzle" and lots of laughs with the other dads and their kids. After the fun breakfast the school had an assembly and awarded the top kids from the Athletics Carnival with ribbons. Jonah did very well at his Athletics Carnival and won the second place in the junior discus competition in addition to making the finals of the 100 metre dash. It was really fun for him as the first two places in each event went on to participate in the "Zone" competition - with all the other schools in the district. Jonah did well in "Zone" but did not proceed to "Area".

Isabella's Prep School had their Athletics Carnival on Friday. As you can tell the Athletics Carnivals are one of those "Aussie things" The school kids get to spend the day about once per term at the "oval" (the track - but for the public school kids they are usually at the local parks) competing against each other. During the Athletics Carnival they all run in races and the "littleys" also do sack races and egg and spoon races. Isabella ran the 100 metre, the 50 metre hurdles and the relay for her house (Marden). Although Isabella did not place in the individual events she had been pre-qualified to compete in the top Division (out of 9) for the 75 girls in her grade. We were very proud of her! Isabella's house did win the School Cup so that was really exciting. Matt, Elijah and I enjoyed a beautiful sunny first day of Spring watching Isabella compete on the oval of the beautiful campus of the Pymble Ladies College.

Everyone is doing well and we are busy getting ready to celebrate Matt's 40th birthday on Sunday with a typical American BBQ (Saturday). We're hoping to get in a game of whiffle ball with our new friends and show them a few of Americas favorite pastimes!

Have a wonderful week!
posted Saturday, 2 September 2006leave a comment mate?
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Z-day

Zeke is out of quarantine! Yesterday we rescued Zeke (our black Labrador Retriever - 22 months old puppy) from his 77 day jail sentence. When we arrived at the Quarantine "holding center,' they called Zekes "carer"(Aussie word) and she walked (was dragged by) Zekie to the front gate, where he was released to us! Our now even fatter, black lab pup - is none the worse for the wear. He is pretty much the same dog as he was 3 months ago! he is messy, slops water everywhere when he takes a drink, he doesn't come when called, loves to eat and follows you around waiting for a treat. Basically he's lost none of his bad habits, but seems pretty much unscathed by the experience - so we are so thrilled! I(Ellie) am happy to have the company during the day, messy as he is! I can see why all those studies have shown that a pet is good for your health, I just smile every time I walk into an otherwise empty room in this house and am greeted by drooling, excitable, 80 plus pounds of black fur! It is pretty nice to know you are loved!
posted Thursday, 17 August 2006leave a comment mate?

Thursday, 17 August 2006 10:07 PM

Rainy Sunday!

It is Sunday morning and - surprise, surprise - It's raining! yuck! It has been raining 5 out of the 7 days this past week. I've heard most of the midwestern states are having horrible heat waves so I suppose it is just awful weathe
Sunday, 6 August 2006 10:04 AM It is Sunday morning and - surprise, surprise - It's raining! yuck! It has been raining 5 out of the 7 days this past week. I've heard most of the midwestern states are having horrible heat waves so I suppose it is just awful weather everywhere. I am looking forward to Spring in Sydney in a month or so when their will be no rain and hopefully lots of sunshine!

We had a lot of trouble updating our blog so please accept our apologies for not keeping it updated. We got our spyware up and running and then couldn't access anything! I have no idea why it is now working?!

Jonah and Matt are at tryouts for a baseball team. They have one tryout this morning and another this afternoon. Isabella, Elijah and I are just hanging out and playing with toys. The church we have been attending has 5 services during the weekend so we will attend tonight at 5 pm. The kids really love this church, I guess they play a lot of games in childrens church! The church is called Hillsong and a lot of people all over the world have heard of them because they have an incredible worship ministry - We were only going to go once just to experience it because it is about a half an hour away (and you have to drive via a tollway- $7.50 round trip). The kids had such a great time they just want to keep going back, and its hard to argue with that! The largest denominations here are called Anglican and Uniting. Isabella's school is actually a Uniting School. The Uniting Church is a merger of the Presbyterian, Methodist and Congregational Churches. So that's a little Australian Church information!

Isabella's school had an artshow this weekend so I was able to help out on the set up - it was nice to be involved. Isabella sang in the choir and it was so cute to hear the little girls Australian accents in the songs! They wore their uniforms - very cute! Here's the link to Isabella's school. The prep girls ("kindy" - year 2) wear the red "pini's" (pinafores) during the day and it keeps their uniforms clean! www.pymblelc.nsw.edu.au/preparatory.htm Isabella is in Year 2 because that is the right year for her age. Isabella continues to love gymnastics at her new gym. She is practising 4 times per week at Honda gymnastics. It's a small gym so she gets a lot of one-on-one attention and has enjoyed learning many new skills such as flyaways on bars, backwalkovers on beam and doing front somies and back somies on floor. She is also practising giants on bars which she says are "freaky". I think her favorite event continues to be vault where she loves vaulting over the vaulting table and flying and flipping into the pit. She is really enjoying it so that makes us all happy!

Elijah really loves his school. It is actually an extended day preschool (daycare) and we couldn't be more pleased with the teachers. They are very kind, nurturing and continually presenting new areas of exploration for the kids. They do a lot of cooking, playdough, puzzles, cutting, painting, etc. They let the kids lead so sometimes they have a tent set up or a pretend boat complete with life jackets! Whatever the kids are talking about/playing with they use as the unit of study and let that be the theme of the artwork, the games, the puzzles - whatever. The kids are really great with Elijah and try to help him to say words etc. It is going slowly with his speech but there is improvement -he has speech therapy 3x per week - twice the therapist goes to his school and once I take him to her. Lately we have been concerned about whether he is getting the right kind of therapy for Apraxia. Our next course of action is the visit the pediatrician and see if they can recommend anything better suited for Elijah's needs. Elijah has begun to say "otay" (for okay) lately so that is very cute :)

Jonah is playing Basketball, practising with a Rugby team and of course playing baseball. He has begun Chess lessons after school once per week and enjoys that quite a bit. The most exciting thing for Jonah lately is that Mom has begun to let him walk the 3 or 4 blocks home from school. So far he is doing very well with the responsibility - I think he really enjoys the discoveries along the way - Lizards, Lorakeets, Cockatoos and Kookaburras! Here's a link to his school: www.pymble-p.schools.nsw.edu.au We've tried to get him into private boys schools but so far none have any space. He is really happy at Pymble Public and we've met so many nice people through his school that it has actually worked out better this way.

I think the one thing that surprises me the most about living in Australia is how very "International" this city is. The people I talk to in the grocery store or at one of the kids schools is almost as likely to be from New Zealand, England, Ireland, South Africa, Sri Lanka, India , Singapore or the US as from Australia. It is good to feel that being a visitor is normal in this city of 4.5 million people.

Have a wonderful Sunday and I hope we can keep this blog better updated.

Ellie

July 2006

Family travels

Baseball tournament in Tamworth; Koala Park
We have been very busy as any family with three kids can attest to. Jonah was invited to play in a baseball tournament in Tamworth, New South Wales, from Friday, July 14 to Sunday, July 16. Tamworth is the country music capital of Australia and is a five to six hour drive on a two lane highway from Sydney. We attempted to depart Sydney on Thursday and made the necessary hotel reservations for our family to stay Thursday and Friday nights. We planned on departing Saturday so that Ellie and Isabella could attend the gymnastics state meet on Sunday at the Olympic park. To add to all this, our household goods were scheduled to arrive on our departure day of Thursday. We were very optomistic that we could leave reasonably early and drive to Tamworth so that Jonah could get a good night sleep in anticipation of the tournament.

Whoops. The movers did a great job getting the box trailer and more than 200 boxes of stuff into the house but we did not get out of Sydney until 8:00 pm. It was a great relief to get our things but we did not get to Tamworth until 1:30 am. And to top it off, our hotel was closed when we got there. We were able to find a room at a different hotel after another hour of driving and were dog tired when the kids woke us bright and early the next morning. They of course slept most of the car ride so they were itching to go.

Anyway, Jonah had a great tournament on Friday and the team won both games. He pitched well and hit very well, including a couple of doubles. After the games, we went to a pizza parlor and had a fun time with a number of the player's families and tried to go to bed reasonably early. We awoke the next morning to the rain. For the past few years, Australia has been beset by a drought - since our arrival, the drought is over. Unfortunately for the tournament, it rained so hard it caused the field to be unplayable and consequently, the games on Saturday were cancelled. We stayed around in Tamworth waiting for the decision to call the games for a while and most, if not all of the 700 or so boys that were playing in the tournament made their way to the ten-pin bowling alley for a game or two. It was fun, but at 2pm, we needed to leave. Needless to say, Jonah was not happy.

During the drive back to Sydney, we stopped counting the number of wild kangarroos we saw in the fields adjacent to the road. Fortunately, none of the roos tried to cross the road in front of us - they are very big and cause a lot of damage when they run in front of a passing car. They were really cool to watch in the wild and the countryside was beautiful.

The team played three games on Sunday and won all three - however, another team was also 5-0 and scored more runs so they gave second place medals to our team. It was great.

After Tamworth, the kids went back to school with much fuss. However, by nightful they were loving being back together with their friends. Alls well. Jonah has since added basketball to his sports portfolia so we are more busy.

This past weekend, we visited the Koala Sanctuary and got to pet a koala mamma and her baby, a bunch of grey kangaroos and their joeys and a mean-looking wombat. We also saw a sheep shearing show and show about how to throw a boomerang. Somehow, the kids got a cockatoo to say "hello" and "shut-up" during all this. It was really fun. Hopefully, we got some good pictures that we can post to the blog.

All for now.
posted Tuesday, 25 July 2006leave a comment mate?

Tuesday, 25 July 2006 04:29 PM

Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park

One amazing thing about the Sydney area is that there are National Parks running all through the area. On Sunday we decided to visit one only 15-20 minutes from our house. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ku-ring-gai_Chase_National
Friday, 7 July 2006 08:22 AM
June 2006
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ku-ring-gai_Chase_National_Park Click on this link to see the Park.

Ku-ring-gai is an aboriginal word. Many of the streets, parks and suburbs have names like Turramurra, Wahroonga, Walla walla, Waitara and many more. The Ku-ring-gai national Park is one of many that is all along one of the many inlets from the ocean. It was beautiful coming down the steep hillside into a bay of sailboats, it has the look of what I would expect Norway to look like with the tall hills in the background and the peaceful bay - I think it is about 10 kilometres (6.3 or so miles) from the ocean. We walked on some of the trails and learned of lizards called Goanna (Go Anna) measuring up to 4 or 5 feet that will sit at the outdoor cafe hoping for some food. Visitors are encourged not to feed them however! We will look forward to returning in the spring summer to see them as they are currently sleeping in caves. We did see plenty of Cockatiels (they are loud!) an interesting type of duck, seagulls and Kukkaburra. It is a beautiful park.

We ventured up to the Visitors Center where there is very large fenced in area where you can walk the trails and see Kangaroos and Wallabies. The wallabies are much cuter! They look like small kangaroos and seem a little more shy, like deer. The Kangaroos look pretty scary as they seem 5-6 feet tall, move very quickly and the large male took a very territorial stance. There were dozens of rainbow Lorakeet - we never get tired of watching these beautiful parrot-like birds that are a common sight here. The day was "loads of fun" and we look forward to taking visitors to this delightful park.
posted Friday, 7 July 2006leave a comment mate?


Another rainy day . . .

Today I walked Jonah to school (took 13 minutes) - it is always interesting walking here, the flowers, trees and birds are all different from what we have in the states I've lived in. Today we saw a big spider about 4 inches
Wednesday, 21 June 2006 01:35 PM :: Comments/Trackback (1-0)
Today I walked Jonah to school (took 13 minutes) - it is always interesting walking here, the flowers, trees and birds are all different from what we have in the states I've lived in. Today we saw a big spider about 4 inches diameter building a web near our driveway. Jonah said it is poisonous - when I asked him why he thought that he said because it is so large. He cracks me up. We enjoyed our walk, it's just so fun looking at the houses and beautiful gardens. It's like England in that there are little stone walls around many of the "gardens" as everyone calls their yards here. There are some flowers blooming even in winter - they look like tree roses or hibiscus of some kind. I cannot even imagine how beautiful it will be in the summertime.



The weather here is getting boring, though they say it will be too hot in the summer, at the moment it is exactly like St. Louis was in the Spring this year - rainy rainy rainy and about 50 degrees. They were having a drought until the very moment we stepped off the plane! I'm happy for them that the drought is over but I'm looking forward to some warm,sunny weather.



Elijah has had two speech appointments and he is doing so well! He is putting final sounds on many words (e.g. boo"t" and mea"t"and sto"p" and is also working very hard to learn new sounds. We haven't gotten the exact right info. concerning the government and the funding for his preschool and I'm slightly hesitant to put him in to preshcool too many days when he is having such a surge of speech at the moment. I'll have to see what the best thing will be for him when we have more infomation. The nice part of preschool besides the fact that he'll have fun things to do and friends to do them with, is that it would be great to go grocery shopping (and item-searching) by myself and get involved in something where I could make some friends.



I'm keeping pretty busy just running the kids around to school, speech, gymnastics and of course the 3-stop grocery shopping, and trying to get everything we need for life. That all sounds easy but any little thing can be complicated - for example: Isabella needed contact paper - so we didn't know where to get it because their Target store only has clothes, shoes and appliances. Woolworths is a grocery store and you purchase cleaning supplies etc. at the grocery. So where would you purchase something like contact paper? The problem is not only trying to figure out where to shop for the different things but also what exactly you would call those items. We went to K-Mart and luckily they figured out we needed "book paper" and we were able to get some. She now needs a little "thing" for her pencil. It isn't one of those cushions she said it's different, of course she can't remember what it is called and so looking for the pencil-thing that I have no idea what it is or what it looks like, will be another fun trip or trips! We've been her 3.5 weeks and we have only purchased one trash can (bin) because I can't find what I'm looking for! I might start ordering from Target.com. It has been challenging -Can you imagine moving your family to somewhere like Japan with a different culture and a different language?



Our house rented! There are a lot of silly things they have to do to it to get it up to rental code however, like put guides for the closet doors down -(why??) oh well, that will be our travel money! yeah!



Thats about all for now. I did see a flock of 14 cockatiels today in the next door neighbors tree. That was very cool - we've been having a good time watching parrots and lorakeets and lots of other fun birds. Matt got a Australian bird book for Father's day and so we've been "having a go at" (a popular Aussie phrase) figuring out what the different birds are!



Cheers!



Ellie




We've arrived!

A copy of the first email we sent from Sydney:
Sunday, 18 June 2006 05:47 AM
June 4, 2006
Just found an internet cafe and so I am sending an update. We arrived safely in Sydney last Tuesday and slept fairly well on the flight. Thanks for all your prayers! Jonah told us that he woke up during the flight and wasn't sure if he was dreaming so he pinched himself and then knew he was really on his way to Australia! We are starting to get over our jet lag. (We are about 15 hours AHEAD "Down Under")

The first few days we were without a car or phone - we have now rented a car and are test driving one to purchase tonight. We will get a land phone Monday and hopefully internet by a week from Monday. The all important cable tv should be hooked up on Friday. After that we should be starting a more normal existence.

We have visited schools for the kids. It looks like we have found a wonderful school for Isabella (girls only) Pymble Ladies College is on a huge campus about a mile from our house -it is like a college campus with the big old brick buildings and playing fields all around. It's truly beautiful and an incredible school. We are trying to get Jonah into the brother school but it will take a few good connections as they have a long waiting list. It's a couple miles from our house and if he can't get in there the Pymble Public School is only about 3/4 of a mile away and is a very nice school. He's thrilled because they have a lot of sports and won't make him cut his hair! (though there is a uniform with dress pants and a tie) For Elijah we are in the process of interviewing speech therapists. We have quite a few preschool options but are looking for one that has some speech therapy help. If we can't find anything like that he will go to a Speech Therapist 4 days per week and hopefully preschool as well.. The good news is he is really starting to try to talk - and use words where before he just didn't seem to make the connection - We are so thrilled with this progress. Our house is beautiful! It is a new house built on a lot where the old house was torn down. The neighborhood is charming. The kids love their bedrooms and there is a large playroom upstairs also. The pool is small and too cold now that it's winter :) but we are looking forward to swimming in late Spring and Summer (October - February)

It looks like there is a baseball team right in our area so Jonah and Matt are psyched about that. Isabella has visited 2 gyms, the first is coached by a Chinese coach from the World Games in the 80's and the second is coached by another Chinese coach - both coaches from both gyms formerly coached at the Australian Institute of Sport. Both gyms want her to train at the highest level. Though we like both gyms we prefer the first but it is much further so we will probably choose the one about 12 minutes from our house. We are still waiting for our air shipment which should finish quarantine on Tuesday and be delivered on Wednesday - it will be nice for Elijah to have some toys!!!!! The ground shipment will go to China first (???) and arrive in a couple of months. We are looking to be totally moved by about September. That's about it. We celebrated Jonah's tenth birthday on June 1 and he was thrilled to be living his dream here in Australia! We took a train to downtown Sydney and then a ferry to the Toronga Zoo which is on a peninsula overlooking the Sydney Opera House. Today we drove 30 minutes and drove along about 10 miles of the Northern Sydney Beaches. It was beautiful and the kids had a blast playing in the water. We are looking forward to making this a regular event.

That's about it, I will try to touch base again when we get the internet in our house. I just wanted to let everyone know we arrived safely and are having a great time! Although we miss everyone terribly, things could not be going smoother so we feel like God has been watching over us and this definitely is his plan for our lives!

Love,

Ellie for all.
posted Sunday, 18 June 2006leave a comment mate?