Chicken Boy!

I have to share a funny story about Jonah. Jonah loves chickens. He had a Chicken Club in second grade. The boys all loved to say "chicken" at the silliest times. He has a few rubber chickens (one is laying an egg!) attached to his backpack and he was a chicken for Halloween one time when he was 9. I remember when Jonah was about 5 years old, we were eating chicken and he looked at it and asked: "Mom, what are we eating?", and I replied "chicken" and he said "as in A Chicken", oh, yes that would be correct . . . "YUCK" was his reply (have to agree when you think of it that way, and while you are biting into it . . . ) Like most people these days I pretty much only had made chicken breasts, and boneless, so it is easy to forget it is all from A Chicken. The other day we were eating drumsticks for the second or third time in the past few months. They are much cheaper in Australia than breast meat and since food (and everything) is so expensive I have been trying to trim the grocery budget a bit. Jonah didn't eat much of his chicken. When I said, "Jonah, finish up your chicken.." He had the most squeamish look on his face and he just said "Mom, I just can't do it, I cannot eat chicken right off its leg!" It is the funniest thing! My Crocodile Hunter, loves to fish kid really can't do it, so I cut it off for him and he ate it but I just don't think he is ever going to enjoy a good barbequed chicken leg like the rest of us in this family do! That is our silly Chicken Boy!

Trick or Treat!

We had a fun time on Halloween. The kids went trick or treating with some friends - there aren't very many people that participate but one of my friends lives in a neighborhood with a few houses that do give out candy. We had a really fun time!

Roadtrip to Melbourne

The kids have 4 school breaks a year. Two weeks ago was their two week Spring Break. We have been realizing lately that if our tour ends up being 3 years we are almost half way done! We haven't seen nearly enough of Australia! With an adoption going on we decided it would be a great trip to drive to Melbourne (12 hours) , The Great Ocean Road and work our way back to Sydney - We needed to do all this in 8 days :) Since Matt had some meetings he had to get back to, Isabella is in the midst of her competitive gymnastics season and Jonah's baseball season has also started. We packed a load of adventure in just 8 short days (well the driving days were a little long . . . ) We had an incredibly great time! What a beautiful country this is. Here are some highlights of our trip.



October 1 - Leave Sydney at 6:35 am. Arrive Tourne on the south coast @ 7 pm. Yummy Asian noodles for dinner. We were pretty ready to get out of the car, a 12.5 hour drive can get pretty long for a certain little 4 year old!

October 2 - Check out of the hotel and head to The Great Ocean Road. We stopped at a few beautiful beaches and had a great time playing and walking. We watched surfers at a very famous surf beach. It was pretty cool. We arrived at our hotel called The Sandpiper Hotel in Apollo Bay in the early afternoon.

October 3 - We spent the day in Apollo Bay. As soon as the kids were up Matt walked with them the quarter mile down to the beach where they had a great time making sandcastles and playing in the sand. Later in the day we decided to take a drive to the National Park but we were stopped by a tree that had fallen into the road. We had a great time heading down a road and discovering a nice bush walk and ended up at a pretty isolated and beautiful bit of rocky shoreline and beach called Sandy Beach. We got a few good photos here and headed back up just in time to get in the car before it started pouring rain!

October 4- We check out of Sandpiper, It rains all day! We drove to the National Park and this time the tree was cleared out. You would not believe all the Koalas we saw in the trees on the way in. Amazing! We go over to the Waterfall and drive to Marriott in Melbourne, Dinner in China Town. Swim at the Marriott

October 5 - Sightsee in Melbourne

October 6 - We head to Philip Island. This little island is only about an hour south of Melbourne and can be accessed via a bridge. We stayed in the "Hollywood Hotel" that claims a movie star or two. We had a lot of fun going to the Penguin March - you sit on the beach and watch little fairy penguins come ashore. Unfortunately we didn't realize that unless you were in the first few rows you wouldn't see much. It was fun though as some had to waddle past us.

October 7 - Head to the Entrance - 90 mile beach. This was a beautiful beach . . . . miles and miles (about 90 -heehee) of beautiful beach with almost no people. The kids had a blast playing hide and go seek in the sand dunes and making sandcastles. We knew the kids loved it when Jonah said someday he wants to take his kids there, and Isabella agreed : )

October 8 - Head out, stop in Eden, Go to Narooma. WOW! We watched whales in the harbor from our balcony for several hours! They were flipping and blowing water. The big kids totally appreciated it and we were giggling and jumping up and down with excitement every time we got another glimpse. One time we watched a whale give the tail flip 15 times in a row! SPECTACULAR! This was the highlight of our entire trip!

October 9 - Head back to Sydney, stopping in Jervis Bay. Arrive home at 8 pm.

Captain Featherstone!

Elijah is so funny :) He decided to be a pirate for Halloween - so we ordered a Captain Featherstone costume for him. He was watching The Wiggles one morning and he went racing upstairs, he came down in his Captain Featherstone Costume and started dancing with the Wiggles and Captain Featherstone of course :) He makes us laugh every day. What a gift he is to us.

Our family meets the President!

Not so Typical Day - meeting the President of the United States!

Today we had the most amazing opportunity to meet President Bush at a "Meet & Greet" event held for Consulate employees and their families. It was a really great time. We shook his hand, just said a few words (nice to meet you, thanks for everything - he commented on Elijah's light up shoes - I think they startled him for a second, he said they kind of freaked him out . . ) The kids all got a photo with him. Here is something really cute: Isabella and her friend Sophia (my good friend Ashlyn's daughter) wore their Pymble Ladies College school uniforms and in the group picture with the Consulate Kids those two little girs were right in the middle with one hand of the President on each of their shoulders - too cute! Jonah was his right hand man and Elijah was in front of the girls . The rest of the Consulate kids were all around them so they were right in the middle of everything. I can't wait to get the White House photographers photo of that! After the photo with the kids, President Bush went down the line shaking hands and talking to everyone - he was sooooooooooo sweet - Jonah said he is a very good "speechmaker" and really - his speech was truly inspiring! He called himself an Evangelist for Liberty and said that God gave him the responsibility as President of the United States to work to ensure that every man, woman and child in the world has the opportunity to enjoy their god-given right to freedom.

I asked the President if we could have a family photo with him and he consented - we were very excited about that because many families did not get that opportunity. The White House photographer took one in addition to the one we took - and will send that to us later.

We just had a great day!

A typical day . . .

We woke up and I (Ellie) made brekky. The big kids put on their uniforms, packed their morning tea and lunch to catch a ride to the station with Matt in the tinny. I got Elijah ready and popped in to the right side of the Terracon to hop into the left lane of the highway and drop him off at Kindy. We walked by the beautiful houses with their lovely gardens. I popped in to say hello to Katie and drop off Elijah's lunch and morning tea. The kids were sharing their news. Walking back to the car I heard a Kukkaburra laughing and looked up to the Gum tree where there were two other Kukkaburras. I was struck by how many things that were so unusual to us the first few months have become so very normal. I am not sure it will be easy to flip our world again - will it be just as difficult to drive on the right side as it was to drive on the left the first few weeks . . . .?