New projects

In case I needed to find something else to keep me from doing things that I REALLY NEED to do (like go through boxes from when we moved here...), I decided to get inspired by some blogs on quilting and catch up on the quilts for nieces and nephews. Since Mia will be 2 in July, I think it's time to get her baby quilt to her. The other three are younger, but still quickly growing out of babyhood. It's part of my New Year's resolutions to get these 4 done, plus at least a good start on the next niece's quilt before we move. Well, I started in the first few days of January, and I'm happy to say 2 are done (the tops, at least. I'm waiting on the batting, which had to be ordered due to Australia's extremely ridiculous overpricing of everything, including fabric, batting, and anything else needed to make a quilt!). I won't spoil everything, but here are the fabrics for the 3 girls. The fabrics look great...we'll have to see about the quilts themselves. I bought this fabric for 3 quilts here and then got smart and ordered the rest from the states.

PS--Coming soon to Savannah's blog--a tutorial on how to make a slushy, featuring her new slushy maker from Christmas. She's excited to make it and has really thought it through with all the pictures she wants. Should be helpful to all y'all in a few months' time!

Tour Down Under

We opened a new chapter in Australia this week. Besides it being Australia Day and blazing hot (yes – Kevin, Stacy, Madi, Coop and Rylee – you guys brought and then took away the nice, comfortable weather from Sydney!), we went out for a stage in the 10^th Tour Down Under

(similar to the Tour de France … except here in our lovely backyard of Adelaide and the surrounding countryside. I’ve never been one to watch cycling events on TV, but like most sporting events, this one took on a whole flavor of its own while ‘on site’. It’s been going for 10 years, but this is the first year that they have ‘pro’ status.

So, many of the pro teams from Europe are here albeit not with some of their best riders (a pro cycling team will have 30 riders and yet only 7 will ride in a particular event – and a team will cost on the order of $20M a year to run!). Anyway, the atmosphere was just awesome! The police with their sirens going in front of the pack to make sure the streets are clear (that was Hunter’s favorite part). Then there are sponsor vehicles which have huge model cyclists on top of the vehicle and they throw out all

sorts of free stuff (the kids collected bags, bracelets, insulated mug holders, flags, banners, etc.) This particular course had the cyclists coming around 4 times over 3.5 hours. At the first of the race we were positioned just after the ‘neutral start’ position (they ride for 2 km before the race actually starts – we were after the 2 km and they were really moving.) I was standing not on the road, but on the shoulder trying to catch a picture of them coming by. I looked down at my camera and then looked up only to see this cyclist coming straight at me. Needless to say I moved faster than I think I ever would be able to otherwise off the road entirely – I’m sure the

rider wasn’t too crazy about my position on the road :) Anyway, you’d watch them come whizzing by and then go about the local activities like a bazaar, bands, a loud speaker announcer giving updates on the racers and where they were at. As they came by the start/finish line, we would all bang on the signs which were posted to the barricades. They would also collect food and water at this location and freely discard their old water bottles (Collin managed to collect one of these prize items). It was just a riot being there and in the atmosphere of it all. I think the Tour de France will have a new viewer this year … and for years to come. The kids really enjoyed themselves and a good time was had by all. We went with our friends, the MacAllisters, who are avid race friends and showed us the ins and outs of the sport. (They went into the city afterwards and got autographs of Cadel Evans and Robbie McKewen after the race … for you race fanatics out there!) A quick aside from the MacCallisters -- they brought the orange banner that Savannah is holding to church today. Kelli was giving a talk in sacrament and during her talk they held it up from the back row and instead of 'feel the rush' they put 'feel the spirit' with the 'rush' replaced by 'spirit' on notebook paper -- which fell off according to Kelli.

We ended our Australia day by letting the kids snooze in the back of the car on the way home and then getting in their wading pool and finally doing sparklers in the evening. We took them out to a high vantage point to see the fireworks, but believe it or not Adelaide didn’t even do any fireworks! Go figure … but we still had a great day and it was one we’ll remember for a long, long time!

These last pictures are of my trip up to the Murray River with the youth from church. We had a great time. I’d also like to throw in a “feel good” moment from church, if I may. I was just sitting down to write this blog and a grandma of one our deacons from church called me up. This particular boy lives in a home with a single mother and his younger sister. His dad, I believe, left them at an early age. His mom isn’t active, but every other week he comes to stay with his grandma who takes him to church on those weekends. He was ordained a deacon last September or so and today was set apart as a counselor in the quorum presidency. During the blessing, it was a neat feeling to feel of the Spirit and the thoughts and words just flowed smoothly. The grandma was calling up to thank me for giving him a blessing for the start of school this week. She was hoping that someone could give him a father’s type blessing for the start of school, but he didn’t feel particularly comfortable with anyone coming over to do it. During his setting apart today he was blessed that he would do well in his school work, relations and education. When his grandma asked him if he’d at least be willing to say a prayer for school before he left her house this afternoon, he said that he’d already received the blessing that he needed during his setting apart. It was a testimony to me of how we can be an instrument in the Lord’s hands … and how taking a few moments to make a phone call of gratitude can mean a lot. Just wanted to close on that happy note … happy Australia day everyone!! Australia Day and 4^th of July in the same year!! Wahoo – and we hope to get fireworks in America!

Kangaroo Island

So unfortunately we had to say goodbye to our good friends the Hutchinsons yesterday. They arrived in Adelaide from Sydney on 15 Jan. We picked them up from the airport and headed directly south to Cape JervisKangaroo Island. The road down winds a lot and poor Madi (their 6-year old) got sick and puked all over the back of the minivan. She then proceeded to carry a ‘comfort’ plastic bag around with her for the next little bit and happily she didn’t get sick again J Kevin, myself and the two older boys (poor Hunter had to hang out in the puke mobile with all the other girls) were in ‘old betsy’; the beauty of a small little 4-door Hyundai about the size of a Geo Storm back home. More to come from old betsy later … which is where we picked up the ferry to head over to Kangaroo Island.

After taking the 45-minute ferry over to Kangaroo Island (you can see the island pretty well from Cape Jervis) we headed over to the Honey Farm. Kangaroo Island is supposedly renowned for its pure honey because the bees here are of one variety and they don’t allow any honey imports or bees for that matter. We partook of the tasty varieties of honey (not sure how they can make pure honey of a particular tree flower, but whatever), then visited the bee honeycomb site which allows you to see the bees dancing and making honey … and then bought some honey ice cream. All the kids just took a bit of honey ice cream and then Kevin and I ended up eating about a quart by ourselves because we just couldn’t let it go to waste. Let’s just say I’ve had my fill of honey ice cream for the next decade!

This is where the vacation took a slight turn for the worst. Most the roads out on Kangaroo Island are of the ‘washboard’ variety. In other words, they are dirt and have seen just enough water to make them nasty to drive on. Well, my poor little betsy didn’t handle the roads very well. We were being bounced all over the place – and in the process we started losing power from the engine (not like betsy has a whole lot of get up and go to begin with from those 4 poor little gerbils inside.) In any case, we limped into our accommodation at Kingscote (a nice little house all to ourselves :)) We called a car repair place but looked under the hood before taking it in and noticed that one of the spark plug connectors had completely come out of its spot and was lying on the engine – so only 3 gerbils were getting the kick in the rear. Well, we put the connector back in and whallah … we had the car back in action! That evening we watched the pelicans get fed and flip fish all over the people in the front row and then did a local fish and chips shop (scrumptuous!) We then played games till the wee hours of the morning. (The Hutchinsons love to play games and they brought some pretty good ones with them.)

The next day we did a lot of traveling. In the morning Kevin and I took the kids down to the pier for some fishing. We got some local cockle (squid) and didn’t have much luck except that Kevin and Madison caught a crab that was more hairy than Hunter’s, uh, we’ll leave it at that. We then started our journey around the island. We drove through some of the burnt out areas of the national forests. They had a huge wildfire outbreak there recently and left a lot of areas pretty charred. Of course, the terrain and geography weren’t too different from place to place. It was a fairly mundane drive with a lot of gum trees and that’s about it. We visited two places on the southwest end of the island – one called the Remarkable Rocks which is basically some very out-of-place fancy rocks on the end of a jutted piece of land on the beach. The other was a place where the New Zealand seals hang out and has a cool cave from which you can look out over the ocean. The seals stink the place up, but it’s entertaining the watch them in their natural habitat. Stacy mentioned how cool it would be to see the Great Whites coming up for a ‘bite’ --- since it is supposedly one of the most populated locations for Great Whites. We then stopped at some sand dunes on the way back to our home and rented some sleds and a ‘sandboard’ which we used to slide down the dunes. It was as close as we are going to come to a wintery, white sledding adventure this January :)

On Thursday we relaxed and went to a hidden beach which required one to walk through some rock formations. The other side had an awesome natural enclosure for the kids to play in (only the size of maybe a couple tennis courts.) I took my goggles and went swimming down around the rocks and there were just tons of fish varieties – and none could get out to the ocean until the tide came back in. The other side of the ‘lake’ was open to the ocean and was about waste deep for a good 100 meters and there were a few waves. Savannah wasn’t too crazy about them, but I forced her to go out for a minute anyway. The water on Kangaroo Island was so nice and clean. It went from the deep dark blue out in the far ocean to the light turquoise and green closer to shore. Later that evening we went to an aquarium and took a tour to see some fairy penguins (it was a rough, windy day and so most of them hadn’t returned from there hunting expeditions in the ocean.) We did see a couple which was good for the kids.

The last day on the island we drove back to the ferry and took a rough trip over the water. Both Kevin and Stacy got a little queezy, but luckily it wasn’t too far and we all survived without any problems. We ventured over to Victor Harbor for a bit and let the kids do some rides and play games at a carnival and play at the Thomas park. They had a good time just getting out of the car! We finished with some chili chocolate and throwing some coins in the whale tail fountain.

Saturday we relaxed a bit and tried to recover a bit from the Kangaroo Island trip. We went up to the strawberry farm at Handorf and then visited our favorite ice cream shop and the helicopter park – after which we all literally crashed that evening and through Sunday. Monday was good times at the ever-popular Big Rocking Horse and the Gorge wildlife park – especially the part where the baby emus were chasing Stacy and the kids and all Kevin and I could do was laugh and take pictures.

We were sad to see them go Tuesday morning. They are great friends and their kids were very good friends for our little ones. Hopefully sometime in the not-so-distant future we’ll be able to spend ‘heaps’ more time together. Check out their blog on the right for more details and pictures of a super, awesome vacation.

Hilarious Hunter!!!

Hunter has had some pretty funny moments of late ... the one with the car seat is seriously his pose on the way home from church. He only got half way through his apple and fell asleep with it halfway hanging out of his mouth.