It's Christmas Time in the City!

What an extremely eventful couple of weeks. I spent several days at conferences on the Gold Coast and in Sydney, so Kelli and the kids were left to fend for themselves and finish off the home stretch before school holidays. They somehow managed without too many hair-raising experiences, but it wasn’t without its own ‘dramas’ (or ‘dramars’ as they say it in these parts.) But, most of all interesting stories these days lead back to Hunter … so let’s start there.

This kid has the greatest knack for getting into mischief. If you’re not convinced by the end of this paragraph then there is something wrong with you! So there I am living it up on the Gold Coast when I give Kelli a call to see how everyone is doing. I get the, “I’m going to go crazy!” type response. She tells me about some of the shenanigans that Hunter has been up to. One of his latest things is to take any chair available and hike it around the house – preferably in the kitchen where he can find the most ‘opportunity for excitement’. He would get upset at Kelli, asking for some water or milk and then proceed to dump it all over the floor. He would pull things off the counter and throw tupperwear all over the kitchen. But, nothing could compare to the events of the last couple days. I get a call from Kelli and she says, “You will never, ever guess what Hunter did this time.” She proceeds to describe how he got into the pantry (yes, he’s figured that out now as well) and pulled out the chocolate syrup. He then poured it all over the kitchen tiles and proceeded to hand paint with it. You think that might have satisfied him, but no, he was only getting started. He took his chocolate covered hands and ventured into the family room where we have white couches and love seats for visiting … and yes, one of the love seats got a new paint job. Kelli came into the room a little bit later (probably got uneasy when it was too quiet), and to her horror took in the scene around her. She just put her hands to her face and screamed for several seconds – enough to scare Hunter! Kelli removed the slip covers and cleaned up the mess. That’s a good story in and of itself … but it’s even better if I were to tell you that the same thing happened the next day! Only this time there were no slip covers and he just planted his mitts all over the chair itself. Kelli wasn’t too happy, obviously. That was in the early afternoon and by the time I got home from work he was up in his room, in his crib with the door closed because he’d managed to pull his chair over to the sink, pull down our digital camera from the ledge, throw it into the sink … and turn the water on--and he was saying, "Naughty, naughty." Thank goodness it was our old digital camera which was about to go out anyway, but he definitely has crossed the line several times this week. I caught him the next day pouring water on the same chair he’d covered with chocolate (the two of them must have some crazy bond), so he went up to his room again. I think the message may be getting through, at least. We haven’t had any more mishaps this weekend. He even played good while the kids did a messy paint project. So, maybe we’re turning a corner. That and he asked to go on the toilet as well – even without doing anything ‘productive’ he was pretty proud of himself.

Ok, now that I’ve painted that menacing picture of our little 1-year old, let me give some positive highlights as well. He has turned into quite the singer. He loves to sing one of two songs – I Am a Child of God and Star Wars. He also loves to talk – in his own language of course. But, most of the words you can make out and he’s entertaining to listen to (for instance, loves to say ‘doggie ‘side – doggie outside’ … ‘gaubamanman – garbage man’, ‘bug!’, ‘shoes! – meaning he wants to go outside’, ‘bike’). The problem is getting him to be quiet! He does love bugs, though. This morning he came in and starts grabbing my hand and telling me ‘pollie, pollie!’ That proceeded to crying ‘pollie’ until I would follow him. On the way out of the room he grabbed one of my shoes. We then proceeded into the kitchen where he stoops down and gets his little pointy finger out and points at the ground. And there was a rollie pollie bug – or whatever you call them. He then took my shoe and tried to smash it – because of what he’d seen me do with other more menacing creatures like spiders. After showing him this one was ok, he held his little hand and I put it in his hand to take outside. So yes, he does have his endearing moments as well.

Collin on the other hand is also a little mischief maker. He is our little class clown. While not nearly the trouble maker that Hunter is turning out to be, he does his own fair bit. This past week he got into some crazy glitter glue and managed to get it on the carpet and on his head --- which didn’t come off for some time. He’s also having some trouble obeying as well. The other day he asked Kelli if he could have some cordial (concentrated koolaid if you will) to which Kelli said no. Well, Collin took that as a, “no I won’t get it for you” … so I’ll get it for myself. So he went into the kitchen, unscrewed the lid and proceeded to pour cordial into his cup … and then all over the floor. Without making a peep he made for the paper towels and started to try and clean up his mess … which is when Kelli happened upon that lovely scene (are we starting to feel Kelli’s pain a little yet?)

Savannah on the other hand has actually been having several good days recently. Kelli said she was a huge help while I was away and is always a good play person with Hunter. Her and Collin have a lot of fun in the backyard riding their bikes around and around the circuit (as long as Collin follows her bossing around). Savannah also finished up her last day of year 1 this year and is quite keen on going into year 2. She gets the same class as her best friend Keely (they are still best friends despite their first major fallout fight – one of those classic confrontations of doors slamming and little girls bantering at each other with quips of ‘stop being bossy’, ‘you stop talking to me’, ‘I’m not talking to you’, ‘Yes you are!’ … type of stuff … quite entertaining actually :) In any case, they finished up their last netball game as well and their last swimming lesson. Savannah got a nice little trophy for netball but as soon as she got it she ran over to us and right in front of all the other parents she goes, “Look what I got! But it’s only plastic!” (It's metal and faux marble--quite nice for a participation trophy!) Very embarrassing … All three kids are doing really well in swimming. Savannah is doing well with breathing and the freestyle. Collin keeps getting in trouble because he plays off of the wall without the teacher’s permission. And Hunter loves to run and jump off the floating duck platform – the kid can cruise! Anyway, now it’s off to school holidays and the task of keeping the kids entertained. I have from 21 Dec – 1 Jan off, so that will be a nice break in the action.

The kids have been having some fun in other areas as well. As evident from the pictures, they are living (as much as we will let them anyway) on ‘ice blocks’ or popsicles. They recently decided as well that they like their bedtime puppet shows so much that they have started doing their own plays outside. It’s pretty entertaining as they don their Christmas hats and run around the yard in their shorts and hopefully not getting too sunburned. They’ve also been creative enough to take their sidewalk chalk and color their noses red so they can act like reindeer.

In other news we are getting closer to Christmas and we are pretty much done with our shopping. Kelli was pretty happy to have obtained a certain item from the stores. A sale here in Australia (at least in Adelaide) consists of about 10 items at the sale price and unless you are there within the first half hour of the store being open then you are out of luck … but then they have you in the store and perhaps think they can get some of your other business. Kind of frustrating, but we’re learning to just go out and shop for something specific and then get out of the shops as quick as possible!

Other than that we are enjoying our days of barbequing (don’t be knocking the size of my BBQ either!) and enjoying our second Christmas down under. Last week was pretty rough on everyone in that respect. We were having a rough time with the job search on the Air Force side and the kids (Hunter!) were causing havoc. The heat outside was just an added ingredient to the whole situation. The last straw though was Kelli listening on the radio over the internet to a country station back home. They were talking about the snowy, Christmasy weather … so after I got home we just looked at each other like, “Sure would be nice to be able to drop the kids off at Grandma/Grandpas for a weekend stay :)!” But, we quickly turned things around and did a bunch of fun stuff over the weekend like riding bikes in the park, watering the lawn during our 3-hour allotted window (Hunter watering the lawn that is...every Saturday night the kids get soaked!), doing some arts and craft projects, and cleaning the house! Good times were had by all.

For those in the dark on the job search, our efforts at finding something in the Air Force that would be enjoyable for the next 4 years … and beyond … has proven very difficult. That combined with the potential opportunities of going into industry back home have led us down the track towards separating from the military. We are excited on the prospect of moving back to the states, and possibly to Utah, after traveling the world. There are a few things that we still need to figure out before making the decision final, but I’d say we are 90% there. We’ll see what happens. We are both at peace with the decision and you can’t ask for much more than that …