Moving right along...

Well, not much has happened the past few weeks. Thankfully, we are all together again and life back to normal. I’m sure Jessy will have some insights to add, but for the most part we’re just happy and healthy. The weather is always a good topic to bring up. We’re moving into the spring … well, actually Adelaide doesn’t have much of a spring. It’s pretty much from the dead of winter to the heat of summer. Luckily we’ve hit a bit of a wet spell before getting the exhausting heat, so that will help before the massive water restrictions kick in (which we’ve heard means no watering of the lawns whatsoever …) Everything is pretty green right now which makes for nice walks and lovely frog sounds from across the park in the evening.

Savannah is officially out of school for two weeks on holiday. The third term just ended and I think, for the first time, she is actually looking forward to the break. She recently was tested on her reading and writing skills (standard procedure for reception/year 1 kids after they’ve been in school for 4 terms), and she passed with flying colors. I laughed when I saw that they tested her on reading level 5, since she is on level 22 right now. She also is ready to move up in swimming. She had a tough time when the instructor was watching her go on her back, so she needs to be tested/observed again, but her teacher says she’ll move up and she was just having a bad day when she was observed. We also have to laugh when we watch her at lessons—every time she comes up out of the water, she blows water out her nose like a seal. It’s the craziest thing! We can’t figure out if she sucks it in her mouth and shoots it out her nose, or if she actually sucks it up into her nose and back out, but it’s pretty gross when she pops her cute little head out of the water and then shoots two streams of water out her nostrils! … And another quality ‘Savannah-ism’ that I probably shouldn’t document, but it’s too funny to pass up. This morning we were trying to decide whether to give the kids a bath or shower. We told Savannah that she needed to get clean one way or the other to which she responded, “I don’t stink very bad, but my toots sure do!” Uh, yeah …

Collin has been really excited about kindy lately. He loved the eggs that hatched into chicks and now they have a bearded dragon and a green tree frog in there and he loves it! He came home and wanted to tell everyone about how he got to pat the lizard, but nobody was on webcam. Luckily grandma called to hear all about it! We went on a walk last Sunday morning before church, and we stopped to let the kids roll down the hill across the street. They played for a while, and when we were heading home, I noticed Collin had some bumps by his eye. By the time we got home, they were full-blown welts across his cheek and his eye was swollen shut! I washed his face and put some Benadryl on, which helped some, but he still looked like a prize fighter when we went to church. It didn’t seem to bother him much, except when Savannah said things like, “What happened to your face???” and “Why is your eye so ugly???” I didn’t think it was too bad, but yesterday I had several people from church ask if Collin was “better” because they thought he had some type of infection or something. He also has been funny with his food lately—he never finishes, but he carefully puts his plate or bowl into the fridge for later. And, sure enough, a few hours later (like after he’s gone to bed or some other convenient time), he goes to the kitchen, pulls it out, and eats it cold.

Hunter is just as crazy as always. I’ve found that if I ask him to help me do things, I can keep him out of trouble (kind of). He loves to help out with the housework—sweeping, vacuuming, tidying up. He thinks he has to play the didgeridoo (he asks for it by saying “did-doo”), at least once a day and he also likes to look up the bottom, with spit flying down and all. He loves Jessy’s protein/energy drinks and won’t let Jessy drink one without him. Hunter has been showcasing his mastery at the left foot kicks. He will do a little drop kick by letting the ball just barely hit the ground and then booting it down the hallway. He’s also got a wicked throwing left arm … we’ll see if it sticks, but for now it’s darn right cute! I’m also beginning to think that the kid might be half wolf (gets that from me-J). He has this thing lately where he ‘howls’ at the moon. It’s a kick on the pants. He gets his little lips in an ‘o’ shape and then, well, howls. It’s actually pretty hilarious because he’ll just keep going from one howl to the next … and with everyone laughing at him it just eggs him on a little more.

Things are going well for the adults here, too. Jessy is training for his half ironman he thinks he’s doing next summer in the states. He has the day off tomorrow for a public holiday, so we get to go out for the day—yea! We’ve all had a bit of hayfever this spring with all the flowers and trees blossoming for all they’re worth after getting a bit of rain this winter. We’ve been getting some ugly spiders around. I’m going to post a picture of a huntsman I ran into while cleaning the webs off the clothesline (the picture doesn't do justice--he is quite big when he's all spread out!). He was molting out of his old skin—how gross is that??—when I came face to ugly face (his) with him. I hate the big black ones that come in the house once in a while and we have some nasty spiders and webs out under the sunroof. Luckily, we haven’t had any centipedes or scorpions or other hideous creatures lately (knock on wood). That’s about it for us here—like I said, nothing too strange or unusual.

Oh, and GO CUBS!! This is the year baby and I don’t care that I’m 10,000 miles away --- just as long as they make it to the World Series!

Just a few thoughts on Poland while my mind is still foggy and somewhat remembers what happened while I was there. The flight over was fairly uneventful. All up it was 35 hours from the time I said goodbye to Kelli and the kids in Adelaide until I got to the hotel in Warsaw. The flights were pretty good. I had a window seat on the 13 hour flight from Singapore to Paris which wasn’t very good. Luckily I didn’t have to use the bathroom during the night as it would have required some acrobatic moves to get over the two people next to me. The 777 aircraft I thought was supposed to have decent leg room, but even for a small guy like me it was pretty cramped. That and my headrest didn’t support the weight of my nogger so I only managed 2 hours or so of sleep. The airport in Singapore was extremely nice. It was pretty much like an indoor shopping center and had free internet access everywhere. The first thought coming off the plane was ‘humid’ and the second thought walking through the terminal was ‘curry’ – with an afterthought that in that country I might even be thought of as tall! The flight from Singapore to Paris took us over India, Afghanistan, Iran and the Chechnya region before we hit Europe. It was interesting to look out and see pockets of light here and there highlighting the villages and wondering just what kind of lives the people down there were leading. Sometimes we don’t know if anything is better than what we have unless we know about it and experience it for ourselves. In any case, I made it to Paris and that airport was a dump with nowhere to relax. It was a strange airport with the buses taking you from terminal to terminal and you’re driving right in front of the noses of all the aircraft parked on the tarmac. With nowhere really to sit and relax, luckily my itinerary had a business class seat for the next flight so I had privileges to go in the lounge and relax on the leather seats. It sure felt good, but I still couldn’t sleep.

Warsaw itself was very interesting. My general impressions were of a place immersed in the winter of Communism and yet showing the first signs of budding at the first signs of spring. It really took me back to my mission although that was 10 years ago and this scene showed a lot greater improvement in the outward appearance of the city, and generally the people. Pretty much everywhere you could find the multi-story cement blocks of apartment complexes which weren’t very much to look at. I had a hotel room on the 35^th floor of one of the highest buildings of the city which gave a unique vantage point. Most of the time the weather was cloudy and overcast, but on the last day it was blue and sunny. Outside of the city the landscape, trees and plants were pretty much the same as up in Kaliningrad and in St Petersburg. In the city the streets were generally clean and the people were friendly. The language was very much a Russian-sounding language so although I couldn’t understand the sentences and context of what was being said, I could pick out words here and there that were similar to Russian. With the oppression of Communism though, most people aren’t too inclined to speak any Russian. I was told most of the older generation knows it, but the switch as been made to everyone learning English instead of the language to the east.

You can’t help but feel sorry for the people. Everything they were told turned out to be a lie and everything they relied on for life and sustenance was basically taken out from underneath. As a result, they were left in a society and system which they didn’t comprehend. We toured several different research institutions and universities and for the most part the level and depth of research was fairly far behind western standards. That’s somewhat surprising when you consider that Russia itself has really good technology in terms of air and space. But, we were told they generally kept the European countries in the dark and didn’t involve them too much in those activities. Now that they are working with the European Space Agency and NASA, they are getting more of an opportunity to let scientists and engineers make a significant contribution. It shows in some of the ideas they have floating around … although they still are lacking in resources to make it happen. That made our entourage a pretty popular attraction as we went from place to place. We obviously didn’t have any authority to start collective programs with them or hand over $$ for contracts (which pretty much turned most people off when they found out we were generally just a group of captains with relatively little we could offer to help them out …). That said, they were very cordial and inviting with everything they presented. Most of them spoke pretty good English so it wasn’t difficult to carry on a conversation or just talk about whatever. Hopefully things will continue to turn around for them and in the future they will make even further contributions …

The other side of the visit was soaking in the culture. That involved a lot of food, and for the rest of the group a lot of beer. After the first dinner I wondered how come my bill was higher than the others even though I didn’t drink any alcohol. I figured it out on the second night that the group went through 10L of beer and it cost them a total of 90 PLN (zhlotne – the polish currency) … while we ordered 2L of water and it cost 54 PLN – that’s a ratio of 3:1 for water to beer! I was flabbergasted … but I guess where there is a higher demand there will be higher prices J Even though I didn’t drink it was entertaining to watch the rest of them go through mug after mug. The first two places we ate they first brought out these little pedestals that stood 6” off the table. Then they brought out a 4” diameter tube that was 3’ high full of beer (5L). The pedestal had a little tap on it and well, the rest is history. They went through 3 the first night and 2 the second between ~10 people … and then add some vodka shots on top of that and it made for a lively crowd. I guess I wanted to fit in as much as possible so I found an order for ‘sauerkraut juice’. Now that packed a punch of sourness like you’ve never tasted before. Imagine the power of 10 lemons and those sour candies in one sip of drink and there you go. 6 of us gave it a go and there was still 7/8ths of the glass left --- which we left on the table … The food was part German and part Russian. I had perogi the first night which is a Russian pel’meni with meat or potatoes in the middle wrapped in a light bread wrap. We also had chicken cutlets and a huge shish-ka-bob that was really good. One interesting thing was the appetizer – normally places bring out bread as a filler to begin with – well, at one place they brought out a plate of sauerkraut and mongo pickles. They were actually pretty good, the pickles that is. I’d had enough of sauerkraut with the juice from a few nights back so I left that to the others. So, yes, the food was a definite hit.

The last night we ate at a cool little outdoor place with a live band and fire pit, Then we hit a karaoke bar (luckily the first of our groups didn’t do so hot so the DJ didn’t want to let any of the rest of us get up … ) and then hit a disco where I relived some of my high school glory days J It was 1 am before we got back to the hotel and I was beat. The next morning we met with the US Ambassador to Poland and had a good little chat, after which we visited a museum about the polish uprising. Towards the end of WWII the Poles were sent a proposal from the Soviets to start an uprising, with everyone combining against the Nazi occupants at the same time. The Soviets parked on the opposite side of the river from the city and promised their help. Well, when the Poles rose up, the Soviets just stood there and watched. Stalin had in mind to get rid of any idealists who may want to rise up against on occupant knowing sure well that he would like to occupy Warsaw after the war. After a couple of months ~200,000 Poles were dead and a couple of months later Stalin had control of the city … pretty sad … especially considering they were occupied for another 45 years.

On a lighter note, some of the cool things to buy are amber jewelry and pottery. They were a big hit with Kelli at home. Speaking of which, the flight home was relatively uneventful. There was a minor hiccup with my not having a visa in Singapore. Since I was on military orders you’re not supposed to need a visa, but they are by the book and required an ok from Canberra which took about an hour of standing in line and waiting to get. All in all it wasn’t a big deal and returning home and hearing the Aussie accent was a very welcome sound to the ears. I even had a ginger beer on the airplane and enjoyed it! As always the people in Australia were very nice and it was good to be ‘home’. My mementos from the trip – a Polish soccer scarf and a bottle of Polish water J

Daddy's Home!!

Well, Jessy is back, but since it’s almost 11:00 and he’s not up yet, I’ll do the diary once more. Of course, I’ll be happy to do it because we are SO happy that Jessy is home. Hunter stopped wandering around the house saying, “Where Daddy?” and running to the door if anyone knocked after about two days. Collin was very forlorn and always “missed Dad.” Savannah knew what waiting a week meant, but she still said she wished he didn’t have to go. We were very happy to pick him up yesterday morning from the bus stop after he flew for about 23 hours again. He distributed his presents, which included an Eiffel tower replica and drawing, rugby footies, airplanes, Polish pottery, amber jewelry, a Hard Rock Café t-shirt, and a Polish soccer scarf (for himself, of course). The presents are great and we were so excited to have Dad back, but all he wanted to do was sleep. So, he slept the morning away, I woke him up to get ready for church and thought he was up and at ‘em, but when I went up there about 20 minutes before we had to go, I found that he was completely out—I don’t think he even remembers me waking him up. He only nodded off a few times in church, and did well to go to youth firesides in the evening. Hopefully after the monster sleep he’s having now, he’ll be recovered.

Well, it’s the most beautiful time of the year here in Australia (at least in my opinion). Everything is beautiful and green (water restrictions aren’t in force yet!), and the trees are the most amazing colors! I love seeing the dark purple trees, the red bottlebrush trees, the yellow flowery trees, and of course the white blossoms (all scientific names, of course). There are flowers all over (these weeds they call sour sobs, that are like mini-daffodils are everywhere and they’re so pretty!), and the birds are going crazy with all their singing (even in the middle of the night—I think sometimes the cockatoos fall out of trees)!! Of course, there are not-so-pleasant things coming out of winter hibernation, too, like the ants, spiders (I have to clean the webs off the clothes line before I can hang clothes each week), millipedes and centipedes. Jessy will have to spray this weekend around the house, but I have to admit that we haven’t had nearly as many ants and daddy long legs as last year—maybe because I’ve got cans of Mortein under all the bathroom cabinets and am not afraid to use it! We’ve actually had rain this year, and it’s made our yard look great!

As for the kids, Hunter and Collin were playing while Savannah was at tennis. Of course, they found the only puddle on the courts and, by the end of the lesson, were completely soaked from their knees down and wrists up. It wasn’t so bad (at least they hadn’t fallen into the pool!), until Hunter started sucking the water from his sleeve on the way home. Anything for food or drink!! Speaking of which, Hunter said his first sentence this week, “Cordial…cordial…I want cordial.” (For those who don’t know what cordial is, it’s a syrup to make punch.) He’s also showing me how he’s picking up things from the TV—whenever he hears the “Bob, the Builder” theme song he puts his two pointer fingers up and starts dancing; when he hears the “Little Einsteins” song, he runs into the living room and starts patting his legs (that’s what they do in the show); and whenever Mickey Mouse says “Oh TOOLS!” (or is it toodles?), Hunter answers by repeating “Oh, TOOLS!” He doesn’t sit around and watch it much, but since the other kids have the TV on a lot he is picking it up. He didn’t want to stay at nursery yesterday (darn), but he liked it—just while one of us was there with him. He’s a cutie, who is always humming and singing and trying to get us to laugh, but I can’t get over the amount of mischief he makes!! He is unlike any child I’ve ever known, except maybe Dennis the Menace. He isn’t hyper or anything, and seems quite mellow, but he just does everything he shouldn’t. If he gets a hold of markers, crayons, whatever, he has to write on walls (and the paint here doesn’t exactly wash up well—even the washable markers don’t come all the way off!). He turns the switches on all the outlets and tries to stick things in them. He climbs up on the kitchen table and dances or knocks down flower vases or tips over the gravy boat. He unrolls every roll of toilet paper, aluminum foil, wax paper, or paper towels he can get his hands on. He loves to run with sharp objects in his hands. He climbs up to the computer and deletes whatever is up and resets the desktop and basically does whatever he can to mess it up. If he gets his hands on scissors, he tries to cut his hair. He eats out of the garbage and loves to suck toothpaste from the tube. He tries to climb into the dishwasher and clothes drier every time they’re open. Whenever he gets a drink bottle, he has to take off the lid and stick it in his mouth and run away from whoever tries to take it out. The other kids have done some of these things, but they usually stopped doing it after I got mad at them once or twice, but this kid is seriously a repeat offender!! I just hope he lives to see his second birthday.

Collin has been melancholy this week, missing his dad. He did enjoy kindy, where they had some chicken eggs in an incubator and he got to see one hatch. He also likes going over to his friend Hinckley’s house, where Holly babysits him and Hunter on Wednesdays. After we got home this week, I got this email from Holly called “Overheard Conversation.” It said:

Collin: "Hinckley, don't sing! I'm golfing!"

Hinckley: "But I like to sing songs about Jesus"

Collin: "Oh yeah, well I like to sing songs about Star Wars!"

He is very Napolean Dynamite. He also came in Saturday saying that the neighbor was a bully. I didn’t get what was going on, so I went out and found that the kids had thrown a stick over into the neighbor’s yard and then they were yelling things at him like “Give us back our stick” and “Why don’t you say something?” When he said, “No,” Collin came in to say he was a bully.

Savannah was a good helper while Dad was away. She did get sick this week, which is very unusual for her. We had a big argument over her staying home from school Friday, but she didn’t understand why she should stay home when she wasn’t puking, just sneezing and coughing. She ended up going to school because I didn’t want to have to find 1000 ways to tell her why she should stay home, which is what she would have demanded all day Friday. On Thursday at netball, she wasn’t feeling well, but she still did a great job defending a 7-year-old giant. She managed to get a few steals, and did well at getting open to receive passes. Leanne (her coach and Collin’s kindy teacher), asked if she could keep her when we move back to America so she can train her up to be a Thunderbird (pro netball team here in Adelaide). Savannah’s also very excited about her showbag that some friends brought me and the kids. (The Royal Adelaide Show is a very expensive, very hyped-up equivalent to a state fair. Almost everyone goes, but since it costs $45 for our family to get in plus $10 parking plus $7 per ride plus whatever you want to eat or drink plus your “showbag”, and since I had the three kiddos by myself last week, I didn’t really want to go! So our friends got us our own showbags—the kids are in heaven with their candy showbags!)

Last but not least, and maybe the reason that Jessy slept in so late this morning, is that we bought our tickets to get home in October. I made him stay up until midnight to get them. I was nervous to buy it myself, since you have to coordinate all the dates and times, which is tricky with the international dateline. So I foolishly waited until Jessy was home and it was way more expensive than it would have been. However, it is going to be a miracle if we make it in one piece with all our luggage. Collin likes to know what the planes look like that we travel on, so he’s very excited to know we’ll be traveling on 6 different “brands” of planes on that trip! It’ll be worth it to be there and see everyone, though!

Flying Solo

Well, Jessy isn’t here today, since there seems to be something pressing going on in the world of rocket science in Poland, of all places (not really, just a meeting). He’s just about getting there after 23 hours on several planes with some layovers in between (Singapore and Paris). And, within hours of arriving in Warsaw, they’ve got him scheduled to go to the Hard Rock Café with all his cronies. YEA!!! I’m hoping he remembers to get me a shirt…

Well, this past week has not been dull. On Tuesday, I took the kids to school and Savannah asked if she and Collin could head across the bridge instead of waiting for me to load Hunter in his stroller. Since I’d be two minutes behind, I said yes. They took off running happily. Then when I got across the bridge, there was Collin, holding his kindy teacher’s hand with this confused look on his face. Leanne (the teacher) said that another mom had found Collin standing by himself outside the kindy gate and asked him if he was in kindy. When Collin said yes, she took him into the kindy to find out if someone knew who he was. So, here Leanne was, returning our abandoned child. I wasn’t happy with Savannah and she now knows that leaving Collin by himself isn’t okay, even if you’re really excited to get to Chinese class. Then, when I went to pick Collin up from kindy, he was standing there in his jacket, socks, and shoes, but no pants!! Apparently, he’d had an accident (he was in the bathroom but couldn’t get on the toilet in time—he says it was those “stupid toilets’ fault”), but he wanted to put his wet clothes back on. Leanne had to really persuade him that the other kids wouldn’t appreciate him smelling like pee in the class. So, then he wanted to just go completely nude from the waist down. She was finally able to talk him into wearing “jocks” (boys’ underwear), but not pants. He was telling her that mom would be “really upset” about washing the soiled clothes. In truth, he was really upset that the clothes had to go into the wash—he doesn’t like it when the clothes he likes are in the hamper, waiting to be washed. Luckily, Leanne knows us well enough to know I’m not a terrible mother who abandons her child at the gate and beats him when he has an accident!!

And while we were wondering if we were going to be reported to child services on Wednesday, Collin fell down at our friends’ house and got a huge goose egg that they covered with two super sticky bandaids right in the middle of his forehead. Then, at swimming that night, Hunter got restless and started wandering further and further from Jessy and I. He finally rounded the corner and Jessy got up to go after him, but when Hunter saw him coming, it turned into a game and he got so excited he spun around and ran straight into the pool (a little over a meter deep where he went in). Luckily Jessy wasn’t far behind and grabbed his arm fast enough to pull him out just before his diaper went in. So, Hunter had dripping wet pants, shoes, and socks, which meant that Jessy also had dripping wet pants after he pulled him out and brought him to me. After seeing the looks on the faces of the people at the pool, I’m quite surprised the family services people haven’t paid us a visit.

So, we’ve had a few laughs this week with the kids. Savannah did get a few late birthday packages—who wants a birthday when you can have a birthmonth?—from Grandma and Grandpa Jones and Jenny, Oliver and Rachel, and Travis. She immediately made a bed for Apples, the hedgehog and Peep, the bunny out of a cardboard box and washcloths (thanks for suggesting she give them a good home, Travis!!). I have had to put them down for a nap or two, when she was too busy playing to do so. With these new friends and her tamagatchi (I always am trying to figure out what the heck the thing wants or needs), I feel like I have three more children!! She also decorated her new “dream journal”—I don’t really know what exactly a dream journal is, but she decorated it with the word “dream” and told me she hasn’t had a dream for a while, so she’s making some up to put in the new journal. I guess her old journal will be reality-based and this will be more of a fantasy-type journal.

Other than that, we’re doing well. Savannah’s netball team suffered their first loss, but it was a learning experience and nothing that a few gummy snakes couldn’t fix. Collin is still obsessed with potty language. He also put his arm around me in church just like the newlywed husband in front of us did to his wife. We heard a few giggles behind us, but he didn’t seem to care and took his role of man of the house quite seriously. Hunter is starting to talk much better. He gets lots of sounds in there and even when he just mumbles, his gestures and the tone of his voice make you understand what he’s trying to say. He is cute and I’m so glad he goes to nursery next Sunday—he is EVERYWHERE and into everything!! But he’s cute. He’s also my little door monitor—whenever the screen door is open, he rushes over and closes it. Even when the other kids leave it open, when I yell for someone to close it, Hunter is always the first to respond. Before Jessy took off to travel the world, he played some tennis with me and Collin, which was fun. All the kids got their hair cut in varying degrees last night before their showers. After we got up this morning, I realized we’ll probably have to fix them before their next showers. And that’s about as exciting as things get around here… We’re very excited to be coming home at the end of October—we were surprised to find a more affordable airfare, and convinced the kids they could do it (since it’s two night flights with a trip to the beach in Hawaii in between). Hopefully we can see everyone on that trip!

Happy Father's Day!!

There were a lot of funny experiences and comments from the kids that we tried to make note of during the month of August during and separate from our travels to Uluru, Victor Harbor and Sydney. Hunter, in particular, has grown and developed in leaps and bounds over the past month. He’s really started talking, and as we mentioned in our Sydney diary, has developed a severe streak of stubborn independence … and, he hasn’t even made 18 months yet. We’re just hoping the desire for independence leads him right into nursery without the need for parental companionship. But, leaving the independence aside for a moment, let’s talk about his talking. Just like Collin, and quite unlike Savannah at this age, the boys are inclined to polite manners and saying thank you. Whenever he receives something (particularly food) he gives a cute little ‘dank ooo’ without any prompting. He also really enjoys seeing the big tractors and earth equipment being used in the park across the road and when he sees them out there he points and says, ‘track-ee!’ He also knows the essentials of ‘more’ which comes out more like ‘moe’ and is combined with the sign language – perhaps hoping that the combined effect would provide double the food! He’s also become quite creative with his hand signals. When he has a poopy diaper and he’s getting changed, he’ll wave his hand in front of his nose and then pinch it saying ‘steeky’. He also loves to play pick-a-boo and, as much as they will let him, play with Savannah and Collin. He loves to play with balls and has a wicked left foot (his name for ball is ‘baw’.) The other day at church a lady was passing him and she was trying to get Hunter’s attention. In response to her request he covered his eyes like he was playing pick-a-boo and tried to hide … always playing hard to get. Last and not least, the kid is a muscle monster and has an affinity for the protein shakes that I take after bike riding.

Collin has been up to his quirky ways as usual. He still loves to play with balls whenever and however possible. But, he’s also into the toys and trucks, sticks and bugs --- the usual boy stuff. One thing that he’s definitely in to is girls! Can you believe that? When Savannah had her party, Collin was all shy and everything because there was a girl that he liked in particular but he didn’t think that she knew his name. Well, by the end of the party he had turned his attention to another girl because she was nice to him and paid him attention. He then piped up not too long after that when he has a party he doesn’t want any boys to come to his, only girls. Oh boy … Let’s see, what else? When Grandpa Whetstone and Collin were on a walk recently it was getting kind of dark to which Collin remarked, “Come on fellas, it’s getting dark.” Then on another occasion when we were down at Victor Harbor walking across the causeway and we were talking about something to which Collin piped in, “You guessed it!” On another occasion we were talking about a sports game or something and I mentioned the word referee to which Collin responded, “It’s refe’4’” – he has a complex with being three and I guess wants everything to be 4. The other day Kelli had the kids at the fabric store and there was this fluorescent green tiger fur material – he asked Kelli if he could have it and when Kelli said no, he tried a different angle and said, “Maybe Dad would want it for Father’s Day.” Little manipulator! Kelli also recently told him that he needed a haircut and called him a ‘shaggy dog’ – and then Collin said “no, I’m not a shaggy dog, I’m a shaggy horse!” Identity crisis avoided! The other funny thing was yesterday I was playing on at a soccer game and was on the sideline. I was sitting next to a guy who was leaning back with both palms on the ground – Collin decided to mimic him and did the same thing. Then a little while later I was kneeling with one knee on the ground looking out on to the field. I looked over and right next to me Collin was also kneeling on the ground with one knee – somewhat awkwardly, but it was a pretty funny sight. Collin has also been learning to write his name and has been doing really good at his numbers and counting.

Savannah has also been full of a few creative comments herself. We were watching a tennis tournament in which Rafael Nadal was playing. He’s notorious for picking his bum – which we had a front row view of during the Australian Open. When Savannah so that he was playing on TV she asked Kelli, “Who is the bum picker playing?” She also had a sore throat recently and commented that she felt like she had a porcupine in her throat. Never heard of it described that way, but not a bad analogy. Kelli called Savannah downstairs to look at a Father’s Day present online and when Savannah returned to playing with Dad and Collin, Jessy asked what we’d been up to. She replied, “It’s none of your business, Dad!” Plenty of attitude to go around in this family! She’s also turning into a vegetarian. We’ve mentioned that she likes to ask about which part of the animal every piece of meat is from. Well, recently Kelli asked Savannah what she wanted to have for our Father’s Day dinner – to which she said, “Anything without animals!” So anyway, steadily moving down the path of no meat for Savannah …

Kelli is doing good and keeping busy with the kids, helping out at the school on occasion, trading babysitting with another Mom to get some tennis time in (she is playing doubles and enjoying the time to get out under the sun), and busy with her Relief Society calling. I’m busy getting papers ready for publication at work and transferring into the next phase of work that continue until we depart from Australia. I’ve also been playing quite a bit of soccer with the Air Force base team getting ready for their nationals tournament in Sydney in October and also filling in for a community team that needed some help due to injuries. We’ve enjoyed “cheering him up” (as Collin says) from the sidelines the last two weeks. Always enjoy getting out for some fresh air (even if his body says ‘I’m not 20 anymore’), particularly if it involves a soccer ball.

Anyway, that’s about the gist of how everyone is doing right now. The weather is turning to spring and it looks like we are finally through all of the cold spells. Everyone around says that we are in for a very hot summer, but after our electric bill for heating the house it’s probably something to look forward to! We also saw the complete lunar eclipse last week which was pretty cool.

Today is Father’s Day down here, and after shopping for a spectacularly delicious breakfast, we realized it was fast Sunday! I guess the breakfast will have to wait until tomorrow. Dinner will have to be enough. Kelli and the kids took Jessy his presents in bed—unfortunately Collin can NOT keep a secret at all, so Jessy had a pretty good idea of everything he was getting. Savannah gave him a comb with a card she made in school and a notebook and pen she also bought there; Collin gave him an airplane mug; Hunter gave him an Adelaide Crows blanket (which has already been used for a pretend picnic); and we all gave him a South Australia bike jersey with kangaroos on it. He’s a great dad!!!

We hope everyone is doing well and we hope to hear from you all soon!

Cross Sydney off the list of places to see...

20 August 2007

Our poor kids --- no sooner had we only slightly recovered from the 3400 km trip up to Uluru than we were packing our bags again and heading on the road. This time of course we had the added advantage of throwing in a plane trip and bus ride as part of the package … which helped convince them that this vacation would be different than the last. As it turned out, though, our trip to Uluru seemed to have brought out Hunter’s more aggressive side. We’d left the house early enough to stop by the Adelaide botanical gardens on our way into the airport. We saw the usual monster trees, ornate landscaping and colorful flowers … but nothing could compare with the colorful character we were about to witness in our youngest son. About half way through our trek Hunter decided that it was pretty cool to be able to walk on his own; and no sooner did he realize that he could be a big boy and walk with us, than he realized he could be a big boy and walk the opposite way as us! Well, that was ok as long as we could pick him up occasionally and take him forward a bit … but then we actually had to make some headway and get to the airport on time, so we picked him up for good. Oh boy, big mistake. We soon had our first Hunter temper tantrum that last through the rest of the botanical gardens, through getting situated in the car, through the city of Adelaide … and nearly until we reached the airport --- I ‘reckon’ it was a full 20 minutes of full-blown, top of your lungs screaming. Actually quite entertaining if you can stand the noise J

Anyway, on to the trip. We parted ways with Jerry/DeeAnn in the Adelaide airport since they were on a different itinerary and flight than us (which meant they were flying the ‘high class’ Qantas Airlines --- which basically means they got juice and a muffin on their flight while we flew Virgin Blue and had to pay 4 bucks for 2 bottles of 6 oz of water!) The kids were really good on the flight. Hunter crashed for the entire 2-hour flight having spent all his energy on the tantrum. Collin complained of his ears hurting, but that was probably just a ploy to try and get more lollies (candy) so he could pop his ears. Savannah was an excellent trooper with all of her arts/crafts in her pull-along Dora suitcase. We arrived in Sydney around 2 in the afternoon and Jerry/DeeAnn were there waiting for us. After a quick ride in a minivan taxi we were at our apartment and ready to take on the town. The ride from the airport to the city wasn’t anything out of the ordinary for a big city. The usual graffiti along various buildings and along railroad tracks. But, once we got into the heart of the city the streets and buildings were surprisingly clean and well kept. The only downside was the fact everything was so closely packed together. Our highrise apartment building had an entrance of only 15 feet across and looked more like a space for a café than a 40 story highrise building (we ended up on the 33^rd floor facing towards the harbor – couldn’t see the Opera house because of other buildings but did have a view of the bridge and harbor along with the Sydney tower.) But, somehow everything expands once you get inside and there is plenty of room for a reception desk, elevators, etc. I’ve mentioned that we recently had friends from high school move to Sydney with work (American Express). We called them up when we got in and as it turned out they were staying in apartments only about 3 blocks from us (until they move in their house the beginning of September). We met up with Stacy, Madi, Cooper and Riley over at Hyde Park near where we were staying and where Kevin is working. Savannah and Madi are only 3 days difference in age and were pretty shy around each other (although they both quickly learned that neither of them are very shy at all). They were holding hands and walking in stride not a ¼ mile later. Cooper is about 6 months older than Collin, but Collin was pretty shy for a good while. Riley is about the same age Hunter was when we moved over last year, so we had a lot in common as far as horror stories on trying to get organized to move overseas while juggling passports for newborns and such. We walked from Hyde Park up alongside their botanical gardens (didn’t want to try and go in after the morning ‘Hunter’ ordeal) and straight to the Opera house. Unfortunately the skies were somewhat overcast, but at least it wasn’t raining as the forecast had predicted. We took a lot of pictures from every angle possible along the steps to include pictures of the neighboring harbor and distant Sydney Harbor Bridge. We then met Kevin (Stacy’s husband) after he got off of work and wandered down to the area known as the ‘Rocks’ – just opposite the Opera house on the harbor. This is the place where Sydney basically started and in the early days had quite the reputation as the ‘red light’ district. Now it’s more or less a tourist area with some buildings that bare resemblance to original brick and architecture – but most there are souvenir shops and the like. We found a cool little pizza place where they found enough room on their second floor for the ‘lot’ of us – we had 12 between all of us. In any case, we just happened to have a view of the Opera house (albeit through some bare winter trees) but from the looks of the insides it was pretty old. It was out of brick and had an old-fashioned fireplace next to our table. It was pretty cool. After some yummy, thin-crust Italian pizza we were off again trudging up through the ‘Rocks’ to underneath the Sydney bridge and then along the harbor walkway where we got an awesome view of the harbor and Opera house at night. It was a very comfortable walking temperature with little to no people roaming around.

By this time we were all pretty tired and parted ways with the Hutchinsons at the train station. We walked about a mile back to our apartment complex. The kids were begging for piggy backs and to be carried from Grandpa and myself … to which we didn’t have the heart to say no … or at least we didn’t want anyone to hear their complaining J Back at the apartments Jerry and I made a quick pit stop for essentials at the grocery store on the corner (prices still a lot more than the States but generally cheaper than a normal store in the suburbs of Adelaide – go figure.) The kids were wiped out and we all crashed pretty quick …

21 August 2007

I woke up before everyone and decided to make a morning of it and go on a run. It was about 1 ½ miles to the Mrs. Macquarie’s chair which sat on the opposite side of the Opera House and (relative to the Sydney Harbor bridge where we were the night before.) I got there 20 minutes after sunrise so missed the colors, but there were still only a few clouds in the sky so the lighting on the House was better than the day before. I then made the trek around the harbor, passed the Opera House and then wound through the Rocks and up on to the Harbor Bridge. It was a pretty quick jog over the top – a lot of people were commuting by walking across. On one side of the bridge you can walk and on the other you can ride your bike. Something else that was also interesting was the security. At the beginning, middle and end of the bridge there were security police officers who would stop random people and search bags. I guess it’s a pretty good spot for a terrorist attack, but as Jerry said, it’s unfortunate that the world has come to require such measures. Anyway, the jog was a great hour trip around the city to the popular spots and I got some great pictures. After getting back, everyone was up and at ‘em. We hit the streets and took the monorail once around (it ‘flies’ about 20 feet off the streets of the city and gives a unique vantage point) … on the second circuit around we got off on the Darling Harbor side (the other side of the Harbor Bridge relative to the Opera House). We went to the Maritime Musuem which had some cool stuff inside. It was a bad sign that Collin was already asking for a piggy back and to be held. I tried to hold strong but I’m such a softy when it comes to that kind of stuff. I think by the end of the museum I’d already given up and was lugging him around. We stopped to let the kids play in a park which I think was built around hosting the Olympic games. It had enough for the kids to keep them busy. Savannah happened to spot a pair of kookaburras in a tree and Collin went head first, on his back, backwards --- landing on his head at the end of a slide. Don’t ask me how he did that one. Hunter was up to his newly-found independence trooping everywhere and letting Savannah take him down the slide. He did have a problem negotiating one steep playground hill and ended up on his face. We met up with Kevin/Stacy/munchkins after lunch and went to a free concert at a cultural center. It was the famed didgeridoo and oh boy was it entertaining. I’m growing to like the sounds of that instrument more and more. The fellow (or bloke) playing it had some background pictures of Uluru which was kind of cool since we were just there in person. He did some fun gestures with his hands and made noises that mimicked certain Australian animals. It was all pretty entertaining. It only lasted 40 minutes or so but by the end we were buying his CD. He also threw in a ‘how do you play this thing anyway’ bit which was really good since when Jerry and I started playing ours we sounded like sick, bloated elephants. Very entertaining … and as it turned out Jerry and I got pretty good deals on our didgeridoos based on the $200 - $500 price range of those on sale in the store.

After the day’s culture lesson we boarded the train and headed up to the harbor. The kids managed to finagle some ice cream out of us while we waited for our ferry … but soon we were on board and heading across the bay over to Manly on the north side of the Sydney harbor. The weather threatened to rain all afternoon but never did … thankfully. We got some great pictures on the ferry of the sites, but probably best of all was Cooper and Collin on the top deck of the boat going crazy yelling at the top of their lungs about silly, goofy stuff … the usual bathroom humor mixed with some seaman-type jargon courtesy of our being on a boat. It was pretty random stuff, but still somewhat amusing. I think anyone on the end of the boat that was there to start the trip wasn’t there when we got to our destination. The ride was fairly calm until we crossed the main entrance out into the ocean. There we hit some big swells that really rocked the boat. The kids liked them though and no one puked over the side. At Manly we walked a short distance to the beach where there was a large number of surfers in some pretty good breakers … dude. It wasn’t at all warm and so they were pretty hardy to be out there. We just let the kids play in the sand while we chatted and caught up on things from the past 10 or so years and Jerry/DeeAnn were off doing some window shopping. By the time we got back on the ferry it was nearly dark and we had a good chilly wind to fight on our way back to the city – nothing like a day at sea, arre matey!!! We went back to our place and had a hearty dinner of rotisserie chicken (the kids only managed ‘Macos’ (McDonald’s) but weren’t complaining – especially when the boys toy was a roboraptor!), while overlooking the city lights and listening to some of our newly-purchased didgeridoo music … couldn’t beat the ambience (minus the kids causing a ruckus in the back rooms of course.) We introduced Kevin and Stacy to the Tim Tam Slam (a type of chocolate covered wafer cookie which you bite the corners off the top and bottom and then suck hot chocolate through which melts the inside and makes for a heavenly treat …) We were all pretty tired to say the least but it was definitely a successful day of go go go …

22 August 2007

We were exhausted going to bed the night before but a good night’s rest and were ready to get up and get going again the next morning … ok, everyone except the kids that is. I did the run out to the Macquarie chair again but this time there was pretty good cloud cover and the sun was just barely over the horizon when I got there – so I just turned around and went back home. Did see some people doing some ‘boot camp’ physical training which was interesting. We took the kids and decided not to make them walk very much and bought a family day pass on the public transportation. We rode the train across the bridge and then walked it coming back. The kids did pretty good … we stopped at a bakery before walking across and bought them some doughnuts. Collin did good walking by himself which lasted only as long as the sugar rush from the donut did, and then I was carrying him again … and Jerry had Savannah. The walk across was interesting though and fun to take a gander at all the steel support beams and millions of rivets that hold it together. 16 people died making the bridge which isn’t surprising given the height and expanse of the whole thing. After the bridge we walked through the ‘Rocks’ again and went through a museum which told of the history of the place. The kids found a goofy video game which kept them entertained for a bit while we could read some of the stuff. We then boarded a train and headed way up north to where the LDS temple is located. It was about a 45 minute ride including 2 transfers and somehow we managed not to get lost on the quirky metro/train lines of Sydney. While I was pleasantly surprised with the cleanliness of Sydney itself, some of the immediate outskirts were a little less clean and taken care of. By the time we got up to the northern neighborhoods, though, it was quiet and nice. The temple was pretty and reminded me of the one in Santiago, Chile. They also had a Distribution Center which was something of a novelty since we have to order all of our stuff from that very location if we want it back in Adelaide. The kids were pretty beat by now and so were the rest of us carrying them around. Hunter relished every opportunity to get out of his stroller and thought he was big stuff in the train when we’d let him get out and he’d try and walk around. We bought some gummy snakes and used them as bribery as much as possible throughout the day J We finally made it back to our apartment around 4:30 and were pretty beat. We just let the kids unwind for a bit and then Kelli/DeeAnn went out to find some grub (but not ‘grubs’ of the bug variety mind you!) Kevin, Stacy and their kids came over for dinner and we had another nice visit (the kids managed Macos again so they were happy … again.) We then hit the pool after dinner and had a riot of a time watching the kids get in the ‘cold’ main pool and then jumping into the spa. There was another couple in the pool before we got there but they apparently didn’t like the pool-side company and made a dash for the exit (can’t really blame them …) We had a good time but before we knew it it was time to part ways again … we had some good ol’ Aussie creamy ice cream and then said our goodbyes to Kev/Stace and Savannah/Collin’s new friends. Savannah and Collin were pretty keen for this vacation because of the good friends they made. It was really good to catch up with Kevin and Stacy as well. It’s pretty ironic and yet interesting that a few days before we’d maybe seen each other twice since high school and then we were eating pizza in some upper level Italian restaurant overlooking the Opera House in Sydney. Our kids are also so much alike from their temperaments to fun-loving personalities. It is a small world – and if you don’t mind a bit of philosophizing, while we are extremely grateful for all of the opportunities that we’ve had while in the military to see different sites and have some unique experiences, it is the friendships and people we’ve grown to love that really qualify the quality of the time. It wouldn’t have mattered if we were sitting next to the Opera House eating pizza or at Hires hamburger shop back in West Valley, the important thing is that we were able to spend some quality time together and let our kids get to know one another. Hopefully some day when we are all done moving around we’ll be able to settle closer to those that we formed such strong friendships with … some day …

23 August 2007

Unfortunately that last little bit leads into the other drawback of moving around a lot and not living close to home – having to be apart from family and saying goodbye all too often. We woke up at 3 this morning to catch our flight. After working out how to take the train to the airport ($36 for our family and a one-way trip – just as much as taking a taxi!) we had to say goodbye to Grandpa and Grandma Whetstone. The kids were still in groggy land from waking up and Collin was in his ‘rebellious’ mood for having been on vacation too long, but it was a sad moment when we had to part ways … it always is. We had a lot of good memories from their visit and hopefully captured a lot of them in picture and writing. Nothing can really replace spending time together, though … and thus we look forward to the next time when we will see all of our family back home. As such, we think that was our last set of visitors from the States. Hopefully the Hutchinsons will be able to make it down from Sydney some time, but other than that we’re not sure that anyone else is planning to brave the trip down under. We hope so … just let us know if you’d like to!! The kids did great on the plane ride home --- but unfortunately it was right back to school and work for Savannah and I. I managed a half day on half a brain (if even that much), and Savannah’s teacher said that she asked to take a nap after lunch because she was “really tired.” However, that didn’t stop Savannah from scoring her first goal at net ball to help her team win the game 1-0. Very entertaining and we were quite proud of her. So, until next time we’ll see you chaps later!

CHEERS!!!

The Trek to Uluru

10 August

After Kelli’s relentless planning and desire to drive 15 hours to see a red rock, sorry, an ‘ageless Australian icon’, we finally set sail on our 3200 km roundtrip to see Uluru, or Ayers Rock. For those like me that aren’t very cultured, it’s the big red monolith that dons the many tourism ads and events showcasing Australia. It’s long been in the hands of the local aborigines, but has also become a tourist destination for those who want to venture from the pristine, and somewhat populated coastline portion of Australia into the Northern Territory’s outback.

We began around 1:30 in the afternoon on Friday after work and school. Grandma and Grandpa Whetstone arrived on the scene earlier this week and whether they wanted to or not, they packed into our minivan along with three rambunctious kids and enough supplies to last us through a night if we were to get stranded along the forsaken highway tying north Darwin to south Adelaide. Before getting too far we stopped in at the bakery in Port Wakefield for some sausage rolls, meat pies and Cornish pasties (pronounced ‘pausty’ for us Yankees). We traveled north past Port Pirie and Port Augusta enjoying the green rolling hills and the Flinders Range mountains. The Gulf of St Vincent off to the west didn’t provide much of a view, but we hugged its coastline all the way to the top at Port Augusta and then set off into the endless expanse of red ocean of sand and shrubbery. There wasn’t too much wildlife to speak of on the way up. Jerry did point out two emus (pronounced eem’you’), but no kangaroos. We kept our eyes peeled for kangaroos which the native Aussies claimed were infamous on that stretch of road, especially at the hours we were traveling. But, to our fortune (and chagrin) we didn’t see any. The kids did pretty well, especially with the new portable DVD players that G-pa and G-ma brought with them from the States. Hunter is a little harder to please, but he’s all for the Australian soft licorice … Collin had a hard time, once again, when it started getting dark. We kept telling him we were getting closer but that only works so long. And then you see the town lights off in the distance and that only works for so long, too. One nice distraction to the ‘are we there yet’ question was the amazing sunset. The skyline was as if you were looking out over the ocean, only it was endless dirt. Once it turned dark, though, it didn’t really matter. The rainbow or red, orange, yellow, green, blue and black was amazing. That and it stretched around a 1/3^rd of the skyline and stayed around for probably 20 minutes. We finally made it to Woomera where we stayed a couple months ago for the rocket trial. To Collin’s delight, the rocket with the red nose was still there and he was happy to show it off to G-ma and G-pa. The night at the Eldo was uneventful. The stars were out in full force and provided an awesome scene to go to bed to. The only negative is that we went to bed around 9 and had to get up at 3 so we could make sure we made the next 1100 kms in enough time to see ‘the rock’ at sunset … and so the next leg begins …

11 August

Yes, today did begin at 3:30 in the morning … and didn’t end until we had seen Uluru at sunset. I think we were the only people stirring in all of Woomera at that hour of the morning and it was quite serene. The kids didn’t bat an eye about getting up and getting back in the car. They just asked for the DVD players and were content until later in the morning when they crashed and went back to sleep. We had roughly 1100 kms to go in one day and guessed it would be about 11 hours. Traveling through the outback doesn’t offer much opportunity for stopping or sightseeing, so really there was only one place to go … north. But, starting around 4 in the morning also meant that we were traveling in the middle of the night and that meant kangaroo danger. No sooner were we on the main A1 Stuart Highway than Jerry pointed out a huge kangaroo on the left hand side of the road. Of course, with the glare of the headlights, the early morning grogginess and such, we could easily be overestimating its size … but it would be fair to say that this was one of the biggest ‘roos we’d seen, probably around 5-6 feet tall and with huggo feet. Luckily the minute he saw us he went away from the road. It was nerve-wracking from that point on realizing that kangaroos were that close. We probably saw another 10 ‘roos before sunrise and were constantly on the lookout and wondering if one would come bounding across the road. At one point there was a ‘mob’ of 3 of them, but every time we saw some they responded by either just looking at us or hopping away from the road. There was another animal with shiny bright eyes that scurried across the road well ahead of our car, but we couldn’t make out what kind of animal it was. Sunrise was a most welcome sight and a relief to not have to worry so much about bushes that looked like kangaroos. The funny thing was that we never saw the kangaroos eyes light up like you do with other animals. You just had to try and make out there shape which made it difficult with all the shrubbery and such. In some places the road was lined with trees and you couldn’t see 10 feet beyond the road. The other cool part of the morning journey was a section of the road which was cleared a little more on the shoulder than other areas – and at the beginning and end of the section had the markings of a runway. Well, that’s exactly what it was … an emergency runway for planes that were in trouble in the outback. Alas, we made it through the morning and by 8:30 we were in the opal mining town of Coober Pedy. We’ll be staying there again Sunday night … It was funny because the whole town is built around the opal mines which are basically surface holes. Everywhere you look there are mounds of dirt cast up around the countryside where they’ve used equipment to dig out the rocks … and they don’t bother to fill them so they have to quarantine off the entire area so people don’t fall into random holes and shafts. We stopped for gas and at a Podunk bakery for some nummy quiche and cheese/bacon rolls, a quick stop at a park full of dirt and dust to let the kids play and get dressed, and then were on the road again. It honestly reminded me of an old west town with sandy roads and weather-beaten wooden overhangs. It was quite the sight. There were tons of aborigines as well. All seemed to have the same type of look about them with is the same as you may see in a movie or such. The rest of the travel up through the upper end of South Australia was fairly uneventful. We did see a ‘heap’ of wedge-tailed eagles munching on the carcasses of dead kangaroos and cows – yes, the other road obstacle is the cow which aren’t too bright and not fenced from the roads. The eagles are amazing though. We didn’t get any good pictures of them on the way up, but hopefully we’ll have more luck on the way back. Someone said they are bigger than our bald eagles, and I wouldn’t doubt it. The legs themselves give the impression of a dog eating the road kill from a distance until you actually get closer and realize it’s a bird. We probably saw upwards of 20 of these eagles on the ground and in the air.

We crossed into the Northern Territory around 12:30 and got some more gas at a local pubbery. I forget the name, but it was something with a ‘k’ and aboriginal in nature. From there we kept the trek moving north and after another 2 hours made the turn off to go west to Uluru instead of pushing north further to Alice Springs. Going west we saw tons of dead cows on the sides of the road in various stages of decomposition – all the way to bones and skin for some of them. Kind of gross. There weren’t any signs of kangaroos or eagles though in this area.

The kids all did surprisingly well until we were within 20 kms of our destination and Collin had to stop for a bathroom break on the side of the road. That was entertaining in and of itself without going into further details. (I'll give you a hint--it's hard to go in a steady stream when you're laughing!) We got a simple one-room hotel room complete with a queen bed, two bunk beds and a fridge … and that’s about it. It was a nice little resort though which had everything from un-powered camp sites to a 5-star hotel which cost $1000 a night. Ours still cost $180 a night which is highway robbery, but it’s the only option for 50 miles around and you are stuck with it – and they can charge whatever they want. That’s ok though, all part of the adventure … and Australian economy.

Approaching the resort we finally caught a glimpse of the rock. It was pretty impressive. Rising up out of the sand without hardly another formations of rock or hills all around. There was another outcroppings of rocks called ‘the Olgas’ some 32 kms away from Uluru. After getting somewhat settled we ventured into the park (another $25 per person!) and went right up the base. Everywhere you are bombarded with requests from the native aborigines to respect the rock as a spiritual part of there culture and not to climb it, yet they don’t forbid you from climbing (unless there is a 5% chance of rain or winds higher than 25 knots on the summit and they wouldn’t let you climb it.) They’ve apparently had 38 deaths and in their brochure of the park they have someone being taken off by ambulance wrapped in a sheet to try and dissuade you. Yet, when we got up to the base of the rock there were plenty of people make the ascent. It was kind of intimidating as this chain guides you up the face of a cliff with a shear drop on one side. Jerry climbed up to the point where the chain starts and I took the kids part way up where we took some pictures. The weather was a perfect calm and just right temperature. The rock was a brilliant red and in most places appeared as a smooth, one-piece rock. In some places there was color disfiguration from rain and where whole pieces of rock had broken off. But, from a distance it just looked like a single large stone that someone plopped from the middle of the sky into the Australian outback. Pretty cool … We found a place to park for the sunset show. It reminded me of a drive in for watching movies as people were on top of their vehicles --- someone setting up dinners with champagne and the whole lot. As the sun set the rock went from an orangish-red to a brilliant, bright red. It was amazing … and continued to change different shades of red until the sun got too low and then it turned to a dull brown surrounded by a blue/purple haze of the night sky. I had my doubts about coming this far to see it, but the view we got for those brief 10 minutes was well worth the trip.

We summed up the evening with an ‘outback’ burger of fried egg, beets, beef, lettuce, and pineapple – plus a pizza of pumpkin, spinach, and ricotta cheese (Kelli’s choice (she wanted veggie pizza), and quite gross!) It was a fun setting with an old timer playing music on his guitar and a comfortable, peaceful evening.

Collin did provide us one unforgettable memory. We were traveling on the road and Savannah Kelli told Savannah that she had a ‘good eye’. Collin then turned to Savannah and said, ‘good eye, mate!’ That’s funny in and of itself, but then we realized where he was actually getting it from … all of the “g’day, mate!” that he hears here in Australia – he just happened to correlate the Australian accent of ‘good eye’ with ‘g’day’ … what a character … said something about the scenery outside the car.

12 August

So after the endless fun of the evening before, we decided we hadn’t had enough so we got up at 5:30 in order to see the sunrise. There were tons of people and from the location of the night before we were able to get an awesome view of Uluru silhouetted against the morning sky. Driving around the opposite side we parked and watched as it slowly turned from the dull brown of the evening before to the glowing red … and then gradually to the orangish-red that it would remain for the rest of the day. There were a lot of people out jostling for the best camera position, getting slightly irked when someone got in the way from the opposite side of the road, and speaking more foreign than English. It was quite entertaining … Jerry and I were hoping that we could make a quick ascent of the summit and then our plan was to hike around the base of the rock. But, the early morning weather decided it was going to take the high level winds at the top of the rock and cascade them down the western slope – right where the trail begun to go up. It obviously exceeded the 25 knot limit so we weren’t able to go up. It was slightly chilly (got down to 3’C the night before) so we decided to take a little drive to snap some pix at the overlook for ‘the Olgas’ – a lesser-known collection of boulders that resembled elephants (which DeeAnn mentioned) and a dragon (which Jerry claimed to see). It was a good little stopover. Collin raced the track to the lookout twice – one way was about 600m. Guess he had a lot of stored-up energy. Well, that energy came in handy as we returned to Uluru. The wind was still whipping but we decided to around the base – a 9.4 km trek which we expected to complete in 3-4 hours. On one side it was really nice and shaded. We took tons of pictures around the base with the kids and of all the different formations. It was amazing how the rock took on a completely different look when you were up close. There was plenty of different color from the years of cascading water during rainstorms and erosion. The rock also had a lot of crevices and broken off boulders lying at the base of the main rock. Between the red of the rocks, green and yellow foliage found a place to grow … and here and there you’d find groups of gum trees creating a shelter from the sun. In each ‘canyon’ of the rock was a black stripe down the middle where to water collected together and ran to ground. Quite spectacular ... So we kept stopping and taking pictures … and the kids kept trudging along. Hunter was in his stroller and quite content to take in the view. At times we had to lift him out of the sandy trail to keep moving, but by taking turns we managed. About half way through both Collin and Savannah started to peeter out --- they’d had enough but had done well. Unfortunately this is the part of the day when things started to get hot and it was on the sunny side of the rock. We just picked up the kids and kept moving at the best pace possible. Eventually we came around the east side of the rock and made it to the north … then finally got around the north side (which seemed to go forever!) and could see the ridge where you hike up … indicating we were almost there. Somehow we made the journey with all the kids still alive. When I asked Savannah if she liked the rock, her response was, ‘a little’. But, Collin said he enjoyed the hike as evident by the number of rocks and sticks he collected along the way. When we did get back the wind had died down and they were letting people on the rock. So, Jerry and I took a swig of water, a granola bar, and headed up. The chain leading up the face of the cliff went only about ¾’s of the way to the top, albeit the steepest portion. At one point you were literally 2 feet from a shear dropoff to the bottom. Slightly unnerving but you just kept your eyes in front of you and on the chain and next footing place. There was this litte Chinese girl and her parents who were moving up the rock. She couldn’t have been more than 7 and she just kept moving up the mountain with her parents in tow. There’s no way I would have let Savannah up there, but to each their own. The top where we made it was a leveled off portion and gave a magnificent view of the surrounding countryside. It was really pretty cool and worth the hike, although on the way down my legs were really feeling it …(This picture is Jessy reaching the top of the plateau.)

We had another 7 hour drive back to Coober Pedy, and it was already 2 in the afternoon so we decided we’d better set off. Kelli had the first shift so I sneaked a nap … after the obligatory 5 times of buckling and unbuckling my seat belt to fix DVD players, getting kids something to drink, settling disputes, etc. We did stop for gas at another Podunk station at $1.73 per liter before getting too far! There was an emu roaming the premises and a lady with a Mohawk behind the counter, and a bloke pumped our gas for us, gave us a paper receipt with a handwritten total for the amount of gas … and we were out of there. And then we weren’t down the road before Jerry shouted that there were camels on the hill – sure enough, up on top of this little knoll about 50 yards away were 5 camels. Two of them were standing up looking at us, but the other three were just lying down. All of them were kind of looking at us like, what in the world – just as we were with them. We’d seen a dead carcass of a camel on the way in, but were quite surprised to see a live camel. Somehow they ended up here from immigrants and apparently they’ve really thrived in the outback … must remind them of home. At this point I fell asleep but they saw another group of them not too far away from the car … this time 8 of them! After 3 hours of driving it was my turn. We stopped at the N. Territory/S. Australia border and took some pictures and visited the outhouse of a rest stop. As Jerry pointed out, there wasn’t any smell in the outhouse --- crazy! Hunter was fighting mad getting back into the car, but he loved to play ‘little piggies’ and go ‘oh’ by hitting his head against the car seat while mimicking G-pa … so between that and food we managed to keep him distracted. Before we knew it, though, the sun was going down again and we were in ‘roo country going at 120 k’s an hour (~70 mph) keeping our eyes peeled for more kangaroos. There were also tons of ‘cow’ signs and handwritten ‘cattle caution’ signs. We rarely passed another car and only averaging a passing vehicle every 50 miles or so. It was nuts – probably the first car we saw in the distance was approaching and then all of the sudden he stopped on the other side of the road about 100 yards from us. I slowed down and then realized that there were 2 kan’d’aroos (as Collin would say) right in front of him just looking at us and him. We kept on going past, but I saw in my rearview mirror that he pulled further off the side of the road – as Jerry mentioned, he didn’t look like the type that was going to be taking pictures. We think they were going to have kangaroo steaks for dinner. We only saw another 3 kangaroos the rest of the evening, which was a relief. That doesn’t mean we didn’t spend the 4 hour drive on the edge of our seat. It was kind of like watching the climax of a horror movie for hours on end just waiting and anticipating another kangaroo from the plethora of bushes lining the road. At one point we had to pull over because Collin had to use the bathroom again (G-pa did the honors this time to avoid Kelli the embarrassment), and I took the opportunity to turn off the car lights in the middle of the outback with no other lights around. The amount of stars was incredible. It honestly looked like there was a cloud in the sky – but it was ‘only’ the milky way. I could have star gazed all night in that location. Anyway, driving the rest of the way was very eerie. It was as if we were in a fog of black. Even with your brights on, you could only see ¼ of a mile in front of you at one time – and at times it was as if the car road was floating in the middle of space with no land on either side of the road. Kind of cool until you realize that if you got a flat tire or had car problems you were just plumb out of luck (not to mention we remembered batteries but forgot a flashlight!) We finally did make it to Coober Pedy at around 10 at night. We stayed at a really nice underground motel with the room built into the side of the hill (to avoid the heat in the summer). It was awesome and I slept like a baby on the top bunk next to the rock ceiling …

We also had another 2 moments of Collin’s collinism. We were running back from the lookout and Collin was racing me. As I came up on his side he would run in front of me cutting me off. When we got back to the car, I mentioned that he was cutting me off as we ran back. Collin was then getting into the car and said, ‘yeh, I was flipping you off!’ Uh yeah … what do you say to that?

The other was when we stopped at a gas station in Marla – last town in S. Australia … anyway, Kelli was getting everyone settled with the DVD players, waters, blankets, whatever … then she turned and asked if there was anything else anyone needed, to which Collin responded, “Uh yeah, what about my birthday party next year?” Got to admit the kid has some serious forward thinking going on …

13 August

Contrary to some people (no names mentioned), the ceiling didn’t collapse on top of us and we survived the night in the hill. We had a quick breakfast and then spent the morning packing the car again and letting the kids run all over the place collecting their rocks into a collection. We did some prospecting, or ‘noodling’, in a local park where some ‘old timer’ at one time struck it rich looking for opals. The kids didn’t mind turning old rocks over and just enjoyed being out of the car and getting all dusty again. This dust was more of a white compared with the red from Uluru. But, when all’s said and done, dirt is dirt and it was everywhere! We wondered over to mainstreet and there was shop after shop of opals and aboriginal artifacts … not to mention aborigines themselves. The funning thing is that most of the shop owners were Europeans – Serbians, mainly. Guess if you want to escape everything they’ve gone through then the Outback is really getting out of the way. They were nice and we had a good chat with some of them. There were actually a lot of tourists around browsing the shops. They have a little airport nearby which takes tourists, probably from Adelaide, and brings them up to shop and them takes them back. Not a bad little vacation up through the heart of Australia …

Kelli ended up buying some opal jewelry and I got a didgeridoo (or however you spell it). The prices were a whole lot lower than anywhere else – a necklace that looked identical to Kelli’s Christmas present was 5x cheaper in Coober Pedy than in the city. Jerry even took a moment to chat with some of the local aborigine ladies … and there was also a big starship from some movie that flopped a while back. The kids didn’t last too long shopping though and we continued on to JB’s bakery for some more mince meat pies and sausage rolls then were back on the road south to Adelaide.

We finished the whole trip coming down through Woomera, Pt Augusta and Port Pirie without incident. WE did see a bunch of emus running around (5 in total I believe) … and had to drive another 3 hours in the dark looking for ‘roos, but happily this time around … we didn’t see any … alive. And so closes the next chapter