USA day 2

Hamish woke around 2ish in the morning and chatted to himself for a couple of hours before falling asleep again. David decided to get up at 3:30 am as he couldn't sleep anymore. I on the other hand was quite happy to go back to sleep. The alarm went at 7:30 and it was a huge struggle getting out of bed. We showered and got dressed and managed to get down to breakfast just after 9:00am. The choices were scrambled egg (powdered egg I think), ham, breakfast potato (fried up potato cubes), toast, cereal, fruit and yoghurt. More than enough to feed our hungry family. Isabella loved the chocolate puffs and went back for about four bowls. It reminded me of Sammy's return visits to the buffet in Fiji. She just loved the bacon, pancakes and maple syrup. Obviously the kids are not eating enough sugar in the morning back home!! After breakfast we headed to the 'big' Walmart. The kids were really excited to spend their own American dollars and really took their time picking treats for themselves. Josh got a huge bag of marshmallows, Sammy chose 'milk duds', Isabella chose some an art set with sparkly paper and fruit smelling textas. I got boring gluten free cereal, nappies and mascara, David bought himself a couple of slacks and a shirt and the youngest member of the family found an iron man doll that talks and that he couldn't put down. The three eldest kidlets paid with their $50 American notes. I handed them out and then waited for them to finish marveling at their change before I could put the money back in their individual envelopes in my wallet. There were lots of oohs and aahs about the coins. Back in the car we all tried some 'milk duds' for the first time while we headed home for a snack. They're little caramel and chocolate balls of yumminess. Mmmmm! Sammy was very good about sharing. At home David made me a cup of tea. No kettles come standard in hotel rooms so he had to improvise with a pot of water on the stove. It was a little slice of home. We're both really missing our familiar coffees and haven't been able to get our taste buds around to American filter coffee. After a short break we headed out to lunch. We decided to try 'In N Out Burgers' which are supposed to be so good. What an effort to find one! Really they should have a store locator on their site instead of the PDF list of outlets. Not very helpful when you don't know one suburb from another. We eventually made it there all starving! The choices for burgers were number 1, 2 or 3 with or without onion. Barnes and Noble, a mega book store. David was in his element! The kids were let loose and all came out with a magazine or book.

Packing and leaving Sydney

Last night we stayed up late. Last minute packing, organising suitcases and cleaning kept us going. I had spent the day buying little gifts for the kids and wrapped and labelled them. A little like Christmas! Then I stuck them in the kids bags. I'm sure the airport screening of bags will mean I have some explaining to do. Each gift is labelled with a number and an LA time. I hope the little packages help keep us going over the 14 hour flight! Or at least act as a circuit breaker along the way.

USA here we come...

A change of template to give a hint of where we're going in less than two days!

Our once in a life time trip is almost upon us and we're really not ready to go! Air tickets, visas and accommodation are all booked and we even have our e-tickets in our hot little hands, but bags are not packed, money is not loaded onto our travel cards and work we need to do before we leave is not done. Plus on top of all that everyone has been really sick. Thirty hours approximately of dosing everyone up on medication for conjunctivitis and high fevers and hopefully we'll miraculously come good at the last minute. 'You'll be right on the night!' is my motto for now!

So where are we going? The U, S of A of course! Twenty-four years ago I was an exchange student to Rhode Island and became a part of the senior class of 1990. I got to live with a wonderful family in North Kingstown and be a painful teenager. I went to two proms, joined the track team and pulled a muscle, (short lived experience) joined the drama club and performed in a big production, met some great people, explored the countryside, go myself an American boyfriend and made a friendship that has lasted the distance.

I'm looking forward to catching up with my girlfriend, Jenn, who is still as funny and gorgeous and crazy as she was all those years ago. How are we going to fit the last twenty years of girly gossip into the day and a bit I'll see her. Maybe encourage her to come to Australia and stay with a crazy family of six!! Ah....a plan!! ; )

I'm also catching up with my host family. A lovely family of three who put up with a crazy Aussie girl for an entire year. How painful was I? I will surely soon find out!

Before we leave Rhode Island we're going to visit North Kingstown High. This is the high-school I spent a year at. I managed to make an appointment with the principal this week. He was just lovely. The new principal is married to one of the girls that I was in my senior year of high-school with. She is an English teacher now. There is also another English teacher at the school who was also in my year at high-school. What a small world! They both remember me! I think a crazy Aussie chick with no sense of fashion and hair with a mind of its own (Who knew you could use product in your hair to tame it?) was never going to be able to blend in quietly.

Enough for now. Back to packing and medicating...

Newcastle Holiday 2012

As you can see from the heading I'm finally going to post about our recent January holiday. We actually hadn't planned on going away during the school Christmas holidays because of the expense, work commitements, too many of us, etc etc and I'm really so glad that we did!

Newcastle is only an hour and a half from us and is almost too close to be a holiday destination. That didn't deter us though. We figured that if we were to go away somewhere warmer it would be at least a four hour drive, which you could easily multiply by four now that we have Hamish with us as well. So we decided that somewhere close would be much better. I don't really know Newcastle well and Dave would really like us to explore more of Australia, so we really killed two birds with one stone. Plus to top it off, we had a great time and came back well rested and recuperated.

Here is a few slide shows of our time.
Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4

Day 5

Day 6

We took a 1000 piece puzzle with us and managed to complete it over the week. We left it at the holiday apartment for someone else to enjoy. It was a great quiet activity for the older people in the family.

It was a great holiday and of course I can't wait for our next adventure.

Rockdale and Kernell

On Saturday we decided to go to The Heritage Building Centre in Rockdale to see if we could find some glass handles for the cupboard that I painted. I've seen some handles that I like and now I'm trying to find them. No luck so far! I also don't want to buy them off ebay until I've had a chance to hold them in my hand and find out if I actually still like them. So at the moment I'm just exploring places that many sell them. The Heritage Building Centre was like a treasure cave, but everything was seriously overpriced. Dave and I love 'The Pickers' (an American show on TV about two guys who scrounge for old things and then sell them for a profit) and this place is like one of the properties that they visit. It's full of interesting stuff. Unfortunately it's already been picked and a hefty price tag has been attached. Pooey! We didn't find the handles that I wanted!
So while we were in Rockdale we decided to get something for morning tea. Everyone was hungry and when we saw a little cafe with cute cupcakes on display and a parking out the front for our huge bus we quickly pulled in. I was sure they were closed as no-one was in there. But as we approached we realised that they were open and they had a shopful of treats to choose from. Yummy! They're called 'Cupcake Dolly' and unfortunately they don't have a website but they're on Rocky Point Road in Ramsgate and really cute. Sammy had the Tirimisu cupcake, Bella had the Chocolate, Dave had the Peanut Butter and Jelly cupcake (really!) and Josh and I had little dessert cup each. We had coffees and drinks and Hamish chewed quietly on his pram buckles while we decided where to go next. Dave decided that we should go and visit Captain Cook's landing site in Kernell. I can honestly say that I didn't know anything about Kernell and although I wasn't excited about the prospect of a history lesson on a Saturday afternoon I ended up enjoying myself and so did the kids. I think they may have even learnt something!

Tirimisu

Me and my Greek Rice Pudding. Yum!

Sucking on his strap.

A pudding called Chocolate Dirt.

Peanut and Jelly Cupcake.

She ate all the icing first!

Josh being silly for me!

Holding up the Cenotaph at Kernell.

Finally some kisses!

It's taken a while for me to organise the photos from our Coffs Harbour trip onto picassa so that I can play around with them. I'm trying really hard to make the files and photos easier to find on my computer which of course has taken me extra time, but hopefully will mean less time in the long term. I actually went and wrote a description for each folder of photos all the way back to 2007!! You'll either be extremely impressed or a little sad for me that my life revolves around such mindless organisation. Either way here are the photos of all those seal and dolphin kisses from our time away.

The Porpoise Pool was worth every cent just for these moments! Hamish got kissed by the dolphin, but I think that he thought he was going to be eaten. He had the biggest look of surprise on his face just after the kiss. It was very funny.

Bellingen 'Old Butter Factory'

After the Honey Place we travelled to Bellingen to have a look around. A cute town with some pretty houses and an old butter factory that had been converted into a cafe and some studios for art and craft. We had Belgium hot chocolates with cream and Bella had a strawberry milkshake. We only had a quick look around and found some interesting things to look at. There was a beautiful mosaic floor outside, a camel made from bits of metal rubbish and a life sized ceramic pig. We also had a look at some original leather and wood work.

The Honey House

We decided to visit the honey house and see some real bees. It had a great entrance, but was a little underwhelming over all. Josh loved the look of the bees and went back three times to see if he could find the queen bee. Dave, Sammy and Bella taste tested the different sorts of honey they had. We ended up buying creamed honey(my favorite) and bloodwood honey. Hamish wasn't impressed with any of it so we didn't stay long inside. Although we stayed a while in the car park while I fed him and everyone else snacked on biscuits and chocolate honeycomb.

Truck stop lunch

We stayed overnight at Raymond Terrace and then after a Hungry Jacks brekky we headed off to Coffs Harbour. We stopped for lunch at a truck stop which was amazingly cheap! It also had wonderful junk to look at while we waited for our meals. I saw a set of retro anodized tea and coffee canisters for $40 which I thought looked really cute. I was tempted to buy them until I told Dave and he told me what he thought of them! So no canisters! The trip to Coffs was pretty uneventful and Hamish was very well behaved and slept a lot in the car. He had to make up for all his nights of partying late into the night.

The War Memorial

The War Memorial ended up being a lot more interesting than the kids thought it would be. They enjoyed the hands on activities which included dressing in an army shirt, riding in a helicopter, being in the trenches and riding a bicycle that powered a movie. It was just fascinating!

Lucy Elizabeth Alexander

A beautiful 7 pound 12 ounce baby girl by the name of Lucy was born to my dear big brother and his lovely wife Annabelle. We of course had to go and visit!! All of us HAD to have a pic taken with her. After we had visit we went to the war memorial. The kids weren't very excited about going, but I think they had a good time and found it interesting.