What Have I Done?

Alex has been trying to crawl out of his crib already and is about a centimeter away from getting his foot over the edge, so I decided it was a good time to try the toddler bed. Didn't want a repeat of Ben jumping out of his crib onto wood floors and ending up with a broken arm...especially since it's been over a year since any males in this family have had radial fractures. Unfortunately, the process of removing the front of the crib appears to be the most exciting thing these kids have seen all month and they have been in, out, on, over, and through every possible thing they can reach. Hopefully the novelty will wear off before bedtime! Alex did show Ben who still owns the bed, though.

Aussie Lingo

Since it's Australia Day here, I thought I'd pass along a little lesson on how to speak Australian. The list could go on forever but these are words I encounter frequently or see in the paper.

Step #1 - the best thing to do is shorten any word, add an -ie or -y to the end, or just stick an o on it.
Rotto - Rottnest Island
Cott - Cottesloe, our neighborhood
Mozzie - mosquito
Footy - Australian rules football
Barbie - barbeque (and they don't throw shrimp on it, they say prawn here)
Ta - thank you
Lippie - lipstick

Step #2 - If in doubt, use British English
Nappy - diaper
Loo - toilet, restroom
Lift - elevator
Flat - apartment

Step #3 - Shorten every occupation
Leckie - electrician
Garbo - garbage collector
Journo - journalist

Step #4 - Don't be afraid to get creative!
Mackers - McDonald's
Cuppa - cup of coffee (and you need to know if it's tall or short, dark or white, and long or flat)
Station - farm or ranch
Bathers - swimsuit
Manchester - household linens
Doona - comforter
Nipper - little kid or young lifesaver/lifeguard
Jaffle - toasted sandwich
Lollies - candy
Nick off - to leave
Chook - chicken
Peckish - hungry
Ute - 4wd or sport utility vehicle
Bush - the outback or anywhere that isn't town
Creche - nursery
Mum - mom
Bub - baby

And my favorite of the week is to "chuck a sickie", or call in sick when you're perfectly healthy. Apparently half a million people did it yesterday to make a 4-day weekend. You can't accuse Australians of working too hard, that's for sure, but they know how to have a good time.

I do love how people talk here and I'm slowly learning a lot of the terminology. You wouldn't think an English-speaking country would have so many differences, and a lot of terms we'd already learned in Singapore thanks to the British influence, but there are still times when I have to ask people what they're talking about. That's what makes living abroad an adventure in the most unexpected places.

Tickets to Paradise

It's a holiday weekend down under for people willing to take today off because tomorrow is Australia Day, like 4th of July in the US. Matt took the day off and we headed out of town to enjoy our long weekend. We decided to head southeast this time to check out Esperance, which we'd heard had amazing beaches and an archipelago of islands. Here's a map of Western Australia to give you an idea of where we were going. Keep in mind the state is about 3 times as big as Texas so this was a 7-8 hour trip (thankfully a little shorter than we thought).

We headed out of town Friday evening and caught a beautiful sunset somewhere near Katanning.

Looking south we caught a glimpse of the Stirling Range outside Albany.

The drive out was largely uneventful with the exception of narrowly missing several kangaroos crossing the road and nearly running out of gas. We were only 2 hours away from Esperance but it was 9pm, we were on empty, and the gas stations in every town were already locked up for the night. 24-hour pay at the pump technology is not here! And considering we could drive hours and only see a couple of cars, there doesn't seem to be a lot of traffic on the roads after dark. And not much during the day, for that matter. There are just not many people on this side of the world. So we finally located a pump in the largest town (Ravensthorpe, population 450) that would accept certain credit cards (which, of course, we didn't have) and talked a local man into using his card so we could pay him cash. Our only other option was to stay in the little motel and wait for the gas station to open at 6:30am. Not in our travel plans. So he was kind enough to help us out and after a 30-minute delay, we were back on the road, topped up with gas, and ready for a great weekend.

We stayed at a little 2-bedroom apartment and woke up bright and early with our energetic guys. Ben loves staying at hotels and jumped right into his bed to go to sleep, but both boys' favorite thing is waking up in a room together and playing first thing in the morning. Sometimes it's really cute, sometimes at 5:30am I wish I could tell them to go back to sleep.

The upside of being up so early is that we had the car packed with our beach gear and we were out the door to explore first thing. On Saturday we checked out the Great Ocean Drive which had one beautiful beach after another, all with brilliant white sand and clear blue water. It faces the Southern Ocean and gets currents from Antarctica so the water was rather cold.

West Beach

Salmon Bay

Blue Haven

Twilight Cove

9 Mile Beach

At the end of the road was Pink Lake, which isn't so pink at the moment but still has a pretty hue. When the conditions are right, the algae apparently has a deep pink and makes the lake take on a magenta color. Regardless of the color, it's used a salt mine all the time.

This was the beach we chose for the day: Ten Mile Lagoon. The carpark was on the bluff above the beach but Matt found the sand track to drive right down onto the sand. One thing we enjoy about Australia (besides these amazing beaches with only a handful of people) is that everyone loves to take their 4wd's right onto the beach. Sure saves time hauling all our stuff and two kids!

It had a great shelf of rock that protected the inner pool from the pounding surf and made it a great place for the kids to play.







We had a terrific time playing, enjoyed our picnic lunch, and finally took two tired boys home to clean up for dinner.

We woke up to rain and clouds on Sunday and it looked to be a rather ugly day. We still didn't want to waste it so we decided to do some sightseeing and throw in our swimsuits just in case things cleared up. We drove past this lake, hit the brakes, and backed up for a better look. It was covered in wild black swans and ducks.

A little later we hit the brakes again for some wild emus.

And then again for some kangaroos. We saw several more kangaroos and emus during the day, and even an emu on the beach that ran before I could reach my camera.

We drove into Cape LeGrand National Park and the scenery itself wasn't that impressive but the beaches were gorgeous.



We passed by some huge granite boulders.

This was Lucky Bay, the beach I'd been wanting to see because I'd heard about kangaroos coming right up onto the sand. We didn't see any roos on the beach but the scenery was spectacular enough that I wasn't disappointed in the least.

The sand was as soft as powdered sugar and so fine that it squeaked under our feet. The waves were gentle and rolled slowly enough that the kids could run and play all the wanted.

Again, we drove right up on the sand and pitched our tent. We planned to have a picnic and watch the boys play while we waited to see if the sky would clear up.

They were SO busy!



A great view from the sand dunes as the sun began to peek out.

Finally the weather passed for good and we let the boys in the water. There was a stiff breeze so they would have been freezing without the sun to keep them warm in the water.

Two happy boys! Several hours later we literally had to drag them out of the water and into the car when we'd all had enough sand and sun, otherwise we'd probably still be there right now!

Beautiful Lucky Bay. Probably the best beach we've ever experienced. Too bad it's so far away or we'd be back for sure!

We loved Esperance. It only has about 9,500 people and it's 450 miles away from Perth, but it was a charming little town with friendly people, great restaurants, and unbelievable beaches. It still blows my mind that we could visit somewhere so beautiful on a holiday weekend and have entire beaches all to ourselves. A country with so much coastline and a small population doesn't have to worry about its beaches getting overrun on the holidays.

Happy Australia Day to everyone! We're glad to be home and still have a holiday to look forward to tomorrow.

Cooling Off

Perth tried its best to kill us all with its heat over the past week. We had 3 days in a row at 108F, which needless to say was miserable. The house was so hot we'd sit as still as possible on the couch under several fans and get up only when necessary. Nights were the same way. In the morning (when it would get down to the 80's outside) I opened every window possible to let cooler air in the house and didn't worry much about the windows without screens because we don't see a lot of bugs here. Forgot about other creatures that may fly into the house!

This pretty little yellow and brown bird was fluttering around in one of my artificial plants in the living room and knocked himself silly trying to find a way back out of the house. We set him outside out of arms' reach of four curious hands and let him recover.

This was our saving grace for the last few days: a portable air conditioner! It brought the temperature in the living room and kitchen down to about 81 so the sweating was at a minimum.

And it was a nice place to cool off. Alex figured it out really fast. His language is improving daily and he learned "cold" from standing in front of the "big loud fan", as Ben affectionately named it.

Thankfully, the winds finally shifted yesterday and we're back in the regular pattern of an ocean breeze every afternoon and comfortable temperatures. I can see how you could live most of the year without a/c when the winds are favorable because the house stays really nice when the breeze comes through. Only now our dishwasher is broken, too. When it rains it pours! Luckily we do have terrific landlords who live right around the corner and try to get things fixed as promptly as they're able.

It's been nice enjoying being at home again! Like watching Ben having fun on the potty because he found a good way to bring an audience. I told him no toys on the floor since it has a tendency to get showered on occasion so he invented a great solution using the door handle.

The boys have been able to go outside and paint again because with the two of them playing off one another it's way past an indoor activity. A few minutes later they were head to toe in colored paint and we now have some pretty purple handprints all along the wall.

Today we walked down the beach to the playground and enjoyed a gorgeous morning. Ben decided he wanted to wear silly shoes and put on one of each color.

It's pretty great to enjoy a nice playground with the brilliant blue ocean right behind it.

Back at home Ben noticed the water spigot on the side of the house and naturally both of them were drenched in seconds.

That's right, Alex, get your hair nice and clean!

Sweet soggy boy!

Next Tuesday is Australia Day so Matt is taking off Monday and we're taking another road trip this weekend. Just found out it's more of an 8-9 hour drive than the 6 hours we were told, so it should be an interesting trip. Stay tuned for pictures from what will hopefully be an amazing beach in Esperance.

Heat

As many of you know, I've struggled to enjoy Perth. It's lonely, it's isolated, the people have lots of personality but aren't particularly friendly, and the work ethic here is not exactly high. The laid-back Aussie attitude doesn't exactly fall in line with top-notch customer service. Where am I going with all this? We got back into town and found our air-conditioner isn't working. Keep in mind, this is the middle of summer here. We called the landlord and he arranged for the air-conditioning company to come check it out first thing last Monday morning. The repairman concluded that the unit needs a new motor and told me someone would be in touch when the part arrived. Okay, I can accept that. But as the week went on and the temperature got higher and higher each day I began to get a bit sweaty and anxious. Finally on Thursday I called to check on the progress and found out they hadn't even written up the work order or submitted it to the landlord for payment, both of which needed to take place before they would even order the replacement part. This was January 14th and they were still working on orders from Christmas!! That's what gets me SO frustrated. There is no urgency or overtime here. Nevermind that this was the hottest weekend in two years here, with the high yesterday at 109F. Here is our thermometer in the shade at nearly 100F.

And the indoor thermometer was a balmy 83F. We spent as much time Saturday in air-conditioned places and even went to the grocery store just to cool off. Of course, since it's Perth, we got kicked out at 5pm when they closed.

Of course everything here is closed on Sundays since Western Australia is still in the dark ages so we couldn't even hang out at a mall or anything. We did find a roller rink that was open and decided to check it out. The boys thought it was pretty cool to wear skates for the first time. Ben never seriously tried to skate but had a great time thrashing around like a madman.

Alex was actually pretty good and found his balance rather well. He really wanted to skate well with Daddy but one lap around the rink was enough for Daddy's back!

The indoor entertainment was still good enough. We finally had to head home for a sweaty naptime and suffer through a long afternoon under all the fans we could assemble. When the shadows finally cover most of the yard I take the kids out to the wading pool too cool off since that's the best I can do for them.

Thank goodness the humidity is low here and the house is well insulated (except for the windows) but it was still 85 degrees inside when we went to bed. And since it was 98 degrees outside at 9pm, we had to sleep with the windows closed all night. I let the breeze in this morning to "cool" things down in the house to 82 at 7am but we're facing another scorcher today with a forecast high of 104. The problem is that the hot wind is coming from the deserts in the east instead of a cool breeze off the ocean and it's going to remain hot until the wind turns. I'm praying that it will be very very soon! In the meantime, I'm hoping that the ridiculous people at the air-conditioning company will realize that this is their busiest time of the year and start busting their humps to get some work done. Otherwise the Kirkham family may be residing at a local hotel until this heat wave passes because this is almost unbearable. I'm doing just the bare minimum to get through the day without moving too much or straying too far from a fan and the poor kids are red and sweaty.

But here's a happy little something so my post isn't all complaining. This was the first time I ever saw Ben tickle Alex!