Since her birthday fell at the end of the school year and many people travel during the holidays, we decided to have her birthday party early. She chose to have it at an indoor rock climbing facility. The party was 3 hours long and besides a short break for pizza and cake, eleven "monkeys" were climbing non-stop.
The Invite (thanks Etsy)
We had to provide our own belayers (aka rope holders/anchors/coaches) for the party, so there were sore hands and no rest for David, myself, and three of our friends.
Getting all strapped in.
Anna on her way down from the top.
Ashleigh heading up...not to be outdone by the older girls.
Anna wanted her cake to look like the rock climbing wall. This was my attempt and it actually ended up matching pretty well.
Girl Power!
It was an extremely successful party! Even with the summer temps and no air conditioning, many guests were saying they are wanting to have their own party there next year.
Being that her actual birthday was on the last day of school, she had a fun day without any school work. We had leftover chocolate rocks from her party, so we added them to the cupcakes that we made for her class. There are no rules for what can or cannot be brought into the classroom, so it was fun to bake something personal for Anna.
She also had a surprise visitor that day who finally found his way to our new home....our elf Jinglehiemer.
As always, this time of the year is the busiest for me. Between holidays and birthdays, I am usually up to my eyeballs in to-do lists, shopping, school parties, baking, etc. To add to it, this year marks a new occurrence in all of the holiday hub-bub....SUMMER VACATION. Yes, we have four more school days left before the girls are finished with the school year and summer break starts.
With all that has been going on, I am way behind on blogging, so I am going to hit on some of the highlights of the past month.
Lake Currimundi
We went up to the Sunshine Coast for the day with some friends. The weather forecast for Brisbane was calling for rain, but the beach we wanted to go to was an hour north so we headed out anyway. Lake Currimundi is a tidal estuary (aka a lake connected to the ocean), so it is protected and the kids can swim without mom having to sit and worry about riptides, undertows, sharks....you get the picture.
This was a beautiful Black Cockatoo that squawked very loudly, and continually for quite some time in the tree behind us. This is not one of the birds we see commonly around our house, so it was fun to see one outside of the zoo.
Black Cockatoo
Lake Currimundi
Currimundi Beach
The day started out very overcast and dreary, but eventually was sunny and beautiful. Brisbane, on the other hand had terrible storms, which must have been why the beach was so deserted. We were glad we decided to chance it and enjoy the beautiful day at the coast.
Stormy Weather
Mother nature did not want us to miss out on experiencing a Brisbane storm, so the following day it decided to unleash another assault on the area. This was just after I was commenting the week before about enjoying the fact we had been getting good torrential rains without any storms. (Something that rarely happens in Texas.)
So, storm it did and we watched the gusty wind and hail from the safety of our many glass walls/windows. Thanks to our metal roof, it was LOUD and it hailed for more than 5 minutes. Here is a bit of my very amateur video.
The winds were so bad at one point we were convinced there was a tornado and moved downstairs to shelter. I have since been told that we will not see a tornado here.
Yes, Brisbane has bad storms too. Point taken.
Thanksgiving
We had a lovely Thanksgiving celebration with some American friends.
The Ladies
The Gents
The spread included two fried turkeys, a ham, and all of the traditional sides. Everything was made from scratch and so very delicious.
Fried Turkey
Veggie Turkey
The kids table
The kids had a blast in the pool enjoying the warm Thanksgiving temps.
We even had a 'Thankful Tree" where we all wrote down what we were thankful for.
It was such a nice Thanksgiving celebration and we were thankful we had such great friends to celebrate with.
Christmas Party
For the first time in three years, David was in town and we were able to go to the Fluor Christmas party. The party was located right at the top of the Rydges hotel in Southbank and the views were spectacular.
The night started off with drinks, appetizers, and traditional Christmas crackers/poppers. The wrapped tubes contain a joke, party hat (crown), and "prize." The jokes are known to be the worst EVER and to give you an example, here is one that we had at our table. "What is yellow and white and goes 100km per hour down the railroad tracks? The train engineers egg-salad sandwich." Wow! The others weren't much better, but seemed to get funnier as the wine flowed.
Party Hats
David's Prize Mustache
It was a very nice sit-down dinner with the choice of steak or salmon, but with one Aussie difference. Although there were two different meals offered, we didn't get to pick what we wanted to eat. You get what you get and you don't pitch a fit. Unless of course you are served salmon and you really don't like salmon. (achem) Needless to say there is a lot of plate shuffling that occurs after service.
It was a fun night and a great kick-off to the Christmas season!
After years of watching Steve Irwin and family on The Crocodile Hunter we were so excited to be at Australia Zoo!
The bronze statue of the Irwin Family.
The grounds are beautifully maintained and the animal enclosures are huge. All of the Australian icons like the koalas, kangaroos, and wombats are there, as well as many of the standard zoo animals.
sleeping koala
The main attraction is the live crocodile show at the Crocoseum. Here they have built large streams and ponds so the crocs can swim from their enclosures and the crowd can see every move the wild crocodile makes because the water is clear.
The Animal Planet Crocoseum
The stands are starting to fill.
Before the main event, there was a free flight bird show. I have acquired a new love for the beautiful, feathery friends of Australia (which will be an entire blog post to itself), but there were some new ones that I hadn't seen before. Two of the standouts for me were the condor and Major Mitchell's Cockatoo.
Andean Condor's have an 11 foot wingspan!
This cockatoo landed just long enough for me to snap this picture. Gorgeous!
Then it was time for the crocodile! It is really amazing to see the handlers dance around the giant crocs to keep from becoming their snack.
Crikey!
She's a real beauty! (said in my best Steve Irwin impression)
There are three elephants which you can hand feed. Unfortunately, we were unable to make it to the feeding, but saw the "day-in-the-life" show.
Hand feeding her a grape.
We saw a great demonstration at the Tiger Temple. Here the tiger is chilling out after the show.
The newest addition to the zoo is the African Savannah exhibit where the giraffes, rhinos, and zebras roam about.
In the visitor guide it states, "You may even catch a glimpse of our gorgeous cheetahs as they walk by." Little did we know that could mean they would be on leashes walking the grounds.
The one thing that would have made the trip better would have been an Irwin sighting. "Steve Irwin Day" is later this week, so Terri, Bindi, and Bob will be there then. We settled for this....
A Bindi cut-out in Bindi's Boot Camp where the girls played games and did challenges to replicate the television show.
As we were leaving we walked passed the crocodile enclosures where they were getting fed their weekly meal. Yes, they get fed once a week since they are not extremely active. This caretaker jumped over the fence between each enclosure and hand fed each one. This one gave him quite a bit of trouble and kept coming after him even after he was fed.
Australians don't really celebrate Halloween. Some do, but as a country, Halloween is not a widely celebrated holiday and has only gained popularity in the past few years. So what are the Americans to do?
#1. Jack-o-lanterns - There aren't many jack-o-lantern type pumpkins sold in the stores here, so I bought a nice, round watermelon to carve. This was actually a better idea than I thought. I wasn't gagging over the removal and smell of the pumpkin guts and we have lovely fruit to eat. It was a much easier item to carve too! An extra bonus was Dracula looks a little bloody thanks to the red flesh.
#2. Costumes- There are very few costumes in very few stores. Fortunately, the girls' school had a free-dress day on the 31st with the theme of "beauty and the geek." Voila! I have one Beauty and one Geek made almost entirely of things they had in the closets.
#3. Candy - ....or lollies as they're called here are sold in tiny bags. Unfortunately for me we don't have a Costco (however one will be built by the fall of 2014), so there are no ginormous bags of mixed goodness.
#4. Trick-or-treating - This Halloween tradition is getting more and more popular and on some streets in some neighborhoods there are balloons that are passed out with a note explaining the event. If you are going to pass out candy, all you have to do is blow up the balloon and put it on your mailbox. This didn't happen on our street. I purchased some candy and for the first time ever we did not have one trick-or-treater. Maybe we will have to pass out notes to our street next year.
#5. October Weather - Now that we are headed toward summer, it is getting quite warm and muggy here. It is really hard to get in the holiday spirit without the hay bales and falling leaves. Since pumpkin lattes aren't in the cards (and they are not even sold here) I thought would make a delicious watermelon-lime slushy with all of the watermelon we scooped out of our dracu-lantern. Mmmmmm....it was quite tasty!
Because I didn't know if any neighbors would be equipped with candy for door-to-door visits, I took Anna and Ashleigh across town to the Bulimba Hocus-Pocus Halloween festival to meet up with some friends.
A little fairy floss (aka cotton candy), some lollies, and what seemed like hundreds of kids in costume made it feel more like Halloween.
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