Sean started work this week, so the kids and I are now on our own during the weekdays. We laid pretty low Monday. However, it is hard to just stay in a hotel room all day. Because, really that is what our temporary apartment feels like. A large hotel room, but still a hotel room, none the less. So, we headed out to the mall to walk around. Suddenly, I thought, I'll take the kids to see "The Lorax". Carter had already seen it before we left the States, but I really wanted to see it myself. Since it was going to be a matinee, I thought it wouldn't be too pricey, right? That is when I learned how expensive it is to go to the movies in Australia. Each kid is $13.50 and I would have to pay $18.50 for myself. So, to go to a matinee on a weekday was going to cost us $45. No snacks, no 3D, just for 2 kids and 1 adult to watch a movie. We opted to go back to apartment and watch some free television.
We have also tried to have a little bit of "school" in our downtime. This usually consists of Aubrey writing letters of the alphabet and working on her Bob Books app on the iPad and Carter doing math apps on his iPod touch and writing about our adventures. He has quite a long section that he is writing right now. It will be included in the blog later when he feels he has completed it. Carter has also tried to be Aubrey's "teacher" at times. This actually works out pretty well. As much as they normally fight and irritate each other, he loves to teach her things and she wants to follow his lead. It is during those moments that make me feel like our parenting is not completely failing. However, it probably really has nothing to do with our parenting. But, I'm going to just pretend it does because it makes me feel good. :-)
While the kids were doing school, I spent WAY too much time looking up poisonous spiders and focusing on the funnel-web spider. I have learned that is one spider you don't want to mess with. Unfortunately, Carter saw what I was looking at and is now deathly afraid of it, along with anything blackish in color that slightly moves. I know I am just an easily frightened American coming to Australia, but I am scared enough that I have decided we should probably live in an apartment/condo off of the ground floor when we move. See, the funnel-web spider is a ground dweller and doesn't really crawl up on walls and such. However, the males do go hunting for females at night and sometimes they come into houses during this hunt. And, they have fangs that can perforate a fingernail or a soft sole shoe. The good news is that no one has actually DIED from their bite since anti-venom was discovered in 1980. But, you have to be rushed to the hospital and you are usually admitted for several days. Yeah, I want NOTHING to do with that. There is also the red-back spider that is pretty nasty, but it does not seem quite as ferocious as the funnel-web. There are a few other less poisonous spiders and then there is also the Huntsman spider that is harmless, but as big as your hand. Carter and I are still trying to get over our phobia of these spiders at the present moment. We'll let you know how that is going at a later time.
On to lighter subjects.....I felt the kids and I were up for our first true adventure together without Dad on Tuesday. So, I looked up Centennial Park since it is very close to where we are currently staying. We headed out there and found out that it truly is amazing. It is around 545 acres and has trails, ponds, a cafe, play grounds, etc, etc,. It is absolutely beautiful. After we had walked quite a little distance, played at a playground, and had lunch, I was thinking about heading home. Then I saw a visitor information booth. So, I asked the man working at the booth what else there was in the park that may spark our interest. He said "The kids would probably love to see the black swans." So, off we went to find the black swans. I was not prepared for how cool it was really going to be. Plus, one man there was feeding the swans some bread. He was so nice and gave the kids several slices of bread to feed the birds. Carter now claims this is his favorite thing that he has done in Australia. The following 6 pictures are all in Centennial Park. It doesn't look like we are in the middle of a large city.
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| Carter and the black swans |
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| Aubrey, Carter, and the black swans |
Wednesday was the house hunting day. I was so nervous since I knew that we were on a pretty tight schedule to find a house/apartment. Plus, Sean couldn't go because he had to work. So, it was going to be me, the kids, and some relocation lady that I didn't really know. The first few places were not anything that I was interested in. It made me even more nervous. They were all in the Balgowlah/Fairlight area. This is an area we thought we would like because it is pretty quiet, has some nice areas, and is in walking distance of Manly Beach. However, it would be a little tougher commute for Sean since you have to pass over a bridge called "The Spit" that can serve as a bottleneck out of this area. From here we went on to look at properties in Mosman. Mosman is a really nice area that is known to be very family friendly. It is closer to Sean's work, but also seems busier with traffic and such. The properties there were more what we were looking for. There was one apartment in particular that I fell in love with. It is a nice, clean, modern apartment. Plus, we would be able to walk to Carter's school, as well as the grocery store and the mall. We put offers in on 2 houses and the 1 apartment. I would love to show pictures of these properties, but I didn't really get many good ones. I did include the link to the apartment on Facebook, but now that link is probably gone.
Thursday was spent with Sean and I on pins and needles. We found out immediately that we lost out on one house, but we expected this since we underbid it by quite a bit. We found out that we very possibly may be out on the other house. So, all our eggs were in one basket. Luckily, that one basket was the apartment that I loved. We spent all day waiting. Finally, at 4:30 in the afternoon we found out that we got it!!! We were so happy! So...move in date is April 18th!!! Now, I hope Sean likes it as much as I do since he has never actually seen it.
Today is Good Friday. Easter is a big deal in the States, but NOTHING like it is in Australia. Earlier this week Sean found out that he got Good Friday and the Monday after Easter off of work. The kids and I were excited that we would have him around those days, but we did not think about what else would be closed (like stores). This morning he tried to run over to the mall to grab us some coffees. The entire mall is closed. The grocery stores are closed. Almost everything but a few restaurants are closed. They open up for Saturday, and then everything is closed up again on Sunday. The thing to do on Good Friday is go to an Easter show (a big carnival). We decided to go to the Sydney Family Show, one of 2 large Easter shows in town this weekend. The day was perfect; sunny, 79 degrees, with a light breeze. After enjoying the show, we walked back home (probably about 2 miles) so that Sean could walk through Centennial Park. The kids were pretty tired by the time we got home, but they were troopers. We had a great day.
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| Carter belted into the bungee jumper at the Easter Show |
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| He went high! |
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| Aubrey in the bungee jumper |
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| Aubrey eating a new Easter favorite: hot cross buns! |
Love reading your blog!! Very entertaining and so glad you are doing well!
ReplyDeleteGreat job mom!
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