I couldn't hit the broadside of a barn with a tennis ball if my life depended on it

I once knew a spatz, girl, sister of mine who fell and broke her wrist trying out for the junior high basketball team AND STILL MADE THE TEAM.  I've always suspected known with absolute certainty that the reason that she made the team was because she is 6 feet tall.

What's my point?  I only kinda had one with that story, I just think it is a funny story.

I often just open the front door and whip compost out in to the garden here.  At home it is the back door and when I lived on the 9th floor of an apartment building I used to put compost in the blender and pour it off of the balcony (yes, the grass under our balcony was shockingly green).

This is my front porch here in Oz.

 One would think that I would easily be able to jettison compost in to the garden with no difficulties.  I mean, seriously, there is a sh*t tonne of open air to be had here.

 NOPE.  I hit that post or the eaves EVERY SINGLE TIME!!  This morning's egg shells are in the photo, on the ground in front of the planter as evidence.  If you told me that you would give me a million dollars to consistently hit that pole I would fail within minutes.

Sigh.

The Swimming Carnival Results are in!

Remember the swimming carnival a couple of weeks back?  The one where the Canadian boys who had not seen an outdoor pool in months jumped in and competed?

Yeah, well THIS KID won 3rd for the senior boys!

We could not be more impressed!  He, of course, is pleased as punch!!

Sydney trip #1 - Saturday (from Dave's camera and commentary)

Today we drove from our lovely billet home in Hornsby to Gordon to catch the train. We arrived in the Central Business District for shortly after 8 am and had time to swing by Starbucks for a treat before catching our harbour cruise.  Here's a shot of Monkey in front of one of the massive cruise ships that docked in the main part of the harbour.

We spent 3 1/2 hours cruising about Sydney harbour catching several views of the harbour bridge

and the Sydney Opera house,

 as well as many beautiful homes and businesses that overlook the water. This home was proudly flying a Canada flag and the gent outside happily returned our eager waves.

  The boys had a quiz to fill out as our NSW exchange teacher's league provided commentary for all of the adults. Our boys eagerly followed along and submitted their entries, with a stop for hugs from mommy,

 before our arrival at Chowder Bay for lunch and a swim. I (Dave) was brave enough to go into the somewhat chilly and very salty water after lunch while the boys played in the park on the swings and slides. Big C came down to the water to make an ' Australia 2015' sign in the sand,

  but as the boat whistle blew to leave he was the only one who had time to be in the photo.

  We returned to Circular Quay and headed along the harbour to the opera house to wander around the outside and sit in the foyer for a rest. Saje met up with a friend to go to Cockatoo island for a Lululemon /yoga event (Wanderlust),  so the boys carried on to checkout the outdoor theatre screen behind the opera house which offered a great spot to get a photo of both the harbour bridge and the opera house.

We carried on to where the naval ships were docked. Grandpa - a little help here for the boys - what is it that we're looking at?

We had quite the conversation trying to figure it out.

  We met back up with Saje and headed out for supper. We found a place called Pancakes on the Rocks. The boys were overjoyed to get a reasonably priced hamburgers (the ones we found the day before we're 21$) and pancakes. 

  After a long and phenomenal day we jumped on the train to head back home for a long rest and a solid night's sleep before kayaking in the harbour tomorrow morning.

Kayaking to Cockatoo Island (Sydney road Trip #1)

After the boat cruise on Saturday, kayaking was right up high on my list of best activities that we did whilst in Sydney.

 Monkey and Big C both felt that they wanted their own kayaks.  We convinced Big C to ride in a double with Dave and Monkey took off in his own kayak.

 I will admit that these photos are rather staged.  We left our cameras on shore for fear of them ending up in the drink.

 We took these photos once we were back in the harbour having kayaked for a couple of hours.  We kayaked all through the harbour and along the shoreline.  We passed by Dawn Fraser pool.  She is an Australian Olympic sprint swimmer who trained at that pool.  That pool, from what I am to understand, is sea water and also ran the risk of Jellyfish and other critters being a part of her training sessions.

 We then went across a sailboat race, trying to not stuff them up, stay out of the way.  We then narrowly avoided the city ferry (read: big waves) and paddled around the entire island.  We made landfall at the island, saw some local scouts and there was even a big yoga festival on.   We got some crunchy granola snack samples, walked around the yogis and then paddled back.

 We will all have some pretty fabulous memories of this experience for a long, long time to come.

Sydney Road trip #1

 We woke up bright and early on Saturday morning and once again took the train in to Sydney.  Big C was just as taken with it as he was on Friday!  We were scheduled for a boat cruise leaving from Circular Quay.  The cruise ship in the background seems to be a regular occurrence and the kids think that they are fabulous to look at.

Our little boat was significantly smaller by comparison!!

Our boat cruise was very well organized.  We set off to get a full tour and their was a kid's contest sheet to fill out as we went along.

Both of our children were quite interested in filling out the questions such as: Name this bridge, with a photo beside it.  Name all of the islands that we've passed, and a word search.  You can tell when events like these are put on by teachers!!

 We found a Starbucks on our way to the boat cruise.  It was my first time seeing such a thing in 5 weeks.  We all got a fun treat.  We dutifully took the requisite photos with iconic buildings in the background.

 The boat cruise went from 9-1 and included a stop for lunch.  It was a really fun event and we are all thrilled that we went.

Monkey tied for first place in the contest and Big C was a runner up (he didn't want to complete the word search).

Once back on dry land we went to see the Opera House close up and even went inside (you can wander in to the foyer free of charge).  

 Another shot of iconic stuff:

Sydney Road Trip #1

Friday we took the train in to town from our billet in Hornsby.  That is still in Sydney, but about a 40 minute train ride in to the Central Business District.  Big C was pretty convinced that if he could just ride the train all day long he would be as happy as a clam!

 We dropped Dave off to his teacher education session thingy and the boys and I took off on a tour with the spouses and families.  The tour took us to some off the major highlights and the boys and I were very impressed to find ourselves under the Harbour Bridge.  If you look at the top left of the  photo you can see the fools people who are climbing up the outside of the bridge.  Luckily unfortunately for me, the kids are too young to be permitted to climb it.

 We were fortunate enough to be in Sydney for Chinese New Year so we visited some of the local events and installations.

 This is a shot of the whole tour group in the installation

 This is a beautiful view of the city with the Harbour Bridge on the right of Big C.

 Here we all are.  For those of us who know him well, the shortest WB was finished with this whole experience at this point and we broke from the group shortly afterwards.

We met back up with Dave at his thing-a-ma-jig and took the train home.  Possibly, but just maybe, I promised the boys that if they sat quietly on the couches at Lululemon while I shopped, I would allow them to play on their games.  THAT was a rousing success!!

Sydney Road Trip #1

This past weekend Dave had professional development with the other exchange teachers in Sydney.  While Sydney looks to be close to us on the map, it is actually about a 3.5 hour drive.  So I made sure that everyone's devices were well charged.  We put a new battery in the car after far too many times having it boosted.  

I packed the car up, loaded the esky, packed all of the luggage and picked everyone up at school. It went pretty smoothly and definitely saved us at least an hour over having everyone come home first to try to get organized.  I took the route through the mountains that was recommended.

Oh what a DRIVE!!  The views were absolutely fantastic.  We did climb and wind, and climb and wind and then climb some more.  My manual transmission and other side of the road skills most certainly got some honing on this drive!






Then, just to add to the fun, it started to rain.  So now I have to think about using the indicator AND the windshield wipers, both of which are not where I expect them to be.  And I am winding and climbing through a narrow two lane road on an endless highway.

The margin for error is quite limited as you can see. If I swerve off on my left, the car will plunge to our deaths.  If I veer off to the right, I will either hit the side of the mountain face or plunge us off to our deaths.

This guy had less success than I did.  Dave didn't get the camera out quite fast enough, but the scene right before this one was of a transport truck jackknifed across the side of the road.  I'm quite grateful to the driver's foresight to get himself off of the main road.  If he'd blocked the way through, we would not have had a viable alternative without a lot of back tracking.

Next weekend we are off to Sydney again.  Luckily we are heading to a different part of Sydney so we can take the highway to get there instead.  I actually said, more than once during the drive, that I would rather be driving on the 401.

So there you have it.  A spider free post about our travels to Australia :)  We did have a very fun weekend and I will spoil the ending by letting you know that we all survived!  It was a truly beautiful drive.  It was, I just needed to take a lot of deep breaths while doing it! 

Heading in to Sydney

This weekend all of the exchange teachers are getting together in Sydney for professional development and some sightseeing. 

We are staying with a billet family in Hornsby and are taking the train in to downtown for our activities. Today I have the extreme pleasure of looking across at these three handsome men.

For those of you tuned in to world news, there is a category 5 cyclone that will soon make landfall on the coast of Queensland.  This is not at all close to where we are.

For those of you who were part of buying ipods for the boys, they both have them in their hands as I type this, taking photos from the train.  They have been a fabulous gift!

The Amazing Saje (the untold story of the blog so far)

Saje is a pretty outstanding wife.
An incredible mom.
A fearless healthy warrior.
And to date has given herself no credit on the blog for her first month here in New South Wales.

It seems time to rectify that.

She's braved the medical system in a foreign country to see fit that her doodle had the attention that he needed when he was dehydrated upon our arrival. She continues to make medical claims for everything both here and abroad. She has spent countless (and I fancy myself a pretty good counter) hours dealing with a milieu of claims for all of the members of the family with nary a complaint. She has stayed up very late into the night and then woken up early in the morning to bike on a flat tire to a friend's place to call Ontario before the business ours closed in their time zone.

She's braved the spiders. There have been many. They are big. They are scary. They are not to be messed with. She has taken it like a trooper.

She's rego'd the car and figured out all of the quirks and queries of driving here. She's been patient with me as I've re-acquainted myself with the 'joy' of driving manual. She's taken the lion's share of the driving, including the boys to and from school each day. She even often comes home with someone else's children in tow so that our boys will have someone to play with.

She's been a whiz in the kitchen. Although she misses the chest freezer (and nature's freezer from Ottawa - the front and back steps), she's managed to make an amazing birthday cake, breakfasts each morning for our growing boys and a hot meal each day when I come home (even if I'm running late). They even often come with a glass of Australian wine that she has procured along the way.

She's thoroughly enjoyed the extra time she has each day with her boys. She's chatted with teachers. She's followed up on notes and notices. She's supported the boys through-and-through and advocated for them each step of the way.

She trains constantly for her races and made friends along the way.

She's made dinner plans, brunch plans, morning tea plans, afternoon tea plans and barbecue tea plans for the family. She's planned our weekends away to the letter.

She's blogged faithfully every day to document our travels and secure our memories online.

She's done it all (and more) with a smile on her face.

I'm incredibly blessed to be on the other side of the world with her.

Change of address

Kids came running and I thought they were yelling "fire", so I went running toward the largest spider I have seen in the wild in my life.

Monkey said he almost soiled himself and I actually said a very bad swear word at the top of my lungs within hearing distance of my whole family.

We asked Dave to kill it.  He tried his best, knocked it down and now we can't find it.  It might be dead.  It might be plotting revenge. 

Either way, I'll be sleeping on the inside of a ring of fire tonight.  Shudder.

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

Race Report-Sydney Olympic Stadium Sprint

Before I left Canada I had signed up to race in the first ever stadium event at Australia's most iconic sporting venue, the ANZ Stadium.  Host of the 2000 Sydney Olympics.

I will apologize up front that some of the lighting in the photos was sub par.  Also, my phone was sometimes back in my Camelbak, which was partly frozen, and very cold, so the lenses were sometimes a bit cloudy.  These factors made for some craptacular photos at times.  We did our best. This race had more than 30 obstacles spread over more than 7K.  Obviously we didn't stop to take  photos at every one.

We got to drive the 3.5 hours in to Sydney in my neighbour's baby!

The actual registration process was very smooth.  I registered from Canada and it was a non issue.  The day before the race the Spartan folks suddenly announced that the promised beer at the finish line was replaced with coconut water.  I happen to think that coconut water tastes foul, but the healthy types were all for the change while the die hards spent the day posting hateful messages on facebook. (for the record, the FAQ still says beer is included).

The local hotels hosted practice sessions for the obstacles.  We got to practice box jumps (15 reps)-nailed it in the race, spear throw-fouled it in the race, wall ball with 14kgs (15 reps)-nailed it in the race and ball slams-wasn't in the race.

We started in waves of 10 every minute or so. We all wore wristbands with our start times on them and we were checked as we entered the starting area. We took off out on to one of the parking garage ramps heading up and had a few walls to play with.  These were small and easily manged.  The 8 foot wall came later.

We had to run through the stands for what felt like a really long time.  Little did I know that I would soon be doing this with a sandbag along for the ride. 

We came to the rope traverse (pictured below), something that I have not yet had the pleasure of even attempting in real life.  I got on that bad boy and I DID NOT GET OFF UNTIL I WAS ACROSS-AROOOOO.  I'm mid way across in this photo next to the person in black tights and red top.  I am a stubborn, stubborn woman.

Of course, we crawled through stuff. They actually made us do this one twice. Once to get to the start line, and once in the middle of the race.  We also ran/hurdled/jumped back over them a couple of times during the race.

The hardest part of this one for me is that being a tall woman, my femurs are long, this puts my meaty parts (and my Camelbak) up in the smallest part of the triangular tunnel, just adding to the challenge.  I can only imagine how this ends up working out for those more vertically gifted than me.  The long legs are a FANTASTIC asset when it comes to getting back over them during the race!

We made it to the sandbag carry and it was HANDS DOWN, the furthest distance I have ever had to carry a sandbag.We hauled those puppies up and down, and then up and down the stands a second time, just for good measure.  It was perfectly manageable for me as long as I kept a nice steady pace.  There was no sprinting this section for me!

Below was me at the top of the 8 foot wall.  Really, this could be anyone since the lighting is so challenging...I don't know that my phone has a setting for "climbing an 8 foot wall in a parking garage rampway with the sun shining behind you".  To be honest though, in the interests of full disclosure, I didn't check that, so I could be mistaken.

 I am SUPER FRUSTRATED that I didn't get to the top of the rope.  It was a good rope, nice and thick (though wet) and lots of slack on the ground.  I just didn't make it.  More practice for me!

Here's Kirsty on the final obstacle, we had to haul a weighted sleigh up and back, on an incline.  We noted that the vertically challenged race participants struggled more with this one than the more vertically gifted.

Not shown are obstacles like the spear throw, the tire carry, slam ball carry (twice), running through a maze of poles at the front of the properly, a slip and slide with non-barbed, not electric wire over it, a hellish travelling burpee section, balance beams, cargo net, a jump rope with the big, BIG thick ropes and a few more that I can't remember right now.

There were a few well placed water stations.  They were so well placed that we passed by the same ones a couple or more times.  That was very well done for those without water on board.  I would say we had at least 6 chances at water.

You can see that the course was a good combination of indoor and outdoor stuff so we were in and out of the sun with lots of shade.  In the end I did burpees at three stations.  So less than 10%.  I call that a solid, super fun Spartan and I am now ever more excited for the next two!!!

For those of you interested in how the race was administered: the times that people registered for were often hours and hours different than the wave they were assigned.  I signed up for the 9-12 wave months ago and was scheduled for 2.  Same with a friend of mine and she was at 2:20.  I showed up at the registration desk before 8 am on race day and was easily assigned a new wave time with no dramas.

Here is the t-shirt.  I am too small for the size small so had to go with an XS.  I have no idea what the half of the world's population that is smaller than me is supposed to wear.  The fabric is different than the awesome soft grey shirts from last year.  I think the design is pretty awesome.  Not pictured is the sleeve where it says "2015 finisher" in the same lettering as on the bottom back.

 The medal is AWESOME!!  It says Sydney 2015 on it and the lanyard has the iconic Harbour Bridge (which I saw for the first time this weekend) with the word AROOO on it.  It has the medal for this race and the first puzzle piece for a trifecta hanging from the lanyard. I've noticed them including the puzzle pieces with all medals in other recent races too.  I came home (in the baby) a very happy girl.