Day...5?

Today will not be the day that I manage to drive the car and exclusively use the indicator rather than the windshield wipers, to let other drivers know where I am going.

Dave gave driving a second attempt, but there is a lot going on here and the hilly roads and the manual transmission are still causing him grief.  I took over after a feisty older woman specifically roller her window down to tell him off.  I'll have to get him out to the back roads and practice with the manual transmission.  Me learning to drive a manual transmission many years ago was not exactly what you might call a "bonding moment" for my father and I.  Please pray for my marriage.

We met up with a woman living here who grew up in Ottawa.  She gave me a tour of the town while the boys checked out the library.  I will admit that even I find I to be hot here.  I'm not complaining,  but the air conditioned library did feel nice after walking around the town. The house is kept cool naturally,  but there's not much relief to be had outside.  Luckily we are having dinner tonight with a family who has invited us to first come and swim in their pool.  The boys and I will be taking full advantage of that!

We then went to the boy's school to see their classrooms and meet the doodle's teacher.  It is so completely different from Canadian schools that I don't even know where to start.  First off, the school is made up of a series of buildings and the students move from room to room, including the bathrooms, by being outdoors.

 Here's the doodle sitting in his new desk (above) and in the doorway of his class room (below)

The special needs classrooms are in their own section of the school campus and even have their own play yards. We were very impressed with the set up.  We didn't get to met Monkey's teacher yet, but we will on Wednesday when the kids start school.

 This was a dog that one of the teachers had brought in with him today as there are no students in the school.  He was more than happy to snuggle up to the boys as he had stories of long suffering and neglect that none of us believed.

 Tonight we went for dinner at the house of some new friends.  Peady is the dog of our exchange family and he was excited about us from the moment our car (his family's car) pulled in to the driveway.  He is convinced that he is a lap dog and snuggled right up to us.  It was all I could do to convince both Peady and the Monkey that he was not coming home with us.

 Both Monkey and Doodle had a ball with the gaggle of boys who turned up for the dinner.  Here a game of cricket has just sort of happened.  Monkey seemed to be learning the ropes pretty well.

Day trip to the Drip Gorge

Today we ventured out to the Drip Gorge in nearby Ulan.
Here are some shots of the family exploring about:

SJ and Monkey try holding up the massive rockface along our hike through 'The Drip'. It was super cool that every so often a spray of water would gently tumble down from the rocks high above. 

To provide a little scale, here are SJ, Monkey and Doodle stopping by one of the open features where there are all sorts of nooks and crannies where little animals (like bats in the evening) look to make their home.

Here the family stopped for a group shot after lunch. This is about the spot where we decided to turn about as too much exposure in the middle of the day (plus the heat) are ill-advised.
It was a stunning hike and the constant sound of the thousands of cecadas around us was super cool.

Day 3-yummy food with no dramas!

I'm not saying that Dave's first driving attempt went badly.  What I will say is that while I was cuddled up with these two I heard the car leave the driveway.  I only heard footsteps come back...followed by a request to help him push the car home.  I am going to go and take the car out for a solid drive and see if the battery will charge all the way back up, or if we need a new one.

We are heading over to a former Ottawa resident's house for lunch today and then to dinner with a new colleague tonight.  I took peaches and mint from the garden and whipped up some salsa to bring with us.

 I forgot to take a photo of the finished salsa, but it was yummy, so you'll just have to take my word for it.

Dave just had to rescue Monkey from a daddy long legs that was joining him in the shower.  Picture the two of them cowering in opposite corners of the shower stall.  Dave caught and released it in to the yard and all was fine.  In other "Dave is my hero" news, he took on not one, but TWO female red back spiders today and emerged as the sole survivor.  The ER nurse from yesterday said that we should not allow them to live on our property.  He took that one on like a boss!!

I took the car for a long drive and got the battery nice and charged up.  It has not given us any trouble since then.  I have driven it three times today and was almost at a trifecta of not turning on the windshield wipers instead of the indicator, but blew it in the final moments of our drive out to dinner.  There's always tomorrow!  Tonight I even drove in the pouring rain.  That means I was dealing with the manual transmission, indicator AND the windshield wipers.

Dave has not yet tried again with the car.  Stay tuned on that.  

Well that clears things up

Nutmeg?

I can promise you that this was not what I was expecting to find when I opened up the "nutmeg" container (whilst making peach muffins).  Too funny!  

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

Day 2-Rookie Canadians!

I'm not convinced that there will be a daily blog post for the whole year, but so far so good!!

I woke up at 3, Dave at 4, Monkey at 6 and it is 7:15 and the doodle is still sleeping like a champ.  That kid fell asleep in about 15 seconds last night (more on that below).

I find that there are still a lot of things running through my head, things that I need to deal with and once my mind starts at 3 there isn't much point in trying to sleep.  The house has an office as part of the master suite, so I tend to come in here and pound through stuff.  This busyness will pass I'm sure.  For now it is trying to get the car insured, dealing with a Canadian banking snafu (thanks Gen for being my girl on the ground to deal with that one!!), buying phone/ipod charging devices, submitting health insurance claims from the $2000 in medications that we had to get in Richmond when our carry on bag was mislaid.  Just stuff.

It occurred to us that we are not sure that the car is still insured.  So today Dave may get a reprieve from learning to drive it while we sort that out. (update, we found insurance, this driving thing is totally happening today!!)

The peach popcicles are ready this morning and the kids were over the moon when I said that they could have them for breakfast.  They are peaches, a bit of sugar and milk-that suits me just fine!!

The day took a bit of a turn from that point, but I'll spoil the ending and say that we're all fine, so don't fret.  We had booked an appointment at the medical clinic to get a referral for the doodle to see a pediatrician while we are here.  We were told that he needs that in order to continue his current ADHD meds (long story short, he doesn't).  He got up around 7:30 and was absolutely a limp noodle.  Just utterly lethargic.  We were both worried that perhaps he'd been bitten by something and were relieved to be already heading to the doctor's anyhow.

I hopped in to the car and discovered that I had left the lights on yesterday (hey, there's a LOT going on when I am driving right now!!) and the battery was dead.  The jumper cables that we found in the garage were not working, so the neighbour drove us to the appointment.  The doctor was immediately very concerned about the doodle and called over the the ER to let them know that we would be right over.  Gen to the rescue again with contacting the medical insurance and having them call me since I could not figure out how to contact them from down here.  In the end the ER doctor concluded that the doodle was very dehydrated and we got a talking to about staying hydrated over here.  The doodle fights us about liquid consumption anyhow, so this will be an ongoing battle even more so now.  They hydrated him with special freezies, confirmed that he does not have diabetes and sent us home.

I had to pay for the appointment with cash and was instantly thrilled that we did not exchange to the United States.  The entire bill was $120.  We got seen right away and received excellent care.  I snapped this shot once we knew he was okay, but you'll have to forgive me that I was not thinking much of capturing this rather high stress time in photographs while it was happening.

Our new friend Neil came and picked us up and drove us home and another colleague met us there to jump the car with different cables.  He even left us the cables.  He came home and (had a whole bunch of water) ate a great big lunch and went for a while on the trampoline.  We're thrilled to see him so much more upbeat.  

So that is our day up until 1:30pm!

First day in Mudgee

Today was our first full day in Mudgee.  The doodle and I both woke up at the crack of 3am while daddy and Monkey slept right through to sun up.

I got off for a run to clear the travel cobwebs from my head and daddy and the boys went for a bike ride to tour around. The view behind me is the view from our front porch.  I don't think that we will ever tire of it!!

I had the extreme pleasure of negotiating with a juicy black spider that lives in our letterbox. He let me have all of the mail, and I gave him ample time to move away from each piece before I grabbed it.  No photos of that one, mostly so that a couple of you will continue to follow the blog! (see below, we already didn't follow the "no spider photos" rule)

Some new friends popped by with their little one and we had a good chat.  They offered to let me follow them in their car to help me get to town.  Boy oh boy I was nervous getting behind the wheel in a country that drives on the other side of the road!!!  I did it though!  I only hit the windshield wipers instead of the indicator about 1000 times and I didn't stall the car at all.  Dave only had to holler at me once about a truck that was coming along in the inner lane whilst I was attempting to turn in to the outer lane.  We all made it home alive so I am calling that a win!

 Dave says that he is going to try driving tomorrow, so stay tuned!

We have a tree just covered in delicious ripe peaches.  Oh my word the peaches!!  We have been eating them non-stop, giving them to people and still I don't know what to do with all of them.  Of course, that made me want to call my mom to get recipes from her.  She has promised to send me some cobbler and cake recipes (later update, she sent no less than 8 recipes for peach yummyness).  Funny how you can be on the other side of the world and still want your mom.

We are juicing up some of the peaches to make popsicles. They should be ready when we get home from the community pool.

 Dave just finished moving the wood pile that was right up against the house.  I could hear him negotiating with the spiders from the window.  For the mom and pile of babies he moved the log they were on and spoke reassuringly to them.  For these beasts (see blurry photo and make rude comments about the photo quality and then come over here and take your own photos while trying to clench your cheeks together firmly...), he stepped back, let them know that they could keep the wood pile and then he came in the house.  There is a Red Back that currently owns the water tank too. When he saw that, he just closed the lid, walked away and came in the house.  So much nope. We are happy to give them the yard if they just stay out of the house.  Shudder.

Safe arrival

We're currently driving through the beautiful Blue Mountains towards our new home away from home. We're in good spirits, still talking to one another.  

We are just looking forward to getting home and getting something to eat.

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

The Vancouver to China leg

As I type this we are just past the international date line. So this will post when I get to Guangzhou or, if I don't sort out the WiFi there, Sydney.

The kids are travelling like champs so far. They've been sitting side by side with us behind them. On the flight to Vancouver they watched the on board TVs. Now they are watching their ipods. The doodle was not impressed that the TV channel system was different from West Jet to China Southern Airlines.  He is apparently boycotting the on board TV on this flight-lol.

Dave just pointed out that he and I have been to South America, Europe, and (obviously) North America. In a few hours we'll hit Asia and then Australia. Now we will just need to hit Africa and Antarctica and we'll be set!

Later...

6 hours to go.  I saw some cool mountains.  Luckily they were well under the plane and not right in front of it.  Now we're over the Sea and Okhotsk (autocorrect grabbed that sea name the first time around-come on, cut me a break! It was hard enough to spell the first time!!).  I'm sooooo bored.  Seriously.

Later still...

Seriously, China Southern Airlines runs a classy show. The seats are big and there is lots of leg room too.  The bathrooms are clean and even have a selction of soaps and stuff.  I usually fly with Air Canada, so thrse thigs are noteworthy!!  The grown ups managed to score 3 seats to ourselves which has allowed for a good rotation of people and laying down and cuddling short (and tall) people. 

Just over four hours until this plane lands.  The kid's ipods have barely left their hands.  A big thank you to everyone who chipped in for them and for the iTunes gift cards!  

Later still. ..

We are on the ground in China. We actually walked down stairs and got to touch Chinese soil.  Very cool to be able to say that!!

Still talking!

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

Almost in Sydney! !

The sun streaming the windows of this plane is shining down on Australia!!  We will land in about 2 hours.  We all got some sleep on this leg of the flight.

I did manage to get wi-fi in China, but the Chinese filters would not allow sites like Facebook, Gmail, twitter and blogger to work.  I was able to BBM a few people and (oddly enough) check out CNN. 

We are feeling done, but then they just came by with eggs and bacon for breakfast and we are back to being full of energy.  From here we have to get off this plane, get our bags and get through customs then drive the 4 hours to our new home away from home.

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

Heading to China

We got up bright and early Vancouver time and hit the pool and whirlpool. The shuttle bus came and picked us up after a carb-rich breakfast to take us to our flight.  

Monkey took some great shots of the plane with the mountains in the background.  Looking forward to lots of togetherness spent on that fabulous fart-tube for 13.5 hours.

We are currently speaking to each other.  There was a brief moment of distress and reduced communication  when we discovered we had mislaid a rather important carry on bag. I'm not pointing any fingers, but I will confirm that *I* was not responsible for that particular bag. It has still not turned up, but we've recovered from the loss as best we can.  We're hoping that is the end of the drama for the trip.

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

Bye bye for now Ottawa

In the air leaving Ottawa. Photo posted during a brief (planned) stop in Toronto.  We won't be getting out here, just waiting to take back off to get to Vancouver.

So far we still like each other and we're even still smiling.  Stay tuned...

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

Off we go

Where does the time go?

It seems amazing how when you start to track time how quickly it passes by.
I started making blogposts again when the countdown had 100 days or more on it.
Suddenly we're at about 43 days - or 6 weeks away. 
The paperwork continues to stream its way into and out of our mailboxes.
To-do lists get drafted. Items get completed. More items appear and get prioritized.

But already, some really great things are happening.

I've noticed the value that we put on time with friends.
Each moment seems more purposeful and more productive.
Tasks get done that need to get done. The less important things fade away.
Time together as a family already seems to be 'better' as we focus on the things that really matter.

Family.
Friends.
Relationships.

In going to the conferences and reading the on-line discussions of people who've been on exchange, they speak of 'before Australia' and 'after Australia' in terms of how they live their lives.

We're not there yet.
But we're making our memories of this adventure already.

I can't wait to get our feet on the (warm) ground and experience all that this adventure has to offer.

The last big hurdle

It's official.
Today our family received notice that we have our visas.
Wooooooooo hooooooooooo!!

Is this kind of thing common in Australia??

...because if it is, we'll happily enjoy it from the safe confines of our home

Mental note: Do NOT mess around with kangaroos!!

Bringing back the blog

We thought it would be time to bring back the blog. Ok, ok...it's been a while and things have been far from boring. Life is bringing us major change and we felt it would be a good idea to document it here where everyone can follow in one place.
We've established a countdown timer so that you (and we) can count down the time until we board a plane a trade places with the Roo family for a year. We look forward to all of the adventures that lie ahead, and hope that you enjoy following them.

Goose and Maverick

The boys and I stopped by the Aviation museum since we found ourselves in the East end. we picked the perfect time and day, as just as we were coming in they were about to start the ejection seat demonstration. Big C took a 'Flintstone-style' ride-in airplane to where the demonstration was.Guess who was the first to fire their hand up in the air to volunteer? Monkey!

The boys had a great time finding out about airplane  safety and how the seat worked. I can only imagine how soon it will be until Big C tried to make his own out of things that he 'can use' and rescue from the recycling bin!
Here are the boys trying out the pilot masks after the demonstration.

Finally, here's Big C with the Monarch Butterfly hang glider that he made at the arts and crafts area before we left. He sat quietly colouring and working so hard on it for a good 30 minutes. He is so proud. We'll be sure to go back and visit soon!

Thankfully, Big C went to CHEO on July 6th to have his cast taken off and a re-examination performed. The doctor took a look at the x-rays and then tested Big C's foot to see how he reacted to pressure all over both feet. After Big C commented that things felt the same on both feet, he was given a clean bill of health and sent home - cast free. Bring on the cottage! (no showers in a bag, no cast shield in the leg and no worries out on the boat)

Big C breaks his 4th metatarsal

Big C had a super Canada Day, however he had an unfortunate turn of events on one of the bouncy castles. He did a huge cannonball off the top of a big inflatable tower, and then when he jumped down to the ground he came up with a few tears. Being the tough guy that he is, daddy thought that he could walk it off and it would get better. There were no signs of swelling and he wasn't guarding it when daddy pushed all over this foot, so we continued on with our day. He went home for a rest with mommy and even went swimming later in the day at the pool party.
The next morning it had swollen a little, so daddy wrapped it up tightly. Mommy suggested that we get it x-rayed just to be sure. Daddy n Big C headed off to the Queensway-Carleton and were expecting to spend a lot of time waiting around since it was still the holiday weekend.
We flew through triage and registration and had our x-ray done in 20 minutes after our arrival. Then the waiting started as we waited for the x-rays to be viewed. Big C was in good spirits and played his DS and daddy's iPad as the time flew by. He drew some pictures for mommy and was the talk of the waiting room.  The doctor came by and told us that it looked like there was a little break in his 4th metatarsal, but wanted to confirm with the head radiologist that it was in fact a break. Here are some shots that he took with daddy's camera (set to kaleidoscope) while daddy found a phone to fill mommy in our progress.The confirmation came through and we were off to get a cast put on.
The tech showed Big C how the saw worked that would remove his cast (after Big C asked 'what's that?') and as a big surprise, grandpa showed up! His presence, as well as the yogurts and plums he brought,  were greatly appreciated by our little guy.
We decided on the fiberglass cast as he'd be able to walk out of the room with it (plaster casts won't allow him to bear weight on it at all for 3 days, that simply doesn't work for a 6-year-old). He got to choose his colour - white, blue or glow-in-the-dark (GLOW IN THE DARK!!!). Big C listened to the instructions well, stayed very still and had a smile on throughout the process.
Here is our tech getting Big C prepped with the internal sock
Then putting on the first layer
Using his shoulder as a brace to square the cast and make sure that it would be at the proper angle
and finishing things up
Big C tested it out and walked around right away since the fiberglass sets so quickly.
He was quite pleased with how things turned out, but will be taking things easy (with his older brother being a big help) over the next few days. Mommy is already on solutions to allow him to swim at the cottage and be in the boat, so we're sure that this won't slow him down one bit!