Allergies, Part Deux

Sorry it's been awhile since I've posted.  Good thing about moving to Australia when we did is we missed most of "winter" down here.  Bad part of the timing - I get to have two spring allergy weeks.  Everything is blooming here, including a beautiful grapefruit tree in our neighbors yard.  Part of it is hanging over our fence and the smell is amazing.  However, I'm blaming it partly for my stopped up right ear and scratchy throat.  Needless to say, this week has been pretty uneventful.

Last Saturday we wanted to picnic at Birubi Point on the sand dunes.  We ran out and bought several types of meat pies and drinks to enjoy.  When we arrived at the dunes, we quickly decided to head home to eat.  It was incredibly windy, most have been a storm somewhere out in the ocean.  It made for beautiful pictures, though.

Surprisingly, no surfers

After lunch, we wanted to play in our swimming pool.  It had heated up enough and the kids had been hounding us to swim.  So I ran upstairs and changed into my swimsuit in our bathroom.  Now, I don't normally leave my clothes in the bathroom, but decided to since that's where I'd be changing back.

We swam and had a great time.  Nathan is becoming much more confident in his skills and it's fun to watch him become comfortable.  Will is still a bit chicken, but we're working on that.

I was getting a bit cool outside, so Wills and I went back in and I ran upstairs to change clothes.  I have been told that if you put anything on the ground, you must shake it out to make sure there are no baddies in it.  I picked up my shorts and gave them a good shake.  Confident that nothing was going to crawl out of them, I went downstairs to watch some rugby.

As soon as I sat down it felt like something was stinging me on my left thigh.  Concerned, I rolled my shorts up a bit but could find nothing.  I rolled them back down and it felt like I was being bit in another spot on my leg.  At this point I'm getting mildly concerned, so I tell Brian what's happening.  Knowing I'm such a girl about bugs, he tells me it's probably something in the denim material irritating me.  I tell him it's never bothered me before, but maybe.  I head back to the couch to watch some more Rugby World Cup (go Wallabies) and try to forget.

A few minutes later my leg is getting very sore.  Once again I roll up my shorts.  This time I find a large red area with white raised spots.  I start to freak out and run upstairs to take off my shorts, all the while yelling for Brian to follow.  He comes up and finds me whacking my shorts against the bathroom floor, still finding nothing.  I'm trying to keep it under wraps that I'm quickly imagining having been bit by some deadly spider, not that there are that many of those in Australia, sarcasm implied.  Luckily my husband is much more level headed than I am and searched my pockets.  Apparently I had put a cheap earring in my pocket and the back was stabbing my leg.  To his credit, he didn't laugh until later.

That night we were on the couch talking about finding a sport for Nathan to play.  He actually very much wants to try out Cricket and we've signed him up for an instructional league.  However, while we were looking in the newspaper for sports info, we stumbled on this ad:

One vowel makes a world of difference

In case you can't see the ad well, around the fish it says "Nelson Bay Gropers."  Now, I'm assuming they meant Groupers since a fish is pictured.  That's what I call a "touch" football league...

This next picture is for my mom.  She's been wanting me to take a picture of the birds around our house.  Here is a small flock of cockatoos congregated across the road.

Noisy little buggers

We don't have much of a yard, but there is a huge green space directly across the street that the local kids play in a lot.

Next week is a big week.  Nathan has his school's Mini MADD (music, arts, drama, and dancing) and he's turning seven on Friday.  To celebrate, we're heading to the Toronga Zoo in Sydney on Saturday.

And for anyone who's is still curious, the bug in the last post has been identified as a cricket by one of the guys Brian works with.  Good news, it's not a stinger.  Bad news, it's still totally disgusting!