I Want To Ride My Bicycle

Nathan is a chicken.  And, my parents would be quick to add, he gets it honestly.  I was chicken as a child as well. So when Nathan's bike arrived on the sea shipment, we conveniently forgot to put on the training wheels.  It's taken him a bit of time, but he decided to try riding his bike this past Saturday.  We were thrilled!  We packed up Will's scooter as well and headed out to a local park that has a lovely flat, fairly straight path to practice.

Nathan was fairly happy to try, so he hopped and Brian held on for a bit.



Off they go!





Will was being a great cheerleader


As soon as Brian let go, Nath promptly fell off his bike.  Nothing was hurt, but he refused to get back on his back.  And by refused, I mean screaming, crying, and telling Brian how mad he was at him.  We quickly decided if we let him quit he would never try again.  So we tried several different options.  First we tried cajoling - didn't work.  Then we took the tactic of "we believe in you and wish you believed in yourself."  No dice.  Then we went to the, and I'm not particularly proud of this, don't be a baby - look at Will trying.  Nope.  Then Brian went back to the I believe in you spiel and I took Wills out so he could scooter around so Brian could try to talk him down.



There's a cute track around the actual playground

After about 30 minutes from the time Nathan began his fit, I went back to try and bribe him.  Once again, not the best parenting, but it usually proves effective.  We let him know that if he tried again we would reward him with an ice cream.  He quickly perked up - never underestimate the power of ice cream.  Up he jumped with the following result -

A slight wobble...





and he's off!



This was followed by lots of cheering and clapping from us.  He loved it and we could hardly get him off the bike - until he crashed and scraped up the back of his heel.  We were afraid he would be upset enough to not try again, but he assured us he wanted to stop only because the cut hurt.  He was keen to try again on Sunday, but the weather didn't cooperate. 

So bribery wins again.  We ended up very proud of him and, more importantly, he was proud of himself. 

See - proud!



Melbourne - Part 2, Day 1

For our first full day in Melbourne, we planned a few events but wanted to spend some time just wandering around the city.  We started out with breakfast in the Prahran Market directly across from our hotel.  It is the oldest market in Melbourne and succeeded in making me miss our trips to Findley Market.  While there I had a coffee flight where I tasted the best coffee I have ever had.  It was so good I am joining their coffee club and having their coffee delivered to me biweekly.  One of my few complaints about where we live is the lack of really good coffee.  We've found one spot where I meet some friends every Thursday, but other then that it's mostly chains or weak coffee.  Problem is now solved!

The Iconic Melbourne Tram

After breakfast we hopped on the tram into the city.  Nathan wants me to let you know it was the 72 line, because he's obsessive like that!  The picture I have of the tram is not what we rode every day.  Those only do a circle around the city, but they give you lots of information about the buildings and city and it's free!  We rode one on our second day.

The first place I wanted to stop in was an old church because I love visiting old churches.  This is St. Paul's Church, a beautiful old Anglican church.  Although I'm certain they'd disagree, not much exciting has happened here, it's just a pretty church and it was a good opportunity to get my tripod out and take some pictures in the low light.  Here are a few pictures.

View from the front door to the altar



View from the chancel.  While we love our church here,
we miss our chancel choir!



Better view of the front door

I was surprised, but the boys actually enjoyed the church very much.  They thought the artwork was interesting and they loved the stained glass. 

Nathan was very excited because we were off to visit the State Library of Victoria.  More than just a library, it has a permanent exhibit with historical items from Victoria's founding until today - including Ned Kelly's armour.  There are also travelling exhibits and an absolutely beautiful reading room.

Much to Nathan's disappointment, the children's section was closed for a private function.  He was still incredibly impressed with the volumes of minutes from Parliament and some copies of very old books.

Nathan playing his dad in chess in the chess room

The reading room from the floor

The reading room from the top floor

Ned Kelly's Armour

I won't bore you with our walking around and lunch, but everything was very enjoyable.  We wandered through Chinatown and Federation Square, making our way down to the Melbourne Cricket Ground for the Aussie Rules Football game.  It was a beautiful walk across the river with the crowds headed to the footy game.  I haven't been to any sort of professional game in awhile and this was the boy's first game of any sort, so we were all excited.

MCG at night with lilies in the foreground

The first game I saw was the Grand Final two years ago.  It was live on ESPN and since Brian was working with the Aussies, we decided to DVR it and watch it later.  The game was between Collingwood and St. Kilda.  It was a lot of fun to watch and mostly not hard to pick up on the general rules.  Brian had watched it before when working in Australia so he was able to help me.  I picked Collingwood at random that game to back, so we've cheered for Collingwood since then.  I found out later - after this game, as a matter of fact - that Collingwood is basically the Yankees of the AFL.  Thanks, Amy!

Nevertheless, we cheered the Magpies on to a victory over the Geelong Cats.  At least, Nath is pretty sure it's because of his cheering that they won.  It  was an exciting game with Collingwood pulling it off at the very last second.  Nathan was incredibly into the game, often yelling "Crush it" and screaming when Collingwood scored.  It was fun to watch the boys have so much fun!

Will clapping along to the Collingwood fight song

Collingwood taking the field

Start of the game

I didn't take many pictures during the game because I wanted to actually watch. 

After the game we walked for a bit, trying to let the crowd thin out so it would be easier to catch a tram.  It was a beautiful night to walk.  We were exhausted when we got back to the hotel and everyone collapsed into bed.  The boys even managed to sleep in a bit the next morning!  We woke up refreshed, ready for our next day in Melbourne!

Melbourne - Part 1, Day 3

Brian had a leadership conference to attend this week in Melbourne.  At almost the last minute, we decided to make the weekend before the conference a short holiday.  We quickly purchased airline tickets, booked a hotel, and filled out the paperwork to pull the boys out of school for two days.  I'm so glad we went - I absolutely loved Melbourne.  It is just a lovely city for many reasons, not least of which is wonderful coffee! 

I know it seems weird to start on day three, but I dumped my pictures on to Brian's work computer with every intention of putting them on our external drive to edit at home.  I didn't dump the last day of pictures, figuring they would be fine to take home.  To my surprise, I couldn't open up the external drive on Bri's computer.  At that point he remembered his computer would only open up secure external drives - in other words, one that was given to him by his company.  So we are starting at the end of our trip.

After doing some research on Melbourne, I decided one of the absolute musts was to visit Philip Island.  We looked at several tour options, but decided to rent a car and drive ourselves.  Besides being cheaper by quite a bit, we weren't stuck just seeing one specific thing.  It was only a 90 minute drive, so we were off decently early that morning.

Philip Island was positively gorgeous.  Our first stop was lunch at the Nobbies, so named after the nob rising from the ocean in the picture.  The green space in front of the Nobby is on the path of a penguin migration.  The small islands in the background are the home to the largest population of seals in Australia.

Inside the visitor's center at the Nobbies  are monitors hooked up to a camera on the edge of Seal Rock.  It was amazing - the rocks were carpeted with seals.  For a small fee we were able to drive the camera around four minutes and capture a few pictures, which we could buy for another small fee.  Since it's a nonprofit organization we were happy to help out.

After letting the boys find out more about the South Sea - incidentally, the info was very well done and interactive - we headed out for a walk around the boardwalk.  It is a boardwalk to protect the nesting birds that are all over the island, including the Little, or Fairy, Penguin.  There were several nesting boxes built around, so I was hoping to see at least one penguin on it's own.  Almost immediately we saw people staring at a white spot on that first green island.  I whipped out my telephoto lens and was able to capture this.

He's the little white guy in the middle of the craggy part

I was very excited.  Penguins are by far my favourite animal and the main reason I wanted to visit the island, but a better explanation on that later.

Following are some shots of the coastline looking out into the Bass Strait.  It made me think of what I assume Ireland looks like - beautiful green, craggy coasts, and a wild sea.

The Blowhole

Yea for a tripod!

I loved the shade of aqua

After walking around for a bit we decided to head back so I could wander around some of the boutique shops.  On our way up we found this little guy in his nesting box.  Sorry there's not much detail, it's dark in the box!

So the main reason we visited Philip Island was to see the Penguin Parade.  Every sunset at the beach sees a lot of penguins emerge from the sea to find their homes on the island.  And when I say lots, there were 2,008 that arrived on the night we were there.  We opted to spend $20 more and have fewer people sitting where we would be.  The other upside was that approximately 70% of the penguins went by us.  It was absolutely brilliant!  They come out of the ocean in groups called rafts.  We watched them come in for about 45 minutes.  Apparently they are a bit confused in the fall.  Because the water is still fairly warm and the nights aren't very cool, they believe it's time to mate. 

I was also unaware of how loud they are when defending their homes!  They go back to the same house every time and become quite defensive if another penguin tries to infringe on their turf.  Funny side story - the ranger gave a short talk and took questions for the half four prior to sunset.  One of the questions was how the penguins knew which house was there house.  Cheekily, the ranger answered that penguins were very smart and were able to read the numbers on the man-made nesting boxes.  The woman sitting next to me, let out a gasp, and started nudging her partner, saying that it was amazing that penguins could read!  It took all I had not to laugh out loud!

Unfortunately, you are not allowed to take pictures of the penguins.  Their eyes are very sensitive to light, so flashes are very bad for them.   It probably wasn't bad that I was forced to sit and take it all in without my camera.  I did link to their website above so you can get an idea of what we saw.

While we were waiting, we started to chat with the couple behind us.  We quickly realized they didn't have Aussie accents, so I asked where they were from.  Turns out, you can be halfway around the world and run into somebody who live fairly close to you, because they were from Cleveland!  After some good natured sport related teasing, we asked why they were in Australia.  He works for Goodyear and was visiting their headquarters in Melbourne.  His wife decided to take off for some time and they were beginning to travel around Australia.  Like us, they absolutely love it here!  We all got a good chuckle out of everybody wrapped up in their winter coats, gloves, and scarves when it was approximately 50 F out.

We headed off the island back to our hotel to get ready for the boys and me to depart for home the next day.  I was glad the boys are fairly experienced travellers at this point - it made my life much easier.  Poor Nathan had some issues with his ears on our descent into Newie and began crying, but a few lollies helped.  I felt awful for him, that does hurt incredibly bad.  Luckily the jelly beans he had had the same effect as gum and his ears popped.  The boys were glad to be back home, but I'm certain we'll be back to visit Melbourne again - there's too many things I still want to see!

Partypalooza

We celebrated Will's 5th birthday on Saturday and had a Kentucky Derby party on Sunday.  I have decided I may be crazy!  At least I was smart on one point - because I didn't want to have to clean the house twice in one weekend, we had Will's birthday party at the local bowling alley, or tenpin as it's called here.  Bowling is assumed to be lawn bowling, and Will is five, not seventy-five!

The kids had a great time.  The package included chicken nuggets, chips, and drinks, so I only had to provide dessert.  Will had been wanting a King Cake since I had made one for Mardi Gras and I was happy to oblige.  A couple of days before the party he told me he wanted to have an apple pie, which was fine.  I did ask him why he changed his mind, as he had been quite gung-ho about the King Cake.  His response was that apples were healthy!  I told him not to worry about that, but I was happy to oblige.  Apple pie topped with a scoop of vanilla ice cream was a hit!

The kids were hysterical bowling.  I had no idea how competitive they would be, but they were still great sports.  Here a few pictures from the event.

Watching his bowl

Celebrating his strike



Chowing Down



Will was excited about inviting his entire class, but our general rule is you can invite one person for the age you are turning.  We also let Nath invite a friend so he wouldn't get too bored.  Will had a lovely group of friends come.  The girls were pleased to be invited as well, cheekily telling me it was because they were his girlfriends.  Apparently that description was accurate!

Yep, it was right on the lips

And not to be outdone....

This one ended up on the cheek



At least they're both sweet girls - and cute to boot!

Sunday after church we skipped the usual morning tea and headed straight to our house to finish the last minute party details.  Pretty soon we had our food spread ready - Hot Browns, Grilled Chicken with White Barbecue Sauce, a few greens, and for dessert - Bread Pudding and Derby Pie.  Yummy, but not exactly on my diet plan!  I did cheat a little bit and it was worth every bit of sugar!  I think everyone enjoyed the food.  One person remarked it was like being in a foreign country.

Since the Derby ran about 7am local time we DVR'ed a program called Run for the Roses.  The description stated it would be a history of the Kentucky Derby and would include a replay of the race.  Apparently that mean a replay of the last 200 yards - pretty helpful.  So I grabbed my iPad and gathered everyone around.  All in all it was pretty funny.  I had to look up separately Call to the Post and My Old Kentucky Home.  They group was fascinated that each state has it's own song.  I never thought about that being interesting. 

One of the other things I had a hard time finding were red roses.  Every time I asked a florist for red roses they handed me a dark, burgundy type color.  Apparently in Australia that is what is defined as red.  I was frustrated and trying to decide if fake roses were better or should I go with red Gerber daisies.  Finally, during my final shopping trip, we found red roses in the local grocery store!

It ended up being a nice party.  The kiddos all played together in the boy's rooms and outside, letting the parents just hang around and spend time together.  Sorry I have no pictures.  I've decided you need someone else to document a party if you're hosting.

It was a fun weekend, but boy were we exhausted on Monday!  We haven't done much at all this week, just relaxed along with the usual boring things.  Hopefully we'll have some fun this weekend!

What a week!

It has been quite a week of ups and downs!  I was very excited to receive my new lens last week.  It's a telephoto lens, giving me the ability to capture wildlife better and do some macro photography.  I was anxious to try it out, so we headed to the beach for sunset Friday night.  It's not the best lens for landscape, but I just wanted to get a feel for it before heading out to Hunter Botanical Gardens on Saturday.  Never anything wrong with spending time on the beach!

Saturday we ran into Newcastle to do a bit of shopping.  It's about an hour away - not very long, but I don't head there every day.  And boy, was it nice to see a real Target again!  I bought some new clothes and we let Will give us some ideas for his birthday.  Suffice it to say, the kiddo wants everything!

We stopped by the Botanical Gardens on the way back home.  It's closer to Newie than home, so it seemed like a good plan.  Unfortunately, there wasn't much blooming because it's Autumn.  But Nathan had been anxious to show us the third place he went on his school excursion.  He was really excited to show us what he had seen, especially the Cactus garden.  Bri and I were kind of whingeing to each other about walking around a garden not in bloom when we saw something in the field next to the garden.

Wallabies through the bush

Seeing these indigenous animals never gets old!  Maybe we'll get used to it at some point, but it's a great reminder that we're in this really lovely spot of the world.  We watched them graze for awhile and then the boys decided they wanted to chase them.  I suppose chasing pigeons won't be quite the same for them anymore!

Spotted!

I love the guy on the left tearing off while the other ones watched for awhile.  We walked back in to the actual gardens to see all of the cacti.  Nathan was pointing out his favorite cactus when I heard a rustling and turned my head.  This cutie had followed us!  He watched us for awhile, then ignored us when he realized we weren't going to bother him.

We walked around for awhile and eventually found some flowers blooming!  I do find a lot of the Australian flora interesting.  I guess the best way I can describe it is that they look so tropical.  I suppose that makes a lot of sense!

I have no idea what any of those were, but they're pretty!

On Monday I went back to the doctor for my ankle.  Several of you know that I hurt my ankle during our visit to the US for Christmas.  It was incredibly stupid - I was trying on pajama pants at a store when my foot got caught in the fabric.  I pulled the pants and pushed my foot through at the same moment.  Bad plan, because my foot shot through, I lost my balance and consequently smacked the outside of my right foot on the bench in the room.  It hurt and I assumed it was just bruised until two days later I looked down and realized my foot was so swollen that I couldn't see my ankle bone.  Because we're living in Australia, I have no primary care physician in the US and I had to go to Urgent Care.  I had an X-ray and was told I just had a bad bone contusion and that the pain would last for a few weeks.  Made sense to me and we were off to Oz a few days later.  My ankle hurt for about that length of time, but I could never understand why the ligaments hurt.  I just assumed I had pulled those as well.  The pain went away and I resumed normal activities.

Fast forward to about 6 weeks ago.  We had been out walking a fair amount and by the time we got home my ankle was throbbing in the exact same spot.  I figured I had just overdone it and babied my foot for awhile.  The pain went away in a day or two.  Brian suggested I go get it checked out again, but I convinced him it was ok.  However, after the third time I decided he was right.  So off I went on Monday afternoon.

The doctor listened to me and sent me off for X-rays.  He thought I had either torn my Collateral ligaments or injured the joint somehow.  I had my X-rays taken that afternoon and brought them back to the office.  He looked at them and because my joint was stable he ruled out the ligament problem, which I was happy about because that would have probably meant surgery.  He ordered a bone scan for the next morning.  Off I went for a day of fun in Newcastle again!  After being made radioactive and lying still for awhile, I was given my film and headed back to the doctor.

When I walked into his office, he was opening up the envelope with my film.  He pulled out the film and immediately said "Oh, sh*t.  I'm so sorry."  All I could tell was that my ankle was a pretty purple shade.  Apparently I now have Post Traumatic Arthritis in my ankle and the only way to deal with it is to lose weight.  I explained my experience with that from four years ago, which is basically I worked really hard on my diet and exercise and had great results - until I didn't and began to gain some weight back even though I was eating really boring food and working out hard 3-4 days a week.  His solution was to put me on a no sugar diet.  Before my dietitian family member freak out, it's for a short time to drop weight quickly!  I will soon go on to a low GI diet, so there will be carbs sometime in my future.  I promise I won't be stupid!

I came home pretty bummed about that - and frankly I still am.  My doctor kept telling me how sorry he was I hadn't been properly diagnosed.  He thought if he would've treated my ankle to begin with I wouldn't be having pain now.  Bummer, but it is what it is and I'm coping.

Wednesday was ANZAC Day - which stands for Australian New Zealand Army Corps.  The day started out remembering Gallipolli and has turned into more of a Veteran's Day celebration.  Apparently the celebrations had started to trickle off until the younger generation decided to make it a bigger deal again.  There was a parade down one of the main streets in Nelson Bay and stopped at a park that has a permanent war memorial.  Many veterans and those of active duty marched.  The local schools participated as well.  The boys wanted to watch this year, but have decided to march next year.  It was sweet to watch these children marching with pictures of family members from WWI or WWII, the veterans medals pinned proudly on the right side of their chest.  Below are a few of the moments I captured.



The different flags

I loved the little girl proudly waving her flag



I think the following is my favorite picture.  I took this while a bugler was playing Taps and the flag was being lowered. 



After the service was over we went back to the house to relax for a few hours before we met a group of friends from church at one of the local parks.  It was great fun and we had a lovely spread of cheese, olives, fruit, etc.  It was a lovely way to end the holiday.

So, there are my ups and downs for the week.  It feels like my anti-inflammatory medicine is kicking in, so there's another positive for the week!

It's Not Just Any Easter Show, It's Royal

One of the big things we kept hearing to do over the kids holidays was the Sydney Easter Show.  We figured we might as well check it out since we were around.  We booked a deal with a nearby hotel that included tickets to the Show and headed out Friday early afternoon.  We spent a good portion of our afternoon wandering around Parramatta, a suburb of Sydney.  The Paramatta River runs through the town and has a lovely walking path around it.  We walked along there for some time, letting the kiddos roam up and the hills while we strolled.  It was a lovely, lazy afternoon.  Afterwards, we freshened up at the hotel and walked to a restaurant.  After a good dinner, we headed back to get the boys in bed on time.  From what we heard, the next day was going to be full on - and it was.

We got up, had a big breakfast, and drove off to the show.  The show is on the Olympic Grounds, which was exciting to me.  It was hard to get good shots, since there were a lot of people around.  This is a picture of ANZ (pronounced anzed) Stadium.  I love how everything around it reflected the Olympic Cauldron - even the lightposts, which you can't see in this shot.  I was hoping they had removed the Olympic Cauldron from inside the stadium.  I distinctly remember thinking how beautiful the fire and water combination was during the 2000 Olympic Opening Ceremony and never thought I'd be standing so close to it.  Luckily, it had been revamped into a fountain in a memorial park next to the stadium, where children are able to romp through.  I was able to finally get a picture without people in it.



Olympic Cauldron

The theme of this year's show - and around Australia in general - is Year of the Farmer.  So off we were to find out where our food comes from.  We hardly got in the door of the exhibition hall before the kids were begging to see the tractor.

Impressive tire, or should I say tyre, size

Next the boys picked some wheat and ground up the little bit they had.  As you can see, this was serious work.  Both boys were convinced they had made enough flour to make a pie crust.  When I said they'd have to make a lot more flour to make a pie crust they were disappointed -until they were handed a small tin with dough in it.  On went the aprons and they were off making meat pies.

Nathan quickly discovered that you can't roll the dough back and forth, you have to pick up the rolling pin first.  He has decided to help me the next time I make anything that needs rolling out.  Will, on the other hand, needed a bit more help.  I was glad because while Bri was helping him, I was able to snap this picture.



Placing the pie crust in the tin


I know it doesn't show a whole lot, but I love the juxtaposition of their hands together.  So sweet!

They were then told to place their pie crusts in the oven.  To Nath's chagrin, it was pretend.  He was ready to eat his own meat pie!

The kids weren't as excited to see the cows and learn how they became meat, so we pressed onward to the fruit stand.  We bought the boys "wobbly apples" - they had been cored and sliced in a spiral, which the boys had fun making be a spring.  Bri and I shared a freshly squeezed glass of apple juice - yum!



Chin up, Nath!





Out the door we went to the animal nursery.  On the way there we stopped for the boys to participate in a sack race.  They were happy to do so.  Both boys tried their hardest, but Nathan was able to pull out the win!  We told him it must have been the extra power from his Wallabies shirt.  He told us it was because he was the oldest!  Maybe, but we were proud of him anyway!





After all of that excitement, we were off to the animal nursery.  It's always amusing to me how excited children are to see farm animals.  It's like they've never been to a farm (they have) or a petting zoo (they have) before!  Both boys wanted feed cups for the animals.  Against our better judgement, we bought two.  See, Will has a history of getting bored, or perhaps frightened, and being done feeding the animals while there's about 3/4 of his feed left.  Of course, this happened again.  I don't have that great of pictures in the barn because the kids kept moving.  They did not like the bossy sheep and goats.  Here are a few anyway.



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The white chicken didn't want to share



Will was begging us to take him on some of the carnival rides.  Nathan wanted nothing to do with them, mostly because they were so loud.  I think he was a bit afraid as well, but there was no way we were getting him on anything.  Brian and I took turns sharing rides with Will.  Brian got a few pictures of us on the rides-  not the best looking, since you had to aim the camera over a fence and hope you were getting something!  But they at least convey the fun Will was having!

This was his favorite ride.  It was a kiddie coaster with dinosaurs at the bottom.  It went a bit faster then I was expecting, but nothing Will couldn't handle.  He did make sure I kept my arm around him, however.

This is one of my favorite pictures, just for the look of total joy on Will's face.  He also went through a fun house and down one of those big slides, both with Brian, but the kiddie coasters were clearly his favorite type of ride, by a mile.

Nathan played the dart game.  He actually did quite well - hit a balloon every time.  I was surprised with his accuracy.  I guess the dartboard in his room is paying off - if you want to call a cheap, green monkey a payout!  He was very proud and we made a big deal out of it.

I know this bored the boys to tears, but I wanted to go and see the flower exhibition.  I am still in awe of the different types of plants around here.  Sure, there are roses, daisies, etc.  but most everything looks so foreign and so, I suppose, tropical to me!  I wish I remembered the names of the flowers, but I don't.    I had the boys pick out their favorite flowers and took a few pictures.  We liked the bright colors and the spikiness of these flowers. 

I loved the dress below made out of flora.  It didn't do much for anybody else, but I wanted to share it anyway.










Nathan was actually very fascinated with the Bonsai display, which does seem like something Nathan would like!  He's very specific and likes those type of lines.  He and Brian spent some time exploring that display.

While we were in that hall, they were having a competition for florists to decorate a cardboard tube large enough to hold a present.  They had to pick out the flowers they wanted to use before they knew the task.  We didn't stick around to see what they did because the boys were getting antsy.

My artsy picture of a Dahlia

We also watched a high dive show.  It was Sinbad and his pirates in search of the golden pineapple.  The boys were impressed and enjoyed the mild boyish humor in the show.  I'm impressed that anybody has the guts to dive off a platform several stories high into a 3 metre deep pool!

After walking through several more exhibit halls, we were tired and ready for some food.  As you can see, Will very much enjoyed his spaghetti!  We were trying to eat so we were in time to watch the rodeo.  Nathan really wanted to see people riding bulls, and we were happy to try.  However, before the rodeo we had to go get the boys showbags.  I had never heard of a showbag, but it was clear it was a big thing to do - they had an entire exhibit hall dedicated to showbags.  Basically, they are about the size of a shopping bag, filled with whatever topic in which you are interested.  And it wasn't just for the kids!  They had showbags with perfumes, AFL gear, and magazines - all for a variety of different prices.  We tried to interest the kids in some of the AFL bags, but they only had one interest - candy.  So we bought them one fairly large bag and told them they could share.  All sugared off, we were off to Commonwealth stadium to watch the rodeo.

The stadium was packed.  We had to split up and sit a few rows apart.  Unfortunately, all of the close seats were reserved for members- of what, I don't know.  There was a big screen to watch, so that was good. 

For some reason, I don't associate cowboys with Australia, but after I thought about it, it makes since.  They do have the Outback and raise lots of cattle, so I suppose cowboys make sense. 

Apparently, every year it's a contest between New South Wales and Queensland.  Nathan got really into it, cheering loudly for the NSW guys.  He was very excited when they announced that one of the cowboys was from Raymond Terrace, which is very close to where we live.  Unfortunately, a NSW victory was not to be had.  It was a very close score and we got to see some exciting moments.  Nathan loved the bull riding and was beside himself with excitement when one of the bulls began snorting and pawing the ground.  Will was bored with most of it, but did seem to enjoy the barrel racing.  Brian and I both thought it was quite good fun.  I mean, how can it not be fun to watch a guy jump off a horse and wrestle a steer to the ground?

I think they're all a bit crazy

Fun with long exposures

It was getting fairly late and we had a 2 1/2 hour drive ahead of us, so we started thinking about heading home.  We had promised Will one of the battery powered twirly light up thingies (it's official name), so we stopped and let both of the boys pick one out.  They were very happy.  I told them they could light paint with them, so we set up a shot and let them go to town!  I also had them stop on the way out so I could just get a picture of the toy spinning.  And I couldn't resist taking a picture of one of the rides with the lights on spinning around.  It's fun to know how to work your camera!



And with that, we said goodbye to the Show.  I was right, it was a lot like I remember the Ohio State Fair being.  Lots of agricultural things, rides for the kids to enjoy, and competitions all around.  We had a great time, although I was reminded how much I hate being in large crowds.  The kids slept most of the way home.  We got them in their own beds around 11:00pm.  We crashed shortly after!  It was a long, but very fun day all around!