Ramblings!

Chris and I had a CSR Christmas party last night at the Casino in Townsville so I made Aaron snap a couple of pictures of us before we left. I really need him to do some photoshopping-----we didn't have a good place to take the picture so had to just do it in front of a wall in the kitchen so maybe he can put some background in to make us look prettier!!! We spent the day hanging out at home and actually finally went to see the James Bond movie. We have tried to do that for weeks! We all enjoyed it but I have made a realization that movie theater popcorn here is horrid!!! Aaron agrees with me that they don't do it fresh---it is all prepopped, prebagged and prestale!!! Ick. Didn't even see the popper machine at this theater so I am not sure where they pop it. Aaron tried to tell me but I didn't listen and went ahead and bought some. Lesson learned. Another thing to look forward in the good old US of A!

We made it to the party and were happy to find a parking spot relatively close by. We had been warned that there was a game at the event center right next to the casino and the tip off was at the exact starting time of our party soooooo we figured no parking but we found something and parked without having to walk a million miles which was very nice. The party was poolside and they served drinks (of course it is Australia after all) and finger foods and it was nice and it actually cooled off a bit so I wasn't sweating up a storm. Chris was a little warm I think but we survived. I caught up with several friends I had not seen for awhile, met some new folks and had an enjoyable time until we had to do organized party games. I understood the purpose was to get everyone mingled but I just am not the party game person and especially after some of these folks had downed one too many drinks!!! But we lived through it and left around 10:30 to come home and even gave someone a lift back to their car because they had to park a zillion miles away. Got home and the boys were in bed asleep!!! They have a big day today as they are going to the Great Barrier Reef which hopefully is still on. It looks pretty choppy out there so hopefully they will be okay. They are going on a smaller boat with only 28 people so it won't be quite like what we had origninally planned but at least they will get the experience.

Chris and I plan to spend a quiet day---him doing his mill report and me doing who knows what. I really need to start thinking about packing stuff up to bring back. I am going to have a suitcase full of STUFF and not clothes tho from the sounds of the weather in Ohio I think I need to bring every stitch of clothing that I own! Brrrrr..... it is going to be a shocker. I have decided to go minimal in packing and use what I left in Lima and just buy a few outfits there (Christopher and Banks here I come!) and then just leave stuff in Ohio when I leave.

Talked to Micah a long time yesterday--he still does not know where he is going or when so things are all up in the air. We are waiting to do my airline tickets till he knows more because if I can help with his move I want to be able to do that. Plus I am going to help Aaron as much as I can too. Should be a great trip!!! I can not wait. Chris has one more long week of budgets and stuff to get through and he will be ready to roll!!!

Will let you know how the reef trip turns out for the boys!!!!

What $15.10 looks like in Australia!

10 Days and Counting Down!!!

Isn't it BEAUTIFUL?????????????????

Yep---we are down to 10 days till we fly back to the US for Christmas! I simply cannot wait but I have a lot to get done here before we go!!! Or so I think I have a lot to get done! In actuality I have very little to do compared to most of you!!!

Good news---Aaron's new (used) car is in Raleigh so hopefully if we can get all the paperwork done and check delivered he will be able to pick it up as soon as he and Thom fly in. He is madly trying to locate furniture to furnish their apartment on line and that is proving to be a little difficult. It will all come together for him but it sure would have been nice if we could have given him some of our stuff from the house in Iowa to get started with. He is basically starting out with nothing furniture wise so that means bed, living room stuff, lamps, desk, table, chairs, etc. I have full confidence he will bring it all together and he certainly has done all of this on his own so all we have to do is sit back and transfer the money!! It has been so great to have him here.

I must admit I did pretty much nothing of substance yesterday but watched tv!!! Found all these cool shows to watch now and even found Rachael Ray (tho it was a show from February I don't care!). We are now going to totally veg out!!! Well maybe not! I still have to figure out how to work the Mystar thing which is the dvr thingy but I can conquer that today!!! It was just so nice to be able to see more than 5 channels of stuff. We get CNN and ESPN too so we hope we will be able to watch some Carolina basketball if we can figure out the programming schedule!!! Life is good.

Today we are going to chill out at home again--probably will head into Townsville tomorrow to load up on the last of the souvenirs to take back and maybe hit The Strand for some swimming in the stinger enclosures. When i walked this morning there was a couple on the beach who struck up a conversation with me---they wanted to know if it was safe to swim and I told them that the locals did not so I wouldn't. They are from New Zealand and were camping out in their car in the little camping area and they really wanted to swim but were scared of the jellyfish. I figure if the locals don't swim there now there is good reason. No way I would risk it!!! We talked for about 10 minutes--nice couple and I hope they find a safe place to swim today!!!

Not much else to report as of this moment---oh I got a lovely letter from my friend Mary from Epworth! And how come it only costs you guys 94 cents to send me a letter and it costs me 2.05???? The exchange rate isn't THAT bad yet! LOL

It is TRULY Thanksgiving!

The long, long road has been traveled and today, after a mere 4 months, we celebrate Thanksgiving with the installation of --dare I say it---Austar satellite tv!!!!!!!!!!! The technician arrived at 7:50 am, left twice during the day to go get parts and left for good at 7:15 pm. A long day for the Charles Manson look alike (no joke) but we are up and running and watching Jon Stewart and the Colbert Report at the moment!!! Ah---we are truly thankful for the small wonder of satellite television!!!!!!!! LIfe as we know it has been restored!!!!!!!!!!

Happy First Day of Summer!

I forgot to wish you a Happy First Day of Summer yesterday---December 1st is the official first day of summer here so enjoy all of your warm wonderful sunny weather!!!

And TODAY we celebrate THANKSGIVING!

So what if it is a few days late? You guys are all probably still eating leftovers anyway!!!!
Got the pumpkin ready to cook up this morning, the turkey breast roll in the freezer ready to pop in the oven,and all of the other goodies ready to go later today!!! But most importantly---I have gas in the tank again! Woohoo!!! We may be sweating while I have the oven going but we will eat well tonight!!!

One thing that I forgot to blog about yesterday was our fascination with the cane toads which are a HUGE pest here. They virtually have no predator and so they just multiply and are everywhere all of the time. They are huge and disgusting and about the only thing that the locals say kills them is freezing them. Now I don't think I really want a bunch of toads in my freezer (I am not my brother Mark after all!!) but it is interesting at what lengths people will go to to eradicate this plague on Australia!!! The funny thing is at night when they come out on the roads---the past couple of weekends we have been driving a lot at night in the sugar cane areas which of course are thick with toads. Well, Chris has a new game----Toad Time---which he declares loudly and swerves to hit them!! some make a huge popping sound and others just quietly meet their maker. This may upset some of the environmentalists out there but I have not found one Australian yet that wants to protect them. Anyway, I am very bad at Toad Time---I think I only hit one. I did find an article in the Daily Telegraph which I will paste below that talks about this lovely creature!!!

WHAT do you do if you see a cane toad? Here's some handy advice for dealing with this dreaded Qld critter.

Freezing has been suggested as the most humane form of killing cane toads. When put into a freezer, a cane toad will become dormant as a reaction to the cold. And don't worry, they won't make Alfie Langer-like comebacks when you take them out to make room for ice cream.

The NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service recently warned Sydneysiders to be on the lookout for cane toads after one was discovered at Quakers Hill.

The cane toad can be identified by its size (up to 15 centimetres long), warty appearance, a large gland behind the ear and pointed, bony ridges between the nose and eyes. A bit like Russ Hinze, really.

More information to help tell frog from toad can be found at www.nationalparks.nsw.gov.au

Earlier this month Sydney scientists said that they believed they may have found a chink in the armour of one of Australia's biggest environmental pests.

Sydney University's John Llewelyn and Crystal Kelehear are part of a group known as Team Bufo, named after the cane toad, Bufo marinus.

The team has identified a parasitic worm that attacks the toad's lungs, stunting their growth and, in most, cases killing them. Perhaps they should nickname the worm Willie Mason.

"It's a pretty exciting set of results'', team leader Professor Rick Shine said.

"They kill a large number of the small toads that we infected.''

According to Professor Shine, if toads in Northern Territory and northern NSW were infected by the parasite, it may be possible to slow their advance quite dramatically.

It's also important to check for cane toad eggs. They are black and laid in water in long necklaces.

The necklaces are clear jelly - a bit like the defence of the Maroons' backline.

Most frogs lay their eggs as a mass of foam or clumps of jelly in water or land nests, or in holes in moist areas. An individual cane toad can attach up to 35,000 eggs to water plants or debris in slow-moving or still water. Cane toad tadpoles are very dark, their tails are short compared with their body size and they gather in pub beer gardens. When native tadpoles hatch, they feed on decaying plant material and gradually develop legs before changing into frogs.

A Long and Loverly Weekend!!!

Wongaling Beach (more crab sand art--my favorite)

The Kuranda Scenic Railway

SkyRail over the Rainforest

A view over the rainforest

Looking at Cairns from the Sky Ride

Aaron and his friend the Cassowary

We are back in Saunders Beach after quite a long and eventful weekend. We had a great time and ended up changing plans a bit but it all worked out!!! We met Chris in Ingham on Friday afternoon at the mill there-----I had never been to that mill before so Aaron called and he guided us in and we met him in the parking lot before heading north. We stopped at a little fish and chips place which was pretty much a hole in the wall and had the authentic fish and chips (barramundi) in the foil and wrapped in paper. It was a little hard to drive and eat so since I had the first driving shift Chris fed me little pieces at a time---isn't that sweet??? And yes, I am driving a lot now---especially when we are going places long distance because Chris is always on the phone so it is just easier for me to drive and then he doesn't have to worry about it at all!!!

It took what seemed like forever on a really windy narrow road after we got through Cairns to get to Port Douglas where we were staying at the Rydges Sabaya resort. We had a great little 2 bedroom apt but found out when we got up in the morning that the air con in the boys' room did not work and it was pretty sweltering in there so later in the day they ended up moving us to a different place because they could not get it working. Ah well. It was okay. We got up and got all ready to go catch our ride to go out to the Great Barrier Reef and as we got in line I looked at Aaron who had gotten very pale, he left and went and threw up in a bush....so we decided to ditch the trip for the day and see if we could do it on Sunday. There is no way I would want to go out on a boat when I was sick !!! Poor Aaron felt really badly about it but the rest of us were okay---we tucked him into our bed since we had the room with the AC and then Thom and Chris and I hung out together at the pool. It was a hot hot day but nice in the pool. Aaron pretty much laid around and slept all day and that was what he needed. We tried the next morning to go on the trip again but this time Aaron was having different problems and it just wasn't going to work. I know he was upset but we were not out any money and we are going to try to get them out to the reef from Townsville this week if we can work it all out. But sometimes you just can't do something and you go with the flow. And I could not imagine being sick on a ship out in the middle of the ocean!!! Ugh.

Sunday Chris and Thom and i went to breakfast and then Chris and I ran into Port Douglas to find some medicine to help Aaron's symptoms and found out that they have a nice market on Sundays. We gave Aaron all morning to recoup and get to feeling better and then we headed to the market and walked around. I found a couple things (of course!) and Chris and I will definitely go back there sometime. It has a great beach called Four Mile Beach and lots of neat shops and resorts to go to so there is not a lack of anything to do. The road in the daylight was much better than it was coming after dark!!!

We headed towards Cairns and Aaron was feeling well enough that we thought we would venture into the rainforest a bit. There is a Sky Rail ride that you can take over the rain forest to the town of Kuranda which is a neat little place with a lot of neat touristy shops but a fun place to walk around. There were some hiking trails that we did not get to explore but let me tell you one thing----it was humid and hot. I usually don't really sweat that much but the sweat was just pouring off my face!!! Whew!!! We ate lunch and did a bit of shopping, talked it up with several of the shop owners of course. They all seem intrigued by us for some reason. One couple had a nice little souvenir shop that I bought a bunch of stuff at and we got into quite a conversation with them. He was a trucker so he was telling us all about some of his jobs and all and they really were very nice. I find that most people are if you just treat them with a bit of kindness instead of being all business like!!! And like I said--I think we intrigue them or something!

We took the train back to where we parked our car---an hour and half trek through the rainforest and rocks and we saw some great things including some beautiful waterfalls along the way. I think there were 15 tunnels to go through so that was kind of neat! I can't imagine building that railway!!! It used to be used for transportation but now it is just the scenic train that uses it if I understood correctly. It was fun and the best part---they brought us nice cool towels to wash up with on the way!!! Much appreciated!!!

We headed out and were to spend the night at a place in Mission Beach---or so we thought. I was driving (again!) and I had printed out the webpage with a little map on it. Chris had made the reservations so I didn't really know what the place was. Well, let me tell you---I turned around in some pretty weird places and by the end of it there was just a teeny tiny bit of tension in the car. We were all hungry and tired and it was late and very dark and we just couldn't find the place. Then Chris tried calling, got the owner and found out the key was at reception but then he lost the connection and couldn't get directions. We stopped to ask directions, the guy gave us totally wrong directions and finally Aaron came to the rescue with his IPhone as it finally got service!!! Found the street and realized that it was not Mission Beach but another little beach down the way a bit! Still took a bit of driving around to find it but we did and got all our stuff unloaded. Whew. Walked down the street a bit to a bar where a band was playing (pretty bad music, too) but it had food and that was what we wanted. Of course the girl who took our order was a flake and totally ignored Thom's order so he had to reorder and eat his after the rest of us were done!!! I stayed up with the boys a bit and talked and watched tv and Chris crashed! We both slept well and then he got up and did a few hours of work before we took a walk on the beach. The boys were going to hit the beach but opted to sleep, Aaron is still not back up to 100% but he is getting there.

We loaded up and headed back to Ingham where we dropped Chris off to work for a few hours while the boys and I went "to town". I took them to the cemetary which is really a neat place----it is a very strong Italian town so there is a huge Catholic Italian population. The cemetaries are very ornate and the mausoleums are huge and beautiful. I am going to post some pictures later of them because they are just beautiful. We headed into town where the boys were so happy to find the thing that they have both wanted-----short shorts. The older men here in Australia quite often wear these really short shorts and we found them. Both of the boys got a pair so they can go back to the US with the "look". I had to laugh---they were having so much fun trying them on! Kids.

We picked Chris up after some shopping and headed home----the house was still here and not as hot as I thought it would be so we unloaded (once again!!!) and settled in for the night. I made a special dish for dinner tonight----tacos with kangaroo mince......I just couldn't bring myself to eat it but everyone else did and said it was good.

Tomorrow is going to be our Thanksgiving finally! I have gas in the stove and bought another pumpkin so I am ready to go!!! Hope all of you had a great Thanksgiving!!!!
Oh--and add my friend Rhonda 's husband Peter to your prayer list ---he had 2 heart attacks and is doing okay I guess (don't know any of the details) but I am sure that a few prayers from my friends would not hurt in the least!!!

More tomorrow!!!