Texas.

We made it. We have been in Texas for almost three weeks now and in our house for almost two weeks. There have been many rough days with lots of tears for everyone. Jet lag is hard. Leaving friends is hard. New schools are hard. Arranging a new life is hard. But TODAY has been a great day.

Today, the littlest two played dolls without crying, and without fighting, for two hours. This was a first since we have moved. Today, the swingset got set up. Today, the balance bike arrived. And today, I got to see my Aussie bestie face to face thanks to modern technology. TODAY has been a great day!

We will continue to adjust, little by little, back to our American life that was nearly forgotten. While so many things are the same, I had forgotten how much was different. My two little ones, who have no memory of America, remind me daily of the things that amaze them. Here are a few of my favorites...

"The chemist has a drive thru. It is just like Maccas!" (That is McD's to you Americans - and the only drive thru we know in Sydney.)

In response to seeing the swingset... "Mummy! We have our OWN park now in our OWN backyard. Can we go there whenever we want? We don't even have to drive!"

Marinara Mix up

When I say marinara, what do you think of? Here is what I think of....

Marinara (mariner's) sauce is a southern Italian tomato sauce usually made with tomatoes, garlic, herbs (such as basil), and onion.

Well, in Australia, that is not the case! The other night we went out to dinner with a new to town American couple to a lovely little Italian eatery. The dinner started with garlic bread and zucchini flowers. Delish! Then I had a fabulous dish of Veal while the men ordered spaghetti marinara. Now these two guys are non seafood eating, non vegetable eating kind of men. They thought they were getting a big 'ole bowl of noodles with red sauce. Imagine their surprise when what they received was a big 'ole bowl of octopus, prawns, clams and more. Oh, and little spaghetti. So, we have learned a new lesson of culture shock after two years... Marinara in Australia means SEAFOOD!

I wish I had taken a picture of the actual dish but here is one that looks similar in content!

Happy Halloween!

Today was Halloween. It is always strange to celebrate a holiday so far from home. Halloween is mostly celebrated by Americans and is not really a big deal down under. In our town, there are a handful of streets that seem to collectively participate in tick-or-treating. Other than that, it is just another night.

The little girls were invited to a Halloween party by a preschool classmate. The big kids were planning to attend a murder mystery night at church. J was going to have a conference call and I would go with the little girls. It was the perfect plan. No costumes needed for the big two and we were all set for the little ones. At the last minute, the church event was canceled. So, we were suddenly trying to figure out what to do with the kids. They almost lost the privilege of trick-or-treating in a mommy tantrum this morning. But, a little grace was in order and I went back on my word and let them go. Phew!

Lucky we have a big dress up closet in this house. We were able to scrounge up two costumes for the big kids and J took them trick-or-treating while I took the girls to the party. I knew it was not an American party when the kids were served vegemite and salmon sandwiches for dinner. My two prefer salmon, in case you were wondering. Then there were spooky cupcakes and a big group trick-or-treat. We went to about 6 houses before heading home. It was perfect for the little girls. They had pumpkin buckets full of lollies and lots of other treats besides. A great evening.



The big kids had fun with Dad but seem to have forgotten that it is just not the same as America. Even on the streets that are "the best" for Halloween, it is still not even close to every house participating. A and M got lots of lollies but the sentiment remains...some things are just better in America!

Australia Day

It is summertime at our house but the 4th of July is nowhere to be found... The next best thing? An Australia Day barbie with the locals! Australia Day is Australia's National Holiday that celebrates the landing of the First Fleet and England claiming Australia as its own. In reality, it feels a lot like the 4th of July - Friends, food and fun all under the hot, summer sun! Today we had a few families over to celebrate in true Aussie style. Ironically, we had a good mix of Americans (we do have the largest family), Brits and Aussies. We had a great time!

Fun in the pool. Great to have friends enjoying our pool with us on this very hot day.
My little Aussie in training LOVED her Pavlova for dessert (she even licked the plate). After all, we could not have an Aussie celebration without a true Aussie dessert. Yum Yum!

It has been a long day with lots of fun and activity. When I walked inside to check where most of the kids had gone and found this,I knew the end of our fun was coming near...

Happy Australia Day!

We're not in Kansas anymore (or anywhere in America for that matter)

I recall a blog post when we first moved to Australia about shirtless, shoeless men in McDonalds. Similarly, in the past few days, I have noticed several things that have made me think of Dorothy. "Toto, I have a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore." Here are just a few of them.

1. A grown man walking down our main street wearing a speedo and a t-shirt... and nothing else!
2. An increasing number of people shopping without shoes.
3. A child skateboarding (barefoot) through the grocery store.
4. Christmas Carol services at the beach.
5. Shrimp on the barbie as part of our Christmas dinner.
6. BBQ church every Sunday in January. (That's a real Aussie sausage sizzle after every evening service - did I mention it is in January?)
7. Watching Bowl games while it is 85 degrees and sunny outside.

We are definitely not in Kansas anymore!

Speech Day

An Aussie tradition here at the end of the school year is Speech Day. This is kind of like the end of year show. For Prep school, it included a few boring speeches from the board, principal, etc. and then some darling singing and dancing from the kids. Here is a video from M's performance yesterday. Poor quality but we did what we could!




This morning I am off to Darling Harbour to the Convention Centre to watch A's speech day. Sadly, I hear it will be torture. Once you reach year 3, it is only speeches and the same ones year after year no less. To make matters worse, A's class does not even do speeches. Thank goodness for the Kindle for iphone app... it should really help those 2 1/2 hours pass for me. And thank you to my Aussie friends who told me the real story about Speech Day!

Thanksgiving in the Summer

Our first Thanksgiving in Australia has come and gone. It was strange but nice. It was a hot day and felt a bit more like the 4th of July as far as holidays go. Although it was very different than our past Thanksgivings, we enjoyed it.

We hosted a Thanksgiving dinner for some local friends here on Friday night with all the fixins'. I had another American friend who helped and thank goodness! My Aussie oven could not handle Thanksgiving. Fortunately she has a big oven and was able to fit a turkey while I took care of the rest. Thanks to my American pack mules (you know who you are) we were able to enjoy pumpkin pie and even green bean casserole with derky onions on top! It was delicious!

On Saturday we celebrated Thanksgiving in a big way! We went to the beach with about 60 other Americans and enjoyed another traditional spread. There was more food than we knew what to do with and it was a wonderful afternoon. Again, not your traditional Thanksgiving but what a way to celebrate in Oz. Thanks Jenny for organizing it all and making a great day for all of us!

Check out this spread! What a view for our turkey dinner!

Trick or Treat?

We have just celebrated our first Halloween in Sydney. Like most holidays, Halloween in Sydney had a way of making us long for America. The holiday is fairly controversial here in Sydney and is not widely celebrated. Those that do celebrate, seem to have adopted the more "evil" side of Halloween and have left much of the fun, community minded side of Halloween that we know and love somewhere in the garbage with the pumpkin guts. This lends to a difficult decision for the mom of American kids. Do we continue with our Halloween traditions in spite of the way that looks to those around us, or do we succumb to pressure to steer clear of the "evil, pagan holiday?" After much deliberation, we decided to carry on with our family traditions and focus on the wonderful, positive aspects of Halloween.

So, we carved pumpkins - very EXPENSIVE pumpkins. Take a look at our masterpieces. $97 and an hour of work later and we have the first signs of Halloween in our yard. I will admit, it was a little strange to be carving them under the shade of an umbrella after having just applied sunscreen. It takes a little bit of the "fall fun" out of the pumpkins. But, we still carved away and even roasted the pumpkin seeds afterward.


Now that we have the required decoration, we can trick or treat. There are a few streets around us that we were told participate in Halloween so we planned to meet some other American friends there and trick or treat together. As a side note, these streets that are good ones to trick or treat on, mean about 1 in every 5 houses hands out candy. People will put out an orange balloon or pumpkin of sorts if they are participating.

But first, costumes! Because Halloween is so low key here, we went low key on the costumes too. I told the kids they could be anything they wanted as long as they found the costumes in the house. For the girls, that was easy. They just wanted to be princesses and fairies and we have an ample supply of girly costumes in the dress up corner. For the little man, he wanted to be Zeus. He is obsessed with Greek mythology right now after reading Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson series. So, a toga it was. As for the babe, I just grabbed a giraffe costume from the dress up stuff and off we went. Although I must admit the little giraffe was none too happy to participate in this activity. Poor thing woke up with a fever Sunday morning so she was not really able to enjoy Halloween with us.

We met our friends at the park and prepared to descend upon the neighborhood...

Much loot collected on this hot, sunny afternoon. Time to head home...