It was a typical week again. We were able to pick up Brian's car, so I only had to drive Brian to work Monday-Wednesday. Which was nice because on Friday Caleb slept in until 8am. The rest was pretty normal. Thursday we went to Questacon. We had not been since before we went to Thailand, so Caleb enjoyed going back. On Friday we went to Paint and Play, a free event on Fridays for toddlers. It has 10 or so stations that the kids can do; shaving cream play, pasta necklaces, crafts, playing with rice, musical instruments. Caleb enjoyed playing with the rice the best. We we got home I still had rice in my hair and clothes.

Yesterday we went to the Telstra Tower. It is a radio tower that looks over the city. I uploaded some pictures we took of it. Telstra is a phone company here that we also get our internet through. We hate them probably as much as we hated Comcast. There are always random charges on the bill that when Brian calls they say they are a 1 time charge. Plus our internet is very unreliable. It is always going out at random times and when we call their first question is "Did it rain recently?". Of course there are clear skies. So we stopped calling and hope that the internet does not go out when we are skyping.

So since I don't have much to talk about that happened this week, I thought I would talk about how Aussies shorten a ton of words and almost always with a y. I know Americans probably do it a lot too, but I feel like we do it in order to cut out syllables in order to make a word easier to say. Anyway, here are some examples.

Breakfast - brekky

Sunglasses - sunnies

biscuit - bicky

mosquitos - mossies

Christmas - Chrissy

cup of tea/coffee - cuppa (I know this one does not fir with the others)

I know there are more but my mind is a bit fuzzy and it seems to get worse at night. I will update it when I think of more.

In all it was a good week. This week is Thanksgiving. Like I said last week we have 2 families coming over. I went out today and bought what I needed. Here is the menu:

Turkey

Betty's wild rice dressing - but they don't sell wild rice here, so I am pretending that white and brown rice is wild rice :)

Nanny's broccoli casserole

Dinner rolls - I am going to attempt to make them from scratch, we will see if I give up and just buy some.

Mom's apple pie

Pumpkin bars

The other families are bringing ham, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, and another dessert.

I figure if I make enough family recipes it will feel more like they are here celebrating with us :)

Wish me luck!

Same old, same old

I realize that I did not post a new blog last week. I felt like I did not have anything to say. It was a typical week, nothing special. I guess that is a sign that I am completely settled in. This week was not anything special either.

Last weekend we went to Tidbinbilla. We walked around the nature reserve but did not see any animals. But it was nice to take a walk as a family. It is finally warmer here, in the mid-70s everyday now. This week it actually got in the 80s and we had to think about maybe turning on the air conditioner. That will be an interesting experience because I have never seen anything like this before. It is an evaporative cooling system, it has a tank on the roof that fills with rain water and somehow cools off the house through that water. Apparently you have to open a few windows in every room so mold does not collect. I don't really understand it and we will have to study the manual. Hopefully we will get the hang of it.

Monday was play group, Tuesday was swim lessons. Caleb did not do as well this week at swim lesson, he decided he was scared of one of the ladies. I have no idea why, he sees her every week in the pool. Hopefully he will fair better this week. Wednesday we went to storytime at the library. We see some of the kids and moms from the playgroup there. Caleb loves one of the girls. He gave her about 5 hugs, one where he knocked her over. And when she was leaving, she went up to Caleb and said "kiss", and they kissed on the lips. The other mom and I were joking that in 15 years later we will be in trouble!

Thursday was Veteran's Day, so Brian was off work. He let me sleep in and then we skyped with my parents, and in the afternoon we went to a park. Friday we met up with another embassy mom new to the area. She has 4 girls and Caleb absolutely loves them! It was so nice, he played with the girls the whole time and the mom and I got to talk.

Yesterday we finally bought a 2nd car. It is a french car at a pretty good price. I am so happy Brian has his own car now. I have been driving him to work for 4 months now, which is 20 minutes each way. We have to get ourselves and Caleb ready each morning to get out of the house to get Brian to work on time. Then every afternoon Brian is rushing out of work because Caleb and I are waiting in the car. It will be nice that Caleb can wake up when he wants, although he will probably still wake up at the same time, and Brian will not have to rush every afternoon. Plus, Caleb and I will spend 80 less minutes on the road everyday. We can pick up the car Wednesday, it needs a new windshield and an inspection.

Today we went to church and then I did some shopping with a friend. We have been going to a Presbyterian church the last few weeks. The Baptist church we were going to just did not seem like a good fit for our family. So far we have enjoyed the Presbyterian church. There are a lot of young kids and the families are all really friendly. I also got a lot of shopping done. It is amazing what you can get done when you are with an adult and not a toddler! I got 6 things I have not had time to buy (or kept forgetting to buy) and almost all of Caleb's Christmas presents. I have had to start a lot of shopping early this year since we will be mailing most of them out. I am not sure I will get them all to the States by Christmas.

This week is looking normal again. The only exciting things will be picking up Brian's car and starting to get things ready for Thanksgiving. This will be my first year cooking Thanksgiving dinner. We have 2 families coming over for a total of 14 people! So my first one will be a big one! But luckily both families are bringing 2 dishes each so I will have a lot of help.

I guess that is it for now. We love and miss you all!