The Wheel

Well this post is overdue!  In my defence our internet is really slow and every time I try to upload pictures the computer freezes and it won't upload!  So I have tried writing this post I think 3 times in the past few days!

Last friday Andrew had the day off so we took the train into downtown Brisbane to lodge his application for citizenship.  Unfortunately when we got there they told us that you could only apply by mail or in person if you live in TASMANIA...!  I was not impressed because I clearly recalled reading on their website to bring original documents with you when you lodge your application and blah blah blah....  Well I looked it up again and I will admit that I was wrong and it said that in a different place - just not for citizenship by decent!  So Andrew had to go get more things certified and I mailed it off on Tuesday.  It said you would hear back from them in 14 days so hopefully it goes through!

On the train!  

Despite not being able to lodge the application we still had some fun things planned for that day in Brisbane!  I have a little thing for buying Groupons... and so friday was a Groupon day!

First we headed to get some frozen yogurt

Charlie tried his first frozen yogurt!  He liked it we think...

Next we headed across the river into the Southbank Precinct!  I had bought a groupon for the Wheel of Brisbane!  It always looked so exciting whenever I saw it... and it wasn't...  Well it was ok, but even at half price ($15 for both of us) it was still really expensive!  You only get 4 rotations or 10-12 minutes on the wheel (we actually got 5 rotations - probably because it wasn't busy - woo hoo!)  You can't see too much of the city because all of the buildings are way taller than the wheel, but you do get a nice view of the river and southbank area.

Our destination in the distance

Waiting to get on the wheel

Family picture on the wheel!  It was air-conditioned in the little cabins - so nice!

After the Wheel we walked over to the swimming area.  We went though a neat Japanese Pagoda-garden on the way.

Here is a funny story:  I went in the water with Charlie, but Charlie didn't last long because it was kinda chilly.  So Andrew sat out with him on a large wooden bench type thing (see below picture) and they had a little nap.  So they were kinda like in the picture below but Andrew was laid back and Charlie was in his knew crook with his little sun hat covering his eyes.  I swam around for a bit and then I eventually looked up and saw a bunch of people crowding around Andrew and Charlie taking pictures!  I could hear them talking about how cute it was and one lady even went and got her friend to come over and look!  They were really cute together.... Anyways, I got out because I wanted to go take a picture too, but by the time I was out Charlie was all squirming around and awake - DARN!  I told Andrew about the spectacle they were causing and he said while he was "sleeping" he could hear people walking past and saying how cute they were...hahaha!  I dried off and got this picture - not good enough!  So I went over to this man whom I had seen taking a picture of them while they were sleeping (that sounds creepy) and asked him if he could email me the picture.  He was from Italy and backpacking around and said he didn't know when he would get the chance, but that he would!  We're still waiting and I highly doubt the picture will ever come....  

After swimming we went off on a wild goose chase trying to find this burger place I had boughten a groupon for - SO HARD TO FIND!  But we did find it eventually and it wasn't very good...  but the street it was on was kinda funky and cool.  There were a bunch of hostels nearby and it reminded me of my backpacking days.

This past week has been fairly rainy which has been nice!  It's kept our apartment nice and cool.  I went and borrowed a bunch of stamps and punches from the bishops wife, Diana, and have enjoyed being creative!  We also went over to their house for dinner on Friday night and it was delicious - and nice to not have to cook!  

Also Charlie turned 6 months old!  He's been an exceptionally happy baby lately - giggling and playing with toys.  His favourite is playing with mom and dad though!  He loves it when we act like dogs and growl at him or pant and "bite" him.  Its quite entertaining for both us and Charlie!  

Charlie is getting so old!  Where have the last 6 months gone?!

Mt. Coot-tha and More!

So this week was a pretty good week!  On Monday Charlie and I went to the mom+baby movie at the mall (As a side note I got made fun of this week for saying the mall instead of "the shops")  "Tracks" was playing, which is about this girl who walks across the Australian desert to the Indian Ocean with some camels and her dog.  It was a pretty ok movie except for the part when her dog ate poison and she had to shoot it to put it out of its misery.... that was sad.  Sorry for spoiling but I figure none of you who read my blog will ever see it since I think its just an over here movie....  I could be wrong though and in that case - sorry!  

Tuesday Charlie and I walked to the Denmark Hill Conservation area.  Its quite a nice park with lots of pathways and a dinosaur area because they found fossils there.

Wednesday Charlie and I drove over to Booval Fair.... a fair you might say?  Like a carnival?  Nope, it's just another area of shops...  I try and get around to air-conditioned places on the really hot days!  We also booked our flights home on Wednesday!  I'm really excited to go home and have everyone see Charlie - he's getting so big!  Also, my sister Sarah is moving back from Philly with her family around the same time, so we'll get to see them and their new baby!  I let Charlie naw on my nectarine for a bit and he LOVED it!!!  Here are some pictures recounting the event:

After the deliciousness of the nectarine I tried to give him some rice cereal....

But he didn't like it nearly as much as the nectarine!!!

He's turned into a little food monster!!!

Thursday Charlie and I went to the library (another air-conditioned place!) to rent some movies.  The DVD player in our TV didn't work when we tried it, which was so sad.... however we mentioned that to the Teodos and they said they had an extra DVD player laying around which they gave to us.  It was so nice of them and now we can get movies to watch from the library!  YAY!  We also went over to the mall to look for wedding decorations - I love weddings and am so sad I'm not closer to help out more!

Friday Diana from church invited me to go to a Stampin' Up class to make some things.  She was so nice and came and picked Charlie and I up (I'm still too scared to drive on the highway here!) and took us to the class.  We made 3 cards and decorated a cute little box.  It was really fun to do something like that - it's been a while - I miss my craft stuff at home!!!  Then she took me out for lunch to this Vietnamese place and we got this bowl thing that had noodles and pork and spring rolls and some prawn type thing, along with salad stuff like bean sprouts and lettuce and carrot and then it had this delicious sauce and peanuts too!  IT WAS AMAZING and I have been thinking about it often since that day... sounds strange but its true!  And we also got this dessert thing with tapioca and coconut milk and bananas and some other things that I don't know.... cassava maybe?  And this drink which I totally judged when she told me what was in it!  So it has these jelly things, coconut milk, ice, kidney beans, peanuts and some other things too - I think I may have seen sunflower seeds in it as well...?  It was so nice of her and it was so fun!!!  Also on Friday we got in the mail the things from home we need to apply for Andrews citizenship!  YAY!  So I think we're heading downtown this Friday to try and get all the paperwork in.  I hope things work out for us there....

Saturday was a fun day too!  I got out alone to do some grocery shopping which was really nice!  Then we headed towards Brisbane with the Teodos to go see the Brisbane Botanical Gardens and Mt. Coot-tha lookout.  The gardens are so massive - we didn't even see half of them in the few hours we had.  

SPIDER - this is the only kind I've seen so far

Andrew and Charlie with Raymond, Holly and Jakob

The Mt.Coot-tha lookout was really neat!  You could see the city, surrounds, river and all the way to the ocean.

After our outing, Charlie and I went to the R.S March 17 party.  It was nice to visit and celebrate the 172 anniversary of the Relief Society!

I can't believe how far behind I get on this blog!  It's already Tuesday... but we'll save this week for the next blog and finish off with a few more Charlie pictures!

Charlie hoarding his toys!

I LOVE THIS BOY!!!

"The Market" if you can call it that....

For the past little while I've been writing the blog on Thursdays (no idea why that day!) but I've just decided that I'm going to start writing on Sundays instead.  Seems like a good Sunday activity!  

So last Saturday we went to the Springfield Lakes Saturday morning market....  It was quite the drive (about 1/2 an hour) but it was a nice drive - I like to see areas I haven't seen before!  Anyways, there is a massive park out there with huge gum trees and a splash park and BBQs and picnic areas - it's actually one of the nicer parks I've seen I'd say!  But the market was SOOOOO pathetic!  Not at all what I was envisioning!  There were maybe 10 stalls selling random stuff...  I was actually quite disappointed!  Oh well it was a nice drive...

That night we went to the drive-in theatre!  We went 2 1/2 hours early this time to make sure we got in!  They have a little market there too, where anyone can go and sell their junk...  that seems to be a theme over here!  Anyways, so we had a lot of time to kill.  We walked around the whole place a bunch of times and ate our delicious picnic dinner I packed. 

They have a digital projector so its really good!

This was right before Charlie honked the horn!

We asked one of the parking ladies what the most number of cars they've ever parked for a movie and she said 480!  That's a lot!

What else did we do this week...

Charlie and I did a lot of walking!  To the grocery store, to the mall, to the library.  I hadn't realized before that you needed to register for the Baby Rhyme Time and you need to do it far in advance!  The next one isn't until June, but we're heading back to Canada and I don't want to miss any classes!  So I'm not sure when we'll be going to it - that might be a good thing though since Charlie would probably have no idea what was going on, it will be better when he's a little older.  We did go for Storytime though!  This months theme is fairytales and nursery rhymes, it was pretty ok.  

So as mentioned in the previous paragraph, we're heading back to Canada in June for a couple of weeks because my best friend Shannon is getting married to Andrews best friend Alex!  If it was one or the other to someone else, we probably wouldn't go back since its so ridiculously expensive, but our best friends to each other?  We can't miss that.  Especially since we've been working towards it for the past 5 years almost!

We also tried Charlie with some real food - rice cereal - and he liked it at times and at other times not so much.  He needs to work on his swallowing!

Happy with his rice cereal

Charlie and I also went swimming one day - it was nice to cool off!  And Charlie managed to have a nice long nap with me holding him in the pool.

We were supposed to go to a lookout of Brisbane on Saturday with the Teodos, but Jakob got an ear infection so they had to cancel on us!  We've rescheduled for this Saturday so hopefully it happens!  Andrew just studied instead (which he was happy about!) and Charlie and I hung around the apartment making treats for my Sunday School class and then went for a walk around Limestone Park when it got a little cooler out.  Nothing too exciting...  

So life here in Ipswich is just plodding along.  But now I have something to look forward to - a wedding and a trip home!  Hopefully I can help plan it from over here because I love weddings!  

Birthdays!

February is a big month in our family-not only is it both mine and Andrews birthdays but also my mom and sisters too.  I really wanted to go on an exciting adventure for my birthday and I got my wish!!  On Saturday we drove out the the Glasshouse Mountains just north-east of Ipswich, inland from the Sunshine Coast.  It took about 1 1/2 or a little more to get there and we had to drive through Brisbane - it was kind of stressful - I'm glad Andrew was driving!!!

Our first stop was the information centre where I got lots of pamphlets and maps which I love to look at and read.  I got some for all over Australia so I can start planning little trips.  Anyways, from there we drove up to the lookout.

Pretty!

So Australias version of mountains are like Canadas definition of hills...  but they're still nice!  It was beautiful weather - cloudy with a breeze and sometimes even a sprinkle of rain - it was perfect for being out and about.  It would have been torturous if it had been a typically sunny/hot day.  We did a little walk around the lookout through some jungly type forest and I was vigilantly on the lookout for snakes and scary spiders - luckily we didn't run into any!

On the little hike

After the walk we ate a picnic - one nice thing about Australia is there are picnic areas and free BBQS everywhere!  It had started raining a little harder at this point, so we got a picnic table that was covered.  Charlie was being such good boy this whole time and was even walking with us holding his arms from one end of the picnic table to the other!  We're so lucky he's such an amazing little guy.

Charlie doesn't look too impressed in this picture!

After lunch we drove through the backroads to get over to the Sunshine Coast!  It was such a beautiful drive and even more so since it was all misty/rainy and lush and green.  I quite enjoyed it!  We headed to Caloundra where were were originally planning on going swimming, but it was too cold!!!  It was windy and rainy - not ideal beach weather!  We walked around a bit and it seems like a really nice place!

Charlies first time at the ocean!

First family picture at the ocean!

cute boardwalk

We tuckered the little guy out!

For my birthday on Sunday Andrew made me dinner!  It was a surprise dinner too which made it even more exciting!  Andrew went onto my Pinterest and looked at different things I've pinned and chose a few of them, went shopping for ingredients and then cooked for me!  He made greek yogurt marinated chicken, asparagus and feta salad and oven roasted potatoes - it was all delicious but I think my favourite was the asparagus.  That night was also the finals for mens hockey in the olympics and we WON GOLD!  It was a pretty exciting game - Charlie thought so too - he was glued to the screen!

Birthday dinner

Charlie watching the game

On February 25 it was Charlies 5 month birthday!  I can't believe how big and old he is getting!  He is just the sweetest little boy.  We were so blessed to have a calm, happy baby for our first.  He is getting so entertaining now - he's started playing with our hands a lot and he really loves touching fabrics like his blankets, washcloths and especially my shirt when I'm nursing him.  He stares at it intently and moves it all around.  He has also been giggling a lot and making all sorts of new sounds, although one thing that will make him laugh like crazy one day won't make him laugh or even crack a smile the next day!  Everyone who meets him always comments on how serious he looks - he always has a little furrowed brow like he's not sure about things and he's sizing everything up.  We love him to bits and are so glad he came to our family!

WE LOVE THIS BOY

Then on the 26 it was Andrews birthday!  He didn't have class until 10am so I made him waffles and  then that night for his birthday dinner we had sushi!  I tried to make it a surprise by saying "I didn't make you anything for dinner" and technically it was true because we each made our own sushi!  It was fun and delicious!

Making sushi (Charlie was a good helper!)

The next day for Andrews Canadian birthday a few of his friends from school came over for cake and we even played a game of Qwirkle which Andrew had been wanting to do for a while.  It was a surprise for Andrew, I had hidden the cake in the dryer - so sneaky!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ANDREW!

Today (Friday) Charlie and I walked to the library to get a library card!  I'm going to start taking Charlie there for story time and apparently they have some baby things with helping them make different sounds (Not too sure - I'll keep the blog updated on what it actually is!)  And that was our week!  Now I'm excited for the weekend because around here: WEEKEND = ADVENTURES!

Valentines Day

So the most exciting thing that happened since the last post was Valentines Day!  Charlie and I walked to the mall to get a bunch of dinner supplies to get a nice dinner ready for Andrew when he came home from school.  For dinner we had: fresh bread with a selection of cheeses (the delicious sheep feta from the market) for the app, then for the main I cooked steak (for the first time ever - it turned out deliciously if I do say so myself!) with roasted potatoes and prochuitto wrapped asparagus and then lamingtons with boysenberry ice cream and macerated berries for dessert and to drink we had lemonaid with frozen berries in it.  It was all very delicious and Andrew was very appreciative.  

It looked better in real life!

The next day we continued in the valentines theme and made heart shaped waffles with whipped cream and berries for breakfast!  Yum!

We made tons because the missionaries were supposed to come over but then they didn't show...  yay for leftovers!

Saturday for the most part was uneventful as Andrew had to study, however we did take a break to go on a little adventure!  We went to the Purga Nature Reserve just south of the city because I had read somewhere that you can sometimes see koalas in the wild there!  It was 38 degrees and boiling hot as we walked the "wetlands" (that were actually completely dry) and no luck.  Duh - koalas are nocturnal creatures - what was I thinking?!?!?  We did see 5 kangaroos in the wild though - that was super exciting!!!

It was FREAKING HOT!!!!  At least there was a little bit of shade...

Can you spot the kangaroo?  It was just staring at us...

Sunday we had the Teodos over for dinner and it was so disgustingly hot that I just made a pasta instead of what I had originally planned because I didn't want to turn on the oven!  

This whole week has been ridiculously hot as well up around 31- 38 degrees.  It was better when we first got here because at least it was getting down to like 18 at nights.... now its staying up around 23ish degrees and it makes a huge difference in our apartment - an uncomfortable difference!  I can't wait till next year when we move and have a/c!  Because its been so hot its hard to leave the house because poor little Charlie just gets all hot and red and cranky when we walk!  Especially since I have to cover him from the sun.  We did make it out a few times, on Monday we went to the mom and baby showing of "A Winters Tale" because I couldn't stand being in the apt any longer!  It was just ok...  I didn't really know much about it - I just wanted to be cool!  After the movie we just bummed around in the mall to try and stay out of the heat!

Waiting for the movie to start!

We went to the Japanese Garden and the little zoo again and this time the dingoes were out!  They're actually quite pretty animals.

I will not let a dingo eat my baby!

Other than that... this week...  Charlie has been an amazingly good baby!  He's absolutely adorable and even though he must be so uncomfortable with the heat he's not too fussy.  I have melted ice on him and poured ice water on his head to try and keep him cool and he just smiles at me!  We got a little water sprayer with a fan to try and beat the heat and he just loves it.  He has been giggling a ton lately and no one can make him laugh like his daddy!

Charlie also rolled over for the first time this week!!!  It was so exciting - probably more so for me than for him!  We had our third swimming lesson as well and its amazing to me how comfortable Charlie feels in the water, he's a water baby for sure.  

Well that's all for this weeks update.  Here are a few pictures of Charlie over the past few weeks to end off!

Cheering for Team Canada!

He's starting to like his little jumper! 

On a walk - he is so cute in his little sunnies!

LOVE HIS SMILE!!!