As time flies by...

I just can't believe how fast time is flying and that we have already been away from RI for an entire month. Also, my plan to update the blog 1x per week is not working out too well.

Anyway, our time here continues to be amazing and we continue to be blessed by so many. The highlights from the past 10 days include:

• more tea with friends - you'd think that we are up to our eyeballs in tea, but if most of you remember, we Mushens love our tea! And yes, for the most part, it is actually tea that we're drinking :)
• we had 14 US people (from Rob's job in Newport/Seattle/D.C.) over for dinner! They all followed each other here and arrived at the same time. I made a huge chicken curry dish with Risotto and cucumber salad (thanks for the recipe Liz!). I actually made too much if you can imagine. I had some great help from Bob Sabelli cooking dinner and the girls made homemade apple crisp with "Uncle Ted". I think Amelie probably snuck a third of the apples saturated in sugar while (she thought) we weren't looking. We decided that Rob is the better entertainer and we are better at hiding out in the corner by the stove.(sound familiar UMASS roommates?) and cooking. It was a great night and the kids also enjoyed being around fellow US folks. Actually, Amelie and Pieter were out on the trampoline when John Barber came out to say "hello". He gave Ams a kiss and then she went back out on the trampoline - boingg boingg - and said "Now I'm not homesick anymore because Narragansett is here!" And honestly, she has not mentioned being homesick again.
• I had my own introduction to exercise in Australia. My friend Janelle invited me to go for a run with her while we both pushed the jogging "prams". She told me she had a spare. Well, I have not pushed a child while running since before Amelie was born (back with Kristin Riley and Jen Chabot)! Thankfully her jogger was very lightweight, but unfortunately East Fremantle is VERY hilly! I held my own for a while but then begged Janelle to walk for the last huge hill. She was gracious and took pity on me, but in the end it started to rain so we had to run home anyway. I was extremely sore in areas I forgot existed for the next several days.
• Ella and her friends at school have created a large snail habitat in a tree at school. There are a lot of snails here. They've named them and given them each their own royal status. Ella now has pet snails in a jar at home and has been researching them on the Internet. The anatomy of a snail is actually quite interesting. Yesterday Ella's friend Olivia came over and I overheard them reading about snail reproduction on the Internet: "Snails are either hermaphrodites or they can mate with another snail..." They continued to read on about conception. I wasn't sure if this was considered x-rated reading material or science. I had to let go of my overprotected mom nature and let it be science. Hopefully Olivia's mom would agree.
• The weather has continued to be very unpredictable. I have been very spoiled the last week because Rob has been using Bob Sabelli's car and I've gotten to use ours. Now, when it looks like rain we drive, much to Ella's dismay. We do continue to walk to school as much as we can.
• Pieter and I went to Ikea yesterday! Need I say more?
• I'm signing Pieter up for a kindi (preschool) program which will start after the term break. Term break begins Friday and goes until October 13th. We haven't made any definitive plans for this time, but they are in the making.
• We booked our Christmas Holiday to New Zealand!!!!! It is Dec. 25th until January 14th. We will meet my brother Mark and his girlfriend Erin up in Auckland and then see them off and on during our trip. Around the first of January we will stay with my cousin Jenny who lives in the South of the North Island for a couple of nights. We then go to the South Island for the rest of our trip! We are trying to decide whether we want to go the motorhome route or not. Hmmm? On the 14th we will fly to Melbourne to see my Uncle Sam (my dad's youngest brother) and his wife and then fly back to Perth on the 16th. We can't wait!
• Last week the girls had "Sports Day" at their school which is basically field day the way it was when I was a child. All day track and field activities. The parents come with lawn chairs and food and stay all day as well. It was a great day and the girls had so much fun. They divide the entire school into 3 factions and you are assigned to this at the very beginning of the school year: Red (Winsor), Green (Osborne) and Yellow (Fraser). Families are always in the same faction. The girls are in Winsor. All year long when you are caught being good you are given a faction point which gets added to your total team points. On Sports Day, the kids all wear their faction t-shirts and they are divided into the 3 teams for the day. Most of the events are done by age, but at the very end they had a huge relay race where they took the fastest girl and boy from each year (preprimary to year 7) and each faction and put them in their faction team. The relay went from youngest to oldest and it was just so great to see this "intergenerational" team working together. Everyone got lots of ribbons and they had their faction color slushies at lunchtime. I must tell you that Winsor lost and I guess they've been on a 19 year losing streak. Yellow/Fraser always wins. Why do they put the new kids in the losing faction :)?

*the pictures from top to bottom are: Amelie with her sugar coated apples; cooking for our 14 people in our kitchen - laughing because Ella is harrassing the one Yankees fan there; Ella with her good friend Olivia; Amelie with her friend Mia (obviously a fellow thumb sucker - check out the bite!); Ella with friends Tara and Jessica winning 1st, 2nd and 3rd place in running on sports day.

I have to get the girls from school and wake Pieter up. I'll do more later.