Early in the morning seems to be my most motivated time to blog. Pieter keeps waking up at 5:56 am ...why????? At least today he didn't wake up his side kick, Amelie. He seems to think that if he's up she should also be up.
Right now the sky looks like it's going to pour, but the sun is out. There are lots of rainbows around here. The first days we were here I think we saw a rainbow everyday. We've had amazing weather for our school holiday. The kids have been in the pool several times and have had friends over to swim as well. It is so fun to be able to share "our" pool with others. It's still a bit too cold for me :)
Ella and Pieter did Grasshopper Soccer the first week of break. Pieter walked around with the flyer for weeks talking about how he was going to do this. It made me realize that he REALLY wanted to play. It was 2 hours a day and the kids were broken up into 2 groups. Pieter was in the 4 and 5 year old group and just loved it! He actually let me leave him there a couple of days so Amelie and I could run off and do some errands. He also made lots of "friends". He has matured so much in the past couple of months and I feel like he's definitely ready to start Kindy next week. Ella also had a great time, though she missed having Anna, Sidney and Brynn with her. I got quite a few compliments on her soccer skills, which was fun. I also found out about a soccer club that she can join in the end of Summer (Feb) that has a lot more girls. There were only 2 other girls in her entire group at camp.
One day we went down to Rockingham (45 minutes south) to pick Rob up from work around noon. He met us at a playground right at the beach across the street from all the shops and restaurants downtown. Garden Island, where Rob works, is connected to Rockingham by a 3 km long causeway. We need to have a special pass to go onto the island as everything is top secret there :). The beaches and water surrounding this area were beautiful and crystal clear. We then drove 5 minutes to Point Peron which is just south of the causeway. The coast at Point Peron is made up of huge limestone rocks and cliffs and there are walking trails throughout. There are also a lot of little coves where you can go snorkeling and the beaches are filled with sea glass, shells and coral. We all had so much fun collecting as much as we could. We had plans to send some of our great finds to friends. When we got home we wrote lots of little notes and packaged up some shells and sea glass for people. We went to the post office all excited with the custom declaration forms filled out about our "priceless" items. Then the post office lady told us we couldn't send shells, etc... because of the agriculture laws as there might be spores on them. Ahhhhhh!!! We were so disappointed.
On the weekend we took the most amazing 3 hour trip up north to the town of Cervantes to see The Pinnacles. Our drive made us realize how vast this country really is. Everyone says that 80% of the Australians live in the cities (and suburbs), but you don't believe it until you see it for yourself. We drove for about an hour through suburbs, Perth and Swan Valley (the wine region) and suddenly we were on miles and miles of open road. The landscape was desert with low brush and rolling hills the entire way. We were probably about 5 miles in from the coast. This is wildflower season so there was this yellow, blue or pink hue for as far as you could see. We saw quite a few kangaroos who didn't quite make it across the road along the way.
We arrived in Cervantes around 2 pm and were told to head to the Pinnacles for 5:00/dusk. The sun was setting at 6:20. The kids swam for about 2 minutes in the ice cold pool and then played some soccer in the grass in front of our little apartment with some other kids. We then drove the 17 km into Namburg National Park to go to The Pinnacles. The Pinnacles are made up of 30,000 year old limestone peaks/spears sticking out of this amazing orange sand. There were thousands of them in all shapes and sizes. There was a 4 km unsurfaced loop to drive through them. The "road" was the same orange sand defined by some small limestone rocks. Right when we started on the loop we saw a wild emu walking through the pinnacles. It was absolutely amazing. The sky was bright blue and the sun had set enough that it was casting this orange hue on the already orange sand and pinnacles. We felt like we were in a different world. We opened the rear of the minivan and the kids sat there with their legs dangling over the edge, singing "I've been working on the railroad" and loving life. Every once in a while they'd yell "STOP" and run off into the pinnacles to check something out. As the sun was setting the incredible full moon popped up over the horizon. We had a great time trying to get the perfect picture and exploring.
At dinner we ran into some other Americans (from Illinois) with 3 boys who are living down in Rockingham for 3 years because the dad got a teaching job down there. The mom is also a physical therapist and is able to work here as a physical therapist assistant without being certified. She is working in Fremantle so we are hoping to get together for tea sometime.
The next day we went to Hanson Bay Lookout. There you climb up 70 steps to get a spectacular view of the ocean and Lake Thetis, which was where we were heading next. On our way down the steps we spotted a few wild kangaroos grazing in the brush. These were our first wild (live) kangaroos that we'd seen since we arrived! It was awesome. Ella, in here desire to get just that much closer, stepped into a nest of bull ant. Bull ants are about an inch long and are venomous, aggressive and give an awful bite! One went into Ella's croc (lesson #23: Don't wear crocs in the bush!) and somehow one got up her shirt and bit her on the tummy. She was terrified. Ella is never afraid of anything. Afterwards she said "I have never been afraid of an insect before, but I was scared!" I think it was actually a good experience in the end because now Ella "gets it" a little more and will be more cautious of where she steps. She wound up with a little painful welt on her skin which eventually turned itchy. Fortunately, we didn't need to inject her with the epipen:)
We then went to Lake Thetis which contains living Stromatolites and Thrombolites. They kind of look like giant (1 meter wide) cow patties in the water...hahaha. Apparently they are some of the oldest living organisms in the world. The lake was only 3 meters deep and is 1.5 times as salty as the ocean. Next we went to Kangaroo Point to see some more wild kangaroos, but we didn't see any. This brought us out to a beautiful, white, sandy deserted beach. Ella and Rob came across a Blue Tongue Lizard (Skink) on the beach. They are about a foot long and look completely prehistoric. She, of course, picked it up and thankfully it didn't bite her. On the way back to town for lunch we saw another emu walking on the crest of these incredible white sand dunes. Wow!
We had lunch at a Tavern and right away Amelie and Pieter found some other kids and they just sat in a circle telling stories to each other until our lunch came. It's amazing how open they've become (especially Pieter) and just make such quick friends. The drive back was pretty uneventful with the exception of the burned down camper that we saw being pulled on a car trailer (seems quite common around here) and the dead echidna on the side of the road. We stopped at Swan Valley on the way home and went to one of the vineyards called "Sittella" and bought a couple of nice bottles of wine. Then, for the kids, we had to stop at Margaret River Chocolate Factory and have free samples of chocolate and get ice cream. What a bummer :)
The second week of break was a little more low key. We met some people at a park, had people over for tea and swims, and had play dates. Amelie and Ella went to the Double Decker Chocolate Bus one day which is put on by our church. I think half their school was there. They went on this double decker bus for a few hours which took them to various parks and beaches, they had morning tea with scones and a Bible story and lots of chocolate! Pieter and I met up with them at a park for a BBQ. It was great fun for them. We also went into Fremantle one day where they have daily activities for kids during break. The kids went in a jumpy house and did some crafts and then we went to 2 Scitech shows. The shows were fabulous. One was about slime and Ella was one of the volunteers making slime hair for a skeleton. It was hilarious. The next show was about liquid nitrogen and that was great as well.
Yesterday Ella had her long awaited play with Olivia, who has become her favorite friend here. She had woken up with a bit of a tummy ache, which she claimed had resolved. 2 hours into her play at Olivia's I got a phone call from Olivia's mom that Ella had vomited all over her floor!!! Poor Ella and poor Lee, Olivia's mom. Fortunately Lee is a nurse and all "that" isn't foreign to her. Ella felt much better after that, but had to come home and was quite disappointed! She didn't eat much for the rest of the day, but woke up today feeling fine. Quite strange. Amelie had her friend, Maive, come over and they had a fantastic time. Amelie was thrilled.
Well, that's that. Sorry for the rambling, but we are also using this as a journal for ourselves. Lots of love! Marileen
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