Australia Christmas 2008

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Gone to the Birds - Smilebox

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Birds, Triathlons, National Parks

Hi Everbody,
We took this picture by Kings Park in Downtown Perth overlooking the Swan River. Last month the country of Australia came to a stand still for the Melbourne Cup. Carson's school celebrated by having all the kids come in fancy homemade hats. Carson made origami horses and put on his hat. All the ladies around here got all dressed up, got their nails and hair done, and donned a fancy hat to watch the cup. Elise's school had each child bring in a snail and they had snail races. Your never too young to indoctrinate in betting.

We found a nearby National Park, only 45 minutes from Perth. It is located in the Darling Range which runs to the east of us. The elevation was high enough to cause pressure in our ears. The only down side to the day was the weather, it rained. The up side, due to the weather the kangaroos were out in midday. We set up a picnic site with a covered shelter and the roos just came bouncing through our picnic area. We even saw a momma with twins in her pouch! Sorry no pictures as I didn't pull my camera out of the car due to the rain. Once the rain passed we were able to BBQ. In Australia, BBQ's are very popular, but due to the excessive dryness of the summer months lasting long stretches of time, lots of fires were being started with people BBQing. So now in almost every public area there are free gas grills. Some places you have to drop some money in them, but for the most part they are free. So we grilled out at the park and the kids climbed rocks, and amazingly made friends with a wild parrot. (I was able to retrieve the camera for this part of the visit. Note the Gone to the Birds smilebox I added.) This place was so beautiful, with waterfalls and forests we intend on visiting again when the weather is nicer and exploring as much of the park as we can.


I added a smilebox of Nathan's first triathlon. Out of all the competitors he came in 6Th place. The kids he raced against came from schools with a triathlon program or from clubs. He was invited to attend time trials for a local club and just completed the running trial. We will have to wait and see if he gets a spot this year for the state team. Unfortunately,the rest of the meets are on Sundays, so he will not be participating. But, if his time trials are good enough he may be able to get into a spot without qualifying in an actual triathlon, you must finish in the first 3 spots in a sanctioned triathlon to make the state team, and so far he has a 6Th place finish.
Elise just performed in a ballet recital. The production was of a famous Australian story - Snugglepot and Cuddlepie, these are gumdrop babies and it tells of their adventures. Elise was a kookaburra in the ballet. It was held at an outdoor amphitheater, called The Quarry. Set at the top of some tall hills not far from our home. It appears someone blasted through the rock to create the natural sloped seating area. The terraced seating is grass covered and you bring a blanket to sit on. It was a unique venue as you could look beyond the stage and see the city of Perth in the distance. Pictures of Elise in her kookaburra costume are in the smilebox, and to note I was able to get an actual kookaburra's picture at the park this weekend, I also added that picture. One last side note, I haven't used an alarm clock since we have been here, the kookaburra's loud laugh each morning at 5:30 is free and reliable and you definitely don't sleep through it.

I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving. I wish I could be home to be with our friends and family. We are hosting a Thanksgiving at our home on Saturday. Several families wanted to take part in an American Thanksgiving so we are doing our best to prepare one. Here it's not as if you can go the store and buy canned pumpkin, Velveeta, Crisco, corn syrup, graham cracker crust (or graham crackers to make your own), pie crust, cranberry sauce, french fried onions, even a turkey is a hard thing to find. I have been having to find substitutes and make everything from scratch. I've been experimenting with their varieties of pumpkins to find one that will be able to replace our pie pumpkins that we use to make pumpkin pie. I took a picture of the pumpkin I like best for this purpose I will add it to the blog. I found a specialty store in a city south of here that imports corn syrup, the owner is friends with an American and that is why he imported the corn syrup, it is $8 for a tiny bottle, but now I can make my pecan pie.


Know that we miss you all and especially during this Holiday period. Take care, and we will update again soon. Please look below and see all the new smileboxes we added.
Luv,
~Todd, Pam, Nathan, Mikaela, Carson and Elise

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Diwali @ the International School

At the International School the headmaster got up and addressed us at the most recent school event, the Diwali Festival. He said, "Schools usually try to find the things all the kids have in common and celebrate that, but here at the International School we celebrate differences." So, hence the Diwali Festival this week the Halloween festival 2 weeks ago and so on... It really was a great experience and the effort by the teachers to get authentic costumes and choreograph the dances was impressive (luckily we have several teachers from India). The lower school kids participated by making lots and lots of candles. We had an Indian catered dinner to follow the festival. I have included a Smilebox that shows highlights of the festival and Mikaela dancing.

Diwali Festival @ International School

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First Road Trip

We finally made it out in the car for some road tripping. We loaded up with food and camping gear and generally just headed south. We pulled in to any information centers along the way and gathered pamphlets and went to whatever looked interesting. We found some beautiful places and made it to the most southern point in Australia.


The landscape along the more remote areas is pristine. The water appears very powerful where it comes up along rock formation, too rough to get in. We took lots of photos so I can show you some of the beautiful areas. We found quiet beaches, forests, and general outback areas full of wild kangaroos.



Our first day we found an unique pier it is over a mile long, and once was used as railroad to load barges with wheat I believe. It is now only for tourists but it amazing to walk the length of the pier. At the end you can pay to go into a tunnel that allows you to go 8 meters under water to look at the coral reefs that are forming in the area and the underwater life. We took the tour and really enjoyed watching the various fish and the reef.



Along the pier people fish, mostly for squid, some people hearing our American accent asked us to join them to learn how to fish for squid. It was fascinating for Elise as the squid would squirt it's ink out once pulled out of the water. The water is so clear that the kids went snorkeling off the pier, just a few seconds after the kids got out of the water we saw three giant stingrays, I got a photo of a couple of them but they had moved away by the time I got my camera out. (I stand corrected -thanks Chelle - They are non-agressive).



We got to tour the Tingle Tree forest, which are the worlds third largest trees. The first two tallest trees are both found in California. There is a treetop walk where you get to gradually ascend to the upper level of the trees and walk around for quite a distance with a birds eye view of the forest. This I would recommend for anyone visiting here, it was really neat to be up that high on a secure bridge and look around for miles (kilometers). Look close at the picture below and you can see the bridge we are standing on, Todd took the picture from near the beginning.





We found factories where they make the local Western Australia chocolates, cheeses, nuts, and cereals. Samples are given out at all the factories, the factories are located in the wine country. Miles of grape farms dot the landscape all throughout this region. This area is called the Margaret River Valley.



Todd was in heaven as we stopped at each cheese factory for samples and to purchase some new cheese. The kids most enjoyed the lolly factory and chocolate factories. My favorite was the local nut factory where they sold chocolate covered nuts and varieties of muesli cereals.
The only complaint about the trip was that all the little kangaroos' mothers must have forgotten to teach them to look both ways before crossing the street. Hit kangaroos lay along the road side and whenever we were driving at dark, I was on duty to look for kangaroos crossing the street, more than once we had to slam on the breaks to avoid a roo who didn't look before crossing. Now I know why a high percentage of the cars here have roo bars on the front. From what we saw the roos are a lot worse than the deer that jump out at night. They seem to not notice at all, at least deer stop and stare at you. (The roos below had crossed a horse's fence and were eating his grass, the locals say the roos are very damaging to the farms.)


We made our first trip to an emergency room. Carson got hurt after doctor office hours and when we called the doctor's office they referred us to the local children's hospital. Carson got hit in the eye with a tennis ball at lessons. The eye puffed up and for awhile he just kept it closed and we iced it. Several hours later the swelling had got down but we noticed that his pupil didn't dilate. He had bruised the retina, and the eye doc is watching him for signs of a torn retina as he has a black spot in his vision and blurry vision. We have to go back to the doc to let them check his eye in four weeks to see if the retina will need to be reattached, or if it healed on its own. Leave it to us for a freak accident.

We miss you all and hope you are all well!
Love,
Todd, Pam, Nathan, Mikaela, Carson and little Elise

Eviction, Birthday Disaster, and Whales

I am writing again as we did a few things I wanted to share. First off we added to our family, two pet rats, for Mikaela. She had a pet rat before we left and had to leave it behind as immigration officials wouldn't let us bring it into Australia. No rabies are found anywhere on this continent and they are set on keeping it that way. (Cats and dogs brought in are quarantined for up to 6 months). Anyway, we have leased a house that stipulated no pets. Mikaela was finding herself missing her pet more and more as time went on and we began to consider asking the landlord to bend the rule and allow us the pet rat. After finding out about a lady who needed someone to take over her two pet rats we decided to get brave and make the call and see if we could have the rats. She was agreeable and allowed us the pets as long as we continued to keep the house clean, good smelling.... Well, a few days after we got the rats the landlady needed to come over to the house to check out some damage from a recent rain storm here. She is Chinese and had only made it into our entryway when Elise ran up to her with the rat in hand and practically stuck it in her face, various Chinese words emitted from the landlady and I grabbed Elise and scuttled her back to Mikaela's room and put the rat back in the cage, and went back out to the entry to receive my eviction notice. The landlady had recovered from her shock and thankfully, as far as we know at the moment, still have a place to live.
The day before was no better - It was Nathan's 16th birthday - a big occasion in one's life. I dropped all the kids off at school and proceeded to spend the rest of the morning chopping, cutting, baking and getting ready a big birthday dinner for Nathan. I had everything ready and at 5pm talked to Todd and found out I needed to pick him up from work - it was raining. I turned off all the food and left and went to pick up Todd. On the way back, I called the kids told them to turn on the dinner and get it warming back up. We hit traffic and needless to say the dinner got burnt! Oh well, it was only dinner that took 5 hours to make, we still had presents and birthday dessert! We had an elaborate plan for Nathan's birthday, we gave him a floor rug, a small rug, that just sits on the floor and pretended that was all he was getting for his birthday. Actually, he was to be getting a bass guitar. We had arranged to pick up the guitar that very evening to surprise Nathan, under the disguise that Todd needed help with visiting someone from church. Nathan willingly got in the car to assist his dad, on his birthday, with a burnt dinner and only a rug for a present. When they arrived at the place to pick up the guitar I had purchased they found out I ordered a 6 string electric instead of a bass guitar - who on earth knows the difference between an electric and bass? Apparently, everyone but me! That was disaster number two. Nathan was pleased, at least, that I had tried, so on to home without his guitar to have dessert. We had decided to try a local pudding dessert which is, a type of cake with sauce. We put in the candles - fortunately no fire - which would have been par for the evening - and sang and served the cake. We all took a taste and kinda of looked around at each other, no one wanting to really say anything until Elise broke out with "THIS IS YUCK!!!" - and that summed it up beautifully, it was so horrible the whole thing was put in the trash (rubbish bin). So that was Nathan's 16th birthday, burnt dinner, no present, and yucky cake. Believe it or not he is still smilin'.
Friday night Mikaela was invited by a friend from church to attend an end of term party with the girls from her class at school. These girls are all around 11 or 12 years of age. As they were gathered together after school several of the girls began to get nervous to meet an American. They approached Mikaela's friend's mother, who was hosting the event, and asked her if she thought Mikaela would like them. They wanted to know if Mikaela would like their hair up or down better and wanted to know what she would be like. The mom said the girls were beside themselves with worry over meeting a real American girl. Once Mikaela got there and was introduced, they began to inundate her with questions. The best so far was if she knew all the famous people from American TV and radio. Thanks to the Houston Livestock show and Rodeo she was able to say all the famous singers she has at least seen.
Saturday was the makeup day for all the bad previous moments, it was a dream come true day. I have always had an interest in animals, like my kids, and heading out Sat. to see the whales on their migration to Southern waters was a much anticipated event. We meet up with our friends that were joining us on the boat and set off for a glimpse of humpback whales and possible other marine animals. Typically, the tour gets to spot the whales and see possibly up to 6 whales. They use binoculars and watch as the whales go by. The captain using sonar stopped the boat without anyone spotting anything, and within a few moments all around the boat under the water we could see huge glowing white masses. These were the whales. The whales kept circling our boat. There were three, and they were very curious about us. We had a marine biologist on board with us and she was beside herself with pleasure as the whales decided to stay with us the entire two hours and put on a show. At first they scouted us out and then they begin to talk and at the end they actually flipped out of the water. We got amazing photos of the whales and it was a day I don't think any of us will soon forget. One whale seemed to like Elise and Carson and kept coming up out of the water right in front of them, this was great but when whales come up out of water they displace a lot of water and they blow water out of their blow holes, so Carson and Elise got lots of whale spray on them. Whales are amazing animals, their sounds are amazing and their shear size is amazing.
Well, that was a whale of a tale and my fingers are tired and I've written too much, so I'll end now.
Hope everyone is well, and know that we miss you all!
Love,
~Pam, Todd, Nathan, Mikaela, Carson and little Elise

Waves, flowers, and birds

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Don't feed the animals

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Lions, Tigers and Marsupials!!!

Hi everybody,
It has been awhile since I updated, I apologize. The computer had to go to computer hospital, and lots of money later we are reconnected. We seriously considered euthanasia for the computer, but in the end we tried a miracle cure and it worked. The poor thing had an onslaught of more viruses than the Australian company had ever seen, some of the computers' functions will never be recovered, like our music library, but he is with us again and that is all that matters.
So, onto lions, tigers and marsupials. We have spent a lot of our free time finding the indigenous animals of Australia, eventually, we may get tired of seeing roos and wombats, but for the present we enjoy it. We ventured to a State park, Caversham, here you get the best of wild animal viewing and a zoo type experience. The park encompasses a wildlife refuge. Here you get to pet and feed the animals. These animals were once injured or sick and have been cared for and looked after by the refuge, now they are too dependant on humans and will never be let back into the wild. They are all tame and you can see in the pictures the animals snuggle up to the kids at times. We fell in love with a blind, white kangaroo, he would put his paws on us and snuggle his head close. A female kangaroo was very gentle to him and allowed him to nurse even though she is not his mother, so stated the staff. We saw wombats, wallabies, dingos, dragon lizards, parrots of all kinds, Tasmanian devils (the ugliest thing I think I have ever seen)and multiple more animals. All, but the parrots and Tasmanian devils, could be petted.
The children really love animals and aren't afraid around them, the older two are planning on volunteering at a nearby animal refuge that takes in mostly joeys that have lost their mothers. (usually from getting hit by a car) They need to be held in a pouch and feed by a bottle. The center doesn't require many hours from the volunteers and the kids can choose when they sign up for their shift. The only problem is if they will waive the age requirement for Mikaela, she is not old enough yet, but we are hoping they will allow her in anyway.
We have been thinking about and praying for all our family and friends in the Houston area. We felt so distant not being there to help with the clean up effort. Thanks dad for checking on my house and taking care of the damage. We hope you all have electricity again and are returning to life as before Ike.
I got to volunteer at Elise's school for the first time. Very interesting. If a student is showing something, like show-in-tell, when the child finishes he/she is instructed to say, "Thank you for letting me tell you about....", then all the children reply, "Our pleasure". The children are sent outdoors quite often and it is so funny to hear the teachers reminding the children that they must have their shoes and socks OFF before going outside. Once outside the children are given the garden hose to fill up a large bucket so they can dip smaller bowls, cups, pans in to mix the sand with water or just pour it out. This is the very thing our school at home would have kept the kids from for fear they would be all wet. Interestingly enough, only one child changed his pants afterward.
We found a place called Rockingham this Saturday. We explored around a bit and found the most unusual seashells we have ever seen. Here the beach is all limestone rock formations that jet out into the water. Unfortunately, I forgot my memory card for my camera. Just a ferry ride away from Rockingham is an island called, Penguin Island, so called for the little penguins that live on the island. The island is shut down during the breading season, to protect the babies. We plan on taking the short ferry ride out to the island, anyone who comes to visit we will take you also.
At the end of every school term the children get two weeks off. So, Carson and Elise get off school beginning next Monday. The kids at the international school happen to get a week off also that overlaps the second week for the younger kids. With this vacation time for the kids we decided to take our first overnight trip. We are planning on heading up north, where it will be hot in the summer, so we think it would be good to see it now.
Monday the 27th is a holiday the Queen's Birthday. Todd and all the kids get the day off.
Nathan turns 16 years old tomorrow! I have gone out and tried to find familiar foods for his birthday. American bacon is hard to find and costly, they serve the English bacon here, which is much more like ham. A Mexican dinner is what he choose, so that's what we are doing. When we visit home he will get his drivers' license, he finished and passed all the requirements before we left. Children may not drive until 17 and a half here.
Next time I write I will tell you about the whales, and the postmen. I have to run take all the older three to the orthodontist, who by the way, is a Texan, who was asked to come help out here 14 years ago for a 3 year contract. He said it's turned out to be a long three years but will never go home he loves it here. I'm lucky he is here, he was trained in Texas so he knows exactly the type of braces Mikaela is wearing and can work with them. Carson is going to see if he needs braces yet, and Nathan is getting a new retainer, as his retainer was a causality of the move.
Again our hearts go out to all the Houston folk, hope all is well and our prayers are with you.
~the 6 woodfords
Pam, Todd, Nathan, Mikaela, Carson and Elise

Evening at the beach

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Toilets and Driving

Hi Everyone,
I lost the entire blog as my computer isn't feeling so well with the move and sometimes freezes up, so I may truncate this rewritten message.
I had promised to write about toilets and driving. Toilets first. The first thing you notice about the toilets here is that there isn't a handle to flush the toilet with. The second is it is a bit higher off the ground, much to Elise's displeasure. So how to flush? There are two little buttons to push on top of the toilet. You choose the the smaller if you only need a little flush for just a little business in the potty, or you can choose to push the larger button. This button unleashes the equivalent of the Hoover Dam (again much to Elise's displeasure). The Aussies are serious about their toilets, and I have yet and don't expect to hear anyone has a clogged toilet while I'm here.
Second, Driving: It's all so backward here. The steering wheel is on the right hand side of the car and you drive always keeping to the left. The worst part is that the controls are reversed in the car so I keep hitting the windshield wipers when I need to turn on my blinkers. This posses a problem when I'm signaling with my wipers as I go through the roundabouts, they just don't seem to understand what I'm intending when I use the wipers. The kids find this funny, and laugh each time I do it, I threatened to allow them to walk everywhere they need to go and they have since been keeping their laughing to minimum. Believe it or not, I have now have an Australian license as I am the main driver, Todd at this point will just continue to use his American license.
The kids are still doing well. Nathan just went for week long trip to Karinjara. They camped in the outback, walked through the gorges, went abseiling, hiking and even ran into a 5 meter long python. They were directed to wait until the snake crossed the road which took 10 minutes to allow its entire body to cross. The school had sent home a note letting us know the bus the students were to travel in was kangaroo safe. I guess the roos have a reputation for attacking kids in school buses. They made it without incident.
Mikaela's grade decided to add in an extra field trip while the upper school students were gone and they went to the Leonardo DaVinci exhibit. That's one thing I love about this school, it is so small that if the teacher thinks of a field trip that ties in with what they are learning in school, they will send a note home and the kids will be off using public trans within the next day or so to some interesting place. Last week it was a ballet.
Carson has made a team at his school which consists of 4 boys and they stand in a "Z" like shape and have to move and pass a ball. It is called pass-ball. His team competes next month wish them luck. Carson is also part of the boys choir and they just had two concerts last week. They did very well.
Elise is loving school. She became the 6th girl in her class and was asked to join in with the other 5 girls to take ballet lessons. All the little girls go together after school on Tuesday and luckily there was still space in the class for her to join. So every Tuesday all the girls go to ballet and all the moms go to one of the others mom's house to visit, then we all go pick up our little ballerina.
We have acquired some wet suits, Todd and Nathan are already hitting the surf. Now that winter is winding down here the other kids may be joining. I will include some pictures of Todd and Nathan boogie boarding at sunset. It is so unbelievably beautiful here. The pictures are all taken at City Beach, about 5 minutes from our house. The pictures don't do the sunset justice.
I hope all you with kids have got them settled back into school OK.
We miss everyone -
See Ya,
~Pam, Todd, Nathan, Mikaela, Carson, and Elise

first pictures

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We Arrived

Hi Everybody.
We made it safely to Australia. It was a long trip. We left on Monday at 7pm from Salt Lake City and arrived Perth at 1pm Thursday morning. We had plane trouble and had to land on the small, French island, of Numea, which caused us to miss our connecting flights in Brisbane. The airline put us up in a hotel for the half day so we could shower, sleep and eat. We traveled with 10 suitcases and 10 carry-ons, 4 kids and myself. I highly DON'T recommend that.
We had been without our belongings since the movers took them in mid May to ship them to Australia, so everything we needed we had in those suitcases and carryons. We managed to have bedding and clothing, computers, cameras , winter and summer clothing and even a scooter to last us the three months until we would be reunited with our belongings.
Good news our shipment arrived this week and we now are no longer sitting on the floor and sleeping on the floor. Elise was quite unsure about sitting at a table after 3 months of eating on the floor, but we have all readjusted and are again civilized.
Apon arrival we had a ton of work to be done. We had to move Todd out of his apartment by noon the day we arrived and move into our new home. That really wasn't too hard as Todd had only two suitcases to his name as well. We scrambled to make the house into a home. We needed appliances and without central heating we found we needed to borrow warmer bedding. We finally got the house in order enough to function and await our furniture.
The next big hurdle was getting the children enrolled in school. The two oldest were set to attend a public high school if they were accepted into the specialist music program offered there, kids are drawn from all over Western Australia to attend this school. The kids had practiced at home and auditioned just a few days after we arrived and they were given spots in the highly competitive music program. We were all pleased. But, after speaking with the deputy principal of the school we did not feel the kids educational needs would be met at the school and we ended up pulling them out of the school and placed them in an International School, International School of Western Australia (ISWA). Here their needs will be met academically, unfortunately its a small school and they do not have a band program. We researched the area and found a community band which travels and performs in areas around Western Australia. The two kids have been accepted to join and are currently members of this band, although much to Mikaela's dislike they are the only youth amoungst adults the average age is probably around 40. It is a band of about 50 members, they have a web site I will include a link so you can see the band.
Carson and Elise are attending public school. Carson's school, like most schools around here is small, only one class/grade. His teacher, Mr. Watt, has been exceptional in working with us. As Carson arrived half way through Australian school year he missed exactly half of 6th grade. The teacher tested Carson to find out about what level he is and put him in a year 7 books and is willing to allow Carson to work out of the American math book if we feel it would be better. Carson scored an almost perfect score on his math test - the only question he missed was: What season is October? - Carson answered Autumn. Of course in Australia the answer is spring. Elise is attending kindergarten which is equivilant to our preschool. She attends two days per week and loves it. She is picking up on the local lingo quite quickly as she asked me the other day, "Mummy (pronounced as spelled), where is the bin, so I can throw away this rubbish?" The schools are very relaxed here, it is wonderful. They do not have a cafeteria, parents volunteer and run a makeshift cafe two times/week. The kids are given lots and lots of outdoor play, at least three times per day they are outside and two of them are just for fun, unstructured play. We really like how the kids are treated like kids and not little adults. We are located on the coast and the kids actually get to swim at the beach as part of their exercise programs.
We are settling in and already beginning to be busy. The kids have a piano and instrument teacher and are active in church. Speaking of which, Mikaela is the only girl in the youth program at church and when they heard we were coming the Bishop, (the leader of our local church), called a lady to be the Young Womens President, and as of last week there is a full presidency - comprised of three adults to attend to Mikaela. Todd has been asked to be Ward Clerk, help with the administration of the church and I have been asked to be the youth Sunday School teacher.
Each week or two we will update the blog and cover a new topic to tell about life in Australia. We have already seen great things and are excited to show you all the things we have seen. The wildlife here is spectacular! The ocean is beautiful, I will include some photos. Outside of being way too far away from family and friends this is a wonderful place!!! We miss you all and hope this finds you well.

Next week - toilets, and driving on the wrong side of the road.

Todd, Pam, Nathan, Mikaela, Carson, and Elise