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
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Saturday, August 23, 2008
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
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
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