AP's family coat of arms

AP's primary class had a Faith in God activity on Saturday where they made a family coat of arms. He did such a good job I have to share. For each family member they had to come up with a motto and a picture. Here is what he came up with:
D: picture-a diaper with two little baby legs; motto-"mum, mum, whaaah!"
AJ: picture-a cat face; motto-(to the tune of Toreador) "Meow, Meow, meow, meow. . .)
AP: picture-a hand holding a piece of paper with the word "way" written on it; motto-"Hold on to the way."
Mom: Picture-a frying pan; motto-"A mom's got to do what a mom's got to do."
Dad: picture-a shield and sword; motto-"You're stronger than you think."

Happy Australia Day!

Australia day was Monday (January 26) so we packed a picnic lunch, met up with some friends, and headed over to Commonwealth Park for the big celebration. It was a very HOT day and D didn't last long so J ended up taking him back to the apartment for a nap.

We love Mr. men and were very excited to see them LIVE!

AP was thrilled when he got picked from the audience to assist with the magic show.

There were also bounce houses, balloon animals, facepainting, and backyard cricket. The 10 and 12 year old boys we were there with were only interested in cricket, so much to my delight AP actually got involved (though briefly) in the game (he was even interested enough that he didn't react when he got hit by the ball). Later that night we watched the fireworks from our balcony.

Institute of Sport

We went to visit Australia's Institute of Sport where Olympic athletes train. They had a sport similator room where we got to ski, sled, skateboard, cycle, rock climb. . .

my little Olympians. . .

We took a tour of the whole building but the only athletes that were training at the time were the gymnasts. That was fine with me since I love watching gymnastics! However all of our pictures of them ended up blurry (our camera has a slow shutter speed so it doesn't do so well with action shots). J's favorite part came very last. . .

. . .a weight room the size of a huge warehouse!

Deep Space Communication Complex

Canberra's Deep Space Communication Complex is one of NASA's three that span the globe. The others are in California and Spain. I thought the most interesting display was the one about astronaut's food and diet (shows where my priorities are), but I didn't get a picture of it. At the end of our tour we bought astronaut ice cream for a treat--freeze dried and, though not quite the real thing, yummy.

Telstra Tower

Telstra Tower sits atop Black Mountain and overlooks all Canberra. This shot was taken from the tower top and includes our apartment building.

And these two were taken from the bottom by the description sign. Those are ladybugs at the base (there were hundreds of them!) and they were far more interesting to A&A than the tower. In fact we should have skipped the tower and spent the hour studying the bugs. Just goes to show that the little things really do matter most.

Cockington Green Garden

Cockington Green has a display of miniature buildings from around the world surrounded by beautiful gardens. Most of the display were of England, but there was a variety of other places represented too.In the playground area they had several doll houses set up including this castle. Isn't he a cute little prince?

It was a really hot day! We're just trying to cool off in the shade.

J telling A&A about the Phillipine display.

This last one is posted in honor of Katie and Amber. If you girls are having a hard time figuring out why think back 7ish years to the funnest game of your life (hee, hee)!

D playing around the house

D loves laundry day! He is fascinated by the front load washer--as a matter of fact so am I! I wish I could take it home with us.

He has also discovered the joy of toilet paper. . . it looks like we will have to keep the bathroom door closed from now on.

Canberra Zoo's "Touching Experience"

The big selling point of the zoo here is their Meet a Cheetah program, and Aubrey was especially excited at the prospect of getting to pet one of her favorite animals. Then we found out that you had to be at least 12 years old to participate (otherwise you might get mistaken for dinner!). Admittedly we were all a little disappointed, but we still got to hold, pet, and feed a lot of cool animals anyway and getting to feed a tiger was almost as cool as petting a cheetah anyway!

The emus were very friendly! They came right up to eat out of our hands and followed us all around. The kangaroos on the other hand were a bit ornery and didn't want anything to do with us. Every time we got close they would hop away.

I was a little surprised how much A&A enjoyed the Dingos. AJ who is not a dog person in the least said she wouldn't mind having one as a pet (of course some of that had to do with the fact that our guide told us their personalities are more like cats' than dogs).

Feeding the bears. . .

This cute little guy's name is Speedy. AP now wants a pet turtle when we get home.

They had a great time with the snakes too! The first two are them with a couple of corn snakes. If he can't have a turtle, AP wants a snake.

And this next one is a boa constrictor.

And here they are feeding the sharks!

We learned a lot and had a great time!

Window Watchers

What is it about babies and windows? Some of my favorite pictures of my kids as babies are the ones of them watching the world through a window. D loves looking out this window and it's so fun to watch him watching the world go by. AP and AJ often join D in the window watching too. I love this next one because it shows that and their sweet relationship as brothers! Oh, and I have to mention ,AJ's theory is that D thinks the people and cars are toys and is trying to figure out how to get a hold of them to play with. I think she could be right!

When in doubt blame mom

After an especially hard day where A&A were feeling very homesick for their friends, toys, and all else that is familiar, the following was said to their dad:
"Why did mom bring us here?"
"Yeah, how could she have done this to us?!"

The War Memorial

The Aussies have done a phenomenal job on their war memorial. There was so much there that it will be impossible to do it justice, but here goes:

The road to the memorial is lined with monuments to the various wars, battles, and people invloved.

Above and below were taken by the monument to the Rats of Tobruk. J said that he remembers reading about this as a kid and thinking, "The Australians are so cool."

Below is the museum. The outside is obviously beautiful and the inside amazing!!

They had interactive things for the kids, like a helicopter and submarine similator, as well as uniforms to try on. Below AJ is piloting the helicopter.

This was a lifesize replica of one of the battles. As you can see J got as into it (if not more) than A&A did. It was cute to see him enjoying himself.

AP manning the submarine. It was hard getting him to leave this one.

In the gift shop. This hat was tempting except that it cost over $100!

There was so much more there, but if I posted all the pictures you would never get through them! In fact, we didn't even get through the whole museum. AJ was actually interested in the displays and reading the history of it (much to J's delight) but after the discovery zone AP was done. I told J he needs to go back by himself so that he can spend more time reading and looking around at the displays (and playing--wink, wink).

The story behind the cake

I thought that it would be fun for A&A to decorate my cake this year so the morning of my birthday we headed to the store to get cake mix and decorations. I told them before we left that the best present they could give me was to get along and treat each other nicely. They got off to a good start but once we got to the cake isle they couldn’t agree on decorations. So the arguing began. I told them that I decided I didn’t want a cake anymore because their arguing was ruining my birthday and pointed out that there were tears in my eyes. I started to leave the store and they started apologizing and rubbing my back, patting my arm etc, saying, “Mom we are so sorry! It’s ok, just relax, take deep breaths, just calm down. Let’s go back and we’ll agree we promise! We have to have cake for your birthday!”

So once we got the decorations and got home they set to work decorating. They had decided to do a garden because AJ wanted flowers and AP wanted bugs.

Overheard while they were working on it: “Let’s call it the 30th anniversary garden because mom is 30.” “Yeah, it’s so old that alien bugs have invaded it and taken over.” (AJ made up for that later when she told me I only looked 21, hee, hee).

As for the rest of the day, J came home from work early and we went to my favorite (the only) gluten-free bakery and cafe for dinner. Then I spent a couple of hours by myself (oh the novelty!!) walking around the mall. When I got back we had the cake and opened presents. After that we went down to the lake and J, A, &A took a pedal boat around while D and I played in the sand. How is that for a complete birthday?