Roma St. Parkland

So, last week was quite busy. The kids and I have a pretty busy "playdate" life during the day. Which is great. Mostly moms from Darryl's company. And one Aussie that I met a couple of weeks after we arrived...we usually hook up once a week. We also got to one of the Museums in South Bank last week. It was realllyyy excellent! We didn't get to see everything so I really want to get back there soon and take Darryl with us.

Darryl's been working a lot lately as they have a deadline coming up. So, he worked over the weekend but we did manage to slip in some family time. We went to Roma Street Parkland. Very nice. We went on Sunday and damn it was windy!! I think it was the first time we all had to dress warmly. The wind was quite cold. Kind of like a fall day at home...sunny but still chilly.

The park is really beautiful.....

I thought this pic was really cute.

These trees were really cool....looked like a giant pineapple!! The trunk of the tree is super big.

Ahhh, the closest I'm going to get to a Canadian Autumn in a while!! This tree really looked like a Maple Leaf tree and the leaves were changing colours...which you don't get here. There's not really a Fall here. So, I was really excited when I saw it!

Of course a day isn't complete without stopping at the playground. I really like that all the parks/gardens here have playgrounds. There's always something for the kids. And of course there are BBQ's and picnic tables. And everyone just drinks openly. I've asked a few Aussies if drinking in public places is legal. It isn't...but the cops are very laid back about it. As long as people aren't out of control, don't break any bottles...that sort of thing...the cops just let them be. So, there's always drinking at the Parks.

Breagha is still obsessed with the swings. She'd sit on them all day I'm sure!

So, we really enjoy Roma St. Parkland. It was very nice.

Just wanted to add these...

I took this pic last week...when the kids and I went to South Bank. I didn't realize how tall Shamus was getting. Thought this was a cute pic!!

Shamus is still in love with the movie "CARS". Asked me to take a picture of his Cars...all from the movie of course.

And Miss B got her very own potty on the weekend! She was pretty excited about it, had to strip off the diaper, but has no interest in actually using it yet!
She's been telling us when "something's about to happen" but doesn't want to get rid of the diaper. So, we're hoping that the potty will win her over. I don't know...she's so darn stubborn that I think this battle may be a tough one!!!

We go camping this weekend! Can't wait but it's going to be really cold. It's about 20 during the day but the mornings and evenings are getting quite cool. So, it will be like camping in Sep/Oct at home. Pretty chilly!!!

Just some odds and ends...

I took the kids to NewFarm Park yesterday. Great park...this is usually where we have our outside BBQ's. And has the big playground.

So, Shamus has been doing really well lately - making friends at the park...playing with other kids. Yesterday he met a girl named Caitlin. She's about 4 - 4 1/2. They were having lots of fun and I was hanging with them...pushing on swings and all that good stuff. I'm chatting with her and she says to me...in her Aussie accent, "why can't you talk properly?" heheeeee
I thought it was pretty funny! I asked her, "I don't talk properly?" "No, why can't you?" she asked me again.
Thought it was really funny. She doesn't like my Canadian accent I guess!!

One more thing -
Before we left Montreal, Jolyne gave us a book called, "Best of Canada". I just finished it and it was awesome!! What an amazing country! It's so beautiful.
I really thought that I had seen a fair bit of Canada. Been to Cape Spear (outside St. John's) which is the most eastern point of North America. Been to the NWT, seen the beautiful Northern Lights. Amazing to see. Been thru parts of BC, AB - got to snowboard in Banff and Whistler!! Seen lots of Ontario....damn big province! Seen lots of Quebec - Love Quebec City the most!! And of course traveled thru the Maritimes. But, haven't been to Saskatchewan and now I want to go there!
Did you know that there's a desert there? Well, it's not exactly a desert, but it certainly displays many of the characteristics of desert terrain. It's really neat to see.

So, check out the book and plan your family vacation. The book with written by Jeff Hutcheson. He's on Canada AM. The photos are amazing. It will truly make you appreciate all that Canada has to offer. Even in the snow!!!

Pics of the House

We're finally posting some pictures of the house!! The pictures are actually kind of old...we took them when we first moved in...so we have done a few new things since. But, it still gives you the general idea!!

We didn't take pictures of outside so maybe I'll do that this week.

We really like where we live. It's not that big but it's great for us right now. We don't have much stuff so there's no clutter! It's a townhouse on Brunswick St, New Farm. New Farm is a suburb outside downtown Brisane (downtown is called CBD - Central Business District) It's about a 20minute walk to CBD. Brisbane is broken down into smaller districts with their own postal codes. They're all still in Brisbane but each are like a little town. We like it. Darryl works in Fortitude Valley which is about a 15minute walk from our place and close to downtown. Its in the entertainment district so lots of clubs/pubs and shops/boutiques! Which Darryl has been taking advantage of!! He goes out alot more here than he did in Montreal.

Our main floor has the kitchen, dining room, living room, and bathroom...

This is basically the view when you walk into the house. You can see the kitchen in the top left, the bathroom straight ahead and the stairs...

The front door. We have a little patio set outside which we use alot. I didn't want to live anywhere that did not have a deck/balcony/terrace. Somewhere that we could sit outside! The outside area is all covered with trees so we have lots of shade. It's actually pretty cool in the house now but I guess that will be nice in the summer.
We really like the furniture we bought. The couches are very light so I don't know how long they'll remain clean! And in the corner is a real cool dark brown wicker lamp. Like that too.

Another view of the living room. Have my picture of Port Hood on the end table!! I may want another one Mom! Or a picture of Antigonish (hint hint :) We want to get a nice rug for the living room but haven't had the time to do that yet.

I like the dining room set - dark wood. Everything we bought was pretty cheap so hope it doesn't fall apart! We've put some family pictures above the dining room table so more homey now! You can kind of see the kitchen counter to the right of the dining table.

The kitchen. Nothing fancy. The stove came with the place. Pretty old and quite small...works though! The appliances are all small here. You can just fit a cookie sheet in the oven!! Maybe because they're so into BBQ'ing. The BBQ's here can cost 10,000!! It's basically a kitchen outside!! We bought the fridge. The bathroom downstairs has a washer in it which also came with the house. No one seems to have a dryer here. Not a common thing. Everything goes on the clothes line...Mama Rosie wouldn't like that!! Coarse rough towels!

The upstairs has the 2 bedrooms and another bathroom. Quite a bit of closet space which is uncommon here. Alot of bedrooms don't even have closets. So, we were very happy about that.

Our room. We haven't done much with it yet but we like what we have! We went pretty cheap with the bedframe so we could buy a good mattress! Still like the dark wood. :)

And the kids room. They're doing well with sharing a room. It's a pretty good size considering everything we looked at had small 2nd bedrooms. In the left corner is a little toy box corner so it's out of the way. Since the pic was taken we put some things on the walls. And Shamus' "Cars" sheets/blankets came in the mail. I also made a Tinkerbell blanket for Breagha so we'll have to take some new pictures of their room too!

Upstairs bathroom. Nothing too exciting but a decent size and clean.

The whole renting process here is really strict. You have to go thru a real estate company to rent and they do inspections every 6 months. You can't even put a hole in the wall so we had to buy this different hooks/gadgets to be able to hang pictures! And renting is really expensive. Buying is too! Our house in Montreal could probably sell for $$$$$$$$$$ here. No kidding.

That's about it. We have a garage too so that's handy for storing things like camping gear and car seats. I'll take a couple of pics of outside and post them soon!

Happy Mom's Day to all the Mommies out there!
And Thanks for all the Happy Birthday emails/wishes!!!

Our Long Weekend...And Long Post!!

Sorry this is a bit long...trying to get caught up with everything that's been happening.

This past weekend was another long weekend. (There's another one in June and then that's it until Christmas!!) We rented a car on Saturday and drove up the Sunshine Coast to Coolum. A cute, little town that is right on the water. Literally. The main street faces the beach. Very pretty. We met up with a couple of Darryl's coworkers and their families. We spent the day on the beach and then had a BBQ just above the beach. I definitely love how Australia has BBQ's everywhere. At the parks, beaches...you name it. Someone needs to talk to Rodney and tell him to get something like this going at home! It's a great way to get everyone out!!

The kids really enjoy the beach but I think they love the sand the best!

Time to get digging!

Breagha was so funny. She wanted water in her bucket. So, we walked down to the water, filled up a bucket, and then started back. This was as far as she made it. She sat down and started digging with her hands. She really loves the sand!! So she just hung out there on her own for a while.

Darryl and Shamus enjoying the waves. Shamus loves the water but if a wave comes crashing in on him....his out of there fast!!

Kirk and his son, Kai. And Darryl and Shamus. Kirk is from California and was a semi-pro surfer in his younger, wild days!!

Mike and Mireille hanging with their son, Jason and Breagha. Breagha and Jason enjoyed each others company and were really cute together.

I just love this picture of Breagha. Thought that Mom may like it too as she's been talking about how much Breagha's hair is growing. It's getting curly too!!

Mike and Darryl decided to go out surfing. Mike's been surfing for a few years so he was going to show Darryl the ropes. Apparently Darryl had a tough time catching a wave!! He was pretty tired when they returned! :)

After Darryl and Mike took off Shamus decided that he wanted to go with them and grabbed his Diego floaty. heeheee.... I really don't think he would of even went in the water by himself!

Darryl took this and really liked it...so I'm posting it for him!

A perfect climbing hill for the kids...the main street is just on top of the hill. With a big playground for the kids and the BBQ's.

And the sand was soooooo soft! Truly like walking in flour. Like the bag of flour that you would buy at the grocery to bake biscuits! Really, really fine.

We drove back to Brisbane that night. The next morning we decided to keep the car rental to do some shopping outside the city. That's where the good deals are suppose to be. The mall we went to was really big and I enjoyed it!!! Picked up a couple of things but not nearly done!!

Then we went over to Jeff's on Sunday afternoon for a BBQ (Scottish Jeff...he worked in Montreal then moved here last year). Jeff is an amazing cook and treated us all to a Mexican BBQ. Very good!!!

Monday was the holiday and another BBQ!! Yeah, lots of BBQ's. This one was at New Farm Park. So, the kids did some playing before we ate. A good time!!

The boys played some soccer at the park before we headed over to the BBQ. Shamus is starting to really enjoy his sports.

And he attempted some tree climbing...

And so did his shadow. Anything that he does, she has to do it too!! And yes, Breagha was filthy. She gets so dirty at the park...and just finished eating!

A long day! He didn't want to nap but couldn't last any longer!!

WE ARE BACK BABY!

That's right. This post is from our home, on our computer, with our internet, with our software. Ah, it feels so good!! Very nice to be back in touch with everyone!! We're pretty behind with our posts so I'm just going to show a couple of pics from last weekend. And then try to catch up to this weekend!

First I have to show a picture of poor Breagha. She fell almost 2 weeks ago. Totally my fault...major Mother guilt. She is almost all healed up but she was looking pretty rough there for a few days.

Yeah, black eyes too. Really bad.

On to happier times!!!!....

Last Friday was Anzac Day...which I mentioned on an earlier post. So, after the parade we had lunch and then met up with a couple of Darryl's coworkers (Mike and Mireille are from Quebec) at the Botanical Gardens. The kids played on the playground for a while and then we did some walking around before heading over to South Bank.

Part of the Gardens are along the water. Which just makes it seem that much nicer!!

The trees are beautiful here. The Gardens are free too which is always a bonus!

An Ibis - They're always around and the kids seem to really enjoy chasing them!

Me, B, Mireille, and their son, Jason. He's just a bit younger than Breagha. And they have another addition arriving in June.

Cool trees, right? I have to find out what type of tree they are.

This big guy was swimming in one of the ponds at the Gardens. Mike decided to pick him out of the water so we could get a closer look. But, he wasn't too happy about it. He was back in the water pretty quickly! I love watching the turtles swim. Definitely my favorite water creature.

And a water dragon. He was big. Shamus enjoys all the lizards/reptiles.

Then we had breakfast at Rej and Clo's last Saturday morning. Which was wonderful. Afterwards they took us to a little Wildlife Centre by their house. It was great for the kids and there were also a couple of hiking trails so we got to enjoy that too!

I'm sure Shamus' favorite part of the day was sitting on this bike though!! He sure enjoys hanging with Rej too. I think it's because they both love the wildlife here. I definitely need to take an "Aussie Wildlife 101" course as Shamus knows more critters than I do!!

Just hangin' out.

Ah, this guy was cool. A Tawny FrogMouth. Yeah, looks like an owl but not even in the owl family. He blended right in with the tree banch that you could barely tell that he was there.

And the wallaby. They're damn fast!

Wild turkeys. They just seemed way too big to be sitting on a little tree branch!

We also saw a duck billed platapus but couldn't get a clear picture. That was neat to see. Weird looking little thing.

Breagha's eyes were starting to heal at this point. :)

Thanks for a great day Clo and Rej!!!


This week was pretty busy...Darryl got his 457 Visa. Which is the Visa we need to get to stay in the country and the visa we need for me to also be able to work! So, that was good news. Our last couple of boxes arrive...also good. The internet was hooked up...good. And we got a new hard drive for the laptop...good. And Darryl got the skype phone working...good too! Oh, and the house is officially sold! Papers were signed this week too! Busy week. Lots happening. We're finally getting really settled in. But, now I have contact with home so that just makes me homesick! It was really nice to get to talk to my family this week. Miss you guys!!! And I can check out all the new blogs too!

K, way longer than I wanted the post to be. I'm signing off!!!!