Thursday, April 29, 2010

Free Time

Since I haven't posted in like 3 weeks and I have some free time, I thought it only fair to take a moment to blog about the goings on in our household.

The weekend after returning from Australia, we celebrated Easter. We dyed eggs, had an egg hunt, went to church...all the normal stuff. Of note on this Easter holiday was the delicious meal we shared with our neighbors, The McElligotts. We decided to treat ourselves to some steaks. Only for special occasions here in Jakarta because good steaks are like $15-20 a pound or something like that. And between our two households, we have 7 growing boys to feed. Not to mention the adults! What made these steaks extra special was that Mr. Paul checked out the Taste of Texas website for their recipe and grilling technique. I had no clue that you could learn the secrets of Taste of Texas right from their own website!! Mr. Paul's rendition of the Taste of Texas steak was a huge success, one of the best steaks I've had in a long time. We must do it again and next time add to the meal the Taste of Texas au gratin potatoes. You know the ones I am talking about. Yum!


The week following Easter I played in my very first charity golf tournament. Scary. I actually had to play by the real rules of golf, not the modified Bethancourt scoring rules which I have come to know and love. That meant no mulligans, no kicking your ball back on the fairway when it goes out of bounds, counting penalties for your water balls. Thankfully this was not a high pressure tournament. It was for the American Women's Association and I would say at least half or more of the golfers had the same "handicap" as myself. My first few holes were pretty rough, but things turned out ok. Our group had a great time playing. Lots of laughs. And I got a great picture out of it.


Watch out LPGA! Just kidding. I am really, really, really far from that. I have been playing golf for nearly a year now. I would like to think that my golf game has improved since starting out but I still have a long way to go to improve my consistency. Playing golf seems to be like a roller coaster from me...you have your ups and downs - physically, mentally, emotionally. Sometimes you just want to quit and then you have that great shot that keeps you coming back for more. I have learned a lot about myself, built great friendships and had lots of fun so for now, I will stick with it.

Next up came Parent/Teacher Conferences, which means that the end of the school year is just around the corner. As of today, there is just over 5 weeks of school left. The boys have had a great year and learned so much. They just seem to be growing up so fast!
The boys will wrap up the year participating in Junior Athletics, which is like track and field for kids. They love it! And the triplets are going to play flag football starting this Sunday. It is a new league that has formed so we will see how it goes. At Parent/Teacher conferences, 2 of the boys shared with us a book they had written about how to play football. After reading their books, we realized that they are mixing up the rules between American football, Australian rules football and rugby, so this should be a good lesson for them.
Well, I guess that is about it for now. Better get to working on other things.
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Friday, April 02, 2010

And Now The Answers...

Ok. Now it is time to give you the answers to our little Aussie Quiz. Hopefully, they will also give you a little insight about our trip too as our trip was packed with so much fun that it would take a novel to tell about all of it. And seeing that I took over 350 pictures, I probably won't be uploading all those to the internet until we get to the US in a couple of months. The internet here is just too painfully slow to upload a quantity like that. So here goes...

1) What is a FOB? What would you be doing if you were FOBing? Who can be a FOBer? Ever been de-FOBed?


Our the second leg of our trip, we headed to the Gold Coast, which is a beach holiday destination just south of Brisbane. There are lots of beaches along the Australian coast in this area and a popular place to stay when holidaying here is in one of many high-rise apartment buildings. The place we were staying, on Braodbeach, was just a few years old and therefore was equipped with the latest technology, which was how we were introduced to the FOB. It came attached to our apartment keys and we used it the "buzz" into the apartment parking garage, elevators, recreation areas, etc. It was not that the FOB was anything too impressive in and of itself but it was the catchy name that we most enjoyed. It was fun to say and the kids enjoyed making up words for their FOB activities. "Can I be the FOBer? It is my turn to do the FOBing." And when their turn was up with the FOB, Justin and I would de-FOB them. A fun memory!


2) What would you be eating if you were snacking on a Sticky?



One day when we were walking around The Rocks area in Sydney, we wondered into a small local indoor shopping center. In the shopping center, we found a store where some girls behind a counter were breaking long sticks of candy into little bits with some sharps objects. We were instantly drawn in to see what was going on. What we found inside turned out to be one of our favorite treats in town. We watched them for a couple of minutes and were attracted to the colorful little pieces of candy they were making. Jack picked us out a small bag to try, peppermint flavor, and we left the store. Over the next couple of days, we came to love this little sugary treat. Whenever the kids were getting tired as we walked around, I would offer them one of these little candy nuggets..."energy" restored. The little sugar boost kept them going (or at least they thought so). With our little bag almost finished, we sent Justin back to the store on our last day in Sydney to replenish our supply. Yum-O!

3) Where would a can't-misser be found?

Ok. So I am not really qualified to tell you about this one since I am a female. I can just pass along what the males in my family have told me. Can't-misser is the name they made up for the "boy" toilets around the country. Apparently there is some kind of metal wall that the boys would pee on then it would be funneled down a drain. Can't miss the toilet bowl with these contraptions!

4) Who would make tucker?


One night while in the Gold Coast, we went to a dinner show called the Outback Spectacular. The boys called it a cowboy show but in more technically correct terms, it was a show mainly about the Australian horsemen and women that lived in the Outback several decades ago. One of our favorite "characters" in the show was the cook. And a character he was. He provided the shows' comic relief and dinner or TUCKER, as he called it.

5) Australian lemonade is more commonly known as...

SPRITE. It took us a few times ordering drinks for this one to really sink in.

6) The only Hard Rock Cafe in Australia can be found in what city?

We learned this fact the hard way. One night while I was flipping through my Australia travel book (purchased in 2006 for our first trip to Australia), I noticed a Hard Rock Cafe was listed as in Sydney. Our kids like going there so we thought we'd give it a try. After a long day out on the town, we took a train to the closest cross street we could get to and then started trekking to the HRC. We didn't have an exact address so were just heading to the general vicinity. After aa few blocks, we pooped out and found a taxi to take us there. A short ride in the taxi took us to a shell of a building where the HRC used to be. No more in Sydney :(. Thanks to the recommendation of our taxi driver, we found another restuarant close to our hotel to eat at.

Later that week when checking into our Gold Coast apartment, Justin received a map of the local area. He spotted a Hard Rock Cafe on the map and asked the front desk girl if it still existed. She kind of gave him a funny look. like "well, of course. why would you ask?" So a few days later, we found ourselves eating at the only HRC in Australia in the city of Surfers' Paradise. Now who guessed that one?

7) What is the dress code for attending a performance at the Opera House?



While in Sydney, you have to go to the world famous Opera House, right? We headed there one morning for a tour. Considering the reputation of this place and the fact that tickets to most of the shows are not cheap, we were surprised to learn on our tour that the only dress code requirement for coming to a production is that you have clothes on. Apparently, the Opera House is as laid back as the rest of the city seemed. Unfortunately, we chose to go on this tour 1 day late as they currently had a kid's production of Apollo 13 going on that we could have attended. Oh well. The day we were there, they we getting ready for a Harry Connick Jr. show. There is always something going on on one of their several stages it seems.

8) What unusual seafood can be found on a typical restaurant menu?

There are some unique foods that you might expect to find on an Australian dinner menu, like kangaroo, but we were shocked to find baby octopus showing up on the menus of several restaurants we went to and they weren't Asian restaurants. And no, we did not try them!

9) What is a pademelon?


No, it is not a fruit. It is an animal from the same family as kangaroos and wallabies. We meet these little guys when we went up to O'Reilly's plateau to explore the Australian rainforest. After leaving the Gold Coast, we wound our way up a mountain road to the O'Reilly's Rainforest Retreat. The car ride had some of the kids car sick and the hour drive up the mountain seemed to go on for ever. We wondered if the trip to this place was going to be worth it, but once we made it to the top and saw the place we were staying, we were quickly convinced it was a great decision.

Along the drive up, we saw some animals hopping across the road, which we excitedly identified as kangaroos. To the untrained foreigners eye, everything that hops on 2 feet must be a kangroo, right? Once we got to our place and saw some of the same animals all around, we enquired as to their true identity and were told they were pademelon, which look like small versions of a kangroo. We also figured out that some of the bigger kangeroo-like animals we saw on the way up were probably wallabies and not kangroo. Nonetheless it was fun to see these Australian animals in the wild.

Another place where we learned a lot about Australia animals was at the Australian Zoo, made famous by Steve Irwin (aka The Crocodile Hunter). The unique things about this zoo was that the zoo keepers stayed out and about in the zoo often times hanging out in the animals' habitats to talk to zoo visitors about the animals they cared for. There were also lots of hands-on opportunities, like feeding kangaroos and petting koalas. We also saw some animal shows, including the one that featured what the Australia Zoo has been known for...hand feeding huge crocodiles!!


10) Who were the Australian lighthorsemen?

So, I mentioned above that we went to the Outback Spectacular. As part of the show, we learned about the Australia lighthorsemen who were made famous during World War I for securing the capture of the wells at Beersheba in the Eygptian desert. A cool bit of history to learn.

11) What kind of pies are a favorite among Australians?



That would be meat pies. We found a little stand on the street selling them and Justin and the boys dug right in to give them a try. It was a pie shell filled with meat, covered with a pastry crust and topped with a huge scoop of mashed potatoes, a huge scoop of mashed peas and covered with gravy.

12) What is a popular decade in Australia?

From our estimation, we are saying the 80's. When we went to the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney, they had a whole special exhibit on all things 80's, which was a fun flasback for Justin and I. Then when we got our rental car and could tune in to the local radio stations, it seemed like they played an awful lot of 80's music and not just on one station. Just our opinion.

Alright. Quiz complete. So how did you do? Surprised by anything? Australia was great. A super fun place to visit.
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