CBD
Jay and I had to go meet with our Australian tax preparer, so we went into Brisbane CBD (Central Business District). We had a quick lunch at a random English restaurant next to the building we were going to. After the meeting we went for a quick walk around the area. I should look at map to confirm, but it seemed like we were in the financial district. For a minute I felt like I was back on a Treasury debt marketing trip…in and out of skyscrapers, walking through downtown. Good memories… Here are some pictures of the CBD area.

Lukewarm.
I have not had a proper cup of coffee since I have been here. I don’t know how or why, but the coffee here is TERRIBLE. I was super excited to see a Starbucks, so I pretty much ran inside and said, “thank God for Starbucks. Does it taste like the US?” Without hesitation the barista said, “Nope.” He was right. It was lukewarm, at best, and tasted like a combo of dirty shoe leather and tar. I found it quite ironic that the Aussies seem to like their coffee cold and their water hot. I have resolved my ice water issues at home, at least, but there doesn’t seem to be much I can do about the coffee. The funny thing is that they KNOW their coffee sucks but, no worries mate. Australian Starbucks = fail.

Kids.
Ty and Lily have both had some really good days at school. The past 2 drop offs have been tear free for Ty (Lily is an oblivious little “chicken”, as they call her). Hopefully we are over the worst of things.

Swim.
I finally went for a swim on Sunday morning. The water was still a little cold, but the sun was warm and shining directly on the pool. Ty had fun squirting me with the water shooter, Jay hosed off the patio, and Lily watched from her swing in the living room. I bet in a few more weeks the water will be perfect.

For those of you who think that I need more sun to soften up my pasty white complexion, you would be happy to know that I have a tan line where my watch goes (not much, but something!), and freckles are appearing on my legs. And, we have all avoided getting fried – we don’t go outside for more than 5 minutes without loading up the sunscreen and putting on a hat.

Food.
Sunday night we drove Tiger (the buggy) to the grocery store, fulfilling Ty’s lifelong dream. It is quicker to drive the buggy than to drive a car, more of a direct route, less traffic, and easier parking.
We are getting smarter about our grocery shopping. Food spoils faster here, must be less preservatives, so we have made a weekly menu of sorts. Pasta Monday, Taco Tuesday, Asian Wednesday, BBQ Thursday, and Pizza Friday. Weekends are TBD. Hopefully this schedule will make the weekday evenings run a little smoother. We also created a list of food that we need for lunches. On Sunday nights, we just check the menu to find out what food we need to buy for the week and pull out meat from the freezer to thaw. I am pretty sure this is what most people do, but we got used to take-out back home. We could do the same here, but then we would be broke… When we checked out at the store tonight, we had our cheapest bill yet. And we should have less wasted food. Elementary, I know, but we are being “forced/encouraged” to adjust our lifestyle. This change is for the better, and is one that I can see us continuing when we get back to the US.
One random observation. Since 90% of the packaged food in Australia is a non-recognizable brand, we have gravitated to what is familiar – more fruits and veggies. The freezer aisle at the store is very small – definitely not an entire aisle full of frozen pizzas. Fresh is best here. Back home we made a lot of frozen breakfast foods (cinnamon rolls, etc). Now we will drive the buggy to the bakery at the marina on the weekends for fresh cinnamon rolls. This should be an interesting marketing experiment to see what brands we end up buying. So far I know I like Cadbury. :).

Critters.
Every night a couple lizards hang out on the ceiling of our patio. Ty gets a kick out of them. It is fun to watch them. They are very light colored, very different looking.

Words.
Maccers (McDonalds)

The car with no name.
My car arrived on Friday!! I get to drive a sassy red Holden Commodore SV6 while we are here. It is pretty and just sporty enough for my taste. Beats the Hyundai rental I have been driving. Jay and I have always named our vehicles – they are part of the family, you know. I haven’t come up with any good ones and am taking suggestions. See Facebook for a post to take your entries. 🙂

Tiger.
We knew we wanted to get a buggy (golf cart) because everyone cruises around the neighborhood in their buggies here. There are lots of buggy paths that take you to the golf course, the marina shops & restaurants & grocery store, and Hope Island shops & restaurants. When Jay caught wind of an orange super sport buggy with fancy wheels, he knew he would wait for it to arrive at Carts ‘N Parts. When he took it for a test drive, he was sold.
A year or so ago, when one of Ty’s teachers asked him what he wants to do when he grew up, his response, without hesitation, was “I want to ride a tiger to the grocery store.” So naming the orange buggy that can be driven to the grocery store was easy. Meet Tiger.

VIP Pass.
The office family Christmas party is at a huge water park the next exit up the interstate from our house. It is called Wet & Wild. We decided to buy season passes that get us into Wet & Wild, Movie World (like Disney World and also just an exit away), and Sea World (about 25 minutes away). Awesome. :).

On Saturday we put the VIP pass to good use and went to Sea World. It was so nice to not have to rush through the park to cram in everything, because we can go back anytime we want. We saw penguins that just had babies, dolphins, sharks, sting rays (Ty’s favorite), rode on rides, watched a jet ski show, and watched Dora! Both kids were great all day. So fun!

After Sea World, jay and I took the scenic route along the coast back home since both kids were sleeping. When we got home, we loaded up the buggy and drove to the marina for dinner. I had crab linguini and Jay had a steak at a place called Red Rock. We had an outdoor table right on the water. Sipped some wine, had a delicious meal, kids behaved. Life is good… Since we won’t be celebrating Thanksgiving here, I’d like to do one quick shout out. I am thankful for the opportunity of a lifetime, a husband that was willing to go on thus crazy adventure, and two beautiful children. 🙂

Ozone.
Jay’s random thought of the week… Wonder if the sunburns would be as bad if there were some non-aerosol options for deodorant here…

Words.
Fairy floss (cotton candy); off crook (home sick)

Lunch.
Jay and I had lunch on the patio at work on Wednesday. It was a beautiful day, the patio has a cover on it for protection from the sun. This is the first time we have had a chance to sit together and eat outside. We will make it a point to do that more often.

We have gone out for lunch a couple times. There are some nice shopping/dining areas within about 10 minutes of the office. There is a decent sized mall, complete with a grocery store (this is a common concept – quite strange to see fruits and veggies down the way from clothing stores).

Tea.
I haven’t quite figured this out. People don’t miss “tea”, morning tea and afternoon tea, but as far as I can tell the term can be used for a smoke, a coffee, a tea, or a snack. I think it is really just a “break” but “tea” sounds better.

Mailman.
Yes, our mail is delivered via scooter, by the cutest Aussie I have seen so far. I went running out front with my phone and he said, “you’re not taking a picture of me, love”. Oh yes, yes I am. 🙂

Ice!
We got our fridge with ice and water in the door hooked up!! Praise The Lord! I have ice! Nothing beats an ice water in a magic cup on a hot day. Mom suggested I bring in a cooler full of ice to work every day. Jay thinks that is a bit extreme, but I haven’t ruled it out yet… Happiness is…

Shipment!
Our stuff has finally arrived!! It seems like I started packing things up forever ago, so it is nice to be able to finally unpack things. Ty was so excited to see all of his favorite toys. Wait until he sees his pile of books to choose from tonight at bedtime! These past few weeks have been an interesting experiment to test what we can and “cannot” live without. Jay can’t live without his tools. I need my pampered chef hamburger masher deal, and about a billion other things.

I wonder what age people learn or start to complain. I am certain it is not 3 and a half, because Ty has not uttered a single complaint throughout this whole process. I know how hard it has been on him, but all things considered he has handled it really well.

Pork.
The Aussies love their pork. I mean really love it. The Iowa Pork Producers would love these people. The sausage section is the largest in the meat aisle. Tonight we were excited to try some chicken cordon bleu that we got at the butcher. Jay grilled it to perfection, we cut into it, and I swear there was not any chicken. Jay thinks there was a little, but if there was it was a minuscule amount. Ham and cheese, rolled up. Not terrible, but not great….

Service.
So the doctor came to our house on Monday morning and the banker came to our house Monday evening. Talk about service! Mark from Westpac stopped by our house to deliver our debit cards and get our signatures. He was a great guy, stuck around and chatted for quite a while. He got a kick out of the fact that the trampoline is in the living room.

Since I was home with Lily, I had a couple stop by to give me quotes for other services we need done. The lawn guy and his partner (seems to be fairly common that people aren’t married here, met several partners) stopped by to quote lawn care services. I think I will miss doing my own yard work but we don’t have any equipment to use. Even if we did, the lawn is fairly steep in the back do push mowing would be zero fun. I am itching to get out and clean up the garden and hedges but am absolutely terrified of the poisonous critters that are likely living there. So, best leave that stuff to a local professional who probably carries anti-venom in his pocket…

Possibly the highlight of my day was a visit from the housekeeping service. I know, it sounds uppity, but with 2 kids, a full time job, and a gorgeous country to explore, I really didn’t want to spend my weekends scrubbing toilets. I was spoiled with Briana back home (which by the way if anyone in the quad cities needs an awesome housekeeper let me know and I will give you her info). Since everything is super expensive here, I was bracing myself for the worst and trying to come up with reasons to convince Mr. Shearer that the price was totally worth it. But then I got the best news ever. The price was right!! And they use their own cleaning supplies (thank goodness because I don’t know the brands…no Clorox wipes or pinesol here). This is probably double the space as back home so I was figuring the rate would be 3-4 times what I pay back home, but it was only about 50% more! Yay!! Jay didn’t hesitate or argue at all. He even said that weekends are for having fun with the kids. Love him. 🙂

Tinsel.
I don’t know what the deal is, but the Aussies LOVE their tinsel. The holiday aisle for Halloween was filled with tinsel. The holiday aisle for Christmas is filled with tinsel. Ty has to bring in a hanger decorated with…you guessed it…tinsel. They are going to put his artwork on it. Unfortunately I haven’t found any wire hangers at the store, so Ty gets a plastic one. No worries, it should be fine. I am looking forward to seeing his arts and crafts over the next couple of months.

Rolling.
My daughter is advanced. Not only has she cut her first tooth this weekend, but she also proved that she can roll over. She has teased us before with it, but tonight she rolled 3 times! She needs to work off some of her thunder thighs so she will have a rolling over workout plan. :).

Melbourne Cup.
Hold your horses. Nobody do anything. It is race day…apparently the world stops turning on Melbourne Cup day, and everyone becomes gambling fools, and of course horse racing experts. Several of the ladies in the office are wearing their race hats (there is one little one in the picture below – black, towards the left, kind of hard to see). The guy that I am replacing is back on the office today, but “training will be difficult because it is Melbourne Cup day and that puts a wrench in everything”. It’s craziness! I thought I better submerge myself fully so I placed a $2 bet. My horse didn’t pay out, unfortunately, but the race was quite exciting. Afterwards there were fancy appetizers for all to enjoy.

Shipment.
Best news ever. The air shipment will arrive on Thursday!! I was a bit snippy this morning, mostly because we don’t completely have a morning routine, things got forgotten at home, I ran out of conditioner, and every time I turn around I need something that is in the air shipment…that is sitting at the airport an hour from home…but is just waiting on customs to inspect.
Jay called me out on my nasty attitude (sorry love!!) and at lunch today we had a good laugh. Jay said I need to adopt the Aussie attitude of “no worries”. Only he was a bit more dramatic, said in a shouting voice “NO F$&@”/ING WORRIES MATE!!!” I almost peed my pants from laughing. Inappropriate, I know, but laughter (and a bit of swearing) is the best medicine in times like these.

Words.
Mozzies (Mosquitos); tap on wood (knock on wood); quit whinging (quit whining); esky (cooler)

Medcall.
Sunday night was a rough one for little miss Lily Bean. She was very unhappy, cried and cried and cried. She refused to sleep in her crib so Jay brought her swing upstairs to our room. She had a restless sleep, so did Jay and I. We decided in the morning that we should have a doctor take a look to make sure there was nothing else going on. I tried calling the Hope Island Medical Center around 6:00 AM. They weren’t open but the call was directed to an urgent care center about 20 minutes away. Jay suggested that we take advantage of the house visiting doctor (Medcall). I gave them a call and a doctor arrived within about a half hour. He sat at the kitchen table and checked her over. One strange thing was that he didn’t have a tongue depressor, so he used one of Ty’s spoons. Pretty sure I will put tongue depressors or Popsicles on the shopping list.
$150 cash later (kind of felt illegal), and the diagnosis was that her ears, nose, and throat all looked fine, but apparently she has really hairy ears… Someday she will hate me for telling the world that. She has a tummy full of gas, likely from swallowing a lot of air because her mouth hurts – eating is no fun for her right now. :(. I stayed home with her to try to keep her happy when she is awake. Poor baby… My opinion of the capabilities of the Medcall doctor is only OK. He tried to tell me that Tylenol contains aspirin, but when I said that it is acetaminophen he said they are the same thing. Um, I don’t have a medical degree but Google told me that they are not the same thing. In his defense I don’t think they have Tylenol here. Their version is Panadol. I have heard from others that a good doctor is hard to find, and it is really strange but nobody has given me the name of a doctor that they would refer to me. It’s always “just find a GP, mate”. I guess I will have to be OK with subpar medical care for a while and will have to verify everything via Google.

Looking on the bright side, my home office for the day has a heck of a view, and with the sliding doors open I had a nice warm breeze flowing through the dining area.

Food.
Mud cakes = heaven in my mouth. It is a really rich, dense chocolate cake. Fabulous with ice cream or fresh raspberries. Yummy.

I have noticed that the food here must not have preservatives because everything gets moldy/stale a lot quicker than at home. Kind of a refreshing change.

My diet has changed quite a bit. I feel like I am eating healthier (ok, aside from the stuff my sweet tooth forces me to eat). I am buying more fruits and veggies at the store. I know this sounds pathetic, but I steamed broccoli and carrots for the first time this weekend. I also learned how to select and cut fresh mangoes and kiwi. I know I can get those at home but never took the time to figure out how to do it myself because HyVee has a package that is already cut up for me.

I have only tried one brand, but the “Magic Shell” and chocolate syrup are no bueno… I miss my Hershey’s…

Guests.
Sherry is coming to visit!!!!!! She will be here in February and March for 3 weeks. It will be wonderful to have her come and stay. We are going to have to start a sightseeing list. Ty and Lily are going to love spending time with Memaw. Yay!!!!

Filthy Rich.
Sunday we had to return a rental car and both kids fell asleep in the car. Jay took the scenic route to lunch and drove me through an area called Sovereign Island. I have no idea what these people do for a living but they are filthy stinking rich. The homes were GINORMOUS, overlooking what they call the broad water, which is basically the ocean but it has a small uninhibited island a ways offshore to protect the coastline. Absolutely beautiful. The yachts docked behind the homes were also ginormous. And the cars just sitting on the road in front of the homes were amazing. Most of the homes have huge underground parking for 8+ cars, so it makes you wonder what they have stored inside when the most beautiful car I have ever seen is parked on the side of the road like it’s not good enough for the covered parking. I fell in love with this V8 Vantage Aston Martin for me. If I owned the car, it would get its own spot in the garage, for sure…

As the kids started waking up, we left the land of the filthy rich and went to this adorable marina for lunch called Sanctuary Cove. There are adorable boutiques and fun little shops that I must go check out without the kids (and husband) in tow. Lunch was tasty, Ty ate fish and chips and liked it. He was thoroughly entertained by the pigeon that was wandering around the restaurant. I found it quite amusing that the only bird/animal that I have seen that looks remotely familiar is a stinking pigeon. 🙂

Jay had picked up a little remote control Lamborghini that kept Ty entertained through most of the meal. Which, by the way, took almost 2 hours… Both Jay and Ty got a kick out of seeing 2 real life Lamborghinis parked on the side of the road on our walk back to the car.

Roses.
For those of you that don’t know, I am a The Bachelor junky. I love the show back home and was wondering how I was going to watch it down under. Turns out there is a Bachelor Australia! I am catching the last few episodes, down to the final 5. Jay is thrilled…

Teeth.
Since lily still isn’t her normal self, we didn’t do too much this weekend. She isn’t running a temp anymore, but she just really isn’t happy. It is hard work growing teeth! But we did manage to squeeze in a little fun.

Words.
Bits and pieces (nuts and bolts); 100s and 1000s (sprinkles on desserts); sparky (electrician); fairy floss (cotton candy)

Laundry.
One of the benefits of living in a place that has a hot sun year round is that they have serious laundry drying racks outside the laundry room. The downside is that people rarely have dryers. We use both. 🙂

Shopping.
Every Saturday morning Aldi’s has awesome deals and people flock to the store like Black Friday. They love their super saver Saturday deals! Jay got a sweet deal on a trampoline for Ty. We don’t have furniture for the playroom, so we filled it with a giant trampoline. We were tired of telling Ty to stop jumping on the couch. 🙂

Teeth.
Lily had a rough day at daycare on Friday. She didn’t eat much and slept heaps (Australian for tons). She was whiny and fussy, so she spent a lot of the day in someone’s arms. She was definitely not herself Friday night, and Saturday she started drooling. I checked her mouth thinking there is no way that she is already cutting teeth, but low and behold, her first tooth is making a grand appearance! I ran to the grocery store a little after 5:00 pm to pick up some orajel (my tube is in the air shipment – didn’t figure I would need it this early) and was not pleased to see that the stores and chemist (pharmacist) all closed at 5:00. She seems to be content in her swing, so Jay spent the night on the couch with her. Good thing he picked out a comfy couch!

Fun.
Saturday night we went over to Brian and Mindy’s house. Brian is a Deere expat and they have been here for about a year and a half. He has been SO helpful throughout our transition. I am sure this relocation would have been 100 times more difficult if he hadn’t been so awesome about sharing his knowledge. They have 3 kids, ages 7, 8, and 10 (2 girls and a boy in the middle). They are adorable kids and Ty had a blast. Since Ty’s toys are stuck in the air shipment, he was thrilled to have toys and kids to play with. The best part is that they live just down the road, so we were able to walk and it took us maybe 5 minutes to get there. They cooked us a delicious meal and shared lots of stories about their time here. It was a very enjoyable evening, even with Lily being unhappy most of the time.

Peaceful.
Sunday morning Lily woke around 4:00, hating the world and the person that invented teeth. I took her down and put her in her swing, which apparently is her little oasis. After a few minutes of fussing, she fell asleep. Since the sun comes up at 4:30 every morning here, I was wide awake. I folded all of the laundry, washed the dishes, made a yummy breakfast with fresh kiwi, then sat on the patio and drank my tea. It was so peaceful. There was a slight breeze, perfect temp, birds chirping, tide rising so the water was gently rolling inland. I think I was the only person awake in the neighborhood. This was a nice reminder of the paradise that we are living in. Happy way to start the day.

It has been a long, draining first week of work and daycare, but we survived!

Halloween.
I have never seen a group of adults so excited about Halloween. Except, of course, at our epic Haloweenie parties. But as far as an office is concerned, wow. So many people came to work in costume. Unicorns, Ghostbusters, witches, devils, pirates, and scary ghouls overtook the office. The canteen (break room) had a spread of spooky snacks that Rachel and Ashley would have been impressed by. Jay and I both had the same thought…we felt like we were in an episode of The Office. Awesome.

Unfortunately Jay had to work late so I had the pleasure of taking care of everything by myself. I had barely walked in the door with a starving baby before kids were standing by the door. While I was stuck upstairs feeding lily, kids were pounding on the door. Some must have frightened Ty because he was hanging out in the bedroom. After I got the kids costumes on (lily was a fluffy pink bunny and Ty was a fireman…well sort of, but he wore out his costume on day 2 of our arrival in Australia), we headed out on foot and stroller to trick or treat. Turns out nobody in our neighborhood walks on Halloween, they all cruise around in their fantastically decorated buggies (golf carts). I had to set our bowl of Skittles and Starburst by the front door. I am guessing they didn’t last 5 minutes after we left the house.

Roos.
We have been in Australia for 2 weeks and have yet to see a kangaroo. Or a koala. Or a snake. Or a shark. Or a deadly spider. We have, however, seen a few lizards. Ty gets a kick out of the little white lizards that hang out on our patio at night – on the ceiling. Ty has to be wondering why we were talking about all of those critters for the past several months…

TV.
I haven’t had any time to sit and watch a TV show from start to finish, but Jay has been able to watch Walking Dead, and Ty has Nick JR (thank goodness!). The Nick JR programming is mostly the same but there are a few local shows throughout the day that we don’t get in the states.
I don’t understand all of the details on this, but apparently our movies that we brought from home (mostly for Ty) don’t work in the DVD players here. Something about a regional setting or something??? Sherry to the rescue with a US BluRay player in the mail!

Driving.
Every time we get on the road, I see cars I have never seen before. Jay has quite enjoyed this. He is trying to talk me into letting him get a Holden Ute and having it shipped home…

Kids.
Kids are given much more freedom here. At restaurants the kids just run around, parents don’t seem to mind or worry about them. Makes me feel a little better about my crazy kiddos, but I am a bit worried that Ty and Lily will adopt that behavior and then be out of control when we go back home in 2 years.

Babysitter.
We have lined up a babysitter for our first “date”. There is an end of year party at work in late November. One of Ty’s teachers is going to babysit. She is awesome, so we are lucky that she agreed to watch the kids!

Ew!
Personal hygiene and cleanliness is a bit lacking. Not horrible, by any means, but noticeably different. I feel like Ty doesn’t wash his hands at school nearly as much, and the floors seem a bit dirty, which is gross if you think about Lily eventually learning to crawl. Jay said the daycare we are at is by far the nicest he visited, so regulations must not be as strict. But I have heard that kids don’t get sick as often here. Wonder if that is because they have tougher immune systems because they aren’t over cleaning, or some other reason. Not too concerned, just grosses me out a bit.

Public bathrooms seem to be hard to come by, and if you are in a store that doesn’t have a public restroom they really don’t want you to use it. Once we talked them into letting Ty use it and I am convinced we came out with diseases. (See paragraph above). Soap in bathrooms is also lacking. Will be pleased when Sherry’s shipment of mini hand sanitizers arrives.

Random.
A loaf of white bread for sandwiches/toast is about 30% larger than what I am used to. This is great if you are hungry, but annoying when the top section of you bread doesn’t get toasted. YEAH TOAST!!

Dipper.
Don’t read this last section if you don’t want to hear the harsh reality stuff. This week was pretty tough emotionally. Jay had a stressful first week of work with year end, my work stress was caused by not knowing what I should be doing and trying to find ways to not be bored (both of these should be better next week). Reality is setting in for Ty so he is having some adjustment issues. Lily, bless her heart is clueless to all of the happenings. I was quite stressed with managing all of the evening activities by myself since Jay had to work late. Unpacking the car, washing bottles, feeding Lily, entertaining Ty, figuring out supper and cooking, packing lunches (thankfully Jay took this over midweek). By the time Jay got home we rushed to get the kids bathed and in bed, and then I just crashed. Seems like I haven’t sat down at home in a week, and lily is still waking at night to eat, and it annoys me that the house isn’t completely settled and we don’t have most of our things yet. Trick or treating on top of everything else almost pushed me over the ledge, but it was rewarding to see how happy Ty was and how cute they both looked. I need to keep focusing on the little things that make us happy, and remember that the ocean is just a short drive away. It was definitely a trying week, but I am hopeful that next week will be better. No worries, mates!