Today we did all sorts of things related to the water: swimming, boating (sort of), and storms (sort of).

Swim.
Saturday morning Ty had a swim lesson. This time he had his goggles – since he wasn’t worried about wiping the water from his eyes he spent most of the lesson with his head underwater. He dove down to pick up toys off the floor. He floated on his belly, face down. He used the kick board out in front of him and kicked across the pool with his face in the water. Future Olympian?

Boats.
After a quick brekky at the marina, we drove to another marina to see a guy about a boat. He has made a living shipping Harleys from the US to Australia, and thought he would give importing boats a shot. Problem is, there are heaps of boats here, so it wasn’t a great decision. The boat was OK, had some cosmetic issues, but we weren’t 100% sold on it. Jay found another one online do we drove down the coast and checked it out. Just a bit more expensive than the first but WAY nicer. It is a 2006 (or 7???) Regal 2600. Totally clean, bigger, and from a legit boat dealer (who can help us sell it when we leave Australia). We both really liked it, so we put in an offer. The owner (dealer was acting as broker for the owner) countered and we accepted the counter. Next we will take it for a test drive (was dry docked) with an inspector, and if all goes well, we’ll have a boat tied to our pontoon (dock) in a week or two! The process feels a lot like buying a house. :). I am excited to explore the coastline, Jay is excited to have a toy to play with, Ty is excited to have an onboard toilet, and Lily is looking forward to lounging with mama under the bimini. We are all excited to take visitors out on the water (hint hint book your flights – Qantas is having a sale)! We know the old saying about “if it flies, floats, or f$#%s, pay by the hour,” but how many times in our life will we be living ON the most beautiful coastline in the world? We are thinking the enjoyment we get out of it will be worth every penny. Cross your fingers that all goes well with the purchase! To be continued…

Hot.
Probably adding more motivation to our boat hunting is the fact that it is HOT today. So hot, in fact, that the neighbor across the canal was mowing his yard in his Speedos. I tried to get a picture but he finished before I could grab my phone. I will try to snap a pic next time. Ladies, don’t get excited. He is old…

We chilled out (literally) in the toy room for a while before Jay and Ty had to leave to get their hair cuts and do some grocery shopping. Lily rolled her way around, and Ty played with his tractors. One of the ladies from work gave us 2 giant bags of books (awesome!), so we have been making our way through those.

Rudolph.
We got all dressed up to go to Sanctuary Cove for some market shopping, dinner, and hopefully a Santa sighting. We thought we would give it a shot despite the storm clouds we saw building around us. As we were driving in to Sanctuary Cove, we noticed a long line of cars leaving. Not a good sign. But we got out of the car, Ty put on his blinking Rudolph nose, and we sang Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer through the parking lot…right up to the area where all of the vendors were packing up their merchandise and tents. They closed up shop an hour earlier than expected because of the storm that was headed our way. We walked by the shop where Santa was supposed to be, which looked awesome – nutcrackers, a sleigh, red carpet – but the storm scared Santa away as well. Nuts!! We will try again tomorrow.

Storms.
We got back in the car and headed home. I snapped a couple pictures of the crazy storm clouds. The storms come and go quickly here, but the show that Mother Nature puts on with the clouds in the sky is amazing. We haven’t seen a drop of rain, but it looks like places around us are getting drenched. There are some areas that are getting hail – glad that isn’t us!