A birthday, Father's Day, and the first day of Spring

This was a busy weekend for us.  Spencer's birthday was on Saturday, September 1, which is also the first day of  Spring down here in the Southern Hemisphere.  The next day was Father's Day (our second this year :)  Spencer was reluctant to celebrate his birthday, but the boys and I had other plans.  Eliot helped me make the lemon meringue cake, which turned out really nicely in spite of the somewhat droopy meringue (note to self:   it's time to replace the electric hand mixer that got left behind in Toronto.)

Peter enjoyed cleaning out the lemon custard bowl.

 

Spencer is working hard to get his book ready for the publisher, along with several other projects, so after a morning of phone calls with family he was off to the office.  When he got home we took the boys for a walk through the park just behind our place.

Eliot enjoys giving Yellow Bear a ride in the swing.

Spencer pushed Peter in the swing.  Peter could have stayed there for the rest of the evening.

Burying Yellow Bear in the sand.

Spencer and Peter got a head start back home.

Eliot ran to catch up.  Peter thought that was pretty hilarious.

Eliot helped blow out the candles.

The cake was a great way to end the day.  

On Sunday, for Father's Day, we had some friends over for supper and served pork vendaloo with Naan (a repeat from Father's Day back in June).  It was fun to celebrate Spencer for the whole weekend.  We all love him so much.  Sunday night, before bed, Spencer played a game with Eliot.  Spencer would give him an instruction like "run over to the wall and back", and Eliot would carry it out, giggling all the way.  When it was time for Eliot to go to bed he gave Spencer a hug and said (prompted by me) "Happy Father's Day, Daddy", then he added without any prompting, "Thank you for playing run and jump back and forth with me."  Thank you, indeed.

&#@*!%!!$, or something like that.

Eliot loves helping out at with the dishes.  This is a picture that I took last summer (December) that didn't make it onto the blog.  Anyway...

One of the fun things about having little children in the house is that you get to come up with all kinds of fun new expletives.  Not that I'm generally one for swearing.  I'd be lying if I said that I've never let some 'bad' words slip.  But I've come up with tamer ways of venting my frustration, even avoiding words like 'dang' for 'shinanigans' or substituting 'silly' for 'stupid'.  Eliot has picked up on it and it's been fun to hear some of the things he comes up with.  They're generally pulled from his own experience.  These are some of my favourites:

Aw, Vasa Piglet!  (a character from one of his books)

Fizzy Colours!  (baking soda and coloured vinegar that I give him to play with)
Oh, Figgy Pudding! (as in, 'please bring us some figgy pudding...')
Aw, Captain Peter's Fish and Chips! (an actual take-out place that we patronize every once in a while)

I think I prefer whining.

When I was a missionary serving in Switzerland people there assumed that as an American my native language was 'American', rather than English.  Some of them thought that we literally spoke two different languages.  I laughed at the notion.  But living here in Australia, and learning a lot of new words and pronunciations, I can see how they may have gotten that impression.

Bell peppers are called 'capsicum.'  I first ran into this when trying to read the ingredients list on a jar of pasta sauce.  On the evening news the other day they even mentioned that police had used 'capsicum spray' to subdue some rioters.

Then there are the words like 'boot' and 'mate', that are so well-known that they're almost cliché (I'm happy to report that I've resisted the temptation to say 'wow, you guys really do say that?').  A shopping cart is a 'trolly', the parking lots are 'car parks', diapers are 'nappies', strollers are 'prams'.  A lot of the words are from the UK, but there are some that are original to Australia.

One that really makes me smile is the British word 'whinging.'  The 'g' in the middle is pronounced like a 'j' and the word means 'to complain or protest, especially in an annoying or persistent manner.'  Or, as we'd say in North America--whining.  At this point the Harry Potter fans might be saying, 'Oh!  Little Whinging!  Of course!  Hahaha!'

I like 'whinging', it's cute.  Maybe too cute.  Perhaps I'm just not used to it, but for me it really doesn't call to mind someone who's complaining or protesting in an annoying or persistent manner.  They get a lot of things right here, but I think I'm going to have to stick with 'whining.'  It's such a great word.  It's practically an onomatopoeia.

This picture doesn't really have anything to do with the post, it just made me smile too.

Just having some fun

It's so fun seeing Eliot and Peter play together.  Enjoy.

Winter blooms: golden wattle

About a month ago the wattle started to bloom.  There are many different varieties and the one pictured on the Australia Day stamp from 1990 is Australia's national flower.  I've always enjoyed learning the official flower of different places (the possibility of its being arbitrary not withstanding).  I know that Wisconsin's state flower is the wood violet, Kansas has the sunflower, and Alberta's provincial flower is the wild rose.

The golden wattle is beautiful and blooms all along the roadsides, as we discovered on our drive down to Busselton.  With its can't-throw-a-stone-without-taking-out-some-wattle presence it might come as a surprise to you, as it did to me--though fortunately not through sad experience--that it is illegal to pick wild wattle.  You have to either admire it from afar, grow it yourself, or purchase it from someone who grows it.  Or, as in my case, be fortunate enough to stumble upon a friendly woman selling eggs at the Fremantle Market.  She had bunches of wattle along the back of her booth and offered me some just because I admired it.  That, and I'd just bought a dozen eggs.  I love wattle.  It's not difficult to see why Australian's are so protective of their floral emblem.

When it catches the sunlight, it glows.

Marx on Religion

The great thing about these two pictures is that neither of them was staged.  They were taken roughly one year apart; Eliot's in Toronto and Peter's here in Perth.  Perhaps it's the beard that draws them in--at least that certainly appears to be the case with Peter.  In any event, we'll have to be on our toes.  We may have two budding revolutionaries on our hands.

Peter and the Tim Tams

We generally have a little dessert after our supper here.  For dessert we generally each have one Tim Tam (a popular Australian cookie.)  Peter has recently started joining us at the supper table and sharing in dessert.  He has fallen head over heals in love with Tim Tams.  At the first sound of the crinkling package his eyes light up and he kicks and squeals and does everything he can to communicate his enthusiasm.  I'd be worried except that he acts the same when he sees fresh strawberries or watermelon.