It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

Last year I asked some of my new Aussie friends what, for them, hailed the coming of the Christmas Season.  Someone mentioned the blooming jacaranda trees and frangipani flowers, others said it was the climbing temperatures or the end of the school year.  It's been neat, this year, to pay attention for these changes as Christmas approaches.

The jacaranda trees have bloomed.

The frangipani flowers are coming along nicely.  

School is out for the summer (or so I've been told), the temperature is rising, and Christmas is in the air.

Last week, Eliot helped me decorate the tree.

Can you tell which part of the tree he was in charge of?  ;)

Peter is pretty impressed with the tree as well, and will frequently ask us, in his own little way, to turn on the lights.

Eliot helped me make a few more ornaments for the tree.

Peter checked the quality of our work.

Playing with a new Nativity from Grandma, and listening to Christmas music, helps us get into the spirit.

In spite of 30+ temps, our little traditionalist insisted on lighting a candle.

Chestnuts aren't roasting on open fires and Jack Frost is nowhere to be found, but we're feeling pretty Christmas-ie.  Hope you are too!

The Dynamic Duo

Peter is inching away from Babyhood (he's still my little Baby Man) and moving toward Little Boyhood, and his and Eliot's relationship continues to evolve.  The Play Mate Era is beginning to dawn.

Eliot is always ready to help.  He has tons of initiative.  You rarely even need to ask :)

Eliot is pretty good with Peter, for the most part, but I still have to keep an eye on them when they play.  Recently Eliot has gotten the idea that putting Peter in a head lock is just about the funniest thing ever.  Peter, Spencer, and I disagree.

They both love to play with cars.  Which can be good and bad.

Peter is Eliot's biggest fan.  This afternoon Peter woke up from his nap first.  He was in a very good mood and brought me book after book to snuggle up with.  But when he realized that Eliot was still in the other room, he ran to the bedroom door and would not be consoled.  Eventually Eliot woke up from his nap and all was well again.

Trouble in Blogging Paradise

I was happily working on a blog post one day, when I tried to upload a picture and was informed that I'd used up all my storage space and asked if I'd like to purchase more.  Up to this point, blogging has cost me nothing, which is one of the things I've found most appealing about it.  I looked around in some help forums and found that other people were having trouble too.  Some had purchased more storage and still couldn't upload pictures, etc.  I looked into Blogger's policy and found out that you get 1GB of free storage for pictures and videos.  Any photos that are less than 800x800 pixels or videos shorter than 15 min, don't count toward that limit.  In other words, you can upload as many small files as you like.  Problem solved!  But wait.  When I went to upload my photos to Picasa Web Albums (the place where Blogger stores your blogged photos) it worked for a couple pictures and then started giving me an "Unknown Server Error" even though I was changing the pictures to the smaller size.  As you can imagine, this was enormously frustrating.  I tried everything to get past that server error.  I posted questions on help forums that went unanswered.  I went through all the troubleshooting.  I deleted cookies and caches, I adjusted the firewall, tinkered with toggles, I was messing with things I never even knew existed!  I even tried deleting pictures from older posts.  Nothing worked.

I was encouraged, by cooler heads, to go ahead and purchase more storage, but at this point it had become a matter of principle.  If Blogger's policy had stated that you got 1GB of free storage and then after that you had to start paying, then fine.  But it didn't.  It said that small files wouldn't count toward the storage limit but if you wanted to upload larger images you were welcome to upgrade your storage--good luck uploading your small files.  I didn't care how cheap it was, I wasn't giving them a dime.

So I sent the question out on Facebook and got a lot of great ideas.  The one I ended up going with was a site called Photobucket.com where I could upload my pictures and then copy the URL onto my blog and...Presto!  Pictures on the blog again!  I can heave a sigh of relief and continue on my merry way, a mere $5 a year richer, but nevertheless.

Also, if you've tried to comment on my blog in the past and have met with all kinds of trouble trying to make out those strange symbols that are there to determine if you're a robot, and it has sent you into some kind of existential crisis because, I mean, what if you are a robot, I think I've solved the problem.  I've made some changes to my settings which should make life a little easier for all of us.

So, all's well in Blogging Paradise again :) 

A Sampling of School

There seems to be a problem right now with Google and Picasa.  Other bloggers are having the same problem and it is preventing us from putting pictures on our blogs.  Hopefully they get it straightened out soon.  In the meantime, let me tell you about our outing the other day; it doesn't involve pictures.

Eliot will be starting Kindergarten next February.  He'll be attending all day on Monday and Tuesday with a half day on Wednesday.  Talking to other moms about school stuff makes me feel like Spencer and I are standing on the brink of a whole new phase of parenting.  It's kind of like being pregnant for the first time with all of the worries and questions about the unknown.  It's exciting, but also a little scary.

Yesterday they had a welcome day for all of the new Kindergarten and Pre-Primary children at Eliot's school.  We were to drop our child off at their classroom at 9:30 and then proceed to the library where we would be given all kinds of information, and a nice morning tea, before returning to collect our child at 11:00.  I wondered how Eliot would react to my leaving him with a bunch of strangers for an hour and a half.  I spent all of Monday telling him all about it.  We had been there once, many  months ago, when we'd visited to check it out, and at the time Eliot had been delighted with a toy pizza he'd seen.  I made sure to remind him of it.  I also made it clear that Peter and I would not be joining him.  He seemed pretty excited about going to school, and even seemed comfortable with the idea that I would not be with him the whole time, but he did insist that Peter would be staying with him.

When we arrived at the classroom, however, his eyes widened.  We were the first ones there and he had to wait in the doorway while the room was readied.  He leaned in over the threshold, trying to take it all in.  When he was finally able to go in I bid him goodbye and see-you-later, but I don't think he even noticed me leave.

Peter and I had a nice time at the morning tea.  We munched on cookies and cupcakes and I chatted with some of the other parents.  When I went to pick Eliot up he was excited to see me, but wasn't in any hurry to leave.  He'd made a little paper Christmas mouse with a candy cane tail (which he ate on the drive home) and told me that he'd been able to play with the toy pizza.  It was a good day for both of us.  Something to make that Day in February just a little less scary.

Giving Thanks

So, this year I forgot about Thanksgiving.  I mean, not totally.  I knew it was coming up, and on Wednesday I remembered that the next day was Thanksgiving.  But by then I'd already planned on having prawn skewers for supper and going out to a movie with girlfriends in the evening.  So, we had prawn skewers for supper and I went out to a movie with girlfriends in the evening.  It's amazing how those American holidays can sneak up on you when you're away.

We may not have had turkey, but we certainly had enough pie.  An American family at church has a tradition of inviting friends over the Sunday before Thanksgiving for a pie night.  Everyone brings a pie to share and we all eat our fill of the one thing everyone loves but scarcely has room for after a large meal.  The boys had less pie that I had expected, which was probably just as well.  They were far more interested in running and playing with all the other children, which I'm certain they were thankful for.

Not having a turkey dinner certainly did not detract from my feelings of gratitude for my health, my husband and children, our extended family, our friends, our comfort and safety.

A little time off

Back when my mother was planning her visit, she and I planned on a few days when I could go on some excursions without the boys.  Partly to give me a little break, and partly to have the boys to herself.  I looked forward to my mom's visit because I was excited to see her, but I think I was equally excited about my 'days off'.  Spencer had planned on taking the boys for a day, but his work schedule has been far too exacting these past few months.

I love my little boys so much, and I love the chance I have at this time to be at home with them full-time.  But it was time for a little break.  I missed them a little during the day, but I found that missing them a bit turned out to be a really good thing.  All the little exasperating things had faded a bit and I felt fresh, rejuvenated  and ready to be patient again.  I also had a really great time.

Here are a few of the things I saw and did:

Kings Park
I had breakfast at a little cafe in the park where I could slowly drink an entire pot of tea, and peruse a book, before starting off on a couple of free walking tours.

On a previous post I wrote that the boab tree isn't native.  Well, I must have been too busy chasing little boys on my previous visits to read the signs very closely, because this time I learned that the boab tree is native to Australia.  The Kimberly in Australia's north west is full of them.  The only other places you find boab trees naturally is in parts of Africa and Madagascar.  Evidence of continental drift.  Fascinating.

Didn't catch the name of this fruit, but apparently the pieces come apart and fit back together just one way.  Aboriginal children play with it like a puzzle.  Pretty cool.

This is called a 'bird flower'.  Can you see it?

Banksia.  Lovely and everywhere.

Peppermint tree.  They have a lot of these throughout the city.

These are called 'black boys'.  

A honey-eater

The crows aren't shy about helping themselves.

Beach Day

I spent an entire day at the beach.  Spencer wasn't sure I could do it.  But I did.

I was the only one on the beach with not just one, but two beach umbrellas.  I got a sunburn anyway.

Two of the beaches had been closed that morning due to shark sightings.  That was okay, because I was only planning on wading in a little.

In the rocks along the shore I found all these cool little fossils.  I took a picture with my foot for scale.  I wonder what they were.

Margaret River

Spencer and I drove down to Margaret River for two days and a night.  

We toured three different caves.

Most of the photos in the caves didn't turn out so well, but this one was worth keeping.  It's a floating table.  The guide told us that it is one of only two in the world that have been discovered, and the other one is in a cave in France that isn't open to the public.  It was pretty neat to see.

Each cave involved hundreds of stairs.

The karri trees are immense.

Getting our feet wet just before sunset.

The tree outside the front door of our B&B sported one of these incredible parasitic plants.  I used to clean house for a guy who grew one of these on a piece of wood on his wall.  This one was at least ten times its size.  Amazing.

The forest was full of these.

The lighthouse at Cape Leeuwin.  We a took a tour to the top.

Cape Leeuwin is where the Southern Ocean and the Indian Ocean meet, so you can see them both.  The tour guide pointed out that the two oceans aren't divided by an arbitrary line on a map.  They are governed by different currents and from time to time you can see them splash up against one another.

A view of the Southern Ocean from the top of the lighthouse.  We also caught a glimpse of a pair of dolphins.

We each took a turn dipping our toes in the Southern Ocean.  It had just started raining but we ran down to the beach anyway.

It was so windy, and those waves came up fast.

So long Cape Leeuwin.  We'll be back.

Happy parents = Happy children