Happy Thanksgiving!

Australian Brush Turkey - not quite plump enough for dinner.

Technical difficulties

I made the blog private overnight, but it's public again. There have been some technical difficulties with blogger regarding privacy that I'm trying to work out.

eblogger and blogspot are google products. I've learned that it's nearly impossible to e-mail anyone about a problem with the blog. You can either search for the answer in their help fora or menus or you can SEND THEM A SNAIL MAIL! Yes, those are the options.

Reading through the help forum at google reminds me of that scene in Bruce Almighty when he tries to figure out how to organize all of the prayers that he's getting. People seem to be asking for google help every second of every day and they're trying to handle it as best they can. I'm sure if they offered an email address, they would need dozens of full-time staff just to handle it all.

November 11

This is part of an e-mail about Remembrance Day that I wrote to my uncle, who is a veteran.

"In Australia, November 11 is called Remembrance Day. At eleven o'clock in the morning, everybody in the country observes a moment of silence for those lost in wars, and to honor the veterans of those wars. All of the news anchors, politicians and plenty of everyday folks wear a red poppy on their left lapel (as close to their heart as possible) all day because poppies bloomed on many of the worst WWI battlefields in Europe. Nobody gets a day off from work, and nobody says, 'Happy Remembrance Day.' It's a relatively solemn day and wreaths of poppies are placed at memorials and veterans gather to remember their fallen mates."

In other news...

Roxanne turned 11 months old on November 11. There's an old wives' tale that babies get cranky and grizzly right before a big developmental milestone. Well, she cranked to no end on Saturday and Monday and then all of the sudden, she started scooting deliberately all around the place.

Crankenstein Lives!!!

I shot the following video earlier today. She thinks it's a lot of fun to scoot into the bathroom and then scoot away as fast as she can when I try to get her. Sometimes she gets so excited that she just turns around in a circle before she figures which direction she wants to go. Tonight before her bath, she scooted as fast as she could to the edge of the tub and pulled herself up! Uh oh. We're installing the baby gate this weekend and keeping the bathroom door closed from now on.

[This video doesn't seem to work on Safari - anyone else having that problem? It plays in Firefox just fine.]

Ashley's Visit

Nate's only first cousin Ashley dropped in for a visit at the beginning of October. She's traveling all around Australia (she's in Western Australia at the moment), and we were lucky enough to be a part of her itinerary. We hadn't seen her in three years!

Roxy modeling her new little ripper shoes Ashley got for her.

Overseas visitors means one thing: Lots of new adventures! Ashley dubbed Rox, "Adventure Baby," because she did so well on our daily trips.

Day 1: Gold Coast, Surfer's Paradise and Coff's Harbor.

Ashley has surfing on the mind, so I thought she would be the perfect guest to take down to the Gold Coast. It's only about 75 km down the road and we haven't been there yet, so we hopped in the car to see if it really is paradise down there.

Well, it's not. When we told Nate about it that night, we used words like, 'tired,' and 'run down,' and 'not paradise,' to describe what we had seen. There were lots of skyscrapers, overpriced food, crowded roads, only so-so beaches and surf. We spent some time on the beach, but it was really windy and there were dead jellyfish in the surf, so it wasn't ideal.

One of only two pictures I took on our visit to the Gold Coast. Deserted beach because of the wind and sand.

The trip wasn't a total bust. We escaped the Brissie heat and also drove over the border into New South Wales for about ten seconds, just to say we did it.

Day 2: Moreton Island

The next day we ventured off-shore. Ashley works for a ferry company in Alaska, so we decided to take a local ferry to Moreton Island, the 2nd (3rd?) largest sand island in the world. It's just off the coast of Brisbane, about an hour and a half by boat. It's very sparsely populated, but there are lots of campsites and the only non-camping accommodation is the spendy Tangalooma Resort. We just went for the day.

Ferry ride!

Lots of activities to partake in on the island.

Day 3: Glasshouse Mountains

Day 3 was a Saturday, so Nate was off work and joined us on our adventures. We drove north to the Glasshouse Mountains, which are in the Sunshine Coast Hinterland. We were in Australia Zoo territory and traveled on Steve Irwin Way for a portion of our trip. The guidebook describes the Glasshouse Mountains as, "ethereal volcanic crags...[that] rise abruptly from subtropical plains." Sounded promising, and lucky us, it delivered!

We hiked up to the top of Mt. Ngungun after a picnic and we could see all the way to the Sunshine Coast.

Ashley in the Ngungun Cave on the way up the hill.

Stopping at a look-out on the way up.

Ashley setting the self-timer with the Sunshine Coast in the background.

Extreme breastfeeding!

Day 4: Sunshine Coast, Moolooba, Peregian Beach

We piled in the car the next day and drove north again, this time in search of beautiful beaches. The Sunshine Coast did not disappoint! We have been up there for when my mom visited in February, but Rox was just a wee thing back then and the weather didn't really cooperate, so we didn't get a lot of quality beachtime.

This time we had perfect weather and a game baby. We started out with a yummy fresh lunch in Moolooba and drove up to the lovely Peregian Beach where we spent the afternoon tanning (Ashley), napping (Nate), reading (Cory) and eating sand (guess who).

Nate built Rox a fortress in the sand.

The dancer in Ashley came out when it came to posture.

She got a smooch for walking so well. Lookatthosebuns!!!

Ashley flew onto Perth the next day. She thought she might come back our way if the beaches in Perth weren't as good as the Queensland beaches. The last I heard from her, she was snorkeling with turtles and sharks, so I think we might not see her again on this trip. It was great to have her and we had a great time exploring so many new places!

Happy Halloween!

Skeleton Baby dances with ghosts!

Halloween isn't really a big deal here, but we were invited to a Halloween Party by Nate's Aussie boss and his American wife. It was a party for kids, so there were about a dozen little specters running around. Most of the little girls were dressed as witches (although there was a notable SuperGirl-Who-Flew-Into-A-Building) and the boys were dressed in whatever costume would allow them to carry the biggest toy weapon, i.e. machete, sword, AK-47. It was pretty much like Halloween party in America.

Coven leader Jade making a deal with Skeleton Baby

We had hotdogs and hamburgers and ate cupcakes adorned with imported candy corn and candy pumpkins. Just to remind us that we are in Australia, someone brought over pavlovas adorned with chocolate spiderwebs. Pavlovas are an extremely popular dessert here. I love them; Nate feels just the opposite.

Spooky!