Busy, busy (but who isn't?)

It's been pointed out to me that I haven't updated since the beginning of May! Sheesh! Where does the time go?

Ah yes, the time goes to building impenetrable forts!

I guess there's nothing really new or exciting to blog about. Life in Australia is pretty boring these days. The weather has cooled off nicely and we're enjoying bundling up under blankets at night. This is the best time of year to live in Queensland: cool nights and warm days and not too much rain.

Our good Aussie girl wearing her Uggs on a chilly morning. (She's wearing an eyepatch to help get her peepers aligned. No pirate jokes, Aunt Becky!)

We're looking forward to a visit from Nate's dad next week. He will be here for three weeks, with a solo sojourn to Sydney in there somewhere.

Roxy put Grandpa doll into bed for a nap. She's practicing for when he gets here.

That's all for now. This last picture was requested by Katie (about a month ago). Taken tonight of preggo me just days from the six month mark. No endless summer pregnancy this time around!

Now accepting name suggestions! We are at an impasse for a boy name!

Baby Hardy is here!

Very happy to announce the early arrival of Roxanne Emerson Hardy.

Born December 11 at 1:24 am. 3.6 kg, 52 cm long.

Just about to spend our first night at home with her. Pictures will soon follow.

(We also have internet at home now! Hooray! Just in time!)

Thanksgiving, wildlife, signs of Christmas and baby update

Thanksgiving feast

We celebrated Thanksgiving on Friday with Nate's boss (an Aussie), his American wife and their kids. We had turkey, roasted veggies, stuffing and cranberry sauce. We made a rum raisin apple pie. Nate made the crust - we couldn't find vegetable shortening in the supermarket, so we had to make do with a block of lard - and I made the filling and put it all together. It was my first pie with a pastry crust and we ate it with vanilla ice cream.

Apple pie, ice cream, cheesecake, bottles of wine (emptied by the end of the night).

We are getting used to living in a house without screens and with large gaps between the floorboards and under the doors. We've got geckos living behind the fridge, plenty of bumbling beetles that come in for a visit and end up on their backs, unable to right themselves, and ringtail possums walking across the roof (possums haven't come in yet, but I saw one saunter across the carport roof about three feet from the open kitchen window).

The possums here are much cuter than their American opossum cousin:

(photos from Wikipedia possum page)

I had a big heebie-jeepie encounter the other night. After dinner, I saw a small beast scurry across the kitchen floor and towards the trash can. I figured it was just a (very fast-moving) cockroach. I turned on the light with Nate's cockroach-smashing sandal in hand and this is what I saw:

A lot bigger than it looks.

Yikes! Check out those chelicerae!

We grabbed our copy of the Wildlife of Greater Brisbane (thanks Pete and Penny!) and flipped through to identify this new visitor. It wasn't too hard to find it - it's the first species listed in the spider chapter because it's pretty common in households. It was a Brown huntsman spider. We are a spider-friendly household, so after shining a flashlight and bugging it for a while, we left it alone and minutes later, it scurried out the front door, just as it had entered.

We learned that the bite, although painful, isn't too venomous, but that if you squish it, the explosion could lead to a couple days of blindness. I can't imagine squishing something that size anyway!

Signs of Christmas are everywhere. Santa Claus is featured in every other TV commercial and there are fake trees popping up all over.

Brisbane's Christmas tree

The far more festive Poinciana trees are blooming all over town. I think they fit the season and climate much better than a plastic pine tree.

One of many blooming Poinciana trees in and around Brissie

Baby Update!
We had a ultrasound last week (required by the hospital) and the tech told us that bub is pretty big already - not fat, but with above average sized head and femurs (femora). She estimated that bub weighs about 3.5 kg (the same size as the turkey we ate for Thanksgiving). Bub certainly feels pretty big to me. I've got those long legs firmly planted in my ribs and that above-average head sitting right on my bladder. Really, really looking forward to finally meeting bub!

I'm starting to feel (and look?!) more and more like this:

Brisbane public transportation signage

Pregnant goat from the business end (as drawn by my grandmother)

We met our neighbors yesterday and found out that the mother/wife in the family is a former midwife at the hospital I will be attending. What are the odds?!

Here I am just this morning with two weeks to go:

Thank goodness for big t-shirts. The maternity shirts don't quite cover the belly anymore!

Nate (two weeks to go until daddyhood) showing off his sympathy belly - yeah right!

long-awaited photos

Alright, so I promised photos weeks (almost) ago. Some photos from the past few weeks...

Ainsley and Nate

Our beetle-loving friend Ainsley has relocated from Berkeley to Canberra. She was in town for a visit to the Queensland Museum and points north, so we met up with her for a night of Mussels from Brussels and Belgian beer. (She broke her foot earlier that week in a bike accident and was a good sport to hobble around the Brisbane CBD in search of a good place to eat.)

Manly's version of Ecto 1

For Halloween, we took the train out to Manly, a seaside town that was holding a Halloween festival (complete with firebreathers and belly dancers). We ate at a yummy fish and chips place (Nate continued on his mission to rid the world of barramundi) and saw countless pint-sized Spidermans (Spidermen?).

Now they tell us! The magpie isn't quite so comical in real life when it's screeching and diving at your head.

Photos of our apartment!

The front door. Our apartment is 1/3 of a converted Queenslander house, so the entrance is at the back of the property. Up the steps, not through the wooden gate. It's a highset house, so it's supposed to keep cool in summer. We'll just see about that...
The kitchen
The lounge (taken from the kitchen). Yes, the fridge is in the lounge. Not much room in the kitchen for it!
The bathroom (mermaid shower curtain purchased on sale at Target.) just off from the lounge. It has a funny galley door that slides open.
Guest bedroom/office and adjoining sunroom. It's full of packaging material at the moment. Nothing else to put in there until our things arrive!
Our bedroom with the crib sort of set up.Sunroom that adjoins our bedroom with fan and diaper changing area (let's hope this kid doesn't arrive too soon - we're not quite ready).
Our neighborhood
Me, with 4 1/2 weeks to go until the due date. Black is slimming, no? (Sorry for the half-smile. I was half asleep.)
The belly (and chest!) from my point of view. No feet in sight.

We're getting settled in the apartment, still getting used to the neighborhood and the quirks that come with living in a converted house. Nate's got a tough commute until his bike arrives with the rest of our things (about an hour if he times it right with the bus) and the futon we're sleeping on isn't quite as comfortable as our dear mattress.

Things are scheduled to arrive on November 25, with a couple of days or weeks to get through customs. Anyone want to start wagering on which arrives first? Baby or our stuff? Just our luck, they'll show up on the same day.

So we have a permanent address. If you want it, just e-mail me or Nate. We don't have internet set up yet, so I'm still trekking to the State Library to use their free wireless.

uh oh...

Baby boy born on airliner en route to Australia