I Miss My DVR

I probably spend way too much time on this blog discussing cable and internet or lack thereof, but today, while the rain is pouring down, and many parts of Australia are flooded, I would give anything for a DVR with my favorite shows on it. Instead me and Avery (who has a terrible cold and I am still on the mend) are watching ABC Kids nonstop. Please let this rain stop.

Oh and last night when Jeff went to fire up the BBQ, a mouse was in there taking shelter from the rain! You can't make these things up. They only happen in Oz...

Update On Liebster Award

This post is a bit overdue, but I have so many excuses. My sister was visiting, the internet is crap here, and now I am sick for the millionth time this year - wondering if me getting sick has anything to do with being in Oz? Hmm. So I apparently won this Liebster Award. Everyone who gets nominated is a winner. I have to say I love the premise behind the award because it's very grassroots. It's a way to recognize all the smaller, less-known but still important blogs out there. And in turn, a "winner" must nominate more blogs they like. Now I need to do some research because truth be told I was following a lot of blogs before moving to Oz and having limited internet data usage. Now I really only follow a few that friends have because I have to save my precious data for skyping with family so they can see our daughter grow. So I am tabling the nominations, however, on a side note and in a stream of consciousness flow, I want to tell expats out there that I highly recommend you set up a Google Voice account before you leave your country. It will allow you to call or text people from your home country on their cell phones for free. They can also leave you a voicemail or text that you will get via email. We use this often and it saves on data if you have the issue we have of limited data.

Blue Mountains Getaway

My sister Lisa visited last week, and we planned a sort of last-minute weekend trip to the Blue Mountains. My husband was kind enough to let us leave him with the baby (my first time leaving her overnight!). We needed something that we could drive to from Sydney, and the Blue Mountains were perfect. It took about 2 hours with little traffic and once we got there we stayed at Lilianfels. We had read mixed reviews on Trip Advisor, so we were pleasantly surprised at how incredible the service and rooms were. It had "old world charm" as my sister would describe it. We had a nice dinner the first night at the sister property Echoes next door and had a wonderful 3 course meal while we watched the sunset over the mountains - such stunning views. From the restaurant, we could see Scenic World, which we visited the following morning. After that, we had a 4WD safari to see kangaroos. It was really cool to see them in the wild hopping around. We did the Blue Mountains Guides tour. It was from 5:30-11pm so we saw the roos as the sun was setting. Then our guide Craig fired up the BBQ and made a great meal. While we were eating though I was bitten by a small leach, and as I was freaking out about it we saw A HUGE FUNNEL WEB SPIDER. This is the most dangerous and deadly spider in Australia. OMG. I will have to load photos soon. It was super scary but we got away unharmed. I highly recommend the Blue Mountains. Oh and we shopped one day in Leura and it is such a cute little town. Another must if you have the time.

Sky Car At Scenic World

Birds at Scenic World

View from Echoes Restaurant

Funnel Web! Eww!

Blog Award Nomination - Moi?

I am so excited to tell my very few followers and readers that this blog was just nominated for a Liebster Award! When I googled the actual award name, I get lots of blogs mentioning it but failed to find the actual web site housing the awards. From what I can find, I was nominated by a Liebster award-winning blogger who is actually Australian and living in France for a year with her family of seven (cool!). Check out Our House In Quercy to read all about it. The requirements to be nominated include less than 200 Google followers (easy to "tick this box" - American translation: "check this one off the list") and of course have some cool content. Thank you to Our House In Quercy for the nomination. Here's a link to her nomination page.

Traveling To America By Myself With a 9 Month Old

Months leading up to our departure, I was dreading this trip. Most Americans, I think, feel the same way I do. But I know many moms in my mom's group who travel to other countries with their bubs and don't seem to give it a second thought. They don't all do it by themselves, but it's much more of a common thing to do here, I guess because so many have family in other countries. And that's why I sacrificed my sanity, spending 2 weeks away from my husband, and I'm glad we did it. However, if I had known that the return trip would be a million times harder than the flights out, I may have had second thoughts.

Let me begin by saying that the trip there could not have been easier unless we had had a bassinet seat. I got to the ticket counter in Sydney and they offered me 3 bulkhead seats but no bassinet. Ugh. How to have a 14 hour flight and a baby sleeping on me? How do you use the bathroom? Will she even sleep? How do I eat my meals? Fill out customs forms? All of these thoughts rapidly ran through my head. But I sucked it up, got on the plane, and by a miracle was given a "floor bassinet," which was really a duffel bag with some cardboard supporting the sides. See below.

She barely fit in there but somehow was comfortable enough to sleep. God bless her. Then we got to SFO and happened upon a baby playroom. Jackpot! Avery is crawling and needed an outlet to release all that baby crawling energy and this was perfect. Long story short, this was a dream travel day. Of course I should mention a few things I noticed as an expat. United Airlines is much less accommodating to single moms or moms/families in general than other Australian based ones. Quantas and Jetstar both were wonderful. I had heard from friends that the stewards and stewardesses were trained to help mothers, holding the baby while you use the bathroom, washing bottles, etc. This was not the case on United. It was a much more annoyed/flippant attitude. I asked one if they had anything I could wash bottles with besides the hand soap in the bathroom and was quickly and flatly told no. The people, however, who are parents or grandparents and traveling alongside you can be godsends. I don't know what I would have done on the return flights without these angels who helped me out.

And to that, I won't go into a lot of detail because it's something I'm trying to block from my memory, but basically within two weeks, my baby became 100% more active, refusing to even let me change her diaper, and add to that severe jetlag, and you have a miserable 24 hours. Charlotte to San Francisco included a few hours of screaming and middle seat friend who didn't want to move to another middle seat (someone behind us kindly offered!), so when she wasn't screaming, Avery was trying to grab his computer, book, arm hair, and then wasn't able to nap because he had his reading light on. The second flight she slept for five hours and the other 10 weren't so bad thanks to a surrogate dad sitting next to us who was a new father himself and was great helping me out.

St George Open Air Cinema

Last weekend we visited the Botanical Gardens for the very popular Open Air Cinema and it didn't disappoint. It only happens in January and February and if you want tickets, you have to buy them right when they go on sale or they sell out. I got some great advice to go to their web site and sign up for updates, so I knew exactly when they were on sale. I didn't get my first picks for films, but I got two different showings - Martha Marcy May Marlene is what we saw this past weekend (very depressing) and then the day after Valentines Day we are seeing a Reece Witherspoon chick flick, This Is War. Regardless of the film you see, the backdrop to the screen is breathtaking - harbor views at sunset with the Opera House and the city skyline, with the occasional bat flying overhead. If you get there early (gates open 2 hours before the movie starts), you can claim your seats then wander over to the bar and just enjoy the scenery. Depending on the night, a few tickets are released at the door on the evening of the event, so you could always take your chances too.

Sydney Bats

I have been meaning to post something about the bats here for a few weeks, and I guess in true Sydney-style, I stopped doing anything productive for about a month. Businesses everywhere just shut down here during the holidays and a few doctors I had been trying to make appointments with just started accepting calls today! So the bats (I was reminded to do this post today when I saw bat road kill)... I had heard there were bats here, but I didn't realize how different they would look from the ones in my parents' attic. They look like the bats you see as Halloween decorations. Huge wings and enormous wing span and very fury.  According to sydneybats.org.au, the breed is called grey-headed flying fox. They look kind of cute up close in the photos there. But below is my own photo, taken in the Royal Botanical Gardens of Sydney where they are EVERYWHERE. They are not dangerous but a little spooky. I'll be visiting them again tomorrow when I return for a picnic lunch.