On the ferry being a big boy and wearing his backpack
On the ferry out eating a cookie
More jumping from this morning
ANZAC parade yesterday
Ethan was up at 5:00 am yesterday and decided to rearrange the pantry. I was lying on the couch 10 feet away and could hear him banging around but I was too tired to get up and check. When I finally did I found this.
On the phone at the powerhouse museum
In front of the first locomotive used in Australia. Its at the museum now.
Kari and Ethan playing at the museum.
More playing at the museum
Same
In front of the original Darth Vader costume from Empire Strikes Back(I think)
Another weekend in the books. Only two more weekends left in Sydney… the last weekend we’ll be in Port Douglas visiting the reef and the rain forest. Anyway, it was a pretty productive weekend after a pretty laid back week.
Tuesday was normal. We had a work social outing at a bar in Sydney and they had trivia night so I went and Kari stayed back with Ethan. Our work team did pretty well with the trivia. We were tied for first after the first half and wound up tied for 7th out of 30 teams. But, I know for a fact the top two teams cheated using their cell phones to get answers. We got an email at work last week announcing good news for PFG… nothing like they were giving us our salaries back or anything of that nature… instead PFG won some ethical award. Whoop-dee-doo… Anyway, the reason I brought it up is cause our team exemplified those ethics and it turns out, much like it has in PFGs case, we got no where with that. So, in the future my new policy is cheat whenever possible.
Thursday I left work early and picked Ethan up just before nap time and brought him home. Our plan was to go to the Powerhouse Museum that afternoon and its only open until 5:00 so we had to get over there as soon as Ethan woke up. I laid with Ethan as usual before he fell asleep and he was kind enough to share his blanket with me. He made sure I was covered up before he laid down to go to sleep. Then he started telling me all of the things he’s ridden on… ‘I ride airplane. I ride train. I ride bus…’ It was pretty funny. After a couple minutes I got up cause I thought he was ready to sleep and I was no more than two steps out of his room when he started to singing to himself. Even though we needed him to fall asleep fast I let it go for a while cause I figured he’d eventually fall asleep. Five minutes later he was still going strong so I decided to go and check on him and he had turned the desk lamp on and piling up books to read to his stuffed animals. I was the mean dad and took his books away and he went ballistic for about 2 minutes before he fell asleep.
After he woke up from his nap we headed over to the museum. This is the last week of the Star Wars exhibit so we had to do it this week otherwise I would have waited until next week cause schools here were on holiday this week so I figured it would be busier than a normal Thursday afternoon. As often times is the case I was 100% correct. But, we still had a good time. The Star Wars exhibit was pretty cool. The had a ton of the original models used in the movies so that was cool to see. They also had videos running on how they made the movie and how sounds were created and ideas were formed. Overall it was pretty interesting. Kari was completely impressed I’m sure… especially since she has never seen the movies. The rest of the museum was ok… I thought it’d be more like the science museums back in the states where there are a ton of things to interact with but for the most part this just had some displays and a few things you could interact with. There was one giant room that was an absolute mad house cause it was packed with kids. It had giant foam blocks the kids could transport around in rail cars and use to build stuff as well as a house for climbing and a conveyor belt for the blocks. That was by far Ethan’s favorite place in the museum. I think we spent at least ¼ of the time we were there in that room. There was more than one kid in there that needed to be drop kicked… but I actually put the blame more on the parents. Ethan was one of the smaller kids in there and the bigger kids paid him no mind and ran him over more than once. Another time a kid was walking around smashing what other kids were trying to build. I think one dad almost did clothesline that kid. I don’t understand why these parents can’t keep an eye on their kids. It’s the same way at the park we take Ethan to all the time. I realize it’s a good time for the kids to burn off energy, but keep an eye on them so they’re not a pain to everyone else at the place. Anyway, we dragged Ethan out of that room literally kicking and screaming and checked out the rest of the place before it closed. Like I said, not the most interesting place I’ve been to, but the Star Wars stuff was pretty cool.
Friday after work Kari headed to the bars with some people from work and I pulled babysitting duty. Though I was informed by Amy that watching your own child doesn’t constitute babysitting… its all semantics I say. Anyway, I got to daycare as they were having afternoon tea again. This time it was a pizza twist and chocolate cake. I worked with Ethan for 10 solid minutes trying to get him to take bites of his pizza before he had cake. He’d open his mouth big like he was going to take a big bite and then barely scrape a front tooth across the pizza and get maybe a crumb each time. Eventually we got half of it eaten so he got his chocolate cake… and this time the big bites weren’t fake. Who would have guessed? Continuing with my theme of kids who need drop kicks… there is a sibling duo in Ethan’s room that is in definite need of one. They spent the entire time I was there throwing temper tantrums cause they wanted cake but didn’t want to eat. One kids is quite a bit older than Ethan and the daughter is probably about the same age. Even the director of the center was fed up with them by the time I left. I was happy to get out of there so I didn’t have to listen to it anymore.
After day care we headed home and did some playing. I had to change Ethan’s nappy so we ended up in his room and he informed me I was to get on his bed and go to one side so we could play ‘hut, hut’(football). Like I said before, I say ‘hut, hut, hike!’ and Ethan runs at me and I tackle him, he laughs hysterically and we do it over… and over… and over. Like every other thing Ethan finds fun. If he says ‘again’ less than 40 times a day I’d be surprised. Anyway, after that we walked to the mall to get some dinner at KFC. The place was a zoo… I guess I should have expected that at 5:30. After dinner we walked around the harbour some cause it was a really nice night before heading home.
Yesterday was ANZAC day in Australia. It commemorates the men and women who have served in the Australian and New Zealand armed forces. It starts at 4:00 AM with a ceremony but we decided to skip that cause of the early hour. Though, it was a hair past 5:00 am when I was rudely awaken from my peaceful sleep by a little person 2 inches from my face whispering ‘daddy, daddy, up’. So I picked him up and put him in the bed hoping he’d go back to sleep for a while. No dice… 5 minutes later he and I headed out while Kari attempted to sleep off her hangover. It had to be a morning after a night I was up reading late too so I was none too pleased to be up. Not that getting up at 5:00 AM is ever really a pleasant experience though. Anyway, there is a parade here in Sydney that starts at 9:00 so after killing some time we all headed up to check it out. It was kind of a like a 4th of July parade without floats. Lots of marching bands, cars and soldiers, both past and present marching. Ethan enjoyed the bands the most. We only stayed about an hour and they were still having sailors march past… they had gotten to the marines, air force or army so I have no idea how long the parade actually went.
After naps we headed back out to see if there was anything else going on… we couldn’t find anything and since we still had an hour to kill before our Saturday night pizza place opened we wandered around and did some shopping. I haven’t played a single video game since a couple weeks before we left and its starting to get to me. Pretty sad… what’s worse is I’m living my video game life vicariously through an old co-worker and getting his updates on a regular basis. I need help. Anyway, I needed a mouse of the laptop to play a game I brought along so I bought one of those yesterday and played some last night. It was grand… even if the game cheats and pissed me off to the point that I quit. It was still nice shooting a virtual person. Other than the mouse we just bought some snacks for Ethan… we couldn’t find the normal small packages of Goldfish that we get for Ethan so we had to get the giant tub and that cost $25. I couldn’t believe I had to pay that much for crackers… my rear is still sore today from getting bent over for that. After that we wandered around some more, apparently just missed a fight on the street and then went and picked up our pizza.
Today we took what is most likely our final ferry ride to Manly beach to do some shopping. I got a shirt, Kari got a couple and then we had some lunch. We FINALLY found a Mexican place and Kari was excited to try it… we took the elevator up, walked up to the door and found out they weren’t open so we settled on The Manly Grill instead. Ha ha Kari. After that we headed home so Ethan could nap. It was kind of sad leaving Manly since I’m 99% sure I’ll never be back. We had a lot of good weekends there on the beach, in the ocean and doing some surfing. But, we’re all pretty much ready to head home at the same time. On the way home we passed an opal jewelry store so we stopped in cause Kari wanted a ring to take back… we had good timing too cause everything was 50% off. Kari found the one she wanted and then we were on our merry way home. If anyone cares its silver and blue I think… I can’t remember for sure though.
Ethan has often times been less than pleasant this week. There’s a bug going around at daycare and he definitely has it. Drool runs out of his mouth almost constantly at a rate similar to when he was a baby and soaking his shirts. His nose is runny and his personality is bordering on belligerent. He’s hitting and kicking more, throwing more tantrums, completely ignoring almost everything we say and generally making the hours he is awake with us pretty stressful. Hopefully it passes soon… though Kari appears to have caught whatever it is he had and I’m sure I’m not far behind since the only way we can get Ethan to brush his teeth right now is if he uses my toothbrush. That’s more than unpleasant to think about. Anyway, as Kari said today he's been pretty boogerific.
He also repeats himself over and over and over. He’s taken the Rainman routine to whole new level lately. Even if you acknowledge what he has said he just keeps saying it. Its kind of aggravating. I’m sure it’s a way or learning or whatever but seriously…. I heard you the first 4 times… repeats 5 through 8 are pretty unnecessary.
I also made the mistake of running down the hall with him in the stroller the other day when we got home from work. Now every single time we get off the elevator I hear ‘daddy, run!’ It doesn’t matter how many laps we do around the floor he’s never satisfied either… ‘again, again’ is what I hear every time we get to the apartment door. Most times I don’t mind it, but running in my work clothes is less than comfortable. Plus, for some reason 2 laps around the floor gets me winded. Pretty sad.
On a personal note… I have completed a personal best by finishing 6 books in the last 8 days. That’s what my life has to come to. But, if anyone is looking for a some good books check out David Baldacci and Stephen Frey. Baldacci writes more action stuff and Frey is like John Grisham but instead of lawyer stuff its high finance. And that concludes my book reports for this week. With this post I also tie my record for blog postings in a month… could I rule anymore?
Anyway, that’s it. No videos this week cause I’m too lazy to upload. Maybe I’ll get a few up this week and post them later. Hope everyone had a good weekend.
See you when you see me,
Joel
Tuesday was normal. We had a work social outing at a bar in Sydney and they had trivia night so I went and Kari stayed back with Ethan. Our work team did pretty well with the trivia. We were tied for first after the first half and wound up tied for 7th out of 30 teams. But, I know for a fact the top two teams cheated using their cell phones to get answers. We got an email at work last week announcing good news for PFG… nothing like they were giving us our salaries back or anything of that nature… instead PFG won some ethical award. Whoop-dee-doo… Anyway, the reason I brought it up is cause our team exemplified those ethics and it turns out, much like it has in PFGs case, we got no where with that. So, in the future my new policy is cheat whenever possible.
Thursday I left work early and picked Ethan up just before nap time and brought him home. Our plan was to go to the Powerhouse Museum that afternoon and its only open until 5:00 so we had to get over there as soon as Ethan woke up. I laid with Ethan as usual before he fell asleep and he was kind enough to share his blanket with me. He made sure I was covered up before he laid down to go to sleep. Then he started telling me all of the things he’s ridden on… ‘I ride airplane. I ride train. I ride bus…’ It was pretty funny. After a couple minutes I got up cause I thought he was ready to sleep and I was no more than two steps out of his room when he started to singing to himself. Even though we needed him to fall asleep fast I let it go for a while cause I figured he’d eventually fall asleep. Five minutes later he was still going strong so I decided to go and check on him and he had turned the desk lamp on and piling up books to read to his stuffed animals. I was the mean dad and took his books away and he went ballistic for about 2 minutes before he fell asleep.
After he woke up from his nap we headed over to the museum. This is the last week of the Star Wars exhibit so we had to do it this week otherwise I would have waited until next week cause schools here were on holiday this week so I figured it would be busier than a normal Thursday afternoon. As often times is the case I was 100% correct. But, we still had a good time. The Star Wars exhibit was pretty cool. The had a ton of the original models used in the movies so that was cool to see. They also had videos running on how they made the movie and how sounds were created and ideas were formed. Overall it was pretty interesting. Kari was completely impressed I’m sure… especially since she has never seen the movies. The rest of the museum was ok… I thought it’d be more like the science museums back in the states where there are a ton of things to interact with but for the most part this just had some displays and a few things you could interact with. There was one giant room that was an absolute mad house cause it was packed with kids. It had giant foam blocks the kids could transport around in rail cars and use to build stuff as well as a house for climbing and a conveyor belt for the blocks. That was by far Ethan’s favorite place in the museum. I think we spent at least ¼ of the time we were there in that room. There was more than one kid in there that needed to be drop kicked… but I actually put the blame more on the parents. Ethan was one of the smaller kids in there and the bigger kids paid him no mind and ran him over more than once. Another time a kid was walking around smashing what other kids were trying to build. I think one dad almost did clothesline that kid. I don’t understand why these parents can’t keep an eye on their kids. It’s the same way at the park we take Ethan to all the time. I realize it’s a good time for the kids to burn off energy, but keep an eye on them so they’re not a pain to everyone else at the place. Anyway, we dragged Ethan out of that room literally kicking and screaming and checked out the rest of the place before it closed. Like I said, not the most interesting place I’ve been to, but the Star Wars stuff was pretty cool.
Friday after work Kari headed to the bars with some people from work and I pulled babysitting duty. Though I was informed by Amy that watching your own child doesn’t constitute babysitting… its all semantics I say. Anyway, I got to daycare as they were having afternoon tea again. This time it was a pizza twist and chocolate cake. I worked with Ethan for 10 solid minutes trying to get him to take bites of his pizza before he had cake. He’d open his mouth big like he was going to take a big bite and then barely scrape a front tooth across the pizza and get maybe a crumb each time. Eventually we got half of it eaten so he got his chocolate cake… and this time the big bites weren’t fake. Who would have guessed? Continuing with my theme of kids who need drop kicks… there is a sibling duo in Ethan’s room that is in definite need of one. They spent the entire time I was there throwing temper tantrums cause they wanted cake but didn’t want to eat. One kids is quite a bit older than Ethan and the daughter is probably about the same age. Even the director of the center was fed up with them by the time I left. I was happy to get out of there so I didn’t have to listen to it anymore.
After day care we headed home and did some playing. I had to change Ethan’s nappy so we ended up in his room and he informed me I was to get on his bed and go to one side so we could play ‘hut, hut’(football). Like I said before, I say ‘hut, hut, hike!’ and Ethan runs at me and I tackle him, he laughs hysterically and we do it over… and over… and over. Like every other thing Ethan finds fun. If he says ‘again’ less than 40 times a day I’d be surprised. Anyway, after that we walked to the mall to get some dinner at KFC. The place was a zoo… I guess I should have expected that at 5:30. After dinner we walked around the harbour some cause it was a really nice night before heading home.
Yesterday was ANZAC day in Australia. It commemorates the men and women who have served in the Australian and New Zealand armed forces. It starts at 4:00 AM with a ceremony but we decided to skip that cause of the early hour. Though, it was a hair past 5:00 am when I was rudely awaken from my peaceful sleep by a little person 2 inches from my face whispering ‘daddy, daddy, up’. So I picked him up and put him in the bed hoping he’d go back to sleep for a while. No dice… 5 minutes later he and I headed out while Kari attempted to sleep off her hangover. It had to be a morning after a night I was up reading late too so I was none too pleased to be up. Not that getting up at 5:00 AM is ever really a pleasant experience though. Anyway, there is a parade here in Sydney that starts at 9:00 so after killing some time we all headed up to check it out. It was kind of a like a 4th of July parade without floats. Lots of marching bands, cars and soldiers, both past and present marching. Ethan enjoyed the bands the most. We only stayed about an hour and they were still having sailors march past… they had gotten to the marines, air force or army so I have no idea how long the parade actually went.
After naps we headed back out to see if there was anything else going on… we couldn’t find anything and since we still had an hour to kill before our Saturday night pizza place opened we wandered around and did some shopping. I haven’t played a single video game since a couple weeks before we left and its starting to get to me. Pretty sad… what’s worse is I’m living my video game life vicariously through an old co-worker and getting his updates on a regular basis. I need help. Anyway, I needed a mouse of the laptop to play a game I brought along so I bought one of those yesterday and played some last night. It was grand… even if the game cheats and pissed me off to the point that I quit. It was still nice shooting a virtual person. Other than the mouse we just bought some snacks for Ethan… we couldn’t find the normal small packages of Goldfish that we get for Ethan so we had to get the giant tub and that cost $25. I couldn’t believe I had to pay that much for crackers… my rear is still sore today from getting bent over for that. After that we wandered around some more, apparently just missed a fight on the street and then went and picked up our pizza.
Today we took what is most likely our final ferry ride to Manly beach to do some shopping. I got a shirt, Kari got a couple and then we had some lunch. We FINALLY found a Mexican place and Kari was excited to try it… we took the elevator up, walked up to the door and found out they weren’t open so we settled on The Manly Grill instead. Ha ha Kari. After that we headed home so Ethan could nap. It was kind of sad leaving Manly since I’m 99% sure I’ll never be back. We had a lot of good weekends there on the beach, in the ocean and doing some surfing. But, we’re all pretty much ready to head home at the same time. On the way home we passed an opal jewelry store so we stopped in cause Kari wanted a ring to take back… we had good timing too cause everything was 50% off. Kari found the one she wanted and then we were on our merry way home. If anyone cares its silver and blue I think… I can’t remember for sure though.
Ethan has often times been less than pleasant this week. There’s a bug going around at daycare and he definitely has it. Drool runs out of his mouth almost constantly at a rate similar to when he was a baby and soaking his shirts. His nose is runny and his personality is bordering on belligerent. He’s hitting and kicking more, throwing more tantrums, completely ignoring almost everything we say and generally making the hours he is awake with us pretty stressful. Hopefully it passes soon… though Kari appears to have caught whatever it is he had and I’m sure I’m not far behind since the only way we can get Ethan to brush his teeth right now is if he uses my toothbrush. That’s more than unpleasant to think about. Anyway, as Kari said today he's been pretty boogerific.
He also repeats himself over and over and over. He’s taken the Rainman routine to whole new level lately. Even if you acknowledge what he has said he just keeps saying it. Its kind of aggravating. I’m sure it’s a way or learning or whatever but seriously…. I heard you the first 4 times… repeats 5 through 8 are pretty unnecessary.
I also made the mistake of running down the hall with him in the stroller the other day when we got home from work. Now every single time we get off the elevator I hear ‘daddy, run!’ It doesn’t matter how many laps we do around the floor he’s never satisfied either… ‘again, again’ is what I hear every time we get to the apartment door. Most times I don’t mind it, but running in my work clothes is less than comfortable. Plus, for some reason 2 laps around the floor gets me winded. Pretty sad.
On a personal note… I have completed a personal best by finishing 6 books in the last 8 days. That’s what my life has to come to. But, if anyone is looking for a some good books check out David Baldacci and Stephen Frey. Baldacci writes more action stuff and Frey is like John Grisham but instead of lawyer stuff its high finance. And that concludes my book reports for this week. With this post I also tie my record for blog postings in a month… could I rule anymore?
Anyway, that’s it. No videos this week cause I’m too lazy to upload. Maybe I’ll get a few up this week and post them later. Hope everyone had a good weekend.
See you when you see me,
Joel
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