oz ramblings

We ventured north this last weekend, up to the Cooloola region. On any section of any map for the whole country one is hard pressed to not find at least one word with double O's. Mooloolaba is close by and where we go to get fish. Yaroomba is where we live, Coolum is the thriving metropolis just a few minutes north, Noosa is the touristy place with great surfing and no parking up the road a piece, and Maroochydore is the big city around here and the government centre for this shire. Aussies love there double O's! In citing numbers, our Arcata prefix of 822 would be announced as "8 double 2" and then of course the triples are around also.


The Cooloola region was scenic, green, intermittently rainy, and provincial. We stayed overnight in a place called Tin Can Bay. I didn't see any tin cans in the bay but there were lots of yachts and fishing boats. It is jumping off place for Fraser island, the largest sand island in the world and a place we are going to plan to visit soon.It was a sleepy town, our restaurateur confirmed the lack of action at 8 pm. "Cricky, they've all got their teeth in a jar by now" Tin Can Bay's claim to fame, not being nightlife, is feeding the dolphins. They are trained to come up the channel at 8 am because this way the cafe at the end of the pier sells many brekkies (breakfast)whilst the tourists wait. We arrived at the appointed time(at least 50 other tourists were waiting as well) and a dolphin feeding volunteer announced that the ONE dolphin was a couple of hours late yesterday. We opted to not wait, and instead returned to our accommodation swimming pool where Melissa proceeded set a new personal best of holding her breath under water for an astonishing 62 seconds.Bravo Mel. We returned in a couple of hours but alas we had missed the dolphin. dang

Eli and Mel are enjoying school and so far have been underwhelmed by homework. We are hoping it will pick up a bit. Melissa particularly is wanting to move up a year in math. Or maths as they say here. She is enjoying her music class, and is playing in a string ensemble once a week and has a lesson at school once a week in addition to music class 3 times a week. She has a full slate of dance classes in the afternoon...modern, jazz and ballet, same as home. Eli is enjoying his wood-shop class, computer technology, and core subjects. For those of you who are acquainted with our oldest he continues to be a tremendously social youngster. He signed up for soccer (some here call it soccer, and some call it football, very confusing!) which starts soon, 3/x week for practice and games on Saturdays, through August.


early February Observations:
1.I thought Californian supermarkets had a lot of choices in yogurt until I came here.
2.The population of obese sunshine coast children is nil
3.Pennies do not exist but prices are marked in cents, then rounded to the nearest nickel
4.Resting on the stereo speaker at the gym this morning was a bat--an event not likely at Healthsport
5.Band-aids are called plasters
6.Wildlife we have seen in the last few days: Pelicans, goanas, the aforementioned bat, a green nonpoisenous snake, magpies, lorikeets, black swans,a "roo at school, and laughing kookaburras(the largest kingfisher) No koalas yet but we're looking.

The powers of a skillful blogger are not with me tonight as I'm not able to add any pictures. sorry. Tom has been fooling around with Picassa however so soon we may have a website to send around with heaps of photos. Our cameras have been busy.

keep the comments coming....we love to hear from you!