MWNews 47

The Ekka. I already went through an explanation about what it is, so we don't have to do that again. In case you forgot, this is a short version of what it is about. Think Fat Stock Show or Sydney Easter Show and you pretty much have the idea
One good thing about the Ekka is that it is cheap. Only a few dollars to get in, unlike the Sydney show which is $30 each. Parking wan't that bad either, again unlike the Sydney Show. We had to drive around a bit to find any parking but we eventually found a parking garage that did not have any spaces but the man directing traffic took pity on us and allowed to park in an open space where normally you are not allowed to park. It upset the workman who were trying to fix a sign right over where we parked, but apparently, they got over it.

We took Maeghan, and William and Leslie and Anna. Jarvis was suppossed to go, but due to some creative scheduling by his father, he missed out. Let's just say his father picked an interesting day to take Jarvis back to his house and forget to bring him back.

William was sick, we took him to the doctor the next day, so he slept for most of the day as we kept giving him panadol. He did become lucid a few times when balloons were near and he cought a glimpse of them. I suppose I will have to go into the story of William and balloons, thought it does not really relate to the Ekka and I promised Maeghan I would make this post about her. Not that she has any idea what it says but she saw me adding the picture to it and wanted to look at all the pictures. I had to tell her I was typing and she would have to wait but she would not give in until I told her I was writing about her.

Anyway, William and balloons. For some reason, William goes crazy whenever he sees a balloon. We don't really know why but it seems we never understand anything any of the kids do. William will get all excited and start waiving his arms and legs and squeeling really excitedly whne one is near. He likes you to touch him with them but even if you don't, he likes to watch others play with them. Several times during the day, we would see balloons and start squeeling and carrying on about them. We had to get him one on the way home and he played with it and squeeled the whole time. Now, whenever we see balloons, we have to make sure we get one for William.

That is the story of William and balloons. Back to the Ekka. We got there just after it opened. It was the first day of the show. We had gone to the Sydney show on the first day and it was really not very crowded at all. Bad luck for us, but the Ekka has kids day on the first day of the show, so it was pretty packed for most of the day. Since we stayed for the whole thing, it eventually got thinner and easier to move around, but most of the time, we had to keep a constant eye out on the kids. Maeghan has developed the habit of whenever the pram stops, she jumps out to see why we have stopped. Most of the time, you do not even know she is not there anymore until you start to push the pram and it is lighter than it was. As a side note, we now have a two baby pram so William and ride and Maeghan can have a rest every once and a while.

We made the mistake of going in a gate that led directly into the kids ride area. If I had known that was what was there, we would have chosen a different gate. Now, I have to go off on a bit so a tangent as a very disturbing thing happened at this point. We all know the rules that you have to suffer through, I mean enjoy, the animals before there is any mention of going to the rides. It is a universal rule and everyone follows it. Well, little did I know that here in Australia, they apparently have never heard of this rule. I know they are isolated and not connected to the rest of the world but now knowing the animal first rule seems to me to be a total lack of contact with the rest of the world. I even took the time to go ask a policeman to explain to the kids that rides do not come until after you run through, I mean take the time to, see the animals. He looked at me like I was crazy. And, of course, I got no backing from Juanita. It just doesn't seem right and even now, I am feeling a bit woozy about the whole thing. We actually went on several rides before we even saw cow dung on the rode. It was just unnerving and I had to sit down for most of it. I have a condition and I just didn't think my heart could take it.

So, first thing that happens is the kids start telling us all the things they want to ride, which, by the way, was everything. We actually made it about halfway through the rides before I was overwhelmed by everyone and relented to allow this to happen. By then, we had reached something I did not know they were doing these days. Apparently, they now have kiddie roller coasters. They look just like a real roller coaster but they just don't go as high and as fast. At the Ekka, they had this one that was a kind of train thing, I have a few pictures of it, and it wwent around in a circle and up and down hills.

Now, I am not sure I would have gotten on something like that when I was a sensible little kid, but these kids wanted on that as soon as they could get on it. So I payed the money for it, discovering why it is so cheap to get in at the same time. They got a really long ride and seemd to enjoy it tremendously. Maeghan really loved it and even thought Leslie got bored after the second time around, it was pretty good for them.

After that, I tried once again to move on to other things in the show but was hooted down mercilessly and had to relent to letting them ride some more. They went to a jumping castle then. A really big one. It had two sections, one to play in and one that was a really big climb and slide down thing. As soon as they were let in, Leslie took off and we didn't see him again until they were finished. I am not sure where he was but Anna kept telling us he was ok. Anna wanted to climb up the big slide but we told her to wait at the bottom with Maeghan. Maeghan could not climb the rope ladder to get up to the top and she was really content to stay at the bottom and jump up and down. Eventually, we told Anna she could go up to the top and slide down. After she left Maeghan, Maeghan tried to climb the ladder. She couldn't do it, but the kid that was running the ride and helping the other kids saw her and came all the way down to the bottom and helped her all the way to the top. By half-way up, Maeghan had got the hang of it and could climb by herself but the kid stayed behind her and helped anytime she was not sure what to do. He was really helpful and I wish we could have done something for him or tipped him or something.

Once Maeghan reached the top, she went over to the slide part and sat at the top. It was pretty high and she was not going to slide down by herself. Anna tried to help, but she wanted Daddy to come up and help her. I was just about to when that same kid that was helping her before sat down with her, put her in his lap and slid down with her. She loved it and by that time, it was time for them to get off the ride, so she and the other kids left and were all excited about what they had been doing. It was hard to get all their shoes back on as they would not stay still. Eventually, we got them away from it and eventually, we got out of the ride section.

From then on, we just wandered around. I know there were things we did not see and things we did not do as there were whole buildings we did not even go into, but it was fun for all the kids. We got them hot dogs and chips to eat for lunch, although they were aussie hotdogs and not really fit to be called that.

Now is a good time to mention the food at the Ekka. They did not seem to have anything really good. At the Sydney Show, they have some areas that you just have to visit each time you go. One has a place where they sell some really good sausages. I didn't find a decent sausage at the entire Ekka. I am sure they were somewhere, but we didn't find them. The kids had chips, which were cold, (oh, did I mention that when I say chips, I mean french fries?) but they seemed to enjoy them. We saw and went to several petting areas where the kids could touch the animals. They did it, but they did not seem to enjoy this part of the tour.

To ilustrate how lost you can get at the Ekka, we were passing the stadium at one point and I was looking for a place to sit down for a minute. The train tracks run through the area, on a bridge above you and we walked under the tracks to sit at some benches on the other side. Well, little did we know that on the the other side of the tracks were all the big kids rides. This is the area where all the usually arcade stuff is. All the rides and all the games and everything that goes with it. We knew it was somewhere and we had not really been looking for it at that time, but there it was. So, of course, we had to take the time to walk through everything there. The first thing we did was get Juanita and I a couple dagwood dogs. Now, of course, you are thinking these are hotdogs with everything on them. You would be wrong. Over here, a dagwood dog is a corny dog. It is called something else but the name slips my mind at the moment. We got these because Juanita likes them and I decided to try them as I usually do not eat them when we are out. I can now tell you why as they were not the most appetizing things we have found. Juanita seemed to think they were ok but to me they were not very good at all. Tough and chewy and with horrible hotdogs in the middle. Maybe I was tainted by the fact that I put a ton of mustard on mine and nearly blew the top of my head off. The mustard was the hot english type mustard and it had been sitting in the sun for a while, which makes it even hotter. I nearly died. I could not breath and I could not cough and I could not make the pain go away. I eventually got it under control, but being the freak that I am, I ate a little bit more to make sure I had not just enhaled it wrong the first time. It all happened again and for the first time in my life, I had to scrape all the stuff off of my dagwood dog before I could eat the rest of it. If you know anything about hot mustard, it is not like hot peppers, but you cannot convince anyone over her of that. They think hot is hot and do not know the subtle differences in flavor and heat levels. English hot mustard is more of a burning of the nasel passages instead of the usuall hot burning the mouth you get from normal peppers or hot things. It attacks your nose and throat and doesn't let you breath and this was not any especially hot brand it had just been sitting in the sun too long and it was just uneatable. But that is enough of my pain, we should get back to the reason for this post about the Ekka.

We toured the ride area. We played a few games and the kids rode the merry go round and a few other things. The kids even won a prize each. It was on a game where everyone wins a prize, but Maeghan won the biggest one. I didn't win anything, which is unusual as I have been winning big prizes the last few times we have done something like this. We did finally manage to tear the kids away from this area.

Once we left, we continued around the stadium. We were almost all the way around but stopped to get Juanita a coke. As I was standing in line, I noticed a little raised area across the path that seemed to have some tents and stuff on it. I was not sure if it was part of the show or not. We had to go a long way around to find a place where we could take the pram up. Once we were there, it did not seem like anything was still open in that are. We went all the way to the front of it and found a sort of kids show going on. It turns out this was a kids show area and we were in time for the last couple of acts for the day. We sat in the back but as soon as we sat down, the two kids who were up front, (not really kids but young people) were doing a singing and dancing act. The called themselves the bush rock and rangers and were doing jokes and dances and singing to rock songs they had apparently made up or written themselves.

Well, in case you have forgotten, Maeghan is just crazy for the dancing. She does it all the time and whenever she hears music, she wants to go and dance to it. We made our way up to the front and say down with the other kids on the front row. They were just going to start a dance contest and I knew Maeghan would want to do that. Not if she knew it was a dance contest but she would love to dance. When it started, a lot of other kids got up and started dancing in the front. Maeghan is a solo act and whenever there are other kids dancing, she will generally just watch it takes her a while to join in. That is what happened this time. All the other kids were dancing and she was just standing there until the very end. She finally started dancing but by the then the contest was over and they stopped playing music.

The people doing the act went through a few more jokes and stuff and then came thier finaly. The guy got a guitar and the lady sort of just introduced her and then they went into a really rocking number that they had apparently wrote themselves. I know the words were cute but I can't remember them right now. Maeghan was ready this time. She started dancing immediatly.

I have tried to describe Maeghan's dancing before. Other than saying it is really cute and she is really good at it, you just have to see her to understand. I just cannot do it justice. She has gotten to the point where she actually dances to the music and does things that keep in time with the beat and performs actions that we have no idea where she has ever seen it before. She raises her arms and twirls around and twists her body and bends her knees and twists down low. She will sometimes get down on one or both knees and dance from there and then get back up and dance some more. Her favorite thing is to twirl around and jump up and down and through it all, she keeps falling down and getting back up and keeping to the music all the time. She is really, really good at it. It makes me cry just thinking about it. We have no idea where all this comes from, but Maeghan loves to dance.

Other people were all noticing her at this point. You could see people in the back pointing at her and talking about her. The guy with the guitar noticed she was getting all the attention and he came over and got down on his knees and played his guitar in front of her while she danced. At first, Maeghan did not like this and grabbed my leg but after a few moments, she got used to it and started dancing again. It was all just wonderful. Afterwards, several people came up to me and told us what a good dancer she was and how cute she was. It is just amazing and probably just something we will have to remember as she will never do her really good dancing when I have the movie camera out, so we cannot get it on film. But, we will keep trying.

After this show, another group of people came up to do a show. They were from the Australia Zoo. In case you do not know, the Australia Zoo is Steve Irwin's zoo. It is near Brisbane and we have been by it several times. We always wanted to go there. If you haven't heard, Steve Irwin was recently killed by a stingray. I don't know if it is a big deal there, but over here, they have been running tributes to him almost constantly. Not that he was that popular over here. A lot of Australians did not like him. They thought he gave a bad impression of Australians and they thought he was s show off. Australians are not big on people who are show offs. Now that he has died, of course, everyone says they loved him but I remember all the times before when they were saying they wish he would go away. He was just not that popular over here. The government even tried to name a train after him. The first passenger train service that was to go from South Australia to the Norther Territory. But, most of the people protested and they eventually called it something else, but now I bet they are wishing they had named it after him.

Anyway, they people from the zoo were there to show some animals and do some kind of thing where they asked the kids questions and made fun of thier answers. They asked for volunteers from the audience and I told Anna to go up and do it. She did but when Maeghan and Leslie saw her go up there, they decided they wanted to go too. By then, they had all the volunteers they wanted, but Leslie and Maeghan just stood around near the lady while she asked the other kids questions.

The lady would hold the microphone next the kid talking and ask them their name and age and other things. Then the guy would ask them an animal question like what sound does a certain animal make or what kind of animal is he describing. Not very hard questions but most of the kids would need hints or help with getting the answers. There were none up there as young as Maeghan and Leslie and eventually, Leslie wandered away and didn't stay next to the lady. Maeghan stayed next to her the whole time and they went through about eight or nine kids before they were finished.

After she had done all the kids in the line, she noticed that Maeghan was still standing there. She asked the guy if they had time for one more question. He said no, jokingly, but she pursuaded him. She asked Maeghan what her name was and Maeghan said Maeghan. She then asked how old she was and Maeghan seemed hesitate, so Juanita told them three. They seemed amazed by this as they did not think she was that old. The guy then asked her what animal goes MOO. Maeghan looked at him like he was an idiot and said 'a cow'. Well, they were really amazed by this. They had no idea she was going to be able to answer this. The lady was going to give her a hint but when she said a cow, her jaw just dropped and she was really amazed. She asked the crowd for a round of applause for little Maeghan and how good she was. They gave Maeghan a little rubber crocodile as a prize and they asked her if she knew what it was. She said ' a crocodile' and they were amazed again. At the end of the show, they asked everyone for a round of applause for all the kids and expecially for their little dancer, Maeghan. It was just great. Maeghan did not notice, she just ran over to me and showed me her crocodile. But, everyone else was applauding for her.

The show ended at that point and we left. It was just really amazing and I had to tell everyone about it. It was great. After that, we went around to some other exhibits and saw a lot of other things. We were back near the barns and there was a lot of cow poop around. Maeghan and Anna kept telling us to watch for the cow poop and not to step in it.

When we were leaving, I was determined to find some speciallty food that you could only get at the Ekka. Near were we had entered the show, there was an international food section and we stopped in there. Nothing really great was there but I had a tortilla type thing that had a garlic sauce and goulash on it. It was neither garlic sauce or goulash, but is was not bad, even if it was cold when I got around to eating it. Juanita had a big baked potato, one with everything on it including cole slaw. The kids wanted McDonalds and I told them we would get it when we left, although they fell asleep as soon as we got in the car and did not wake up until the next morning.

While we were eating, they had an amatuer belly dancing show on the stage near us. I mention it, not because the show was any good, but because Maeghan started dancing again. Not like before, but enough so that several people noticed, including the dancers. She was tired though and Leslie was asleep in her spot in the pram, so we had to go and didn't stay for the end of the show.

Well, that was our trip to the Ekka. I am sure it is way too long and way too boring, but since this is the second time I have written it up, I need to make sure I back this one up before I try to post it. In all, it was well worth it. We all had fun and Maeghan still plays with her crocodile. I have more to post on the vacation but it will have to wait. This post is just exceedingly long. So, until next time.

Talk to you later
 

MWNews 46

I wrote a large entry into this the other day. I spent about two hours on it. Then, I went to publish it and my program got a fatal error. No where could I find what I had typed. So, the lesson here is, watch what you say, no one may be listening.

Got some more vacation stuff. I have about three more posts about our vacation. Then we can move on to the latest news. Which, since William has learned to crawl, involves typing two words and then telling William, NO. He is now getting into everything and most of our time is spent chasing him around the house making sure he is not pulling something on top of himself.

We forget, but we did not have this with Maeghan. She didn't crawl around much, until she learned to frog hop and even then, she did not go lots of places where she could no longer see us. She didn't start walking until she was around two, so we have not had to deal with a really mobile child in a while. He is constantly in motion and headed somewhere. We have the toys in a somewhat neat pile in the lounge room. Maeghan gets them out and spreads them around most days, but it never really gets too bad. Since we try to put them back in their piles most days, they are sitting there each morning when William begins wandering.

He has learned to climb up on top of the toys he doesn't play with and get to the little toys he likes to carry around. There is a picture of Maeghan in her little home-made rocking horse. I mention it because we still have it and William uses that to climb up to get the blocks. They are in a box behind the rocking horse. We put them there so William will not be able to get to the box and throw all of them around. He has figured out that he can climb in up through the rocking horse, (it would take too much explanation to tell you how this is done), and reach back to the blocks.

I mention all this as he is right now over by the toys doing just that. Climbing over the rocking horse to get to the blocks. He seems to have given up on that this time and has become interested in the swinging monkeys on the little castle thing.

But this post was to be about the vacation and I will get back to that shortly. It is mostly about Maeghan, so I thought I would get a few things in about William first, but I think I am done with that now, so I can proceed with the adventures. Although, William has been up for about 30 minutes now and he will be wanting someone to pay attention to him soon. I just got up to get a cup of coffee, and he noticed that I was in the room and started whining for me. But I ignored it, you have to be strong sometimes. He lost interest as soon as I sat back down and is now trying to get to one of Maeghan's toys that she does not let him play with when she is around. The both want to play with my new xbox controller. It is white and I suppose they are tired of playing with the old black ones and everytime I have the new one out, both of them are trying to get to it and play with it. Probably because they want to be like Daddy, but mostly because they just don't want you paying any attention to anything but them. By the way, typing Daddy and having it refer to me is really strange. Not something I have ever really thought about but I usually do not type Daddy, so I suppose it has not come up before.

The vacation. Right, back to that. Not that you would know it, but we just had to take a30 minute break for William. He is getting lonely now and wants all the attention. No one else is awake yet, so I had to go play with him. Not that he wants someone to pay with him, he just wants to be held so he can reach things that are higher than he can normally reach. Have I mentioned that he is constantly in motion. He will not stay still for any time. As soon as you pick him up, his head is going, he is looking around and trying to reach anything he can see. It is almost impossible to hold him anymore. He is too (ok, I have tried several words in this place and I cannot spell any of them, so you are going to have to fill in your own words that basically means he moves around too much as I cannot continue to try to spell things I cannot spell) fill in the blank.
While in Brisbane, (vacation talk), we went to the EKKA or I should say 'The Ekka'. I have no idea what EKKA stands for not do I know why it is called 'The Ekka', but if you don't know what that is, think Fat Stock Show or Sydney Easter Show and you pretty much have the idea.

The Ekka is kind of hard to see. It is not laid out very well and it spreads across several places that I am not entirely sure are there when the Ekka is not in town. I know we never went down to that area when we lived there but when the Ekka comes to town, this whole area is converted to a show. There are buildings and livestock areas and all sorts of things that I did not know were there. The problem is, since it is not designed as an exhibition area, it makes it hard to find anything or no where you are while you are there. I am certain we did not visit everything, and we were there from the time they opened to the time they closed. We spent a lot of time backtracking and going through things we had already been through.

I have to go now. William is throwing a fit and wants breakfast. I cannot do both, so I will get back to this later, probably today, so I can tell you more about some of the things Maeghan did during the Ekka. Until then.

Talk to you later