MWNews 112

The new iPhones are here!  The new iPhones are here!  Wait, this is a blog about the kids.  The kids are fighting over my old iPhone!, the kids are fighting over my old iPhone!  There, that makes it about the kids.

Yes, I went and got a new phone on the first day they were out.  Not that I am a big fan of phones or Apple or anything, I have just needed a new phone for about six months now and have been waiting for the new iPhone so I could upgrade to it.  I have heard good things about the new Samsung Nexus Prime, or whatever they are going to call it, but I could not wait any longer.  Had this phone for almost three years and it was time for a new one.

The kids haven't done anything and there is no other news to report, so bye, see you next time.

Ok, I will make some things up and write about them.  No one knows the difference anyway, so why not.

William has been back in school for a week.  Got in trouble every day apparently, or so the teacher is telling us.  I am guessing she wants us to do something about it.  He finally had to sit in his room yesterday.  No TV, no games, no computer (which really kills him), no fun at all.  And to top it off, Igor was on TV last night and of course, Maeghan watched it and had the sound up loud enough for him to hear it.  So, he was really feeling sorry for himself.  Not that anything he did was his fault.  There was always someone else to blame for everything, mostly his friend Liam.  I am not sure Liam really exists as I have never seen him, but most of the things William gets in trouble for he says Liam told him to do it.  I am sure Laim is the real bad guy here and William is just an innocent bystander as he never does anything wrong when he is at home with ... ok, not even I could finish writing that sentence.  Guess we will just  have to be a little harder on him until he starts to get it right.

He did do homework the other day.  He used to be happy when he could say he had homework because he was jealous of Maeghan always having homework.  But now, we found several pages of supposed homework he was to have done in the past and he never mentions having any.  Usually, he just denies having any homework and since he is in Kindy, we tend to believe him.  But, he pulled out a page of words he was supposed to read and write and along with it came some other folded and crumpled up papers that were stuffed into his bag.  A lot of them he had already done at school, but most of them were blank and we can only assume they were given to him in the past as homework and he told us he never had any.

He did do good on the words list he had.  He was able to write most of the words and it was even legible, something you could probably not say about my writing when I was a kid.  He cannot read and the teachers tell us that all the other kids can read but I am a bit skeptical about that.  He did recoginize several of the words, not really reading them but I am sure just recognizing the patterns and saying what they said.  As much as he plays on the computer and navigates to all the different pages where his games are, he must be picking up some reading skills but again, we need to get him doing more.

Maeghan is still practicing her dance routine.  It changed from last time when it was a play to a dance number to some song she cannot remember.  She is always wanting to perform it for us but when she starts, she immediately forgets what she is supposed to do and what the music sounds like.  I have no idea how long they have to practice this but she does not really seem to be ready.  Then again, maybe that is what all the other kids are doing and they are no better than she is.  We do not get to see the tryouts so we do not know what others are doing or what they might be wanting to perform.  We only get to see the show when it is performed.  I suppose it is because they do not want parents lobbying for their kids based on the tryouts and thinking one kid is better than another.  Then again, maybe I have no idea why we are not allowed to see the tryouts.

To bring this back to the main subject of this blog, food, I had a conversation about some hot sauces on facebook that made me realise some things.  That chile that I was talking about, the one that is now the hottest.  Well it seems the second hottest chile, the one that the new one replaced, is used in some curry eating contest in Scotland where several people were hospitalized after eating the curry that was made with the chile.  Just a minor detour from the normal talk but I did find that there are a couple of sauces based on this chili, both of them expensive and one I have already mentioned.  I did discover the other one is actually a curry sauce and is used to flavor curries.  I thought it was a mustard based sauce and had not tried it but will now go and get a bottle and put it in my next curry.

Ok, back to the kids and this will be short as William is now in trouble again.  He is talking back to his mother and blaming everything on Maeghan.  I am going to have to go and intervene soon.  He is just digging himself deeper.

So, a short entry and not much news and no really good news but there it is.  Maybe I will be more entertaining next time.  Right now, I have to go speak to William, and play with my new phone.  By the way, I don't really like the form of the new iPhone.  I know it has been that way for a while but I preferred the curves of the old 3Gs I had.  This one appears to be a bit harsh when you hold it.  Too many sharp edges, but I am sure I will get used to it and I need a case for it anyway, so I will probably not notice once I get one.

How did I start talking about the phone again.  Doesn't matter.  You don't really have a choice in what I talk about anyway, just a trapped reader waiting for this blog to start getting good again.  Might be a long wait.

So, until next time

Talk to you later

MWNews 111

 Kids are back in school now.  They don't like it, but its good for 'em.  It'll teach 'em a lesson.

Not sure if we did anything in that last few days.  I think the last thing we talked about was going to Terrigal.  We stayed home the rest of the week.  Then again, I might remember something while I write this so you can probably ignore that last statement.

William is looking forward to his birthday.  And by looking forward to it I mean his first words each morning are, is it my birthday yet.

We kind of made the mistake of asking him what he wanted for his birthday.  Whenever we have asked Maeghan that, she always says I don't know.  William is still listing things he wants and we asked him at least four or five days ago.  He keeps adding to the list.  I think he thinks if he asks for it, he will get it.  His latest thing is he wants and Xbox.  He went over to the grandkids house and they had a new game they were playing on their Xbox so he decided he wanted that game.

It might have been a good idea to get him one but Juanita has already bought a new one for me for Christmas and he does not know that.  Maybe I will give him my old one.  Then again, probably not.  Mine is one of the original Xbox 360's.  Probably four or five years old, maybe older.  I am not sure when they came out but I know I got one soon after that.  I use it mostly for watching TV and movies I have downloaded to my PC.  Using media center is great, if kind of hard to get everything to work correctly.  Once I set it up, I can download and watch anything on the TV.  It's great.  Kind of cuts into my game playing time as I have a huge backlog of things I have downloaded and have yet to watch but maybe I'll get around to it.  Have a couple of games I got for Christmas last year that I have never played, so I don't get to buy any new ones until I play the old ones.

She got the Xbox for the new Kinect that came with it.  I am sure I will have tales of us using that sometime after Christmas, but then again, probably only last of couple of months.  We have the Wii and we play some games together on that, but not very often and not in the past year or so.  William still plays it but we never seem to find the time to do it together.

Maeghan just got back to school and she and her friend are already planning on entering the talent show with something they have made up.  They are calling it a play but I am not sure what kind of play it is yet.  She only knew a couple of the things they are going to do so I am not sure if it is her idea or her friends.

They tried to do this a few months ago.  Apparently, the school has this a few times a year.  The kids have to audition for it and make up their own routines or whatever they are going to do.  Last time, I think Maeghan and her friend had some kind of dance they were doing but they did not make the show.  With this new thing, I am not sure they will make it this time either, but they love trying so that is the important part.

Maeghan has a few friends at the new school.  She had friends at the old school but as they got older, they tended to run around and play games that Maeghan cannot keep up with, so they would leave her behind most of the time.  Her friends at the new school have not done that yet and I hope it does not start to happen again.  Her physical limitations keep her out of a lot of things she wants to do but just can't do as well as the other kids and they tend to leave her out of it.  She has been trying a lot harder.  The doctors told us to get her more exercise so we do some kind of walk almost everyday and we do not bring her wheelchair with us so she cannot sit and ride when she wants to.

She is slow and it takes a long time to get anywhere but she tries really hard and we are really proud of her for trying to do her best to keep up.  We walked up to the shops the other day, her, William and myself.  It is about a half hour walk for a normal person but we did it in about and hour with Maeghan.  William got more tired that she did but we did take a few breaks that William did not take.  He just kept running around instead of stopping and resting with us.  By the time we got there, he was the one complaining the most.  Of course, as soon as we got to the shops, he was running around again and trying to get me to buy him everything for his birthday.

Juanita came up later and picked us up in the car so we did not have to walk back.  Not sure if they would have made it or not.  Maeghan would have tried to make it but William would have complained enough to make it and unpleasant experience.  We did get to get ice cream and chicken sandwiches while we were there, so they enjoyed that.  William did get in trouble because he would not leave me alone when I bought them some lollies (candy) for later if they were good.  He kept nagging me about them and trying to get them without me knowing until I told him he was not going to get any.  Of course, I finally gave them to them anyway but it was getting close for a while.

Maeghan and I were going to go to some other shopping mall on Sunday, or I was going to go and Maeghan said she wanted to go but William said he didn't.  Somehow, William got the impression we were going to Mingara and he decided he wanted to come too.  After we got in the car and did not go towards Mingara he realised his mistake and wanted to go back home but we were already on the way so he had to come.  Had to return something for Juanita at one of the shops that did not take the security tag off of it before she left.  I got there and told them it was not my size and could I return it.  Ok, it was bra's but the cashier got a kick out of it.

William and Maeghan got everything they wanted.  Frozen cokes, play in the play area, chicken wings from KFC, so they were happy.  Juanita also asked me to get her three face washers (I don't remember what we called them in America but I don't think it was face washers.  Been here too long).  I am not sure why three was the number she wanted but when I got to the place to buy them, they had three packs of six for $10, so I got her three packs.  She didn't think that was funny when I gave them to her but now she has lots of extras.

We went for a walk after school yesterday and I used my new iPhone app that keeps track of where, how far, and how fast you are walking.  It did really good, or I think it did.  Today, when I used it, it was going good until I doubled back on where I had been because the coffee shop I usually stop at on my walks was not open yet and I had to go back to a previous one.  The GPS got confused and said I had walked 10k when I had actually only walked about 2k.  Not sure why it got confused but Juanita is coming over to go for another walk in about an hour and I will see how it goes then.  It will post to Facebook if you want it to but I am not sure I want it to do that.  Maybe after I get all the kinks out of it.  It is supposed to be used for running but it says you can use it for any exercise, even stationary ones, to keep track of what you are doing.

I know, another fitness app that does not work or I will never keep up with, but if I don't keep trying, I will never be as healthy as I should be for a man in my condition.  I am approaching 39 years old and that is getting just a little too close to 40 for me.  Plus, I have the heart thingy, so any little bit helps.  Which again reminds me to put the heart attack story in here.  The kids weren't around back then so I am sure they will appreciate reading about it in later years.  Alas, I am through typing for today so it will have to wait for another time.

I am going to be going now.  Have to pretend to do some work or something that looks like I am working.  Not sure why, I am at home by myself so no one knows if I am working or not.  Then again, someone from work might stumble across this blog and find out what I am up to so I better say I do this on my off hours and not while I am supposed to be working.  I think that covers it up for me.

So, until next time

Talk to you later

MWNews 110

It's been a busy few days.  Traveled around and see the sights.  Mostly, sites we have already seen but we spent money so that counts for something.

Monday, we went to Cessnock.  I thought maybe they had improved or expanded some things, but as Monday was a holiday, almost everything was closed.  Not sure what holiday it was but even those things that were open closed at around 1 or 2 in the afternoon.  Not much there anyway.  It is just a small town on the way to other places but it is kind of out of the way so we never travel through there anymore.

It is on the way to Hunter Valley Gardens and if I had gotten an earlier start or noticed that they had something going on there, we might have made that our destination.  But as it turned out, everything at the Gardens was ending at 2 and we did not find out about it until 12, so we decided not to go.

We did decide to go here.

 This is the tower at the park I have previously described.  A huge endeavour to try to climb and then slide down.  William ran to it first.  He loves the slide.  I am not sure how many times he rode down it but he went up the metal side the first time and it was crowded at the top.  So he decided to go up the rope ladder side the second time.  He forgot that he is not that good at climbing.  It took him twice as long even though there were about half the people on that side.  But he had fun.  I have a picture of him coming out of the slide, but since you cannot see when they get it, it is hard to judge when they are going to come out.  I just got the top of his head as he emerged so I did not include it here.

Maeghan has still not been down it.  She still thinks I will slide down with her at some point.  Maybe after I lose a few pounds, which might be never but might be soon.  Have not done a lot of walking this week so I am not sure if I am still

getting thinner.

Walking with the kids is kind of a waste as they do not move very fast and it is just not that effective.  I suppose we could walk a very long way but the kids get tired of doing that pretty quickly.  I have just noticed that this entry is doing something strange to the text so I am going to jump to after the picture to keep typing.  I think I may have fixed it but you never can tell.  I will jump to the end anyway, just in case.

 We spent about an hour at the park.  They went on the swings for the first time and they played on the bike track.  It has been raining a lot lately and parts of the park were under water.  They have made improvements, though.  All the picnic tables have roofs over them.  Not sure how much protection they will provide since unless the rain is coming straight down, they will still get wet.  They are really tall and not very wide.  I am not sure they would even provide shade except maybe at the middle of the day.

The BBQs were working and several people had them going.  No fences around them and lots of kids running through, so I am still not sure how safe that is.  I guess it might work if someone stays close to the BBQs to keep the kids away.

After the park, we went to a bar.  Ok, so it is actually a club, and RSL which stands for something but I am not sure what.  It is a military club, they have lots of war memorabilia and they have a nightly moment of silence.  Lots of them around and anyone can join or come in.  This one is fairly big.  Mostly, they are used for pokies but most have restaurants in them also.  We went to have dinner and let Juanita play the pokies.  It wasn't bad and if you get the special, it is really cheap.  We did not get the special and Maeghan wanted spaghetti.  They did not have any so she had to settle for sausages and chips.  She did not like the sausage, it was kind of strange and the chips and sauce had a funny taste also but she ate them.  William had the kids pizza, pineapple and ham.  He did not realise the pineapple was on it until he had already eaten half.  That's when he decided he did not like it.  He ate the chips though, or most of them.  They got ice cream with theirs also, so they were happy.

While Juanita played, we were going to go outside but it was too cold and windy by then, so we went back in.  Normally, I have a beer and play Keno while we wait, but this time, I had to take care of the baby so I never made it to the Keno window or had a beer.  We left after that and went home.

Tuesday, I am trying to remember what we did.  I got it, we went to Terrigal.  Another local little town on the ocean, about 30 minutes from here.  It is a nice touristy place.  I know most people do not like touristy places but I like to walk in the the shops and stuff.  Terrigal does not really have good shops but it is a nice walk along the beach.  They had paved paths so you can stay out of the sand if you want to.  The kids didn't.  They immediately went for the sand and played around in that.

Terrigal also has this place.

This is the big hill.  Maybe a hundred or so meters high and very steep.  Maeghan and I climbed it.  It used to be just a grass hill but they have put in steps and a walkway all the way to the top so it makes it easier to climb.  I had to rest halfway to the top but Maeghan kept on climbing the whole way and was not that tired when she got to the top.  She did not take the pathway, she climbed all the way on the old grass part.  Not sure why but she made it.  She said before we started that she was going to climb as far as she could and them stop.  William was asleep in the car, or he was when we got there.  He said he did not want to go but of course, when we got back, he said he wanted to.  I was too tired to take him so we will have to save it for another day.

I am not pleased with the way this is letting me put the pictures in.  It will not let me put them side by side.  Maybe if I did it separately, it might work, but for now, there is that huge gap on the side.

We spent most the the day in Terrigal.  Went around the block twice, I think.  We walked along the beach and that first picture in this entry is from the rocks as you go around the corner on the path.  It you are brave enough, you can go all the way around to the park where the big hill is but we are not that brave.  It requires you walking along slippery rocks and at some point, you have to get wet.  Maybe we will save that for another day, also, but I doubt it.  It looks kind of dangerous.  Not that a lot of people don't do it anyway, but with the waves coming in, if you slip, you are going to fall onto rocks and then have waves crashing over you, so we will probably pass.

We went to a bar while we were there also.  This time, it really was a bar.  Juanita and I have been there before and we have probably taken the kids before but I can't remember.  It is an outdoor seating area where you can order drinks and they have bands there at nights and on the weekends.  During the day, it is just a nice place to sit and look at the ocean.

It is in the huge hotel that dominates the town of Terrigal.  When we come into town from the ocean side, you have to go along the rode that is high up above the town.  When you look down, you see this huge building that is about ten times the size of anything else.  There are lots of houses and even the square where all the shops are, but this hotel is what you see mostly.  The kids all call it the castle.  Not sure why.  I guess it vaguely looks like a castle but since I am always driving, I have never looked that close.  If you come into town from the other side, it is just houses and such and looks like just another place along the way.  We go that way all the time to go to one of the shopping centers but we rarely turn into Terrigal.  It is not big but as I mentioned, it is nice.  Very crowded during tourist season.  So much so that we avoid it if we can.  No place to park and it takes forever driving around the square because of all the foot traffic.  I have heard they are going to close on side of it and make it an open air market, they have already closed it to one lane of traffic, but I am not sure that will ever happen.

Yesterday, we went to another bar.  This one is Mingara, I might have mentioned it before.  It is more of a club that a bar but it has plenty of bars in it.  We are trying to get the kids drinking early so they can enjoy sitting there watching TV while they have a beer.  I think it is a good plan, not sure why.

Actually, there are lots of things in the club.  They have the pokies area, biggest one outside the casinos in Sydney.  They also have a coffee club restaurant, where we pretend we are just there to have coffee but we are really there to gamble.  They have a burger restaurant and a noodle bar and some type of Chinese restaurant.  There is also a big restaurant type of thing that has good lunches but I am not sure if it is supposed to be an upscale restaurant or just a local sit down eating place.  It is nice and either way, it has some good lunches.  Never been there for dinner but the signs for it look nice.

The reason the kids like it is they have a huge kids play area.  It costs money to put the kids in there but not a lot and the kids love it.  Play castles, and computer games and a big TV.  Some dancing machines and other stuff for the kids to do.  They go in for three hours or so at a time and always hate it when we come to get them.

Mingara is where I won the $640 on Keno.  Now that I am writing this, it seems like we might have a problem.  We seem to go a lot.  I think it is just lately, we have been a lot.  Normally, it is about once a month or so.

The real reason we went there was because next door, but still part of the club, is a huge swimming pool.  I think I have described this before.  Probably many times.  But we actually went there to go swimming for a while.  Spent about two hours in there before we moved over to the club part.  They also have a fitness gym there but we are not members.

Outside, they have a bowls club and a putt putt golf course.  A really nice putt putt golf course but very expensive.  $18 a game.  We have only done that once, right after it was built.  Now, it has trees and bushes and walkways all the way through and has really grown up around the course.  It goes up and down a hill also, so the course is really hard.  Not like a normal putt putt course.  Maybe we will do that tomorrow, on our last day of vacation.  Have to wait and see.

Well, this entry has gone on for a long time again.  I never seem to write a quick note.  Guess I will have to keep trying.  I think this one is so long because the pictures take up so much room this time.  Probably keep it to just one picture unless I can figure out how I made the multiple pictures work before.

So, until next time,

Talk to you later

MWNews 109

We went to Fiesta yesterday.  The 20th annual Sydney Fiesta in Darling Harbour.  Now, maybe I am biased having come from Texas where they have Mexican Fiesta's all the time, but having seen what passes for a Fiesta in downtown Sydney I am not really sure how this has lasted 20 years.

The procures and web page are all nice but the reality is this is a small time affair with maybe a couple of thousand people visiting and it is in Sydney where there are eight million people.

I mean, there were lots of people wandering around but there is no way they were going to this fiesta.  They were there for Darling Harbour.  The main part of the fiesta itself had maybe 2000 people sitting on the grass and watching people dance and play music and this was surrounded by food pavilions, I think there were eight, and a huge bar area where you could get drinks.  We didn't actually go into the bar part, it was just a bunch of tables and chairs on the grass, but I waited in line for some food.

If what I had was typical of what was at the other places, then these people are really starved for some real Latin American food.  I had some paella.  Had to be one of the worst paella's I have ever had, bland, tasteless (or does that mean the same thing, but saying it twice puts more emphasis on how unimaginative this stuff was) rice and a couple of pieces of seafood, like one shrimp, two mussels and a lot of squid.  Several people came up to me while I was eating mine and asked if it was worth the wait in line.  I had to tell them no, it was not.  I wished I had gone to the line next door which was charizo on a bun.  That might sound strange to my American friends, or Tex-Mex friends, and family as charizo in our part of the world is a fatty, crumbly, floating in oil type concoction but Spanish charizo and apparently most of the charizo's in the world are actual sausages that you can cook and eat like any other sausage.  It has taken me a long time to get used to it and I still want some old fashioned, Tex-Mex charizo and eggs.  But, alas, it is not to be.

The other food pavilions had things like, well, I don't really know what they were like.  Supposed to be different foods from different parts of Latin American, but, for example, at the Mexican pavilion, they were serving fajita.  Again, biased opinion here, but what they were serving were soft tacos, and not very good ones at that.  I smallish sized really think tortilla with some kind of loose meat in it covered with lettuce, tomato, sour cream and capsicum (bell pepper).  No cheese that I could see nor was there any hot sauce or avocado anywhere to be seen.  I didn't have one but it would seem kind of strange that they were calling this a fajita.  I know I am picky when I say an actual fajita is the kind of meat you are using, skirt steak, and the way you cook it.  I know, these days, any thing can be called a fajita, like chicken fajitas, shrimp fajitas, and any kind of meat or even ones with no meat, but to call this concoction a fajita just defiles all the memories I have of real food.

Now how did this turn into another food blog.  I was talking about the Fiesta and what we did while we were there.  Let's just say the food was uninspiring and the rest of the entertainment was even less so.  Maybe it picks up after dark but we didn't see any evidence that it might happen anytime soon.

We did go to the IMax theater.  We saw the flying dinosaurs.  It was entertaining, if somewhat short but what really made it and what was also the worst thing about it was the 3D effects.  Sometimes, they look really cool, to the point that you would get dizzy from all the flying around and flying past huge trees and things.  But a lot of the time, it was out of focus.  I kept thinking it was just me, but Juanita and the kids said the same thing after we left.  It was enough to give you a headache while you were watching it.  I know I have seem some movies in 3D but I don't recall any of them being out of focus for long periods of time.

William really loved the movie and Maeghan wanted to see something else right after it.  We didn't stay for a second movie but the next few movies would have scared them I am sure.  They had one on Tornado's and one on a zoo or something.  After that, they were going to show Transformers 3 but it did not start until 7 that evening and we did not think we would be there that long.  Turned out we were but they had forgotten about that by then.

We spent a couple of really long walks trying to find a decent priced meal around the Harbour.  Every restaurant we came to seemed to be some kind of luxury resort dining.  Really expensive and nothing we really wanted to eat.  And, with about 40 restaurants around, there should have been some that were cheaper.  We could have gone into the mall and sat in the food court, but I did not want to drive two hours one way just to eat in a mall food court.  The kids weren't really hungry anyway, they just wanted to eat in one of the cool restaurants.

There is one that is an actual ship they have converted to a restaurants.  It is docked on one side and I say docked but I am pretty sure it is never going to go out to sea again.  But, it does sit on the water and I think it is floating, so maybe they could take it out someday. 

Juanita and I have had coffee on this ship so we knew that the kids would be disappointed with it as once you are inside, you just sit a tiny tables and it seems just like any other restaurant.  Not a whole lot to see or do and if you did not know it, you would never realise you were on a boat.

We ended up leaving at about 8:30 that night.  Long drive home in which everyone fell asleep.  I think the kids had fun, they got to play in the new play park but that was so overcrowded with kids, you had to wait in line to do almost anything.  And, of course, there were lots of water type things to do but we did not allow Maeghan and William to get in the water.  The only really fun thing they got to do was the big slide.  Not a real big slide but a decent one,  Maybe 7 eight meters but to get up to it, you had to use a rope ladder to climb what amounted to a rock climbing wall.  William barely made it a few times but Maeghan would have never made it if I did not help her.  The footholds were very slippery and in no way were they at any kind of regular intervals.  Plus, as William proved, if you did not manage to get all the way to the told and had to get back down, you ended up taking a lot of kids with you in the avalanche.

They also got to ride the flying fox but that was a 20 minute wait to get on and it was not very long.  Maeghan and I waited in line and when William saw us, right at the top where you get on, he came running up and cut in line ahead of all those people so he could have a turn.  Several people gave me dirty looks but they knew I had been looking for him the whole time we were waiting in line so it shouldn't have been a surprise when he showed up.  Besides, I was not going to wait in that line again so he could have a turn.

Since we spent the day in Darling harbour, we will not be going back this week.  We did the theater and the playground was nothing to write home about, although I seem to have done just that.  The new restaurants they have along the playground might be good, but from where they are, you cannot see the actual playground to watch the kids.  They put this great big kiosk thing right in the middle and it blocks the view to the play area from the restaurants.  So that is a no go.  I guess we will have to find something else to do this week.

Guess I will be going now.  Don't know if I managed to make this entry shorter but it seems like maybe it is a little smaller.  Then again, by the time I finish writing bye, it will be just as long.  I am making myself of shrimp and sausage gumbo which I had planned on making yesterday but we went into town instead, so I am making it today.  I tried to follow a recipe but did not manage to do very well with it.  And, since I have been working all day and have not had anything to eat, I am about to go get some as I think it should be ready by now.

So, until next time

Talk to you later

MWNews 108

I know everyone has been waiting for the results of the new hot sauce taste test but I have to take a little side trip away from the important stuff and talk about the kids.  This is, of course, supposed to be about the kids but as you know, I tend to wander at times.  Makes for good reading, or is it good writing.  Maybe both.  Probably neither, but that's just the way I wander.  I say that in reference to Maeghan's old favorite character who says that's just the way I roll, but as that character no longer exists, I suppose it is just a waste of time for me to refer to it.

Maeghan and William went to a church function yesterday.  A kind of carnival, fete, play day type thing.  Just a jumping castle and a bunch of games they could play and things to draw and paint on.  Maeghan got her face painted but as I hate that type of thing, (I know, criticize me to no end) I did not take a picture and we will never see what it looked like.  Juanita probably took a picture but if she did, it would be on her computer and I have not transferred anything from there in a long time so it might be a while before I have that available.  Hopefully, I will forget by then.

When I say it was yesterday when they went, I actually mean two days ago.  I tend to forget things and it seems we did something else yesterday.  Or sort of did something else.  We went to the shopping mall and then to McDonald's so it was kind of an adventure.  Not really different than any other day but anytime I get out of the house is an adventure.

I did find something we are going to do next week.  Go into town.  Gosh, that seems like fun.  Actually, it is.  It is Sydney and it is a two hour train ride to get there, so just doing that is an adventure in itself.  But once we are there, there are lots of things we can do and see.  The kids do not get to go that often, neither do Juanita and I, but we do it a couple of times a year I suppose and I think we will go next week and see the IMax theater.

We have never been to it, it is in Darling Harbour if that means anything to anyone.  Probably not.  It is one of those really big screen theaters but you probably already knew that.  I am not sure what we will see but they have a two movies for the price of one thing going on and I thought me might have a go at it.  Being in Darling Harbour, there are lots of other things to do but one of the big ones is they have just completed the new play park behind the theater.  It is huge.  It was huge before and we have been a couple of times but apparently, they have improved it and put restaurants and other things in it so the adults can sit and drink coffee while the kids play.  There are a lot of things to do there, for the kids, but it does not really compare to the parks I have described in earlier posts.  If you want to find out about them, go back and read the posts from a few days? week? months? ago.  Not sure when I described them but it was not that long ago.

I really need to put labels on these entries so it is easier to find things I have talked about in them.  Mostly so I don't repeat myself as I so often do but then again, I will never go back and look at the labels to find out what I have said before, so why should I provide that luxury to you.  Guess it will happen when it happens.

Anyway, this refurbished park they have will let the kids play and do things while I have coffee, which, really, is the whole point to life.  I can sit and do nothing while still entertaining the kids.  Plus I get stimulants, so it is a win/win situation for everyone.

Other things to see and do in Darling Harbour are the rows and rows of restaurants.  There must be 20 or 30 of them all around a concreted area around the harbour.  It is kind of hard to describe.  One side has a shopping mall and the other is all restaurants.  You can walk all the way around in about 20 minutes, if you don't stop anywhere.  There is also a little train you can take around it but as it does not stop except at the pickup and drop off point, you just end up back where you started and have to walk around anyway.

The Sydney monorail also goes around the harbour.  There are a couple of pickup points.  You can take it into the heart of downtown, into the city proper, and then ride it back.  It is not very scenic and there are not a lot of things to see and do, plus if you are not familiar with where everything is, you never really know what stops to get off of to see anything.  But, it is a pleasant, if expensive, way to get around.  They need to make it go down to Sydney Harbour but that will never happen.  The closest point you get is about a 30 minute walk down to Central Quay.  Central Quay is where all the ferries dock that take you across the harbour and to different places.

The ferry rides is another thing we like to do and it is about the best and cheapest way to see the harbour and go all around to the different places.  For something like $10 or $12, you get all the ferry rides you want and they take you everywhere.  Whenever we have people visit who have the time, we take them down there and just ride the ferries.  You go by the Opera House and under the bridge, and around to a lot of different places to stop and see things.  One of the best trips is the trip across the harbour to Manly.  It takes you past the heads, the entrance to Sydney Harbour, and then into Manly.  There is lots of shopping in Manly and it leads down to a really nice beach.  Probably the second best beach in Sydney, next to the famous Bondi Beach, which is on the other side of Sydney from there.  There is not a ferry that goes there but it is another place people like to visit, probably just because it is famous.  We have never really gone there to go to the beach but have driven around that area a few times.  Manly beach is a dangerous beach with a rip tide that can take you hundreds of yards down the beach and out to see if you are not careful but it is huge and there are lots of things to see and do as you walk along it.  We have only ever just put our feet in the water but a lot of people are there most of the time swimming and surfing.

I forget what it was I was talking about and seemed to have gone off in a tangent.  I am sure I have spoken about the ferry rides and the other places to go in Sydney in the past.  Again, look it up and as soon as I get those labels in place, you can search for the right entries that mention it.

So, we have something to do one day next week, while I am on vacation and the kids are out of school.  It should be lots of fun and hopefully, the weather will be okay that day.  If not, we can spend the day riding the train back and forth to different places.  That is fun also and it is indoors.  Of course, there is lots of shopping in Sydney, and most of it is underground, so we could do that also.

I guess I have varied off topic long enough and will get back to the important stuff, food.  Maybe I should just rename this thing to some kind of food blog and be done with it.  But as I am having trouble typing at the moment, it means the food part of this will be short.

As you know, or as you do not know and if you do not know then you must have just started reading this blog and have not gone back and re-read previous entries.  I will wait for you to do so now.

Ok, up to speed?  Lets talk about the new sauce I received yesterday.  It is a BBQ sauce based on what passes for the worlds hottest chili these days.  The Trinidad Scorpion or something like that.  The sauce is not an extract but at the price I paid for it, I will treat it as one.  Only a little at a time, added to other things to add flavour and not a sauce to put on something by itself.

I was making ribs yesterday, had been planning on it for a while so it was a good thing I got the sauce when I did.  And I will not go into what they call ribs over here.  Been down that road many times and it would just annoy me more to write it again.

I was making my own BBQ sauce, as I normally do, and I added just a teaspoon of this new stuff to the recipe.  And no, I do not have the recipe I use, I always just make it up from the ingredients I have at the time.  I made about a pint of sauce, with the afore mentioned one teaspoon of hot sauce added.  Now, let me say, first of all, the sauce smells wonderful.  Full of that habanero smell that I love so much.  For those that don't know, habaneros do not smell or taste like jalapenos or serrano or capsicum chili's.  They are two different species of chili.  I forget what the two names are, but habanero smell and taste fruity and the jalapeno/capsicum smell is, well, jalapeno/capsicum smell.  I don't know how to describe it either.  You will just have to test it for yourself.

I did not, and still have not, tasted the sauce by itself.  I don't know why but maybe I will just go get some now and do it.  Then again, maybe not.  Getting tired of typing and if I do not finish, not sure when I will get back to it.  And, if for some reason the sauce incapacitates me, I might not be able to crawl back over to the computer and type in a 'help-me' message.

Now wouldn't that be weird, typing on the computer to ask for help for a situation that is immediate.  Kind of like texting someone or updating your facebook status to call for help when you are being attacked or something.  Who would do that?  Why would you just not make the call yourself, but I digress.

Anyway, the new BBQ sauce I made, with only one teaspoon in a pint of sauce is, how shall I say it, too hot to eat.  Now I have made some sauces that were too hot to eat in the past and I have always strived to make them again.  I have been unable to do so here in Australia as I just cannot get the ingredients to do it.  But this sauce, with just a little use of it, has created something I am truly proud of.  A sauce that cannot be consumed by humans.  Maybe I am just out of practice and have not really stretched my limits of hot sauce consumption in a long time, but this is something that is wonderful to behold.

It is not hot at first but then slowly builds up to a searing pain that is just full of wonderful surprises.  There is a line from a BBQ book I used to have that describes what I am talking about.  I think it goes something like this, but I am probably mangling the quote.

It starts off with a slow subtle sweetness that is both pleasant and surprising and settles down into a brief sense of pleasure felt all through the mouth, then slowly spreads down the throat (almost sound pornographic doesn't it) until a warm pleasant feeling is both expected and craved.  It then follows with a round house kick to the throat that is somewhere between a root canal or a free tonsillectomy that leaves you both gasping for breath and wondering when it was you last updated your will.  A sensation of pain so intense and so profound that the only real remedy is to take another bite and attempt to end it all right then and there.  If you can get over the pain and manage to gasp your way through all the burning and ripping sensations, you find the taste is actually pleasant and sort of comforting, knowing that the sauce is not really there to kill you but is only there to remind you that some things in life are worth the pain and suffering you have to go through to experience the really pleasant after effects of knowing you have come through a trial and survived and you are a better person for it.

Ok, I did not really use the quote as I remembered it, I made most of that up, but I think you get the idea.  This stuff is lethal while still managing to taste good.  A truly pleasant experience all around, if I do say so myself.  I look forward to my next bite, probably sometime next week when I recover.

Actually, I plan on making more ribs tonight and using up the rest of the sauce I made.  So don't expect any more posts for a while as I do have a heart condition and this one might be the big one.

Speaking of which, I am not sure I have ever told the heart attack story in this blog.  I am sure it is not up to my father's standards, but I need to start my own tradition so I can enhance the story many times over as I get older.  That will have to wait for another time, though.  Right now, all this talk of food has made me hungry and I need to get something to eat.

I think I balanced the food and kid stories pretty good this time.  Maybe not, but it has only been a day since my last post and the kids have not done anything of note in that time.  They did manage to fight and argue to the point that they got sent to bed early, or early for it being a holiday, but that is normal behaviour for them, so nothing special about that.  Next time, I am sure I will have more.  Maybe go back to some old stories I have yet to tell.

So, until next time

Talk to you later

MWNews 107

Trying this iPhone app for posting. I can already tell I don't like it. It doesn't rotate to make the keyboard bigger so it is hard to type. Plus, I have to swap keyboards to use punctuation. Not a friendly experience. Probably just use it for quick posts. Like I ever make quick posts. Tired of one finger typing now.

So, until next time

Talk to you later

MWNews 106

Ok, the picture is not clear and the spray is not the best, but I am in the process of re-organizing all my photos and I cannot find anything anymore.  Once I am done, I will create Picasa Web albums and just post and select them from there.  Until then, live with it.

The kids are on holidays, spring break.  I am taking next week off so I can spend some time with them.  Not sure what we are going to do.  Juanita wants to go camping but although I am on vacation, I still have to work on the both weekends, so we could not go far no matter what we did.

I don't really want to go camping.  It is supposed to be cold and raining and I do not want to put up a tent in the rain and then spend the time sitting around on wet things.  If we are only going an hour away, then I don't see why we just don't stay in the warmth of the house, with running water and everything we already have.  But I may not have a choice.

The kids, of course, want to go.  They don't have to do anything.  Kind of hard to say no to them and since it is me saying no, I am the bad guy.  Again, we will see.

In the meantime, I have to think of other things we are going to do.  Going to parks in the area is on the top of the list, but the cold and raining thing comes into play with that also.  Maybe we will take a drive somewhere but that is not a lot of fun for the kids.  DVD players and handheld games don't seem to keep their attention for very long anymore.  Plus, we have the baby, who usually sleeps in the car but not always.

Yes, Juanita still has the baby.  She might be getting a permanent foster child soon and the one she has might be going back to the mother sometime soon.  We have no specifics of when or even if this will happen, but it is headed that way from what she has been told.  Not going to spend a lot of time on that but it is something she wants to do and has been doing for about six months now so we are getting used to it.

William got his trophy for soccer last weekend.  They had a big get together for all the teams and played some games.  It was raining and cold at the time but as they had already put off the awards day for a month, they went ahead with this one in the rain.

William had fun and he actually tried to play in the games.  I guess our always telling him to try harder instead of just running back and forth seemed to have helped.  He actually got to kick the ball towards the goal.  Missed by about ten feet, but he tried and actually got a shot off.  He also made everyone talk about him for a minute when he was kicking the ball in from the sidelines.  They don't throw it in, they kick it in and he put the ball down and then backed up about 50 yards to get a good run on the ball.  Several of the parents on the sidelines said watch out, here comes a big kick.  Of course, William being William, he ran up to the ball then stopped and kicked it in so the running up all that way did nothing for the kick, but for a while, everyone was looking at him.

After the games, he got a trophy and a cap and a sausage sandwich.  Not sure which one he liked the most.  His trophy is on the fridge, not sure why, but we will move it to his room soon.  Maeghan wanted a sausage also but they were only for the players.  I walked her up there and told them she was a player also and they gave her one.  She also got a cap from Juanita because Juanita got one for being one of the managers.

We went for a walk around the Entrance the other day.  We are trying to get Maeghan walking more as that is what the doctors are telling us.  To get her moving more and not relying on the chair so much.  She got tired and we had a long rest at the midway point but she did really well.  She has been on several long walks lately so I think she is doing good.  The doctors want to go to a dietitian so they can regulate her food.  She is big and they say since she is so small, she cannot be overweight also as it will cause her back to get worse.  I think she goes this week to the dietitian but I am not sure.

We have all been walking more lately, when it is not raining.  It rained for four days last weekend and it is about to start raining again.  At one point it rained really hard, with thunder and lighting, for about 12 hours straight.  The back yard, which holds water anyway, was pretty much a river the whole time.  We did not go out of the house that day.

I was going to mention that after the soccer party, we went to Mingara to let the kids play in the playground.  They had gone there the previous day but they went to the swimming pool and not the playground.  They had fun at the pool but they really wanted to go inside and play so we took them the next day.

While we were there, I was playing KENO.  Juanita likes to play the slot machines but I always think it is just a way to waste a lot of money very quickly.  It is ok when you win, but that doesn't happen a lot.  Just enough to keep you playing which is what they want.

We had just had lunch, they do very nice lunches there although this brings up another topic that I have not addressed, or maybe I did and just forgot about it.  Why is it no restaurants over here have a soup and salad option.  They have soup, and they have salad, but they do not have an option to order a soup and salad.  Most restaurants in America have that option and I have seen it once or twice over here, mostly in American owned chains like Outback Steakhouse, but I never see it anywhere else.  When I mention this to anyone, they say that is a weird combination, one hot thing and one cold thing.  I am not sure I understand the logic behind that but it just seems strange.  And, of course, they charge full price when you do order a soup and a salad and when they bring it, they usually give one to Juanita and one to me.  I have to tell them they are both for me and then I get that strange look again.  It just seems to be something that would be a natural combination to me and most Americans but is a foreign concept to this culture, maybe most cultures, but these are the only two I am that familiar with.

Anyway, I was talking about playing KENO.  After we had lunch, and before Juanita went off to play slots, I picked my usual numbers for five games.  As Juanita was leaving, I saw that I had two of my numbers with four left to pick.  I said if I get another number, I win $2 and I got the third number.  The next number was not mine but then I got my forth number on the next to last pick and I told her I had four numbers and then the fifth number came up.  I checked it and checked it and then told Juanita I had won.  She said how much and I said I was not sure.  I looked it up in the book.  I nearly fell off my chair.  She kept asking how much, how much.  I told her it would be displayed on the big board because when a big winner comes up, it shows up there.

That's when she realized it was a big number.  Not the really big numbers you sometimes see, but big enough for a five dollar bet that it made our week.  $640.  It came up on the board that they had a winner right here.  It is always saying they have a winner somewhere else but they put big stars around it and flash it on the screen in big letters when it is local.  Juanita saw that and said, was that you.  I told her it was so we sat there for a while before I was going to get up and claim it.  I was guarding the ticket the whole time.  I had to wait because I still had two more games on my ticket and I could not claim it until all the games were finished.  It turned out that I had four numbers on the next game, which is only $14 but all up, I had won over $650.  A big win in any one's book.

Juanita went off the play the pokies, I gave her what had been my last five dollars to go play.  I then went up to make my claim and then had to wait about half an hour for them to call the manager and verify the win.  They told me to have a seat and they would bring it out to me.  Sure enough, they came out thirty minutes later and gave me $650.  It was so cool.  Felt like one of those big spenders at the casinos or something.

Anyway, turned out to be a good day.  Naturally, by the end of the day, after we had left the club, I only had about $200 left but I got some things I had been putting off buying.

One of the things I decided to get was some hot sauce.  I had to order that online when I got home.  I seems that someone in Australia, near where I live by the way, has invented or grown the new hottest chili in the world.  It used to be the Jolokia pepper from India, I think, but he has been working on creating the new hottest chili here in Australia.  They are all based on the Habanero chili from Jamaica or something but they keep breeding them hotter and hotter and come up with a new variety to make them the hottest.  Not that you can tell the difference once it gets that hot but by measurement, scoville units, the surpass the previous records.

Anyway, I bring up this ordering of the new sauce because they have just delivered it to my door.  It is a BBQ sauce based on the chili, which I think is called the Trinidad Scorpion Chili.  It is not an extract, which is what I want but cannot get over here.  I used to get Dave's Insanity sauce in America and I smuggled two bottles in the last time I went home but they are long gone now.  I can get a Habanero paste that is pretty good but I seem to have become immune to its effects and there is another past based on the Jolokia chili that is supposed to be hotter but I did not like the taste of it.  I am hoping that this new sauce is hotter and since it is a BBQ sauce it is tastier.  We will see.  You have to order it online as they have not made enough to stock it in stores, but hopefully, it will be there soon as the shipping is $15 no matter how much you order.

I ordered two bottles and should have done it when I first heard about the sauce.  It was $15 for a five ounce bottle a couple of weeks ago, but when I ordered this on Monday, it was $18 a bottle.  So all up, for two five ounce bottles was over $50.  Not sure it was worth the price and since the factory or farm or whatever it is that produces it is within an hour of where I live, shipping seems to be excessive.  I might just take a drive over there to see if they sell direct to the public in their offices.  Don't know exactly where it is, but it is in the Hunter valley, which is just across the freeway from where I am.  If you want to look up the company and read more about it, and I don't know why everyone is not fascinated by this topic, the company name is The Chili Factory.  Just google that and see the website.  I'd put a link in here, but that would be way too fancy.  Then again, lets give it a try.
The Chilli Factory

Hope that worked.  Now that I have spent most of this entry talking about food again and not about the kids, I am going to try my new sauce.  So I will be signing off now.

I have considered making these entries shorter and doing more of them but you know how I am.  Lots of nothing and then a few entries, then lots more of nothing, so I am never sure when I will get around to it.  There is an app on my iPhone that I have considered using but will have to test that out when I am thinking about it.  Maybe in a few minutes, just to test it, but for now, I am ending this entry.

So, until next time

Talk to you later

MWNews 105

It has been a whole day since my last entry.  Wonder where the time went.

I seem to recall that I had a lot to say when I left last time but I don't seem to remember what it was.  I thought I would just start typing and hope it comes back to me.

So far, not so much.

But we press forward.

I am thinking of going to a new place today.  Some kind of park where they have mazes and stuff.  I am not sure it is worth the price so I am still deciding.  $45 for the four of us.  Kind of steep if all they have is a couple of hedge mazes to walk through.  Plus, they charge you extra for a picnic lunch.  I think you can bring your own but it does not really say.  The other thing, it is really close, about 5 minutes away.  So how good could it be since we have never heard of it.  It is new, but you would have thought we would have heard something if it was that great.  Might just be better to go to the new park, which is an hour away.

I have mentioned the new parks before.  There is one about an hour south of here.  It is big, has a lot of different things to do and is close to shops and the ocean.  It gets crowded so the kids have to wait in line to do anything and there really is not that much to do.  I long flying fox that the kids like.  I climbing spider, rope thing that is really tall.  Lots of things to climb on and run under.  They have a merri-go-round type thing but it is people powered and every time we go, it seems it is broken and very hard to push.  Takes an adult to do it and it has no momentum when you let go.  Just kind of stops turning when you stop pushing, so it wears you out very quickly pushing the kids around.

There is a tire swing that sort of hangs from a few chains and you sit on while it spins around.  It always has kids on it so waiting for your turn is a problem as the kids do not tend to get off.  And, even when you get on it, it does not seem like a lot of fun.

It is a good park and might have been the best around if the new one that opened about an hour north of here had not recently opened.

This park is amazing and it is still being built.  They have about half of it done now and what they have is great.  When they finish, it will be about twice the size with kiosks and trails and picnic areas all around.  It is on Lake Macquarie, although not that close to the water.  You can see the lake from there but with the park and all there is to do, we have never walked down to the see what might be at the waterside.

This park is not close to anything.  Have to get in the car if you need to see some shops or get anything.  It is next to a lot of athletic fields and a big public swimming pool.  I think I remember seeing them building it but we do not go that way very often, maybe once every couple of months, so I am not sure if we saw it being built of not.  It is not near the main road so you have to look for it when you drive past.

This park starts with a small kids area.  Lots of things to climb on and a couple of swings and there are some other stuff on the right that I have never been to so I am not sure what is over there.  As they are still building things, there seems to be something new every time we go there.

The next thing you come to is a big wooden pirate ship type thing that has walking paths and different things to do on it.  It is surrounded by little things to climb on and sit on and spin around on.  Next to is a water area where they have fountains and water canons and some kind of well that the kids pump water into.  We do not let the kids go in that area, it has been too cold, but it looks like it will be fun when the weather warms up.

These things you go past when you enter but the park is dominated by a really tall tower that will eventually be in the center of a huge soft, squishy, play area.  I say soft and squishy because you know about the soft flooring stuff they put on the ground in kids parks these days.  This park not only has that but seems to have some soft bouncy under pinning beneath the surface that makes it really bouncy.  I am sure after use it will get less bouncy but now, it is kind of hard to walk on it.

The tower is huge, for a kids park.  It is about 10 to 15 meters high.  It is a big enclosed area all the way up, about 3 meters by three meters on one side and a little bit more on the other.  The bigger side has climbing ropes and rope ladders in it that the kids can enter by going through a rope bridge.  The whole thing is enclosed in rope mesh, so no one can fall out.  Not sure who checks the integrity of the mesh but it would seem someone would have to do that periodically.  So far, it looks good.

The other side is metal and has metal ladders going around and around in it.  Not really around and around but there are several three or four rung ladders on each side that you climb up to get to the top.  You climb up one, then go to the other side and climb up the next one.  You do all this climbing to get to a little waiting area at the top.  You can get to the waiting area from the rope ladder side as well.

The reason you climb all this way is to get to the slide.  At the top, say ten meters high, I am not sure how high it really is, could only be about 5 or six meters but it looks really high, there is the entrance to a long spiraling, completely enclosed slide.  It spirals down in about 4 loops and has to be the most popular free ride in Australia.  It is not that the lines are that long, maybe a ten to fifteen minute wait each time but it is constantly in use, as you can imagine.  Kids, adults, animals, everything you can imagine is constantly going down this slide.  Kids of all ages.  I think I have seen two year olds coming out the end of that thing.  I have no idea how they climb all the way to the top and then slide down, but there they are, sliding out of the opening laughing and giggling the whole time.  I don't think I have seen any crying kids at anytime we have been there.

William was the first one to try it.  He made the mistake of going up the rope part first, it takes about twice as long that way, but he never hesitated.  He was at the top in about five minutes and was sliding down as soon as he got there.  He absolutely loved it.  He came out and said that was the best thing ever.  The first time we were there, he must have rode it four or five times in the hour we were there.  I am sure he would have gone more but he had to sneak over to the water park and he got in trouble for that so had to spend some time next to us and not playing.

Maeghan has yet to try it.  We have had the grandkids with us the two times we have been to the park and they were all scared to go until they say William do it a couple of times.  Jarvis has been afraid to go on it also, so he has never been.  Both Maeghan and Jarvis have climbed almost to the top but have decided not to go each time.  Maeghan wants me to go with her, but I am afraid I would get stuck in the tunnel and I am claustrophobic, or that is the excuse I give.  Did I mention it is very tall.

Well, this thing dominates the park, but there is lots more.  Next to the tower are two flying foxes.  They are not as good as the one at the other park but they seem to have longer lines.  There is also a huge bike area a little further down from this.  Lots of kids on bikes, skateboards, and just running in this area.  Little roads and paths and things for them to ride around on.  There are also a few swings in this area and a huge tire swing thing like the one at the other park.  It is about twice the size and you climb on it and swing around with about eight or nine other kids.  Looks like fun but it does not seem to  get used that often.

The rest of the park, or scattered through the park, are picnic areas, paths, and even a couple of BBQs but I am not so sure about having hot BBQs with all those kids around.  It looks like they might be putting up fences to separate the two of them but they are not there yet.

In other parts of the park, you can see where they are going to build mazes, and more swing areas and it looks like something that will have water in it.  No idea when these will be finished but when it is, I would say the whole park will cover at least three of four acres.  You can see the plans for it on some signs but I think they have already deviated from those plans as they do not match what is actually there.

I have no idea how they are going to keep this area free to the public or how they are going to maintain it over the long run.  And the first time someone falls or is hurt on that big tower, I am sure they will have to make changes.  But for now, it would seem to be the best free kids park I have ever seen.  There are some good ones in Queensland but I think this one tops them all.

Well, I guess I have to get going now.  Did I say anything?  Not really sure other than the description of the park.  Should have included more about the kids and what they think of it but Maeghan wants me to fix breakfast for her, so I have to get going.  And this entry is fairly long so it should tide you over until I get around to doing another.

Guess I will be going now.  Until next time.

Talk to you later

MWNews 104

I am writing from work because I am bored.  And I do not have a lot of pictures on this machine, so I picked an old one.  No idea if I have ever used it before.

Yes it has been a long time.  But enough about that.

William saw a mole on my back the other day.  He asked what it was and we told him it was a mole.  He asked what a mole was.  Maeghan said it was something old people get.  I sent her to her room but since she can outrun me, I could not make it stick.

We have been busy and not so busy for a while.  Just got over a bout of stomach flu.  Maeghan and me mostly but William stills tells us he is sick.  He was sent home from school a few days ago.  We got a call to come get him and then about 2 hours later, we got a call to come pick up Maeghan.  It seems there were a lot of people sick in school that week.  I think we are all over it but I still feel a bit queasy when I eat.  Not that it keeps me from eating but it is a bit unpleasant so I can't enjoy the full belly.

The kids are on spring break in a couple of weeks.  We were planning on doing something as I took vacation for it but we seem to have a couple of other things to do later in the month that I need to take off for, so we will probably just stay home.

At the end of October, we have a wedding to go to in Queensland.  One of Juanita's friends daughters wedding.  I have met her but don't really know them well.  We have stayed at their house a few times and Juanita basically used to live with them, so we are going to the wedding on a short trip.  The wedding is on a Saturday.  I will drive up with one of the kids, Maeghan I think, and Juanita and William will fly up on Saturday morning, hopefully getting there before we have to be at the wedding.  I think we will be ok as they get in at 06:30 and the wedding is that afternoon but we still have to pick them up and drive to it.  I think I remember it is on some island, about an hour or two from the airport, so we should make it.

We will then stay until Monday, when Juanita and Maeghan fly back at 06:00 and William and I will drive back.  You might be asking why some are flying and some are driving.  Basically, Juanita is doing foster care and she has a little baby with her.  The baby has visitation on Fridays and Mondays.  Unless we just drove up there and then drove straight back, she could not make it for both visitations.  So we have them flying out after the Friday and then before the Monday and I will drive so we have a car available and we can spend a little time there.

We might go to Dreamworld, an amusement park, or something like that while we are there but I think we will just visit some of the old places we used to go to.  Like Sutton's Beach, I think I got that right.  It is where we got married and there is a big free water park and play area.  Maybe we will visit some people but we will probably not have time.

In December, we are going down to Tasmania for a couple of days.  We are going to Juanita's father's 70 birthday.  Not sure how we are doing that visit.  We might do the fly and drive thing again, so we do not have to rent a car while we are there.  It is actually cheaper to drive down to the boat and take the car than to fly and rent a car but again, the problem of visitation and the long travel time make it hard to work around.  If there are cheap fairs at any time, we will figure out something but we really want to go for this one as we missed both the 60th birthdays and her mother is not well, so it will be good to see them.

Plus, to rent a car big enough while we are there is fairly expensive.  Taking our car is a good option.  Just have to find the right price for it.

After 8 1/2 years, my job has finally come to a head.  I was told to look for something else.  Nothing official, or nothing really official, but my boss said to start looking in case it came about fairly quickly.

I have actually found another job and was supposed to have received the offer today but have not heard anything.  In the meantime, the job I am in now has been working to find a way to keep me.  They think they have done it, but again, nothing official just saying they have agreement in principle to keep me at least until next April.

So, I am faced with a problem.  Do I take the new job, which has not been offered yet, and do something I do not really want to do.  It is just a job and not really something I want but could lead to other things, including facing being fired in April.  Or, do I stay where I am and take the chance that the job lasts beyond April or no one changes their mind and lets me go earlier.

I like what I do now, although to move up anywhere, I would have to move back to America and take my bosses job.  A possibility for the job but not for real life.  (I can't move my family back to America.  They live here and I would not do that to them as I know how much I miss being home and I would not want to put them through that.)  And, going by myself is not something I think I could handle.  But that is a whole other story.

Anyway, it looks like nothing will happen today, or if it does, it has to happen in the next hour or so, so I will wait until Monday and next week to see what happens.  Hard to say which way I will go, but I think I am leaning on staying where I am.  Hopefully, in April, I will have the same luck finding a new job as I did this time.  Tough chance to take but I really do not want this other job at this time.  Maybe things change in six months.

I suppose I should be going and do some work.  I have a lot of work this weekend and I will be missing a party on Sunday that I was supposed to cook for.  Just a BBQ for someone's birthday.  I would say it is Michael, but that would confuse everyone because it is a different Michael.  Michael the son.  I have to work on Sunday, all day, so I won't be able to make it.

Means I have to find something fun to do with the kids tomorrow, Saturday, so we can spend some time together.  We have found a new park about an hour away that is really great.  It would be good to go there for a BBQ but since they are doing that Sunday, we will find something else to do.  It should be fun, or I hope it will be.  I have been sick so have not had a lot of time with the kids the last week.  And, almost every other weekend, we have had grand kids or other people over so we can never do anything just for ourselves.  I hope that has not changed while I have been here, but sometimes, things change and I do not find out about them until they actually occur, so we will see when I get home.

Still more stuff to talk about, it has been three months, but I will leave it until next time, whenever that is.  Until next time.

Talk to you soon.     

MWNews 103

Not really a lot to say, just thought I would create a new entry.

Maeghan was upset the other day.  She did not make the finals of the school talent show.  She was performing a dance she and another girl made up.  There were only two spots open and a lot of people trying out for it but she missed out.  Having only been there a month or so, she had not had a lot of time to practice with it so it was understandable, but she was upset.  She will get over it, probably by the next day.  And she can practice for the next one, whenever that is.

William is doing ok, I suppose.  Have not heard if he has improved in his classes.  When he first started, they seemed to think he should already be able to read and add and subtract.  I have no idea why they think the kids in kindergarten should already know how to do that, but the comment from the teacher was that she can send her other students to their desks to read and they all do it but William always wants to play.  Which is what William would do but I don't believe the other kids are actually reading books.

We have tried to help, we got flash cards for William and go over them every day.  He knows about half of the letters but he does not seem to be improving.  The ones he knows, he says instantly, but the ones he does not, he says I don't know and starts to play.  It is very hard to get him to concentrate, which of course, it has always been hard to get him to concentrate.  He is only five, so I do not see it as a big problem but the school has already said they want a doctor to do an evaluation and I have said absolutely not.  Too maybe kids are sent to the doctor and then labeled slow or needs medication or something else and they just hand them out like candy.  I will not allow that to happen.  If we have to pull him out of school, I will not let that happen.  But we are well away from that option at this point.  The teachers say they will work with him and see how he goes.

The strange part is he had none of these problems at the other school, or none that caused the teachers to bring it to our attention.  He has always been hyper but at the old school, they had no problem working with him.  I don't know if the problem is the new school and the teachers there or maybe the old school did not push him hard enough.  I suspect there is a problem with the new school as they seem to do things a lot differently.  For example, they combine classes.  Maeghan's class has 60 kids in it.  They have three teachers, but the class all sits in one room.  It would appear originally, they had partitions for the rooms but have long since removed the partitions to combine the classrooms into really big rooms.  I can see where it might be hard to get anything done in that environment.  Too much noise, too maybe kids competing for attention, just too much stuff going on at the same time.  I suppose we will just have to see how it goes.  It is a new school and maybe they are trying something different, some new teaching method or something.  We will see.

It has been raining for a week now.  They are starting to get flooding north of here.  They always get flooding north of here but it seems it is big news every year.  We have had a lot of rain.  William's last soccer game was cancelled and I am thinking today's practice might be cancelled as well.  Last week, I was the only male parent there so I had to run practice.  It was a very good practice as far as I am concerned.  Kids did not really pay attention, but they never do.  We did get through all the drills I designed and put them through.  And, I think they had fun, so it was a good practice.

One issue was I had to run and show them all the different things I wanted them to do.  I was exhausted.  Running for 30 or 45 minutes, trying to keep up with 5 and 6 year olds was not exactly fun.  There were only 5 of them there, there are only six on his whole team, but they always run around and never listen to what you are telling them.  William is probably the worst, but the others seem to be catching up him in mucking up.  I have always had the criticism of the others that run the practices that they spend too much time waiting in line for their turn to run the drills.  It makes it easier for the coach but the kids do not get a lot out of it. 

they had fun so it was a good practice.

Maeghan wanted to do some cooking the other day.  She wanted to cook cookies.  Not really make cookies, but get those kind that come in a roll and you just cut them up and bake them.  Naturally, when William saw what we were doing, he wanted to do it also, but we did manage to make a couple of batches that got eaten as they came out of the oven.  Maeghan could not understand why they were so soft and chewy.  I had to explain that you normally do not eat them right out of the oven and if we let them cool, they would get hard.  We tried that on a couple but that only lasted a few minutes before they could wait no longer and ate them.

She wants to do it again, but they are kind of expensive to buy and bake them that way.  Today, I might get the raw ingredients so we can make them from scratch.  She will probably like that better anyway.

I am also going to try cooking from one of my new cookbooks.  I was reading through it the other day and thought that most of the recipes I could make easily, so I will buy one meal at a time and work my way through the book.  Bad part is, it starts with soups and while I like soups, there are about 50 pages worth and if I go through it in order I will get tired of soup very quickly.  So I might have to skip around a bit.  It should be fun.  The title of the book is Hot Food and has a lot of different recipes from different counties in it so I think it should be fun.  Maybe Maeghan will want to help me with that, although I am sure she will not eat many of the dishes.

Well, it is about time I had to go.  Juanita is here to go shopping and I am not dressed yet.  She is still in the car so I am sure she is getting tired of waiting.  I need to sign off and get dressed.

So, until next time

Talk to you later

MWNews 102

Maeghan has teeth.  William says his teeth are loose.

OK, don't know how much I have mentioned it, but Maeghan has been missing her two front teeth for about 18 months.  We took her to the doctor a few months ago and they said wait six months and we will see how it goes then.  I am sure I have mentioned this in previous posts but if not, well, make up your own stories 'cause I am not going back to look.

The gist of the story is her two front teeth are finally coming in.  One is about halfway and you can see the other one.  It has been so long, it is kind of strange to see teeth where there used to be none.  They do look kind of big but I guess we will see when they are fully there.  She is really happy about it, as are the rest of us.  One less thing to worry about, I guess.

William, thinking he is not getting enough attention on his teeth, says his are loose.  When you ask which ones, he says the ones in his mouth.  He cannot exactly say which one it is, but he says he can move it with his tongue.  I offered to pull it out for him but that just scared him.  I am sure he will be surprised when the time comes for them to actually start falling out.

Maeghan and William have started their new school.  They live across the street from it and it did not make sense to keep driving them to the old school.  William was ready to go from the beginning but we were worried about Maeghan in that she has always gone to the same school and she is shy about making new friends.  William will go up to anyone and then say they are his friend.  His new thing to introduce himself is to say his name is William and this is his family.  I am not sure if that is cute or disturbing but he seems to think it is the way you introduce yourself.  He also things it is ok to go sit at other people's tables if he things they are more interesting than we are, which in most cases, he probably has a point.

Apparently, blogger is doing maintenance on the site as weird things keep happening.  I saw a message when I signed on that said they were doing something but it would be back up soon.  This means something because the cursor keeps jumping around and the spell checked keeps highlighting almost everything I type.  Also, the arrow keys are not working, so I can't go back to move around in the entry very well.

Bottom line is I think I am going to end this post very quickly as it has become annoying and we all know how much I dislike annoying.  Maybe I will try again later, probably not, but you can always hope.  Light a candle or something, that might help.

Ok, until next time

Talk to you later