MWNews 78

It's been so long since I posted, I don't really remember what this whole thing was about. I think it has something to do with the kids but we will see how it goes as I type.
The main reason for the delay is the internet problems I have had over the last year. Mentioned many times and complained about many more, lets just say it has not been an ideal situation to try to upload files and pictures to the internet. It takes so long and fails most of the time, that I just got tired of dealing with it, so I gave up blogging until the situation got better.
Well, it might be getting better. We just moved house again. I think that is once a year for every year I have been in Australia. I am sure that is some kind of record. Not too far from where we live now and closer to where we were when we lived at Shelly Beach. About a 20 minute walk to the ocean but farther from Maeghan's school. It is about 100 meters from where Maeghan and William went to pre-school, so we will see about getting William back in there next term.
I don't know if anyone has heard, but there was a child care crises here in Australia and most of the major child care centers closed. That was about a year ago and since then, several of them have re-opened or changed ownership. Where William was going actually did not close but lost most of its clients as they thought it was going to close so the parents pulled the kids out, which of course, caused it to eventually close anyway. William had already left by that time, which was around the first of the year, but at the end, there were only three other kids in his group and it was plain to see that they could not continue on like that.
So all this leads to the fact that we will try to get him back into the school where Meaghan used to go and he went for a couple of months. It never closed and is one of the better schools around in that it trys to prepare the kids for school so they can attend at the minimum age of 5, which is what Maeghan did. It is very competitive getting kids into it, but since William and Maeghan were there before, we think we might have a leg up for getting him in again as soon as a spot opens. And since it is barely a two minute walk to get there, that will be really convenient.
On the other hand, Maeghan will still go to the school she has always gone to. It is well liked in the community and she has a good relationship there, so we have tried to stay close to it so she can continue to go as long at possible. She did miss about a month of school at the end of last term, but I will speak more about that later.
Where we are now, it is a little farther to drive and we don't really know how long it will take to get her there and then pick her up, but we will make the effort so she will stay comfortable in school and not have to make new friends and new teachers. I think I might have spoken about this before as I seem to recall writing something about her new class and new teachers but I don't really want to check and will just assume her latest endeavors are known. If not, I am sure I will repeat myself many times if I get back into this blogging thing, so for now, we will leave it at that.
The new house has an inground pool and huge backyard. You might ask why we need an inground pool when the ocean is only a short walk away, but I prefer not to ask those kinds of questions as the answer tends to confuse me. Something that happens a lot lately so I stay in a constant state of bewilderment.
The house itself is a bit smaller but has a large room out back that is bigger than any in the house. I think it is designed more as a holiday house as that is what is all the other houses have around it. Meaning a big granny flat or in some cases, multiple granny flats in the back yards of the houses. Next door, it looks like there is a series of about three rooms that the owners in the big house can rent out during the summer and behind our house, there are a set of four small apartments that look to be holiday houses for someone. On the other side, there is a two story apartment building, fairly new and the same across the street, so during the summer, I am sure there will be a lot of temporary people living in the area, but we will have to wait and see what effect that has on the neighborhood.
I said the back yard was huge as it is at least half an acre in size, with the pool, the granny flat, and a large shed in back and still plenty of room left over for our swing set and trampoline. It looks like several large trees where pulled up in the back at one time, not sure why, but they did not do a very good job since lots of roots and wholes still exist where they have failed to take the trees out correctly. Even with all that stuff in the back, you could play a good game of cricket (had to say that since I am in Australia) or soccer or even a small game of baseball or football if you were so inclined. The kids have already had fun kicking the balls in the back yard as far as they can kick them and running to kick them back. The do tend to kick them over the fence in the pool area but I think they do that on purpose on the off chance that we will let them in the gate near the pool so they can get closer to it. It is much too cold to go swimming and probably not warm up enough for several months before they can swim in the pool, but I am sure they still want to give it a try. Hence the need to kick the ball over the fence on the off chance that we will let them in to go swimming.
We have mostly moved everything in at this point, just finished this past weekend. There are still a few odds and ends to move, like my desk and some other minor things, but for the most part, we have everything. It was debatable whether we could fit everything in the new house. Taking measurements, it appeared that the front living area was too small to fit our lounge into it, so we decided to make that the dining area and move the main lounge area to the back room. Even then, it was close as to whether the lounge would fit there, but it turns out, it does fit nicely in that back room. The front room now has the dining table, which is very large and square, in it plus the bookshelves, plus Juanita's desk, and the wine rack. It is a fairly busy room with all that in it, but it might work out.
The kitchen is large, but that is only because there is nothing in it. No bench space to speak of, no cabinets and a very small stove/oven. There is a small standalone pantry and plenty of room for the fridge, but the middle of the room is fairly empty. We put the glass hutch on one wall and are using it to store all our everyday dishes and plastic containers, plus the all the plastic cups, bowls and plates. Not sure if all the glass cups and things will fit in the hutch as well, but with no other place to put them, we will have to make it fit. All the other decorative stuff that used to be in the hutch has been moved to the dining room on the former book shelves and wine rack and anything else that will hold decorative stuff but in the end, we might just have to get rid of some things to make room for what we actually need.
We did have a garage sale over two weekends and sold a lot of things, but none of the decorative stuff. We did sell some of the kids toys that had been stashed in the garage not being played with. I am not sure the kids understand that these things are now gone but they have so much other stuff to play with, I am not really sure they will ever notice. We needed to sell a lot more of their things as we have rooms full of toys and things they have collected in their short number of years. I cannot believe we have gotten so much stuff but since everyone is always giving them presents and buying them things, it is no wonder they have things they have not seen in years that only get discovered each time we move.
William, for example, has at least three large buckets of small cars he has collected. Lots and lots of cars and each one was his favorite at one time of another. He still sticks with his Speed cars (from the movie Cars) most of the time, but he has so many, usually anyone will do. He still carries a car around with him anywhere he goes. Sometimes, he trys to carry cars that are much too big to be carried around, but you will almost never find William without a car in his hand, no matter what else he might be doing.
Since we have not been in the new house for more than a couple of days, Maeghan has not really had a chance to play in it yet. She spent the weekend at one of her friends house, so she did not get to see everything come out of hiding when we moved it. She has gone to school today and the rest of the week, so it will still be several days before she fully gets to take advantage of the new backyard and all the room to play with her bike and other toys. She was up until about 7:30 last night playing on the swings and riding her bike with William, but since it gets dark around 5:30 this time of year, I am sure she was not really aware of what all the possibilities are. We will begin to see as they become more used to the new environment.
Well, there is a lot of other things I wanted to get to and lots and lots of things to catch up on but this entry is getting a bit long and if I start anything new, like Maeghan and William and Juanita spending almost two months in Tasmania, then it will go on and on forever. Since I am doing this at work, where I have no new photos to add and should really be working, I am going to go ahead and close this out. I say it nearly every time, but as soon as I can get my new internet connection at the new house, I hope to do more updates. But, I say that every time.
Anyway, bye for now. Maybe do a new post tomorrow. Someone needs to remind me.
Talk to you later

MWNews 77

This is Maeghan and her teacher, Mrs. Redmain. Mrs. Redmain is retiring this year. Not that it really matters but Maeghan thought Mrs. Redmain will always be her teacher. She did not understand that she will get a different teacher next year. I was looking for a better picture of Maeghan that related to her school, as this post will mostly be about Maeghan and school, but this was the latest one I have. I have not uploaded the latest pictures I have, but I will be sure to do it on the next post.

My Internet connection is still well under par as I have been trying to post this message for about a week and have been unable to upload any pictures. It is something I am just resigning myself to until we next move. There does not seem to be any solution to getting a more reliable or faster connection. Telstra will not give you any information on what the real problem is or how long it will be before they upgrade. I live with dial up for work and this unreliable wireless connection for everything else.

Ok, I am going to get right into the reason for this post. It may take a while to get through because just thinking about it makes me cry and it is hard to type when I cannot see the screen or the keyboard. And before anyone starts reading ahead looking for the bad news, it is good news and there is nothing wrong. And I have already started crying because I am so proud.

Maeghan had her end of year program last week. It is the end of the year when they give out awards and certificates to all the kids. Maeghan got her certificate for completing her first year of school. I probably have to explain a little about what the school years are like in AU.

All kids start in what they call Kindy. You would think it was like kindergarten in the US but it is really more like first grade, although most of the kids are kindergarten age. Primary school consists of Kindy through 6th grade. Then they have secondary education which is 7th through 10th grade. I think I have mentioned that 10th grade is all you are required to complete in the school system over here. 11th and 12th grade are for those school kids who want to stay in school and who show some sort of aptitude for learning. As many of the teachers tell the students, if you do not want to be in class in the 11th or 12th grade, then don't come in. The teachers do not have to time or the discipline to try to manage kids who do not want to be there and are not going to try to learn anything.

I kind of think it is sort of a good plan but then I really think they should be required to go through 12th grade. This way, they only get students who are going to try and participate in class, so the kids get a better experience, but it does leave a lot of kids on the street who have no business being out of school or out of any kind of structured environment. With the government giving them money when they turn 16, I think it causes more problems with people staying on the dole and not doing anything to make their situations better. But that is a whole other discussion and not one I want to talk about now.

Along with Maeghan receiving her completion certificate, she got her name in this special paper that lists all the kids in New South Wales (think of it like a state in the US) who have completed the Premier's reading program. They have to read so many books a year to be able to get their name in the paper and Maeghan read about 4 time as many as was required.

On another side note, Maeghan got her report card a couple of weeks ago. She did really well with several outstanding marks and no marks below satisfactory. I think the lowest mark she got was in something they call drama. I have no idea what that is but Maeghans mark was 'sometimes participates'. Most of the other things in this grading category, she got either 'usually participates' or 'always participates'. You have to remember that this is Kindy, so grading students on their academic achievements is not really something that is practical. She did well in Math and of course reading. They do not give the usually grades of A, B, C or things like that but a more generic method of things like completed grade level requirements or exceeded grade level requirements and even a category or outstanding achievement. Maeghan got mostly exceeded grade level and I think one outstanding achievement. Nothing below completed grade level, so it was a good report card.

So, back to the awards ceremony. I have to mention that we did not know this ceremony was going to take place. Apparently, they sent a letter out to us telling us about it, but we never received it. So, not knowing it was happening, I went to work and Juanita dropped Maeghan off at school. It was just happenstance that someone mentioned to Juanita that there was an awards ceremony that day. She had William with her and Natalie but they decided to stay for it anyway, although I am told they considered leaving several times and William is William and not easy to handle in the school environment. She did not have the camera or anything with her besides her mobile phone. Both Natalie and Juanita took pictures with their phones and I have not loaded them to the computer yet, so I will have to wait to post them to the site.

Having said that, most of what I have to say now is hearsay from what they have told me went on during the awards. I was not there, so I did not see any of this. And just so it is clear, I am really upset that I did not get to go. Not that it was any one's fault and I cannot blame anyone, it is upsetting that I missed all of these awards and will never get those moments back. But I suppose it is ok. Having not been there, I am sure I can embellish the story in years to come without the limitation of knowing the exacts facts.

Near the end of the program, the principal got up and said she had an announcement to make. With all this buildup, I am sure you can imagine what was coming, but I want to tell it anyway.

The principal said she was giving out the Principal's Special Award this year, apparently not something they do every year. I may not have the facts straight on this, but I believe she said this is the first time she had been able to give the award to a Kindy student. In the past, it has always been one of the upper grades, year 4 or 5, but this year they were giving the award to Maeghan. My understanding is, the award is for outstanding student in the school. All grades, all classes. It is not necessarily for the best grades or leadership or participation but it is an overall award for all these things and more. The outstanding student in the school.

It was apparently kept secret and no one knew the award was being given nor that it was being given to Maeghan. Not having been there, I cannot say what kind of reaction Maeghan, Juanita, or the crowd had to this announcement, but I am sure if I had been there, I would have been embarrassing myself as much as possible.

I think they had called Maeghan to the stage and she had to stand there while the principal made the announcement and read the award. Juanita said Maeghan was really embarrassed to be up there. I can imagine her smiling at me in the crowd and holding on to her dress and being bashful. I wish I had been there.

I am going to take a photo of the award and post it soon. It is just a certificate and we had it framed, but I will type out the words on the award so you can know what it says.

It says

Principal's Special Award

2008

Awarded to

Maeghan Jernigan

for

Her indomitable will to succeed despite the physical challenges she faces. Maeghan provides an inspiration to us all through the courage, determination and persistence she demonstrates in every aspect of school life. Maeghan was an absolute star in the K-2 concert held earlier this year. She out-danced everybody on the stage.

Helen McDonald
10th December, 2008
Well, that is what it says. Hard to type that and not start crying. I will take a picture of it and post it, along with some of the pictures they took with the phones. Hopefully, they will come out and be able to be read in the blog.

I am not sure what all this means to Maeghan. Probably not a lot, but as you can tell, it meant a lot to me. I am so proud of her and the award really came out of the blue for us. I have always mentioned that everyone in the school seems to know who Maeghan is. We still do not know why that is, but it still occurs everyday, people coming up to her and saying hi. I think Maeghan has grown tired of it and all the attention but there must be something she is doing as everyone keeps coming back to acknowledge her.

I suppose I should mention a few other things. Maeghan just had her ballet concert a couple of weeks ago. I have most of it on tape and DVD. I will pull out some of the parts with Maeghan in them to post them on my YouTube channel. I don't know if I can make them short enough to be accepted but I will try.

One thing to note from the concert, when they were giving out the awards at the end of the concert, when they announced Maeghan's name, she got a standing ovation. The only one who did. Ok, maybe it was just me standing, but she did get the loudest and longest clap. Even Miss Jilly, her teacher, commented on it. I ran out of battery power in the middle of the awards, but I got a lot of it on my camera video, including Maeghan getting her award and the comment the teacher made.

Maeghan had one big part in the show but the part with her class, she was in the back and you could not see her. I have it on film but you cannot really see Maeghan in that one skit. In the other, most of it is a closeup of Maeghan, so you do not really get a sense of what everyone else was doing during that part. You get the gist of it, but Maeghan is the focus in my video. There was another guy they 'hired' to film the whole show. I am not sure what he got or if it is available to everyone. He was by no means a professional photographer but he seemed to have better equipment that I did. A few times during my filming, the camera, or actually the tripod, was acting up and the movement of the camera is jerky. But for the most part, it is just fine. I did have the issue of being too close to the stage so that my camera could not take in the entire stage. I might have missed some things at the edges, but again, overall it is a good video.

I have to go now. I have been asked repeatedly during my typing of this to do different things around the house and I probably should do some of them. I had planned on putting together Juanita and mine's new bikes we are getting for Christmas but it appears I will not get the chance. We are putting them together now because we need to ride them a little before Christmas so we can get used to them. We are planning on taking them with us camping so I don't want the first time to be back on a bike in two years to be while we are camping and trying to pull the kids behind us.

Explaining that, we got the kids a trailer sort of thing that attaches to the back of the bike that allows the kids to sit in it and be towed. I have been told that it is not that difficult but I was told that by someone who rides their bike everyday. So, for me, it will near impossible to pull them around for very long, hence the need to start getting used to it now.

William has a couple of stories but they will have to wait. I am writing down reminders right now, so I will not forget later, but you never know if I will remember where I wrote it down.

Anyway, I need to go.

So, until next time

Talk to you later

MWNews 76

It was Juanita's birthday yesterday. We did not do a lot. Opened some presents, went to the club, went shopping and then came home. I did not even make a cake but I have not been feeling well for a few days, so we stayed at home and ordered pizza for dinner. William wanted to know where his presents were, he thought it was his birthday again. I gave him a present to take to Juanita and he was happy to do that but then turned to me and asked where is my present. We had a hard time convincing him he was not getting any presents.

Juanita got a lot of clothes and a game for the Xbox. She has the Pinata game and plays it all the time. I rarely get a chance to play any of my games. Only if I get up really early or she is out taking the kids somewhere. She plays this Pinata game all the time and I think she is a level 57 gardener or something. Not that means anything to me, I have never played it. She might be even higher than that but she lets Maeghan play her game and Maeghan likes to buy and see things she is not suppossed to. She looks for things that look funny and buys them. Since everything looks funny, she buys a lot and uses up all of Juanita's money. So then she sells the same things she has just bought and I think that is probably not good for the game. But as I say, I don't know anything about the game.

They came out with a new version of the game. Pinata's in trouble or something like that. I bought it for her for her birthday. She has been playing that ever since we gave it to her. About 16 hours straight now. I think she came to bed last night, but I am not all that sure.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. Not that we will be doing anything, but it is thanksgiving day here, not in the US, that is Friday, but I am not going to celebrate it on Friday just to be like the US. No one in AU celebrates thanksgiving and for some reason, when I bring it up, they want me to explain what thanksgiving is. I say, 'its Thanksgiving', but that does not seem to suffice. They seem to think it should have some special meaning or something. I get tired of trying to expain it.

For the first few years, I tried to have Thanksgiving over here. I even invited a few people a couple of years, but it was never the same and, of course, there was no football on TV and I had to all the cooking. And I mean all the cooking. They wanted things like pork roast and prawns and other strange things. And it is not really cold or even chilly over here, not that it was that way in Texas either, but when it is really hot and you are trying to have roast turkey and mashed potatoes and dressing, they just are not as good when you are really hot.

And don't get me started on the dressing. They have no idea what it is or what you do with it and I am of the tradition that you make enough to last to almost christmas day but when I did that, I was the only one to eat it and there was a lot to eat. They have no concept of cornbread over here, so making cornbread first and then turning it into dressing was just really strange to everyone who saw me do it.

So Thanksgiving is out. It is just too much trouble to go to just for myself. And I always thought of thanksgiving as the best holiday. I suppose I could try to get the kids into it, but they will probably be made fun of at school and with the anit-american spirit that permeats the world, they might get more than just being made fun of. Not that there is a lot of anti-american sentiment in the schools or in AU for that matter, but you do run into it more than you could imagine. I hear american jokes all the time at work and then I hear them mentioning that I am from america, so the jokes get a little quieter then. I don't mind, but bringing thanksgiving into the picture and having the kids have to explain it to their friends is probably not something I should put them through. So, no more thanskgivings for me, or at least no more unless I am in america.

William is in the other room hassling Juanita. She is trying to play her game and he is jumping on her. He just wants someone to play with all the time. He has his new cars and his new car track, but since the batteries do not last long, he doesn't get to play with that a lot. We spotted his favorite car today when we were cleaning his room. It is a red Cars car, from the movie and it is the one he carries around the most, or whenever he can remember where he put it down. We are going through potty training with him right now and his room has to be cleaned several times a day so he does not have an 'accident' on any of his clothes or toys. We had him mostly trained last year but Juanita had to go away to Tasmania for a couple of weeks and he wore diapers that whole time, so he forgot about potty training. Now, we are going through it again. He is good most of the time, but sometimes, he just forgets what he is suppossed to do and does wherever he might be standing at the time. A lot of times, he does actually go to the bathroom, but he doesn't manage to get his pants down in time and goes all over the floor. I guess we should be thankful he actually makes it to the tiles in the bathroom instead of on the carpet, but we now keep a mop in the bathroom just in case.

Maeghan has her ballet program next week, I think. She has been having extra practices on Saturday and after her normal class. She apparently has been choosen to do something special for the show but I have not been told what nor do I know if she is doing it alone or in a group. She is learning some Rockin Christmas song or something, the name of which escapes me at the moment, but I have it on a christmas cd that I have been playing in the car and whenever that song comes on, we repeat it several times so she can sing along and learn it. I am not sure she will learn it in time. Which is strange, because she sometimes comes home from school and she is singing a new song we have never heard of, so she does not seem to have trouble remembering new songs. I think it is the hand actions and other things she has to remember to do during the song that is confusing her. At some point, I know she pretends to be playing a guitar, but other than that, I know nothing about it.

The show this year is expensive. I have some idea why but as this is Juanita's church, I will just say the price of the tickets tripled this year. Last year, they had it at a school. This year, it is at the church, which the teachers parents own and are pastors of. You would think it would be free, but I suspect they are trying to make money off of this show while the school only charged a nominal rental fee for the hall. But I am sure there are other ligitimate reasons for the increase in price. It will be the first time I have been in the new church building. They only recently opened it and it is not quite finished yet, so I am sure they are looking for money to pay off the debt.

Maeghan has started being a little shy at school lately. She does not want to attend morning assembly. She will stay with whomever has dropped her off until the classes start to go to their rooms. I don't know why this has occurred but I have also noticed that more and more of the kids are grabbing her and trying to pick her up and do things to her or with her. Maeghan can be running and playing all the time but there are a few kids that as soon as they see her, they try to grab her and hold her and Maeghan will immediately come back over to one of us and hold onto or hide behind us. I suspect it is only a few kids that do this, but the ones that do are so persistant, they have even tried to pull her out of my hands while I am carrying her. I would like to say something to them or their parents, but then they will probably take it out on Maeghan while I am not there. Some of these kids are really annoying with what they try to do to Maeghan. These days, she does not even try to play with her regular friends unless the teacher or one of us is around to keep the annoying kids off of her.

If you look at the youtube movies, you can see her standing with her class and see how much smaller she is than everyone else. We have always had the problem of everyone coming up to Maeghan and ooohing and ahhhhing over her. I think it is finally starting to get to Maeghan and she just wants to be left alone. I am hoping either she gets over it or something happens that allows us or the teachers to tell the other kids to leave her alone without alienating her from the rest of her class.

Next year, she gets a new teacher as her teacher is retiring. I have not me the new teacher yet, and I don't think we actually know who it will be yet, but I hope she will be okay and maybe even get away from the kids that treat her like a little doll or something that they can play with all the time.

Anyway, she still seems happy and does not say anything about any problems even if you ask her about it. So we will just have to wait and see what developes. School ends for the summer in about two weeks, so she will have a lot of time to be away from her friends and she will be in first grade after the holidays. Maybe things will be different then.

There were some other things I was going to write about, but I seem to have forgotten once again. I am thinking of putting a little pad next to the computer where I can write down ideas I have to talk about so I can look at it when I have the time and am in the mood to write. I haven't done it yet but I might at some point so I do not forget.

It has gotten quiet in the other room and I here the door opening and closing. I am not sure what is going on but I should probably go check it out.

So, until next time,

Talk to you later

MWNews 75

I am back for another post. With only a day between. Must be because I am not feeling well. The weather changed to cold from very hot and I seem to have a headache and a cold. But I will trooper on. I am forgetting what it was I was going to write about, but maybe it will come back to me as I type.

The last two pictures are from the Hunter Valley Gardens. We went to their Christmas lights show and went early to see the gardens. We have been to the area many times but we have never actually gone into the gardens. That costs money and there are enough things to do outside the gardens to keep us busy for a while. Actually, there are only a bunch of shops and a playground and some picnic areas, but the shops are interesting and the kids like to play, so we never actually make it into the garden. Plus, we usually go there when we do not have money to spend and want to go for a drive, so this is a good spot most of the time.

Inside the gardens, then have a lot of themed areas. The area where the pictures are from are the storybook gardens. Lots of nursery rhyme displays and things like that. I took a lot of pictures. Not very many of the gardens, but a lot of the kids and the displays. I tried to take pictures of the lights, but most of them did not come out very well. I do have some movies taken with my camera of the kids dancing. I put them up on You Tube. The first time I have put anything on YouTube. I am not sure it is a good idea but they are there if anyone wants to see the kids doing some silly dancing. The quality is not great but it is ok. I would paste the link here but I do not remember what it was. Just look for things posted by Catf1sh39. I have not used You Tube a lot, so I cannot tell you how to search for thing, but maybe, if anyone is really iterested, you can try to find them. I think I posted three. As soon as Juanita sends the link to some of her family and they are able to watch them, I might start posting some more videos to You Tube. But maybe not.

Lets try to remember some of the other things I was going to write about. William has started saying he is the baby. Most of the time, it is just after he did something wrong or he has gotten into trouble. He will say 'but I am the baby' to try use that as an excuse for whatever he did wrong. I think he gets it from things Juanita has said. She tells Maeghan that it is not right for her to do something and she says William was doing it to, so Juanita says he is the baby and he does not know any better. So William has started using that as an excuse. When he has done something wrong, like throwing his cars at someone or running off in the shops, when you yell at him for it, he will say, 'but I am the baby', and give his sad eyes routine.

That is another thing he has gotten really good at. The sad eyes, dropping the lip and if that doesn't work, he walks over to a corner or goes and hides in his bed to show that he is upset about getting yelled at. If all that fails, he will start to cry and try to make you feel guilty. We usually just laugh at him. He is really good at the sad eyes and droopy mouth. Is is just so cute to watch, you have to laugh at him. That normally makes it worse but sometimes he will start to laugh to. He has been putting himself to bed for a while now, when he gets into trouble. I think it is because that was the main punishment for a while so now he just walks off and goes to bed without being told. I might have mentioned that in an earlier blog, but you never know, or I never know. So it is much more fun to repeat myself.

Maeghan has started doing some more grown up things. She has developed this look that she gives me that seems to indicate that I am the stupidest person in the world. Usually when I am doing something silly, she will give me this look until I stop. I don't think I am doing anything differently than I have always done, but now she seems to think I am being silly or stupid or something. I don't know where she gets that idea. Maybe some of the kids at school have said something to her. They seem to think me playing hopscotch and running around the school is not something a grown up should be doing. Or when I am walking away from the entire school during morning assembly and I am waving and hopping and skipping in from of the whole class, behind the teachers backs who are trying to get the kids settled in. I don't see a lot of the other parents doing that, but I always assume they do it on the days when I am not there. Maybe that is why she has started giving me that look. It just seems strange to me that now she thinks I am silly when before I was just being funny.

For those who do not know who Michael is or that he has a new girlfriend for the last three months or that he now lives back here in Sydney, then the fact that his girlfriend has just had a baby will mean nothing to you. Just so I don't have to do a lot of explaining, she has a boy, Michael is not working, and I think they are going to move in with me. But enough said about that.

A little bit of news about this computer. I have downloaded a lot of things that are helpers with me dealing with this new operating system. So, it makes a it a little easier to do some of the things I have been having trouble doing. Some of them are really neat and some of them are just things that seem interesting but I will probably never use. But, the gist of it is, I can use the computer a little better than I was. Not that I am starting to like it, I still think it was a mistake to get it, but I might over time not hate it as much. I will never get used to the keyboard and may decide to get a new one, but Juanita has started downloading stuff and that is how her old computer got so cluttered that it barely ran, so I may have to just turn this one over to her and wait until I get a real computer to work on. I still do not know how to delete things that I have installed. I can make them disappear but I am never really sure they have been deleted from the computer. There are a lot of little things that I am still not sure how to do or if there might be a better way of doing it but I am slowing getting it to the point where I can accomplish most of what I want to do.

My internet situation is still not any better although the speed of this wireless connection suddenly got really really fast for no apparent reason. I am not sure how long it will last, but for now, the speed is fine and I have no need to dial into work anymore. I think the cause might be that I went over my limit last month and my speed was slowed. Since this is a new month, the speed has gone back up and I will be slowed again when I go over sometime in the middle of the month. I can find no evidence this is why is was so slow for so long, but that seems to be the most likely cause.

Tuesday is Juanita's birthday. Right now, I have no plans for it since we had the last party for William this week. We might go out to dinner but with the kids, that is normally not a pleasant experience. I thought about taking them to the club and playing puttputt or something, we have never played before and the club has a brand new course, but that doesn't seem like a thing to do for Juanita's birthday. We went bowling one year and might go again this year, but that was a combined party for several people including Juanita and it was a good place for a group of people to go. Juanita wants to go into town and go to the big casino there, we did that last year, but I have not made any arrangements for the kids to stay with anyone and that is more money than I want to spend, especially on a weeknight where I have to go to work the next day. It is a two hour trip if we take the train and it is about $50 to park if we take the car, so going into town for any reason is not something we do often. I work in town but not in the city itself. I work in one of the outskirts of the town, about 20 minutes from the city, so when I say I work in the city, it is not really what you would normally call the city. I suppose none of that makes since, but for anyone who knows Sydney, they might know what I mean.

William just came in and interupted what I was going to write, so I am now confused and disoriented but maybe if I sit here for a while, it will come back to me.

This weekend, we have done nothing. Say on the couch and played video games all weekend, except when work called and I had to fix some things. As a quick side note, it has always puzzled me when people say they have trouble with IPL'ing the wrong system. I know that will mean nothing to most people, but it is apparently a common problem faced by an operations staff. Well, I got called today about a system that would not shut down. I signed on and had a look at it and decided there was not really a problem and shut the system down myself. It turns out, I was looking at the wrong system and the one I shut down was not the system they were having problems with. So, forever more, I will have first hand knowledge of how they can have problems IPL'ing the wrong system. Now we can go back to the regular channel.

Maeghan, and the rest of us but Maeghan was the only one who was invited, went to a Christmas party last week. It was in Newcastle, about an hour from here. She was invited because of her association with the spina-bifida clinic although we all know she does not have spina-bifida. (I thought about spelling that several different ways in the hopes that one of them would be right but I decided I didn't really care if it was spelled right.) We had no idea what this party was all about but the invitation mentioned that only one child was provided for and if we brought anyone else, including ourselves, we would need to bring a picnic lunch or something. We decided that was just silly and we went with William and both of us.

The party was held in an arean or showground type building. It had a big empty floor with seats all around it. The seats were blocked off and the floor was mostly a big empty space. We noticed that most of the people there were carrying chairs and baskets of food. We started to think we should have heeded the invitation and brought something. It turns out that there was a stage at one end of the arena and the whole open floor was were all the people would sit and listen to the music and other things on the stage. A chair would have been nice to have.

Along the walls were different tables with food and drinks. All of it was donated by various food places and outlets. When we came in, we had no idea what we were suppossed to do, so we just followed the lines. They had sausage sandwiches at the first table, and then sack lunches at the second. Teh sack lunch consisted of a single sandwich with ham, cheese and butter on it. I think it was more to hand out the bags with the adverstiments on them than the actual sandwich. At the next table, they had donuts. Australian donuts, which are good if you have never had them before and are great if you can get them hot and fresh. These were not hot, not fresh but were free and they had lots, so it was not that bad.

On the other wall, they had ice cream bars, little cans of drinks and some fruit juices and milk. We had a little bit of each. And I have to say, the sausage sandwiches were about the worts piece of sausage I have ever had in my life. They were just horrible and were over priced at free. They should have been giving us money to take them off their hands. I cannot describe the mushy, tastless, undercooked mess that they sausages were. It was just horrible. It made the donuts taste great.

It turns out the whole point of this evening was the presents they were handing out to the kids. We are talkng about big bags of expensive presents that were handed out to all the kids who had invites. Yes, the bands were nice and there was a funny magician at one point, but for the most part, people were waiting for thier number to be called so they could line up and recieve these presents. And then leave as soon as they got them.

The numbering system they used to not overwhelm the people handing out the presents was based on some unknown criteria we never figured out. Maeghan was in group five. About an hour into the program, they called for group one. That group appeared to be about half of the people there. The line for it went all the way around the room, and it was a big room. It took about an hour and a half for that group to go through line. And the presents tbere were getting were hugh. I am not sure what all was given out, but there were little learning computers like what Maeghan has and those cost at least $70 each. There were big doll houses and lots and lots of other things. I did not see it all and I did not realise what most of it was until we were leaving and we saw some of the things the kids had received.

Group two apparently had only about ten people in it. It went through in less than 5 minutes at which point, they called group three and four at about the same time. That took about 20 minutes to go through and then they called group five. It appeared to be the rest of the room, which was about half empty by this time. We were near the entrance to the line when they called for group five but there was a whole group of people who had lined up in anticipation of being called that had formed just before the entry. That did not really matter to Juanita as she took Maeghan and walked into the line without stopping for all those other people. It only took about 5 minutes for her to get to the place where the bags of presents were being given out. Apparently, if I had had William in the line, we had stepped to one side when they called for Maeghan, he might have been able to recieve a bag of presents also. He did get a large stuffed animal for just being there, but he missed out on the other presents.

Maeghan recieved a remote controlled Barbie car and a portable dollhouse. It was a big box that had all sorts of things in it and you put it together and then folded it up so you could carry it all with you. The car was a real remote controlled car for a Barbie doll. The doll that came with it was not Barbie, but the car says Barbie on the side of it, so the doll must be some friend of Barbie's, or so I assume. It even came with batteries. She loved it, although I have not seen her play with the dollhouse yet, but she played with the car until the batteries ran out. I think she is in the other room playing with it now.

My question is, where did the money come from to give all these kids these expensive toys. I am sure some of the kids deserve the toys and it might be the best thing they get all year. But there were a few thousand kids there and these were expensive toys. I am sure they were all donated but it they had to go out and spend money buying any of these toys, I am sure there are better ways that money could have been spent. But, I am sure the kids loved it and there were a lot of kids there, including Maeghan and William, who just wanted to dance and sing with the bands. They did not know anything about the toys that were coming later, but even if they did, I am sure they would have been happy just dancing up front. Juanita had to take them to the front as the speakers were very loud up there and I could not stay in that area for very long.

All in all, it was a good night, even if the food was bad. The kids liked it and they are happy with the gifts they received. If we go again, I know to bring chairs and probably something decent to eat. It lasted for four hours and that was a long time to stand up with nothing to do except listen to loud music and watch kids run around all over the place.

It is getting time to cook dinner and I am still not feeling well. Plus this keyboard is starting to annoy me again. It seems the space key is not big enough for me to type with any speed as I keep missing it and having to go back and add spaces. If you see words that have not been separated, that is the reason why. And, as I do not plan on going back and spell checking this, you will just have to live with them. For now, it is time to go cook spagetti and meatballs, and take some more medicine, so I guess I will be going.

Until next time,

Talk to you later

MWNews 74

William is three now. Last Tuesday. He seems to have not taken any notice of it. If you asked him before hand what Tuesday was, he would tell you it is the day he gets presents.

We had a party for him. None of his friends were there, but then again, I am not so sure he has any friends. He goes to daycare, but he never mentions any of the names of the people there and we do not know anyone who has kids his age. So the party was mostly adults and a couple of older kids and one of Maeghan's friends. Since I am not having a party for Juanita's birthday, maybe we can call it a joint birthday party. IN any case, it went well.

William got a lot of presents. We got him a Cars doona (blanket for the US) and some Cars pictures for his walls. He got at least four Cars cars, mostly Lightning McQueen. In case you did not realize it, he loves Cars. Everything he owns has something to do with the movie or has some cars theme. You will rarely see him when he does not have some kind of car in his hand. One of the ones he got for his birthday is rather large. It is too big to carry in his hand so he carries it under his arm. Everywhere. When we have to get out of the car at the shops or for anything, you have to tell him to leave his car in the car and the first thing he says when he gets back is where is my car. You have to give it to him before he will get in just so he knows it is still in there. Otherwise, he is going to go look for it until he finds it.

He has lots and lots of cars. Not just from the movie, but about a hundred hotwheels, faux hotwheels and any other type of car that exist. As I said, he carries them everywhere and we find them everywhere. The other day, someone borrowed our trailer for something. It is normally kept in the garage and the kids play in the garage all the time. When the friend drove off with the trailor, a trail of cars fell out all the way up the street. William had put them in the gaps behind the lights and handles and anywhere he could stuff or hide them. We collected about twelve of them up the rode and are not sure if there were more lost further along the path of the trailer.

Anytime anyone passes one of these big bins that have all the hotwheel type cars in them, they get one for William. They are usually only two dollars or less, so you can just pick them up as you leave the store or checkout. We have tried to stop doing it but when they are less than two dollars, it is hard to pass them up and not get one. It is a simple gift and he really loves it. Maeghan gets a little jealous sometimes but we try to get her a present whenever we can. Lots of little dolls or other stuff she likes. She likes makeup and there are usually bins of these things in the same place that have the cars so we sometimes, not often, get her something she can use. She has a lot of those now that have never been used so we have basically stopped doing that, but she still gets the urge to put it on occasionally.

The party was nice. Of course, I did all the cooking for it. Sausages, honey-soy wings, onion dip and hot sauce, and lots of other things. No one actually ate the hot sauce but I mostly made that for me anyway. Woolworths, the big grocery store chain here, along with Coles, had all their jalapenos at a special price. Normally, they are $12 a kilo, but they had them for $1.98 the other day, so I bought all they had. Woolworths is normally the only place I can find them and they are usually very poor quality. I expected them to be old and useless but there were perfectly ok. Now I have to figure out how to use them all before they go bad. I made the hot sauce but I still have a lot of them left. Probably need to make something soon. I think I have a way to make jalapeno poppers and then freeze them, but I have never done that, so I am not sure if that will work out.

But back to the party. We had, I think, fifteen people over, plus kids. I was cooking, so I did not get any of the good sausages or the chicken wings. I didn't have a lot to begin with but they were gone as soon as I set them out. Two kilos of wings and two kilos of sausages. They were the small chicken wings they have on sale sometimes so they did not have lot of meet on them anyway. But the sausages were really, really good ones. Something called a Kranski over here. I am not sure what they would relate to in the US but they are good and I got them from an actual butcher, or actually a vegetable shop that now has a deli. They had these sausages on sale for $4.95 a kilo for about two weeks. I bought at least ten kilos during that time and they are all gone now. They have gone back up to the normal price which is $12.95 a kilo. I think they were old or something but they were really good. I might still have one in the fridge that I can have for breakfast, now that I am thinking about it. Good sausage. Or maybe it is so good because the normal everyday sausages you get over here are just so bad. Mushy, meatless things that are not really worth cooking. I cook them for the kids but rarely eat them myself. Even the kids are tired of them and they request a cabanossi sausage these days. They are kind of like smoked sausage but not really. They are ok and are the cheapest of the real sausages we get. Anything after that, and you are paying at least $8 a kilo.

So how did this turn into a food and cooking entry again. Seems I do that a lot. Back to the kids and Williams birthday. He got lots of presents. In addition to all the cars stuff, we got him his second favorite cars themed toy. There is a new cartoon on called Roary. I am not sure where it is made or if it is anywhere else in the world. The shows have just been starting over here. He got hooked on it when one of Juanita's friend gave him a DVD that he downloaded from the UK. We had never heard of the show but it is about a little racing car called Roary and there are other cars and people and things that all talk and have adventures. I went and looked for it on the internet and downloaded a complete version of all the shows, but as far as I know, there has only been one season of the show and it is just now coming to AU.

Anyway, William loves this show, mainly because it has something to do with cars. They have started selling some of the toys in the stores, although very few stores have them. As far as I can tell, they sell out as soon as they get them, so the show must be really popular. Maybe there will be a big push for Christmas but we never see advertisement or anything about the show or the toys. We found them by accident when we were in Kmart one day. They had a car that talked but there was an add that said there were a lot of other toys that were coming. So far, we have not seen any of them in Kmart but we did find a racing track in Big W. Big W is sort of a mini version of Walmart, same advertising logos, same themes and I am not totally sure it is not owned by the same people. But, a lot of people are against having Walmart over here, so maybe they just changed the name and did this in secret. There are rumors all the time about Walmart opening a store somewhere in AU, but it has not happened yet.

The race track we saw is a very short track with very big cars, which is perfect for a 3 year old. Everyone loved it. Not only William, but the kids that were here and most of the adults. All it does is have the cars race around the track. You have no control of them and they do not do anything except run around the track. There is a speaker box that gives random comments on the cars, it is very loud, and I am not sure how it gets triggered but it will say about ten or so phrases in any random order. You have no control over that either. So, basically, you start the cars, by pressing down on the helmets of the drivers, and then set them on the track and they race around. You sit back and watch the go around and around the track with some voice making strange commets on the action. Things like 'it looks like a win for Roary', or 'the race has started' and other things like that.

There is one major flaw with these cars and track. They use batteries. And when I say they use batteries, they use a lot of batteries. Each car has two AAA batteries in it. They last about 20 minutes. I have no idea why they only last that long, but we have used three different brands and the longest was about 25 minutes before the cars just stopped moving. During the party, we went through a package of twelve that I had bought, thinking that was a lot of batteries and William would be able to play with the toy for a long time. Now we have bought batteries everyday since his birthday and they continue to run out after 20 minutes or so. I am planning on getting rechargable ones, but they will have to be constantly in the charger and they will probably wear out pretty fast also. I am not sure if they were designed this way, or it is just a bad design that uses a lot of power, but it makes the cars almost no fun to play with.

William loves playing with them when they are working and will immediately run them until the batteries run out as soon as we get new ones, but I am not sure how long he will keep that up. I think he will get frustrated with it after a while. In fact, he just came in here asking for new batteries for his cars. He brought me some AA batteries and said to put them in there. I had to tell him we will get some more today.

I did have a lot of things to say today and was going to type a lot, but it seems I am being called away to make breakfast and play with the kids. So I will have to cut this off at this point. I was going to talk about the picture and where it was taken and some things that Maeghan and William have started doing, but it will just have to wait. Something to look forward to I suppose.

So, until next time

Talk to you later

Ok, one more note. I just ran spellchecker on this and it did not report one single problem. So if there are a lot of mispelled words or incorrect usage of things, it is not my fault. I tried to check it and nothing was found. I must be getting used to this keyboard or I am just and exceptional speller today.

Talk to you later

MWNews 73

It is the middle of the night and I am working on something else, but I thought I would give this another try.

Seems I am finally able to upload pictures to the blog. As many of you know, or maybe none of you know, or maybe there is no one here to actually know, I lost my computer recently. It blew up or lost the ability to actually start. I think the problem is the power supply or the video card but as the computer is three years old and this is the second time this has happened, I opted to buy another computer instead of keeping the old one alive. It still sits on the desk as a sort of monument to to all the fun I have had in the past, but it no longer houses a hard drive and therefor, even if I wanted to fix it, it would not start.

For some unknown reason, I went and bought a Mac. Maybe it was the seductive curves or the clean lines and pretty pictures. Maybe I was seduced by the large screen and no actual computer box. Maybe it was because Juanita wanted one because it was pretty. There was no real good reason to buy it but I know how a 25 inch or 23 inch or whatever the biggest one they make is, sitting on my desk and I am typing on it now. Even the keyboard it different, very thin and the keys are very small and thin. I make typing harder, I think, but I have no proof of that.

Having no experience with or having never even signed on to a Mac, I can tell you that it is different. I have yet to find the part that is better, but it is different. Things are not where they would seem to be and I have no idea how or why they work the way they do. I can't say they are better, I cannot even say they are worse. I suppose I will get used to it but I keep trying to do things that would be normal for a PC but have no meaning or no equivalent action on the Mac. The simple act of closing a file does not seem to work as it puts it in the task bar and never really closes it. Maybe I am just doing it wrong.

I do like the way it installs it products. It tells you what to do once you run the appropriate install file. Most of them are .dmg files but that has only been my latest experience. Having installed thousands of applications on a PC, there appears to be the one method for doing it so far on the Mac. I suppose I will learn more about it as I go.

I seem to keep saying that a lot. I will learn more about it as I go. To be honest, I am almost to the point of installing Windows on the system and dual booting. Maybe later but I cannot even figure out how to uninstall an application. It appears to be just drag it to the trash can but I have no idea if that works or if I am just getting rid of icons. I bought a new external drive so I could store things on it, but when I told the Mac to backup the files to there, it uses the entire disk just for the backups. It says I can copy files to there also, but this supposed to be a bad idea, so now I think I have to buy another external drive just to keep for storage.

And just so I can continue the complaint thread, as we know, I do not have broadband connection yet for the house. Only this lousy Mobile phone network that varies in speed from non-existent to very, very slow. That has been the real problem with getting back into the blog in that all my pictures are on the new Mac and when I try to upload them via Safari, the Mac equivalent of IE, it times out before it actually sends the pictures. I finally had to download Firefox, something else I have never used, in order for it to stay active long enough to actually send a single picture. But one finally made it. Maybe it is because it is the middle of the night and there is no one to compete with, but it took all day to finally get the file sent.

Bottom line is, updates may not be as often as I would like. The amount of trouble it takes to try to get an new entry in place just may not be worth the hassle. We will just wait and see. I think I will have to take all my pictures to work and do it from there. One thing in Firefox's favor, it does seem to load a lot faster that Safari and it is a whole lot easier to use. After I learn more about it, maybe it will be a preferred browser. Maybe not.

So, this is supposed to be about the kids. Maeghan seems to thing she can use the computer so it is vaguely applicable that this is about her, but not really. She is not allowed to touch the new computer or she can only do it if she is sitting in my lap while she enter things. All she really knows how to do is click on things but she does know which ones to click on to make things work.

Speaking of working, I am about to have to do something over there so I will have to make this really short. And as I type, I am beginning to really hate this keyboard. But anyway, so quick news about the kids.

William spent a couple of days in the hospital due to some virus or something. He was running a pretty constant temperature for two days and they doctors never did figure out why. The sent him home and said if it did not clear up, to bring him back. He finally got over it after about a week but we have never found out what it might have been caused by. Maeghan or any of us never got sick so we are hoping it is over. There were a lot of sick kids at the hospital but most of them just have the flu or colds, William never had any symptoms other than the fever.

Maeghan had her school fete the other day. More like a garage sale than anything entertaining but we went and it was OK. Too hot and humid to really enjoy anything but the kids seemed to have fun.

She has been selected to something special in her ballet play. I am not sure what it is yet, but she has to go to extra practices each week to learn the routine. This is in addition to her extra practices for the normal class. We have film of last years but the battery on my camera only lasts for an hour and last years went for almost two hours. I only filmed the parts that had Maeghan in them but I think she will be involved in a lot more this year so I am going to have to find a way to plug the camera in while it is filming. Maybe I will do a better job than last year but the camera we have is not all that sophisticated so it does not do that great a job anyway.

I have to go now. Not only do I have to work, but typing on this keyboard really hurts. It is too flat to the desk and is not raised like a normal keyboard should be. How do all these Mac people do this and like it. Guess I will get used to it.

Until next time

Talk to you later

MWNews 72

I don't know if I mentioned that Juanita is back in the last post. I might have, but I cannot be bothered to go back and look so lets just say she is back and we are happy to have her. She tried to sneak into the house when she came home but when she went into where the kids were, William jumped up and said Mommy! and came running over.

After giving her hugs, he said 'my name is William', as if Juanita might have forgotten. Maeghan got hugs and kisses and was carried around. William spent the next several days asking where mommy was anytime she was not in direct site. I think he was going to make sure she did not leave again.

It was touch and go for a while about whether Juanita's mother would come back with her or not. In the end, she decided to stay in Tasmania, but we were a little worried for a while. I asked her if she was going to be ok staying with the kids. She said she could be our live in baby sitter. I didn't mention that I meant staying with the other kids, at their house. Since she decided to not come over, we didn't have to cross that bridge.

Not that we do not enjoy having her over, and Juanita's father for that matter. We really like having them around but I think they are wary of upsetting me all the time and tend to not be themselves or are not comfortable living in our house. I know I do all the cooking and Juanita's mother is to comfortable with that and tries to make up for it by cleaning all the time. It is not really a problem, but she tries to clean up as I am cooking and most of the time ends up being in the way. But really, we don't mind having them here and will probably end up taking care of one or the other of them at some point in the future. Hopefully, we will have a big enough house before that happens.

Juanita has been back for a week now and we have not been to the park once since she has come back. We went almost every day while she was away but I guess we have had other things to do since then and have not had a chance to walk anywhere. Maybe today, if Juanita decides to get dressed. She is cleaning the house and this might be a day when she does not go out anywhere all day. The kids are getting restless wanting something to do, so I think we will be going out soon.

It has been raining over the weekend. We just finished a long weekend for labor day or memorial day or something. I can't remember any of the Australian holidays. It rained the whole time so we did not do much. We went for a drive yesterday but other than seeing this really sophisticated electronic dog, not a lot happened. Juanita and I enjoy seeing the houses and seeing which ones are for sale or rent, but the kids get bored real quick and generally just go to sleep when we go for these types of drives.

We drove to Woy Woy and stopped to have coffee there. That is where we saw this dog. It is a life sized border collie and looks just like a real dog. It reacts to things you say or do with it. For example, if you scratch its ear, it will raise its neck up towards you and then start scratching with its leg. When you stop, it makes little whimpering noises and tries to get closer to you. If you hold something in front of it, it will take it in its mouth and pretend to be chewing on it. Mostly, it drops whatever you have given it, but it tries to roll it around in its mouth like it is playing with it. If you ask it to shake hands, it will raise it paw. When you stop talking to it or petting it, it will lie down and occasionally, raise its head and bark. It was a really sophisticated dog.

Other than that, there was not much to tell about the drive. We did see where a tree branch had fallen across some power lines and was starting to catch fire. Several people had stopped and they were calling the fire department. I didn't realise what it was until I was already driving under it so I gunned the engine to get out of the way before we stopped and looked. I didn't see anything on the news about it, so I assume it did not cause any major problems anywhere.

We found a couple of places we had never seen before, which is really the whole point of these little trips. We used to do it all the time, but with the price of petrol and the fact that we have been almost everywhere locally now, we don't get out for these drives as much as I would like to anymore. And, there is the kids, who are just plain bored by the whole thing unless I find places to stop all the time and then it is a chore to get them out of the car and then get them back in to drive some more.

We found a little beach area that we did not know about and it was even patrolled by lifesavers when we drove passed. There were lots of people there and we wondered how they could stand it as it had just rained and it was not very warm and the water I think is at 17 degrees this time of year, so it must have been a really desperate experience for all those people who were in the water. We will probably not go back to there as the water seemed to have a cliff type thing right at the edge where, if you went more than ten feet into the waves, you dropped off to water that was four or five feet deep, instead of gradually rolling out and getting deeper. The location was nice, if maybe a little hard to find, but I would not want the kids getting in the water at that beach. But, there are plenty of other beaches that are closers and better suited to having kids play in them, so it is no great lose not going back to this one.

Of course, the kids wanted to get out and play. We told them it was raining, but since it was not raining when we actually said this, they immediately pointed this out. I said look at the water running along the side of the rode but Meaghan pointed out that they were not going to play on the road, they wanted to play in the sand. Hard to argue with that logic, so I just had to be the bad guy and say no. She went to sleep shortly after that. William had already been asleep and was wide awake but he did not say anything from that point on. I could not see him, but I could imagine him sitting in the back sulking.

Sometimes, on these drives, we try to keep the kids entertained. William is learning a lot of new songs but he does not sing them correctly and kind of repeats himself a lot. Maeghan knows all these songs and she sings them correctly and loudly to try to drown out William, and to show off that she knows the songs. This gets William upset and before long, we are telling both of them to be quiet and not more singing. So, then we have to keep them entertained in other ways.

One of our favorite games is to spot the animals in the fields. Both of them like this game and they look for horses and cows and anything else they can find. By the way, my keyboard seems to have stopped working correctly and I am spending a lot of time retyping things. If this goes on much longer, I am going to have to stop typing.

Anyway, they like looking for the horses and cows. One time, a few weeks ago, we were looking at the cows and passing a field that did not seem to have anything in it. William said cows and pointed at the empty field. We said we don't see any cows but he said cows again and pointed at the field. We said we do not see any cows and asked him where he saw them. He said 'the cows are in the trees'. I almost had to stop at the side of the road. Just another one of those things that kids that age say that are just so funny and truly amazing when they come up with them. Even Maeghan started laughing at that one.

The kids are really starting to play up now and this keyboard thing is starting to really bug me, so I am going to have to cut this story short. I am not sure what else I had to say, but I am sure there was a lot of it. Guess it will have to wait as I think Maeghan if plotting Williams demise even as I type.

So, until next time

Talk to you later