A Snow Day on Mars

Early this morning, we were awakened by the girls tiptoeing into our room to say that they HAD to show us something. Anyone who has ever had young children can relate to our initial reaction, which was that this was something that could certainly wait until the alarm went off. But they persisted, exclaiming “it’s all ORANGE outside!” They pointed out the window to show that, indeed, everything outside was glowing orange. No birds singing either- just the sound of the wind rattling the windows. It was incredibly surreal and eerie.

A dust storm had descended on Sydney overnight. This is a very unusual occurrence, as dust storms usually only occur inland. Apparently, sediment washed out of recently flooded rivers in the outback in southwest Queensland was picked up by severe winds blowing through that area, and carried almost 1500 miles to Sydney. As the sun had risen, the sky was first crimson and then orange. By 7:15 or so, once the sun was higher in the sky, it was a thick gray haze that reduced visibility so severely that they halted ferry services on the Harbour and suspended air traffic.

Rick described the feel of the morning as “a snow day on Mars”. We have often commented that the kids don’t get to experience snow days here in Sydney- there are no weather conditions that prevent school from opening that we are aware of, except, perhaps if a bushfire is nearby. But this morning had that ghostly, silent feeling of the early morning of a snow day, where you awake to find that the world outside your window has been transformed overnight. Schools were open, but school events and excursions were cancelled because of the concerns regarding air pollution levels that were nearly 1500 times their normal levels. Erin was incredibly disappointed that her ride to a neighboring city on the train with her school choir was cancelled because of the dust. The girls reported that they stayed in their classrooms all day with the doors and windows shut until the dust cleared at about 1pm, heading north to Brisbane to wreak havoc up there.

Sadly, I did not think to take pictures of the early morning glow (actually, it would be more accurate to say that I thought about it and then felt too uninspired in my pre-coffee confusion). However, news sources have posted some amazing pictures on the web, like this one of the Harbour Bridge:

More pictures can be found here: http://www.smh.com.au/photogallery/environment/dust-turns-sydney-sky-red/20090923-g0tw.html?selectedImage=5.

I do wish that I had possessed the foresight to take the laundry off the line last night, and put the car in the garage. There is a fine red dust on everything! Our car looks like it has spent a week travelling through the outback, which is, ironically, something we are hoping to do in about a week and a 1/2 during the girls’ school holidays. And, perhaps, that is where you will next hear from us on this blog….


Love, Anne

June, July, Jetlag

During June and July, we made our annual visit to the States. Rick escaped Australia’s wintry chill for about 2 ½ weeks, and the kids and I got away for five. Although our previous trips have only been three weeks at a time, because we did not return to the States in January, we took the girls out of school for three weeks and added it to their two-week July holiday. This meant that we did schoolwork many mornings for an hour or two, but I think, in the final analysis, it was well worth the extra battles!

By extending our stay, we were able to spend more time with each side of the family, and Erin was able to attend her first week of overnight summer camp at Camp Calumet Lutheran in West Ossipee, New Hampshire. Rick and I attended this camp as children, served on staff as teenagers and young adults and married there. Until 2006, Rick served as the camp’s music camp director, so Erin was familiar with Calumet and couldn’t wait to go. It has remained very important to us that our children experience summer at Calumet regardless of the distance we need to travel.

Despite a week that was so desperately rainy and cold that she only managed to get in the lake for her initial swim screen, she had an absolutely wonderful time. Summer camp at Calumet is perfect for Erin- so much activity to fill her need for constant action, while at the same time surrounded by the love and affirmation of so many counsellors and staff. She cannot wait until she gets to attend for two weeks!

The rest of us also spent a few very rainy days at Calumet’s conference center along with my parents. We also stayed a week in the Boston area with Rick’s parents, where three of his four siblings and some of their family were able to join us for too short a time. I enjoyed two rainy days with my best friends from high school, celebrating our 40th birthdays on the New Hampshire seacoast. The rest of the time was spent with my family in Mt. Gretna, PA, where my parents and other members of my mother’s extended family have summer cottages. This meant that we spent lots of time with my aunts, uncles and cousins, just playing, going to the lake beach and eating as much ice cream as possible at the local ice cream parlour, the Jigger Shop. My sister’s family was able to join us for two weeks. It was so much fun for the kids to be able to spend time bonding with their two-year old and four-month old cousins, both of whom have been born since we moved to Australia in 2007.

It is hard to put into words what these visits home mean for me. We all love our life here in Australia- we feel very comfortable in the culture, have wonderful friends who we love like family and an extremely supportive church environment. I feel like I have reached a deep comfort level here. Sometimes, I even fear that because I love my life in Australia, I will no longer be comfortable in the States when we return. I wonder if I will be able to tolerate winters with snow and ice, the full on noise of American commercialism, politics and media, and schools without uniforms. But on this return trip, I really felt a deep sense of belonging, one that went beyond fitting in and gave me a profound sense of feeling my roots reaching into the soil. It was a wonderfully nurturing feeling, one that fed on connectedness with familiar experiences, places and people.

I must admit that it was wrenching to leave this warm embrace, but the kids and I were eager to be reunited with Rick and our life in Australia. The flights these days are a bit of a non-event, as we’ve done them so often and the kids know what to expect. We luxuriate in the quality service and on-demand entertainment system on Qantas. This time around, the new Qantas A380 was pretty spectacular- our favourite features were the serve-yourself open snack bar, the amazingly upgraded entertainment system and the video camera set in the tail of the plane so that you could have a forward view of the entire flight, from takeoff to landing, at the screen at your seat. When we fly over the US, we cringe with embarrassment at the generally poorer service and less well-appointed cabins of the American airlines. This time around, we discovered that our family is no longer being assigned seats together, apparently because of the new policies charging extra for window and aisle seats. This means that everyone is held up while new seats are being sought for us once we have boarded the plane, a process made all the more difficult by the fact that people HAVE paid extra for window and aisle and are not keen to give up their seats. What poetic justice for Erin to get airsick all over the floor right next to the man who would not move to allow us to sit three in row!

For me, jetlag and re-entry are always a bigger challenge than the flight itself. Not only is my sleeping thrown off, but for days, when I am awake, I feel as if I am trying to think through a haze of cotton. We arrived home on a Saturday, just a few days before Claire’s 7th birthday on July 29th, so I was challenged to make a plan for celebrating her birthday on less than my full faculties. Come Tuesday, I put my plan into action, baking the birthday cake before the kids even left for their first day back at school, leaving early to purchase lollies (candy) at the store to share with classmates, going to the shops to purchase gifts, dashing home to get the cake decorated in time to pick up Lachlan at preschool (I was late), making an early family dinner of the requested spaghetti and rushing Erin home from soccer practice so that we could dig into the cake and ice cream. As I was putting the candles in the cake, Erin asked “Why are we celebrating Claire’s birthday on the 28th?” Indeed, the calendar confirmed that it was the 28th. When I had determined the day of the week for her birthday, I had counted forward from the date we landed. I never actually looked at the calendar. My simple math was wrong.

And so ends another epic journey in our Australian adventure. Thank you to everyone who follows our family adventures on this blog and offers us encouragement and prayers. We enjoy having you along on the journey!

Love, Anne et al.

For those who are interested in a full summer picture album, click here- http://picasaweb.google.com/annedacey/USASummer2009?authkey=Gv1sRgCIyup_yUz7vBPg#

For a few select pictures, see below!

Amusement parks were part of our summer fun- Sesame Place with the Kinneys, and Canobie Lake Park with Grandma and Grandad Dacey. Grandma was a great sport!

Picking Erin up from her week at Camp Calumet Lutheran in Girl's Cabin 1.

The drive from northern New Hampshire to Pennsylvania is LONG!

My parents, our family (minus Rick) and my sister's family pose for the annual Mt. Gretna cottage steps photo.

Happy Easter

Unbelievably, it is our third Easter Downunder. I thought I would just post a picture of our annual Easter Garden to show what a beautiful variety of flowers and greens are blooming even in the middle of autumn!

We wish you all a very blessed Easter!

Love, Anne

Our Friendly Neighbours

A few weeks ago, a teenager was bitten by a shark while surfing just past dawn with his father at North Avalon Beach, on Sydney’s northern beaches. In the past two months, there have been two other shark attacks in the Sydney area- one at the famed Bondi Beach and another in the Harbour. Needless to say, people have been a tad unnerved. They even cancelled the swimming portion of an annual swimming and canoeing race across the Harbour because of the shark risks.

I have to admit that I haven’t worried too much about sharks in our time here. We are not big ocean swimmers, and are not out swimming and surfing at the beach at dawn and dusk—the times that people are warned not to be in the water because sharks are feeding. I even found it fairly amusing to watch people immediately clear the water when a shark warning was broadcast over loudspeakers when I was at one of the City’s crowded beaches two years ago. But this latest attack is just a few miles south of a beach that we have been to several times, and that gave me pause. When we went to the beach two weeks ago, I was somewhat relieved to see helicopters swooping over the water, and the iconic Aussie life savers in their brightly-coloured caps zipping around the water in their boats.

It’s gotten me to thinking about all of the deadly creatures that surround my vulnerable family in our very own neighbourhood.

Two deadly spiders can be found all around the Sydney suburbs- the red-back and the funnel-web. While I haven’t seen the funnel-web, I have seen the red-back- it makes very sticky webs that are low to the ground around our bushes, potted plants, etc. Our neighbour likes to save the ones he finds in glass jars to show off to the kids, and one time even set down a jar in the middle of the table during a lovely afternoon tea that his wife was serving on the veranda. He enjoys telling stories of how his son used to trap them when he was young by putting ants in their webs and then waiting to pounce when the spider came for lunch. I guess you need to develop a somewhat cavalier attitude towards these creatures if you live amongst them.

The other lethal creatures that we live amongst are snakes. As my Animal Planet-obsessed father-in-law likes to always remind us, Australia has the highest percentage of deadly snakes of anywhere in the world. Although some have names that make it pretty obvious that one should steer clear (the common death adder comes to mind), some have innocuous, almost friendly-sounding names, like the common brown snake, the second most venomous snake in the world, one of which was recently reported to have bitten a dog in the neighbourhood.

The other day, when Erin was riding her bike home from school, she was stopped in her tracks by a snake slithering across the road. When she got home, I took down our Australian Geographic “Venomous Snakes of Australia” chart tucked away in the back of a kitchen cabinet and found that it was a venomous red-bellied black snake. Later that afternoon, I discovered that Rick had blu-tacked the poster-sized snake chart to the study wall so that we could all “get to know” these lethal creatures. I vetoed that and immediately returned them to their hiding spot. While we have chosen to live amongst them, and are bound to occasionally come into contact with them, I cannot live with them peering over my shoulder as I work in my own home!

For the benefit of my dear friend Lynn, who thus far has refused to tackle her life-long fear of snakes so that she can have the adventure of a lifetime and come visit me, it is important to note that perhaps the reason that Australians have a more cavalier attitude towards these deadly animals is because bites from the spiders and snakes are rare. And deaths from these bites are exceptionally rare, given that emergency medical providers are well-stocked with anti-venom.

So, c’mon Lynn, the guest room is waiting!

Erin's friend, the red-bellied black snake

Anne

The Victoria Bushfires

In the past few days, we have received a number of emails asking about our proximity to the bushfires (in Australia,“bush” refers to rural, undeveloped land or country areas) that are ravaging the state of Victoria and receiving lots of press coverage worldwide. Fortunately, we do not live too close to these areas- they are closer to Melbourne than Sydney. However, in January, during the school holidays, we took a 12-day roadtrip out of the state of New South Wales and into Victoria (I’ve been trying to find time to share this trip on the blog- stay tuned!), and it took us directly through some of these areas.

These places have been struggling with drought for years, and the local communities, which rely heavily on agriculture, have been “doing it tough” already. In the past few weeks, they have been having a horrible heat wave that has taken temperatures over 115 degrees. Although we were travelling there just before the heat wave, we experienced over 100 degree heat which was incredibly oppressive. Our impression of the landscape was that it was completely parched and devastated.

Although bushfires are common in the summertime here (one came alarmingly close to our house a few years before we moved here), the current fires are Australia’s worst natural disaster. Sadly, they are now reporting that 108 people have been killed by the fires, and at least 750 homes destroyed, and the fires are still raging (see http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/many-good-people-lie-dead/2009/02/09/1234027889048.html)

Anne

Our Thanksgiving Weekend

Our family does celebrate Thanksgiving here, despite the fact that the 4th Thursday in November is a regular school and work day on the Australian calendar. Rick takes the day off from work, and we pick up the kids from school early so that they can participate in some of the pre-meal hubbub. We have to homeschool them in the history and traditions of the day, as they aren’t giving reports on Miles Standish at school or making little white caps and black hats with buckles in art class! Thank goodness for the World Wide Web, where I can find turkey craft ideas from the other side of the globe-- a turkey centerpiece and turkey napkin holders graced our table. In addition, a girl and boy pilgrim, adorned with appropriate paper headgear, along with their Native American counterpart in her headdress (decorated with a cockatoo feather, of course), welcomed our guests to the First Thanksgiving.

(Sorry, no pics of the greeting committee; the photographers were busy in the kitchen!)

Although some Americans find other expats to share the day, we chose to invite two couples that we relate to like family to share our meal. It gave the gathering the intergenerational feel of the extended family coming together. Marg and Wes, who live next door to us, really have become a third set of grandparents to the kids, and Wes’ sister Dorothy and her husband John have helped to look after us since we first came here in 2004. We truly feel blessed to be able to welcome them into our home.

The weather in the Southern Hemisphere at this time of year does not lend one to desire a hot roast meal. However, in this case, tradition must prevail, so we are fortunate that the turkeys show up in the grocery stores about mid-November in preparation for Christmas meals (many Australians still insist on a roast dinner for Christmas, despite usually sweltering temperatures). Sadly, the poor bird that made its way to our table was overcooked by about two hours-- for the first time ever, I did not have a mother or mother-in-law to consult in the kitchen. However, the rest of the meal turned out well, so I was able to redeem myself.

Unfortunately, no matter how hard we try, there is just no substitute for the company of family at times like this, and that grief always hangs heavy for me. It is disconcerting to call home when we are in the midst of our Thanksgiving Day celebration to find our families heading off to bed on the night before Thanksgiving. And then, once we are ready to head off into a new day on Friday morning, we call to find them just stumbling away from the excesses of their Thursday afternoon meal. However, we did have great fun reconnecting with my family via Skype, trying to get my one-year old nephew to wave to his cousins and viewing 4D sonograms of my newest nephew who is due in March! This is the Kinney’s 2008 Thanksgiving family photo:

Given that it is not a 4-day holiday weekend here, the Friday after Thanksgiving was full-on, with school, work and Claire’s first dance recital. On Saturday, we attended the first wedding that Rick has formally officiated at here- a ceremony which includes a formal signing of the register, as I’ve seen done in British weddings. On Saturday evening, Rick and I had a lovely time at the wedding reception in the city.

By Sunday, we were quite ready for some low-key downtime. Fortunately, Rick had scheduled one of the four family Sundays he is entitled to each year, so we packed a picnic lunch (I had a lovely dry turkey sandwich, thank you) and took the whole family biking in Sydney Olympic Park along the Parramatta River. It was a glorious sunny day in the mid-70’s (I still cannot think in Celsius), and we explored the Newington Amory, where the Royal Australian Navy used to store explosives. I am sure that the men who used to work there never envisioned young families touring their facilities on weekend bike excursions! Along the way, we found wildflowers and wildlife, and just enjoyed being together. A great way to end our “holiday” weekend.

Love, Anne

Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween from Little Bo Peep, her lost sheep,

and her ever-loyal, but long-forgotten, sheepdog!