Thomas and his friends!

TWINS!

MC LK on the mic

The main reason for visiting the Blue Mountains was the Day Out With Thomas. The boys loved it! Col was a little scared at first as Thomas is a real steam engine. And Thomas is loud and proud! I had never seen one running up close and the power and the sound it makes as it gets going is impressive. We also got the chance to wear coal EVERYWHERE as it blew in the windows as we puffed along. A few things came to mind:

1. Imagine your only transportation was horse and buggy, and along comes this beast. Now I can understand how you read about people coming from all around to see the train in the old days. It must have been mind blowing! The power and size of it was overwhelming for me.
2. Imagine having to travel that way rocking back and forth click clacking along and covered in soot.
3. What “old timey” things will our grandkids and great grands seek out and spend tons of money to do? Ride in a car? Surf the web? I can not even think of what it will be? 

SIR TOPHAM HAT!!! Despite the pic, Colin LOVES Sir Topham Hat or as they call him here The Fat Controller. Seriously.

James oh James! Is it really you?

This was a big boy ride and a little terrifying for me to let him do it! As luck would have it, battery on good camera went out and all of these pics were on my phone!

We were barely out of the parking lot. 

Of course, the story is not so cut and dry for our weekend a few funny things happened. 

I went into Coles for one item and came out with 8 boxes of mega pack Pampers think 800 diapers, they were $20 off per box and they are PAMPERS, PAMPERS PAMPERS Glorious PAMPERS!!! The back of our car was PACKED!

Carson was acting up getting his diaper changed and I was telling him what to do/not to do and he covered his ears.

We stopped at the liquor store and in the cold section Carson asked the worker "where waffles?" 

The boys missed their nap so they were in no shape for dinner out on Saturday so we got takeaway from a terrible Thai place and planned to eat it in the park in Katoomba. While I was paying carson kept running in screaming.."Hi, MY here!! My here, My here." The other patrons looked devastated that we had opted for takeaway!  

At the park, as I was putting out the food I could hear a strange noise like a cat meowing but, it was a busy park filled with the typical park cacophony, crying, playing, toys squeaking so I did not think anything of it until a petite Calico kitty came LEAPING out of the bushes and bounded onto ONTO our table. She was very friendly, still we had to shoo her away but Colin was in love. 

Then gnats descended on us in droves.

Then a scary dog started stalking us, literally stalking us and our horrible food, we(as well as all the other people with sense) hightailed it out of there! 

Mike told Carson we were going out to breakfast and he could have whatever he wanted...toast OR waffles OR pancakes. Colin started to whine that he was hungry, Car told him.."going to breaffast, you can have toast AND waffles AND pancakes! 

When we unpacked out bag, we have the a/c remote from the hotel. OOPS!

"I personally think he may have gone a bit overboard."

The guide so Britishly understated at the Leura Toy and Railway Museum. Oh, do ya now? You think a 8000 sq ft mansion packed with toys and 12 surrounding acres filled with train stuff is going overboard? Hmmm...Someone call Imelda Marcos and inform her she in fact did not go overboard in comparison. This is the new definition of overboard, she is off the hook! He also then began to tell me delightful tales of his own collection of blah blah blah toy train and blah blah blah other model train and on and on...I escaped quickly as I felt a little bit like I was a at a treky convention hearing a secret language. Despite that, this was one of the craziest coolest places I have ever been. I had no expectations except that my kids will probably like this so lets stop and we all ended up loving it. When I say this man privately collected every known and unknown toy. I mean EVERY SINGLE TOY! He had things from antique dolls to Barbie to Star Wars to tin toys to an entire exact historically accurate reproduction of a British Durbur in India. 

You could not take pics inside but you will just have to trust me that there is no way your brain can even comprehend the number of items that were in this "summer home." It was a private residence until 25 years ago!!! I have no idea where the people would have stayed? In the Barbie Dream House? In the replica train station? In the replica Matterhorn? Cuz there was surely no room at the inn for anyone! I am adding this to my favorite things tours. Take note Oprah!

Inside were trains and train stuff and like 100,000 German army men

You thought I was joking about having a Matterhorn?

artsy huh?

Giant Giant Giant train set, multiple trains/tracks/villages everything you can think of.

THANK YOU EVBODY FO RI-ING SKY SAPARTY!

"THANK YOU EVBODY FO RI- ING SKY SAPARTY! HAVE A GREAT DAY!" Carson screamed at the top of his lungs at just the perfect moment on the Scenic Cableway. The guide was about to make his grand finale speech, and made the mistake of pausing to breathe as the Scenic Cableway reached it's destination in the Blue Mountains. The tram of about 40 heard this "THANK U EVBODY FO FAFAFSKASAFFFFAAAAFFFFAAARRR, HAVE A GREAT DAY!" Carson is loud, he projects very well and the tram of 40 was hysterical! I asked him later why he did it and he said emphatically, "I was ready to get off!"

The Term 'Scenic Railway' dates back to late 19th century English amusement rides at funfairs and seaside amusement parks that were, by today's standards, very tame roller coasters. They consisted of a freely running carriage on rails that was raised to the top of a slope by various means, including horse drawn, pushed manually, or later, steam driven. The carriage, which carried 8 or 10 passengers, then rolled past a series of backdrops painted with exotic scenes - usually Swiss alpine, Egyptian Pyramids, jungle scenes with tigers, elephants and so on. Hence they were known as 'Scenic Railways'. The use of the term widened as time passed and by the 1930s was readily accepted as a name for what was to become the steepest incline railway in the world, at Scenic World, Katoomba.

The Three Sisters

Getting ready for the scenic railway, he is not so sure about all of this fun and frivolity!

 The Blue Mountains are so named because, from Sydney, they look blue. They are clad in vast forests of eucalypts (commonly called gum trees), which in the hot sun discharge a fine mist of eucalyptus oil from their leaves. The mist refracts light, which makes the haze look blue at a distance. That same oil makes the Australian bush as volatile as a pine forest in a bush (forest) fire. The vapour explodes, causing the fire to race through the canopy.

Scenic World was great! If you do not think you are going to do much hiking but want to take advantage of all of the scenic rides, go after 2pm when it is discounted! Plenty of time to see everything and a good value too! A rare thing in OZ!

"bring camamama"

Saturday night we picnic'd at the old Gunners Barracks at Middle Head. As we were leaving Carsion told me about 10X to get my camamama, camera. As usual I was loaded down like a packmule so I said, "oh I have my phone." Should have listened to Carson. The views were amazing and my cell phone camera does not do it justice!  

Mike inside the tunnels rescuing a Thomas cup

If you wanna ride.... come ride the white horse

Remember that song?

 This is the White Horse Hotel. A GREAT Bar in Surry Hills. A gay bar! Not sure how we missed the clues, you know a giant sparkling stallion on the roof. It was great, the men were all gorgeous, great skin, great hair and impeccably dressed. I mean the bartender had the greatest most beautiful perfect hair. Not perfect in an off putting Bieber Fever kinda way, perfect in a I want to touch it and frame it and put it on a shelf to admire forever kinda way. When will a gay man adopt me and turn me fabulous? I need it desperately! Funny thing, you can not actually sleep at these "hotels" although my parents tried to make a booking at the Hotel Mosman :). It makes me smile everytime I see it.

Sushi here. Delish! 

More drinks here. They had a DJ spinning real vinyl records and the music was so great. American Hip Hop circa early 90's. Think LL(before CSI), Lauryn HIll before she made the fugees mad, you get the idea! I could have stayed for hours. How do young Aussies even know this music? The drinks were GREAT!

Work Hard Play Hard

Some people are sweaters, some are not. This was especially true at Rascals INDOOR(non a/c) playarea. Some kids were dripping others did not look hot. I am a sweater. I gave birth to two sweaters. I have always wanted to be a nice dry non sweater. I have also always wanted naturally fast metabolism and to win the lotto. I have given up hope on all of these. They look so much cuter than I do when I sweat! My Mom used to say it meant I was healthy. I am not buying it!

The perfect pout comes at the expense of my ocean swimming career

Call up the alternate, I quit the old person ocean swimming team. I love to swim. I am not naturally gifted at much, and I pretty much stink at most sports, I am terrified of getting hit by a ball which makes me a poor choice for your softball, volleyball, kickball etc league. I am good at swimming. It comes very natural to me. I taught my brother to swim, I am working on the boys and they seem to really respond to me in the water. I swam while I was pregmant past the point where I could even walk. It is my thing. I am not fast or in an adult league, I just really enjoy it. To take advantage of where we live I started ocean swimming. Many people do it, it seems really safe, we are a harbor beach, so there are no waves, no scary currents or undertows, it is so safe it is not even a patrolled beach! 

Then this week I saw this in our local paper:

Balmoral Baths unwelcome visitor

Posted Thursday 23 December 2010

Yesterday an early morning swimmer in Balmoral Baths was surprised to see a large wobbegong within the bathing structure.

Council’s Manager Assets and Services Craig Covich and his team were quickly on the scene and called the Council’s diving contractor to assist with its removal.

Wobbegongs are a bottom dwelling species of Carpet Shark and are typically not dangerous unless provoked.

The baths are a netted area and this guy should not have been there.

Then I saw this on the council website:

Tiger shark sighting

Posted Tuesday 4 January 2011

nsw Police and the Fisheries Information Line have received a report about a tiger shark in the Mosman area (Balmoral Beach / Chinaman’s Beach, Middle Harbour).

nsw Fisheries are encouraging swimmers to use enclosures where available to reduce the risk of shark attack.

The nsw Department of Primary Industries has released a brochure and has set up a website which contains more information about how to reduce the risk of a shark attack.

So, I was beginning to become apprehensive about my ocean swimming career. I thought I will got down there and if there are others swimming I will swim with them. If not I will swim in the netted area. There were people so I swam in the open ocean but very very close to shore.

Then I got stung by this, 

on the lips and on my tongue. There was a split second when I thought what the H*&^ is happening to me, then I knew, a jelly fish is trying to commit suicide by having you eat him. I had to then pull him off of me as he was stuck to my face with his poison tentacles. I ran out of the water and looked around to see if I could see other little bastards so I would know what got me. Sure enough, they were everywhere, I was too busy looking for shark attacks to notice before. I ran up the hill as fast as I could go up the 300ft elevation change at 14.5% grade. The only thing I can think to tell you it feels like is if you heated up your cheese grater to poker red hot and then rubbed your mouth along the fine grate side. Mike and I pulled out the tentacles(they were blue), the pain settled in about an hour. But I could not get one, it is in my lip and that one still is sore. It said systemic complications were rare, I did not get any except the feeling I had been beat up and left for dead on a road side. Is that systemic?

Needless to say, tis was the last straw on an already shifty camels back. I will not be setting any ocean swim records, I do not think you can really improve your stroke by wading in the pee pool with the boys.

Also, that day I was almost arrested(seriously,they threatened me and held me there for about 5 minutes telling me it was a class 4 offense) for signing for my groceries using Mike's card and my signature. I will tell you, I was not leaving that store without my Pampers and my eggwhites two items as rare and precious to me as the White Tiger to the WWF(world wildlife fund not wrastlin').