"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').

A really great day!

This weekend we walked across the Harbor Bridge. It is one of our "bucket" items that we had been dying to do. Also on our list the bridge climb. We will tackle the climb when someone adventurous comes to town (Matt and Julie?).

That morning he woke Mike up, later I asked him what he said to Daddy when he woke him up, he said firmly, "I SAY GET UP DADDY, GO PEEP PEEP" When we were deciding what to do for the day he was "reading' one of the Sydney guides and said, "how bout ice hopper." Opera house

Checking out the stair climb

Car...your going the wrong way!!! 

Pylon

The bridge climb

Have I mentioned Sydney has an accessibility problem

The view from Observatory Park

His new thing is to line his "guys" up on the pillow to get them ready for "night night"

They are getting so big, only Daddy can manage storytime in the rocker still, I can barely get my arms around both.

Lots of white boomas

Mommy sleeping with two babies

DINGO!

The boys thought this was the coolest!

The first time I have ever seen a peacock in full regalia! AMAZING! When you see a creature like this it is hard to deny God.

My little animal lover

Car dumped his food on the roo which upset Colin who was enjoying feeding the roos

Pretty good stuff huh?

Mama Wallaby with a BIG baby in her pouch

Yeah, I have no idea either?

Carols at Balmoral

They did not sing 6 white boomers! It is not so popular here! My brother steered me wrong!

No one wants a picture with Mommy :(

The very very very nice American Jenny from Cali who has helped us transition into life in OZ. It seems there are no real coincidences, if I had not found her on my own through stalking her blog, I would have probably found her anyway, her BFF's mom is one of Sally's dear friends in Cali. Small world, really really small world! 

Her daughter, who Carson attached himself to and if he was not two would have probably had a restraining order against him or an angry Daddy at best. He even touched her tushy at one point! Where does he pick up this stuff????