Tourists in our new town

Our first family photo since arriving here!

I have no idea where the month of November went, but I guess that pretty much sums up how I feel about the last six months or so. With Emma's help we have gotten settled in quickly... furniture assembled, playgroups joined, church found, endless exploration of every park in our area of the city, favorite nearby beach determined, the list goes on and on. While Steve has been very busy at work, I cannot say that we have been busy, but Emma and I certainly keep busy. We are tourists becoming locals in our new town. Other three year olds might whine for their old house or to go to the same place everyday, Emma instead whines when I say we might go to the same park we went to one day last week instead of finding a new one or demands over breakfast that "we must do something new and really fun today." Let's hope by the time February comes around that she's found a few favorite activities that are acceptable to repeat when her baby brother or sister arrives.

Enjoying one of many nearby parks.

Nearby Brightmore Reserve is an amazing scooter/bike park for kids, but it's better when your wheel doesn't fall off...

She insists on my taking a lot of videos of her doing who knows what.

I love the parks here for the gigantic trees!

It is still strange to think that we live in a tourist destination. While many people traveled to Switzerland, not that many actually made Zurich much of a stopover, at least not any more than a few hours between train changes typically. Instead we are reminded most everyday when we see one or two huge cruise ships in the Sydney Harbour how many tourists come through this city, especially during the summer (which was officially welcomed this week on December 1 and unofficially by the two or three November days we had that reached over 100).

A familiar sighting at Circular Quay.

The cruise ships often hide the beautiful Opera House on the side of Circular Quay.

An afternoon spent enjoying the harbour meant mostly goofy pictures.

A likely bribed "normal" photo.

My buddy.

And while I don't feel like most days we have done any big tourist things, I am reminded that people love to visit this city not necessarily for one specific thing to do. Instead, it is the atmosphere. It is the wonderfully friendly Aussies whom I am coming to appreciate more and more everyday. It is the amazing weather. It is the countless beautiful beaches, gorgeous skyline, and relatively laid back attitude about daily life (despite the terrible traffic and ridiculously high housing prices). It's hard not to feel spoiled at certain times, even when it is just a normal day. Take for instance an outing to the mall where I cannot help but greatly appreciate their attitude towards families and children. I feel spoiled by their ridiculously nice family rooms that seem to be the norm here where there are plenty of nice, clean changing tables, kid size toilets (right next to the adult one), private areas for feeding, and small areas for playing.

Beautiful, nearby beach, check.

As a result of all this, learning to live here just seems that much easier than it was in Switzerland. There is no doubt that I absolutely love Switzerland and it will always hold a very special place in my heart, but Australia is just that much more natural of a transition. They speak ENGLISH (well, most do, there is still a huge immigrant population and I hear many more languages spoken than I anticipated). Let's just say when you understand and speak the same language as most others do it certainly makes everything about daily life that much easier. And even better when they realize you're not from here they most of the time go out of their way to help you or ask how you are finding things. While there are still plenty of differences and things to learn, I do not think it seems much more extreme than it might if we had moved to the center of Los Angeles instead. Hopefully I will continue to say that over the next few months.

Here's a look, in mostly pictures, of everything else we've been up to the last month. It's nice to feel like we know Sydney so well already, but I am excited to do a little bit of traveling (in Australia) over the holidays. Stay tuned!

We're "Zoo Friends" (members) at the nearby Taronga Zoo, and of all the animals Emma could see, petting the bunnies and seeing the pigs are her favorite.

She was only semi-impressed with the bush walk and the close-up encounter with this fellow.

Her joy at visiting the three little pigs.

This zoo has the best view of the lions when they lounge. Don't worry, there was glass between us.

Feeding time!

This is the image that stuck in my head from my first visit to this zoo 12 years ago... the giraffes have the best view!

Emma is really into "looking" at maps lately, she must see us doing this a lot...

When she's not reading maps she's reading Ikea instructions.

A view from nearby Cremorne Point at night - absolutely stunning!

Cremorne Point by day.

Every now and then we run into these gorgeous birds at nearby parks.

Although a larger fridge/freezer than I anticipated having here, I'm not a fan of how low to the ground the whole thing is. Just a short stool needed and someone was finding herself ice cream on her own when she knew she wasn't supposed to have any.

November started with my birthday and several doctors appointments as a part of navigating the Aussie health care system... 25 week check-up for the start of my 33rd year.

Part of my birthday festivities included a trip to one of Sydney's many great markets, the Sydney Fish Market. I think this was Emma's "I'm impressed" face.

Love looking at all these sea creatures, I have no idea how to prepare most any of them...

Especially not sure about eating these guys, but evidently it can be done.

I stuck to the prepared food... salmon and scallops and a whole lot of cheese in a huge shell!

Emma was my partner at the fish market. While she's taken to eating calamari, she stuck to just french fries this day or just "chips" as the Aussies say.

I think these monstrous live lobsters were her favorite. At $50 - $60 per pound I don't think we'll be buying one anytime soon.

I felt like this was a scene out of the Little Mermaid...

I tried to convince Emma to take her photo standing next to this guy, but I don't think she was completely convinced he was dead.

It might have been my birthday, but someone else got majority say to the type of ice cream we shared.

Darling Harbour's playground is amazing. I know, I got to spend two hours there on my birthday. Emma insisted Steve climb with her.

The zipline!

Unplanned birthday dinner "date" of Korean BBQ and Emma passed out in the stroller. We got to have our own conversation and didn't even have to hire a babysitter!

She really wanted to get me flowers on my birthday but we never stopped anywhere, so she was very excited when we got some the day after. She said next time we have to tell her earlier so she knows it's almost my birthday. So sweet!

She wants to do EVERYTHING in mommy and daddy's kitchen - needless to say I wasn't after a perfectly frosted cake.

The month of November brought Emma's first haircut after seeing daddy getting his haircut she started insisting that her hair was too long and would get in the toilet (a little paranoid?)!


She just happened to be dressed up as Sophia and I said I wanted to try to clean the patio and she turned into my own Cinderella.

She's also become the resident barista.

On our first "long" train ride an hour north of Sydney to the Hawkesbury River this is how she wanted to act.

Emma loves to check the mailbox and is sad when we don't get any mail (somehow we manage to get hardly any junk mail - at least so far), but she was so surprised when she got an envelope full of drawings from her friends at her school back in St. Louis! We miss The Berry Patch!

My sous chef for Thanksgiving has a lot to learn when it comes to proper etiquette while cooking.

She was so excited for all the food she helped make!

Since Thanksgiving is obviously not a holiday for the Australians their Christmas festivities seem to start extra early. Emma loved her playgroup Christmas party, and I was especially impressed by the simple, but super cute party food.

A party doesn't get any better than one where you have your face painted. Oh and Santa coming with a gift was pretty cool too.

Our Christmas tree has a long way to go, but Emma seems to still think it's pretty awesome, at least for this year. Don't mind the lack of lights and so far only homemade ornaments that she has placed on the bottom third. We found a star that makes it almost touch the ceiling!

We still have a lot to learn about the rules of cricket, but it's fun to see all the parks on the weekends filled with players in their all white!

It was either buy her the inexpensive pink sparkly tie sneakers or the super expensive light up Skechers and somehow I won, although Emma will likely have the last laugh over the next few months while we work on learning to tie these things...

Their work-outs crack me up every time.

"Nightmare on Holt Ave"

We got lucky and just a few days prior to Halloween we found out that we happened to live in the neighborhood that has some of the biggest trick or treating of anywhere in Sydney. From what we had read and heard from people previously, Halloween is celebrated in a limited capacity in Australia, similar to what we experienced in Switzerland. It really is an American holiday after all. So while we had seen a few decorations and costumes in stores here or there we didn't expect much. Yet, lo and behold, thanks to the other mums (yes I think I'm going to adapt to the Australian version of the word mom pretty quickly) at a playgroup we went to we discovered that Holt Ave and a few other surrounding streets just a couple of blocks from us actually had quite a few trick or treaters and participating houses.

Quite the decorations!

Someone was very ready for her face to be painted...

Can I open my eyes mom?

"Mom, what color are you painting? What color? What paint color? Can I see? Can I see now?"

I took to the internet to try and do a little more research (I didn't want Emma to have too high of expectations) and was shocked to find an article titled "Nightmare on Holt Ave." While the title might have been a bit of a stretch, it was interesting to hear the history of how this neighborhood had come to celebrate Halloween. It supposedly was a result of a neighborhood resident that just happened to be in the U.S. on October 31 to see all the festivities. She introduced the concept to her neighborhood back in Sydney the following year and it took off more than anyone anticipated. Now, 15 or 20 years later parents from all over Sydney evidently drop off children in this area to participate and houses report over 1000+ kids visiting during the allocated two hour window.

Showing off the progress

That's right, the Aussies are a little more rigid and have some specifications around the celebrations. The article stated that the neighborhood would only have formal trick or treating from 4 - 6 pm, children 12 years and younger only, a parent should accompany, only approach the houses with open front gates and clearly designated Halloween signs, there would be one "lollie" per child per house, and some houses were suggesting that you should donate lollies to the cause if you did not live in the neighborhood.

Pretty pleased with herself

Almost done!

Well, I wouldn't exactly say all the rules were followed to a tee, but it was humorous to watch a few older children calling out their friends for taking more than one piece of candy. I also quite enjoyed the mom dressed as a witch and holding up her hatchet saying "one piece only" as the 10 something year old boy rummaged a handful of candy out of her giant pot.

"Oh, you still have more to do mom?"

It was fun to see how festive the houses that participated were. Many Australian houses have privacy fences around their small front yard/courtyards, but it was a chance to see them opened up and very decorated. Most of the adults handing out candy (and many parents walking around with children) were dressed up. Also, most houses that were handing out candy were making the most of it and were clearly having a good party for the adults in the courtyard or inside of the house as well. While I would still estimate only about a quarter of the houses on these few blocks participated, it didn't stop the streets from being absolutely packed. Often times when we approached a participating house we literally had to push our way through the crowds and tiny Emma would shyly try to get to the front and sometimes reach up over her head for a lollie. However, she would boldly proclaim "Happy Halloween" to the person handing out the candy, it was absolutely adorable.

Cheese!

Do you want to see my bucket?!

Standing in front of all of her Halloween artwork... I'm starting to better understand why she came home with 10 new pictures drawn every day at preschool back in the U.S. This girl loves to color way more than I realized.

Unfortunately Emma took a bit of a late snooze on her dad that afternoon and we had to wake her up and get her re-energized a bit so we didn't make our way out until almost 5 pm. As I expected, there were already several houses that had shut down and had signs up that said "Sorry, all out of lollies." We brought a few bags to share and handed the to houses that looked like they were running low.

Emma AND dad had a late snooze...

Luckily it didn't take her too long to get going!

While Emma's bucket may have been a bit more modest than a typical American Halloween stash at maybe 20 pieces or so (and most were very small candies), I think it was probably most appropriate for a three year old and means we won't have a bag of Halloween candy for the next year sitting in the pantry. And more important she still was blown away by all of her treats.

I'm not quite sure what to call this face while holding her bag of loot.

And while I don't think they look very good to me to eat or that I'm going to let Emma eat them, it was in a way refreshing to see the unwrapped small candies that were given out (although there's something about knowing there were tons of small hands rummaging through the bowl). The Australians aren't freaking out that someone was trying to poison their child with drugs or razor blades or anything else, they were simply able to let their children enjoy a fun childhood tradition without worrying about the "what ifs."

The first house had spectacular decorations!

Fighting the mob

I think it's fair to say that all of us enjoyed our first Australian Halloween. While it's certainly not the same without the cool, crisp air and fall colors, it was a bit of an overcast, drizzly evening, which seemed more appropriate than a few of the very hot spring days we have already encountered here.

Trying to help Emma to the front...

Trying to help Emma when she nearly got trampled and dropped her bucket and had to scramble to pick up her spilled candy! Luckily no meltdown occurred as we got it all picked up.

Our purple butterfly was very happy with her last minute costume made of mostly things we already had at home. All it took was randomly stumbling across a shop with a purple bucket and purple braids (don't ask me how that went with the butterfly theme - butterfly viking maybe?) and a promise that I would paint her face and she was happy. I would agree, she made a pretty cute butterfly. I can't wait to see the two creatures we take out next year :)

Happy Purple Butterfly!