Giving Thanks in a Not so Traditional Way

This year we're thankful that it's one week before Travis arrives in Denver. We're happy so many of our family are happy and healthy. We're having a great Thanksgiving visiting family in Phoenix, and I'm extra thankful that FFM is finally sleeping again (of course just before Travis shows up...).

About a week ago FFM and I drove from Denver to Phoenix to visit my brother Q and his wife Karen. It was an easy drive, we're good road trippers and the weather and road conditions cooperated nicely. We're hoping for a similar drive home.

FFM has reunited with his best four-legged bud, Oscar, and the two are again inseparable. When FFM naps Oscar is *so* lonely he sticks his nose at the door jamb every few minutes to check to see if he's up yet, it's pretty funny. When they're both awake, well, the rest of us just stay out of their way.

Today we had a low key, nontraditional Thanksgiving dinner. On the menu: Marinated and stuffed Filets Mignon with Merlot Habenero Sauce, Potato Casserole with Two Mexican Cheeses, Brussels Sprouts with Pine Nuts and Pancetta, Cinnamon bread, and for dessert, Dulche de Leche Chocolate Mousse. It was very yummy.

Oscar didn't get any steak, it was too good to share.

Now we're watching the Broncos and we are hoping they can pull out of their current funk. Sometimes it harder than others to be a Bronco fan, but fear not, we're still faithful fans.

Jacaranda Trees

Early summer in Perth is showtime for the jacaranda trees. These members of the Catalpa family are timid and remain unnoticed for most of the year, but when the warm weather of November arrives, they burst forth with great purple plumes of flowers.

These pictures are from a street near our house in Perth that is heavily planted with jacaranda trees. At the peak of the jacarandas it is like a purple tunnel.

This is what the flowers actually look like. They look a bit like giant bluebells - sort of horn-shaped. I discovered it's tough to take good photos of the jacarandas. The purple flowers tend to blend in with the relentless cloudless blue sky that dominates this time of year, and on the rare overcast day they look sort of gray.

Happy botany- Travis

Two Hands

I know a number of Aussies who gauge the time remaining before some event by how many "sleeps" are left, and I have a work friend from the Dublin days who measures time by the number of "get-ups" that are still to be overcome before the awaited event. In either case, with ten of each left, the number now fits on two hands. Now when someone asks how many sleeps or get-ups are left for me in Perth, I can hold up my hands with the appropriate number of digits and show them "This many!". Departure is close enough to be real now, and I'm getting pretty excited!

Travis

Oh yeah Q, I'm so totally putting that on the blog

Uncle Q and Aunt Karen are busy corrupting young FFM with Guitar Hero. They rocked out to Tom Petty's American Girl this morning. I had to make a mad dash for the camera, totally blog worthy stuff. At which point Uncle Q, who never reads the blog but knows it exists, said, 'You're not putting that on the blog are you?' Oh yeah. Totally.

Four Corners

There's an interesting spot in the southwestern United States where the corners of four states all meet.

It's the only spot in the entire US where this happens so of course there's a monument there and enterprising Navajo Indians charge a small admission fee to go stand on the exact spot where Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah all meet.

FFM thought this whole stop was pretty good stuff.

Dashing Through the Snow

I am not a one horse open sleigh, but my blessed mother-in-law is.
There's not enough snow on the sledding hill to go sledding right now, but she and FFM really wanted to try out the sled, so out they went.

That's the face of hysterical laughter if you can't tell. And yes, those are front yards. Just wait until there's enough snow to go down a slope, there won't be any stopping these two.

Countdown

I think the countdown clock is going faster now.
Hooray :)

A Happy State

Well, if MSN says it, it must be true.
We live in a happy state. But not as happy as Wyoming.

According to MSN:
"Here are the top 10 states and their average well-being scores (out of a possible 100 points):"
Utah: 69.2
Hawaii: 68.2
Wyoming: 68
Colorado: 67.3
Minnesota: 67.3
Maryland: 67.1
Washington: 67.1
Massachusetts: 67
California: 67
Arizona: 66.8

Oh, people, how did we let WYOMING edge us out? Hawaii, OK, I get that. Utah, yeah, well, they have mountains, Mormons, retirees, and really laid back folks, and pretty much the same weather we have here. Maybe it's time to move to Wyoming. Or Hawaii. Yeah, as soon as I'm tired of Colorado I'll pick one of those two places to move to.

For the entire article and the actual scientific process of how they figured this out plus where your state landed, click HERE.

Least happiest state, West Virgina. Sorry West Viginians, check out Wyoming. It's got a lot of room.

Oh How I Love to Sit

The sofas are coming, the sofas are coming!!! Finally, we will have some furniture to sit on in our poor little house. Other than the folding camp chairs I've been using, that it. As soon our offer was accepted on this house I started furniture shopping in earnest, but buying 'real' furniture means ordering it, which means waiting for it to be built and delivered.

Everything I ordered is built here in the US, so I suspect that the current job scene means that furniture factories might be running on a smaller than normal staff, which means our furniture has been extra slow to come. We did get some hard goods delivered already back in late October, a new kitchen table and the tables for our living room, but nothing to sit on. Travis needs to help pick out the chairs for the kitchen table, we learned long ago that since he's so much taller than me we like very different chairs. Currently F and I sit on folding chairs in the kitchen, too. And the sofas, well they just took a while. I also have a new chair for our family room on order that should be here just in time for Christmas and will pick up one more chair for the family room in a couple weeks.

I did do a little happy dance when the delivery call came, now just to work out a time they can get into the house...

De-mob

The inevitable point of the project has come for us to de-mobilize our household. Maggie got most of the things in our house pared down before she and FFM departed in September. My job is to prepare it all for the movers. The process is sort of like corralling all the stuff you have accumulated on your overseas trip and trying to fit it into your suitcase. The difference this time is that the trip was 3-1/2 years long, the suitcase will be a modular sea container, and we are returning with more people than we departed with. Here are some photos to show you how the Perth de-mob is shaping up. (Anyone with sharp eyes may be able to compare to the relatively well-appointed house that we configured last year).

The living room is mostly down to our chair and sofa and rental furniture now. At least I still have a place to sit.

FFM's old room seemed like the logical place to accumulate toys and kid stuff.

This is what five sets of Ikea "Trofast" toy storage cabinets look like when they are disassembled. Ikea is made for expatriates: relatively inexpensive, immediately available, and packs flat when it's time to go.

The guest room is the holding pen for general household goods.

Stacks of clothes inhabit the bedroom.

The playroom gets more toys and duffel bags. The bags will go with me on the plane. I have them out now and as I think of something that would be useful to have in Denver before March, I stick it in a bag.

The ubiquitous, inevitable, and thoroughly enjoyed books. I love being in a family that reads.

And, lest you think I am starving as a temporary bachelor, a shot of the fridge to demonstrate that I do, in fact still have something in it. One of the immutable, perpetual, and inescapable fundamental facts of the universe is that the last things in the refrigerator will always include mustard, pickles, and something to drink.

Before long the rental company will come collect the appliances and assorted furniture, the movers will come to pack our things, the utilities will get turned off or transferred, and I'll turn in house, car and work keys. Thus will quietly end the logistical unplugging from this episode of our intraplanetary travels.

-Travis

Missile Range Camping and Wave Rock

Well, the Flying Tomato and the mighty San Juans are a pretty tough act to follow, but I'll see if I can entertain you with some Aussie action. This post was not sponsored by an energy drink.

A few weeks ago I headed north from Perth to do some camping with friends. While I am a veteran camper and have camped in many places and in many conditions, I now have a new camping experience: camping on a beach on the edge of a missile range. From the beach town of Lancelin we drove north on the beach until we arrived at a suitable camp site.


From the top of a dune, we could see this target off in the distance.

The missile range is used by the Australian and American navies. They weren't in the area that weekend according to the signs at the gate. When not being used as a missle range this is a recreation area frequented by off-roaders, campers, and beach-goers. How's that for a win-win use of the area?

The next day, we went to the giant white dunes to try out Gareth's power kite. First a few pointers from Nik.
Now a confident grin.

And I'm off! The power kite dragged us novices across the dunes. See the furrows behind my feet.

Last weekend I did a roadtrip to Hyden to see the famous Wave Rock. Here is an enterprise I passed on the way. One-stop-shopping out in the wheat country. This is right next to the gas station and across from the combine and tractor dealer, so you can get everything you need in one place.

The inner part of W.A. is rather dry, so some clever methods have been developed to collect water. This arrangement is at a roadside stop. Whoever needs water can help themselves.
This is another method - find a depression in a granite outcrop and dam up the bottom part. Then rain water will run in and fill the pond. Small diversion walls channel more water into the pond.
There are some salt lakes in the area. They are getting saltier and saltier, and are getting salty enough the surrounding trees are starting to die. Some of the lakes are an eerie green color.
This is wave rock, so named for obvious reasons. It is part of a large granite outcrop that also has a rain-collection lake. The little walls at the top are more water collection diverters. The average rainfall here is 337mm per year - not very much!

Another view of wave rock with bystanders for scale. The wave is about 50 feet tall and 350 feet long.

Near Hyden is part of the Rabbit-Proof Fence. This is one of three fences built around 1905 to try to keep rabbits, emus, and feral goats out of W.A.'s agricultural land. It goes off into the distance as far as you can see. This piece is 234km (146 miles) long, and the whole thing is 1176km (735 miles) long. Apparently the fence had some success, but didn't entirely stop the hungry critters from eating the crops.

Travis

Travis' Mountains

Travis is from a small town in southwestern Colorado called Silverton. It's unbeliveably pretty there pretty much all year round (we'll ignore mud season) and he got to spend pretty much all of his first 18 years there. Those of you who know us well know we love to travel, love to see the world, don't let the moss grow under our feet, but that at heart we're mountain kids. We need topography, especially Travis, and Silverton has an abundance of topography.

Last winter the well known American snowboarder, Shaun White (aka the Flying Tomato) spent the winter in Silverton doing a secret project sponsored by Red Bull at Silverton Mountain. Red Bull has just unveiled their promotional video, which focuses on the giant half pipe they built for Shaun White to practice on. The video also just happens to show Silverton and the awesome mountains Travis grew up in.


Nice mountains. Oh, and some really good snowboarding, too. Makes me want to get my board out. Don't get too homesick, Travis, you'll be here soon.
Thank you to Travis' mom, Penny, for sending this to me. For more Silverton pictures, click here.

Oh the Logic

This is the way conversations are starting to go in our house. And it freaks me out a little bit.

FFM's gotten really interested in the 'big kid' concept. He's determined to be a 'big kid' and wants to know the criteria. He's not toilet trained yet (I'm not pushing it, he's not even 2.5 yet and our life is still in major upheaval) and is having trouble staying in his big boy bed. So right now the explanation is that big kids 1) stay in bed and 2) don't use diapers, they use the potty. FFM's not a baby anymore, he's a 'little' kid. After a few rounds of this talk he's accepted the explanation, and while not happy about not being a big kid yet he gets it.

Fast forward to this morning. Because of the not-staying-in-bed all of his books have moved, temporarily, into my room along with the rocking chair. FFM LOVES the rocking chair and LOVES reading in said rocking chair and will entertain himself by rocking in the chair and looking at books. So, during my shower this morning he plopped himself into the chair with a couple of books and got busy reading to himself.

Checking up on him a few minutes later I found him quietly rocking along. A few minutes later the rocking was getting pretty boisterous. F, I say, please just do medium rocks, not big big rocks in the rocking chair. FFM says OK, medium rocks, thinks for a minute, and slows down. Then looks straight at me and says:

Mom, I medium kid, not big kid. Not little kid. Medium kid.

Did I want to laugh out loud, oh yes, so badly. Did I duck around the corner and I have a little chuckle? Yes indeed. Oh my. He's going to be a handful.