Friday - Port Adelaide

Yesterday we went to Port Adelaide, mainly to see a pirate show at the Maritime Museum. It was surprisingly uncrowded but we still managed to see a few people we know!

All the usual displays were there but they'd also set up a heap of pirate stuff - how much do we want to take this island home?!



This picture of the boys longingly admiring the glowing treasure was the last one I took before my camera batteries went flat without warning. I hate that.. I'm sure it used to warn me before doing that!



We wandered down to the lighthouse where there is a sand sculpture display called Dinostory. The following pics were taken with my phone.





After Dinostory, we did go into the old lighthouse and climbed up to the top and down again and got back to the car, just in time to miss the rain. It poured... must have been all of three or four drops....

Stoopid weather

We've had a stinking hot few days (like yesterday - 42C/107.6F). The dog even got to come in to share the air conditioning for a while. He popped up to say thanks:

... and told Liam a very funny secret ...

After being stuck inside for days, we used today's cool change as an opportunity to go to the beach. Unfortunately it was cooler than expected and very windy. It's a good thing body boards have wrist straps!

Hats don't though:

The weather was fine for kite surfers - which is probably why they were the only other 5 people on the beach. They were a couple of hundred metres away but this one surfed all the way along to us and back. Yes, there is water then sand then water. In fact there's more sand first but you can't see it in the photo.

The surfer in the next pic would have been 3-4 metres above the water. They would fly up and flip and it seemed to be an easy trick on such a windy day (remember you can click to enlarge it, and click "back" to get back here).

The boys played chasey in and out of the water and dug channels for the puddles to flow back to the sea, and even swam a bit in this shallow water. They avoided the choppy ocean though.


This evening they were very impressed to see this Mickey T Tire truck (it's really a Nissan Patrol). It's spelled the American way as they are American tYres.

We had a very nice dinner with Sean and Louise, Mum, Dad, Paul and Rebecca. Oh, and my new niece "Ladybug", but you can't quite see her yet! We will see Sean and Louise again tomorrow and they return to America on Monday morning. That fuzzy hair behind me is not mine (for a change!); it's attached to the lady behind me!

Here's an edited pic for you, Sean and Louise, if you want to snag it! Thanks for coming and hope to see you again soon!

Weddings, Parties, Anything! (A long one, sorry!)

Liam's 8th birthday: December 30th

Here is the birthday boy with a present from EJ and me.

It included books, a racetrack and an electronic Pokeball - shown below (which is, of course, what people keep their Pokemons in), and a heap of other stuff.

Liam was invited to a wedding on his birthday. He really loves both the bride and the groom and really wanted to go. He changed his mind when we got to the non-airconditioned chapel on a stinking hot day! But it was still a nice wedding, including bagpipers (EJ: "WHY do they have to keep doing THAT?!"), and a horse-drawn cart for the bride.

Then home again for the small family afternoon tea (remembering Liam already had his party at the local swimming centre). We had already purchased an icecream cake but then Liam decided he wanted a number 8 cake because it can be decorated as a racetrack, and I decided I would do it because you really only get one chance at having an 8 cake. Complete with go-kart, motorbike, tree, cones, and ramp:

Here's Liam serving the icecream cake, after he'd blown out his candle. The 8 candle is actually from my 8th birthday! The gold candle in the foreground is for Little Sean who would also have been 8 that day, and it was blown out by his brother Samuel, who is just in the bottom left of the pic. Liam always lights a candle for Sean's birthday, which we then give to his parents, and on three birthdays he has also chosen to raise money for Childhood Cancer. I think it is extremely generous of a child to not only share his birthday, but also to ask for CC donations knowing it might mean he gets smaller presents. EJ is behind Liam, with the 8 cake, which I cut into quarters so everyone could take some home.

Happy birthday to my special and caring Liam! :o)

~*~

Today we went to the Brickworks markets. We usually go there because the boys like the mini golf, but being 38C/100.4F today, we rode the bumper boats instead. I didn't have my camera with me so there aren't any pics, which is just as well, because it might not have survived the splashing! EJ had to ride with me but wouldn't do any steering (he told me later he was scared he'd tip the boat over!). Liam got his own boat and I was secretly a bit concerned about the difficulty of steering, but he actually found it easier than I did! We were the only two boats there so we could chase each other and bump and stop under the bridge to scare the other person when they came around the corner.

After a few mouths full of exhaust fumes and quite enough sun, we went into the markets. The Brickworks markets are not posh by any standards, but we were extra disappointed today. The Brickworks website has a scrolling announcement on the front page saying "Open every Friday, Saturday, Sunday and public holidays" (click here to see it). Can you see where this is heading?

Some of the markets are in the old kiln. It's like a tunnel which runs in a complete circle. The boys like to get Yu-Gi-Oh trading cards here because they can get a pack of 10 which includes a rare card for a few dollars. Entire kiln locked.

Some of the markets are in a building, like a big shed. About a third of the markets in here were closed today.

The rest are outside, made up of temporary stalls which are brought in at closing time, and small stores. There were two in particular that I wanted to go to here. About two thirds of these were closed - all the stalls and some of the stores, including both that I wanted to go to.

We still managed to buy Buster a toy I've been looking for (well a cheap version of it, which I guess is really what I was looking for!) and some ice cream for ourselves, and with the bumper boats, it wasn't a complete waste of time...