BBQ Stories - trying to set up an Easter Egg hunt...

This seems a good time of year to tell the story of when I tried to set up an Easter Egg hunt for my children.

Chris was away for the Easter long weekend (maybe at EasterFest...can't remember - important part was he was away).  I was looking after the girls at home - they would have been about five and seven years old.  I decided that for Easter morning I would make an amazing Easter Egg hunt.

(WARNING: STOP READING NOW IF YOU THINK THE EASTER BUNNY LEAVES THE EGGS AND THE TOOTH FAIRY LEAVES THE MONEY AND CLOTHES MAGICALLY WASH THEMSELVES AND MONEY GROWS ON TREES...)

I made clues to follow and left little puzzles for them.  I even drew a MAP.  I placed about 16 medium sized eggs out in the garden late on Saturday night.  I cunningly hid them in the treehouse, under the stairs, in the letterbox, under leaves - not too tricky, not too easy.  My girls could sniff out chocolate with their eyes closed (I like to think that is a genetic trait from me).

We woke up excitedly on Easter morning.  I wanted to do my AMAZING treasure egg finding eggstranvaganza before we went to church.  I gave the girls the map and instructions.  And let them run outside.  I was listening for the shouts of laughter and happy giggles.

What I heard was disappointed moans.

I went out to investigate, trying to subtly check if the eggs were still in the right place.

No eggs.

Anywhere.

I did find little scraps of foil wrapper hidden in the treehouse and scattered among the leaves.

All I can surmise is that somewhere in a treetop was a very ill chocolate filled possum.

And the girls had no eggs from us that Easter.

BBQ stories - read the price at a restaurant...carefully

Time for another story that I often tell at BBQs - mostly when the conversation turns to restaurants and expensive meals.

When we were living in Krygyzstan in 1999 Chris and I gave ourselves a budget of about $30 a week for food - which was entirely sensible considering the markets were really cheap, and you could have a meal out at a cafe for about $2 for a drink and noodle soup.

So some American friends we had made invited me out to lunch at the new sushi place in town.  I got really excited to come, as we had been living there for about five months, and I had no had sushi for a while.  So I took 40 som with me (about $4 at the time), ready to have lunch with my friends (Chris couldn't come for some reason....maybe this story would have turned out better with his eye for detail..).  Funnily enough three were no locals at this restaurant, but we put this down to Krygyz possibly not knowing about how yummy susih was yet.

When we looked at the menu it had a whole range of delicious options, set out like this:
Little bit of Sushi                  30
More sushi                           50
Platter of sushi                     100

No monetary symbols next to the prices.  I assumed the prices were in som.  We ordered a platter of sushi between three of us, and gobbled it up.

In going to pay the bill it was discovered the prices were in American dollars.  I had just spent our whole month's food budget on one third of a platter of (not very good) sushi.  And I only had $2 cash on me.

Fortunately my American friends were walking around with wads of cash (?!) and were able to pay, and I had to shrink back home, find our emergency American dollar cash, and pay them back.  Embarrassing.

But I learnt my lesson.

Always take Chris and his budgety nose for detail out for lunch.

The Christmas dinosaur

We are down in Armidale with the very cute nieces and nephews, and this Christmas dinosaur I found in the loungeroom. There is nothing like a three year old at Christmas.

There has been crack of dawn stocking opening, much food, carefully chosen presents and mucking around with family. My heart is warm as I think of the many many friends I have and the awesome family I am part of. I am thankful that God chose to enter our world in such a tiny fantastic big humble way.



Annika is enjoying her new top, earphones and book. I blinked and there was a teenager sitting there. When did that happen? Mothering - they are the LONGEST days and the shortest years. I let her get a purple streak in her hair yesterday. I think she feels inexpressively cool.



They had chocolate for breakfast. Maybe a vegetable will pass their lips today, maybe not. Gab loves her new board shorts - teamed with a bowler hat they make a snappy outfit that you can wear at anytime on Christmas Day.

Have a great Christmas Day, may it be full of dinosaurs.

BBQ stories

To continue on in the series of stories that get triggered by words said at a gathering, usually at a BBQ, this story gets told when the topic turns to haircuts and children.

I had got my hair cut and coloured while the girls were at school.  Gab was in grade two at the time, and I went up to the gate to wait for her with the other mums.  I graciously accepted the compliments on my new haircut I was sporting straight from the hairdresser (by the way, it never ever looks like that ever again).

Both my girls often don't react to me getting my hair cut very well.  I remember also being a bit startled when my Mum got her hair cut - you have to quickly change your mental image of your mum.

Annika came out of the gate and said 'What have you done?!' with her face aghast.

Gab came skipping up with her bag, then stopped in her tracks.  She took one look at my hair, and then said, 'Can I go camping with Dad this weekend?'

'Sure', I said, a little dubiously, 'Why?'

'So I don't have to look at your HAIR.'

Kerslap.

Lesson learned: warn your children about possible haircuts.

And for the record, I had about three centimetres trimmed off and it was coloured a lighter blonde.  Not that dramatic a difference.

BBQ stories

I was going to write a blog about the musical the girls were involved in last week - but I can't get the awesome photos up of a jellyfish, a pirate and a pink dancer, and the story is not the same with the visual illustrations.

So here is another story I might tell at a BBQ when the conversation turns to driving in the outback, getting lost, crying, and auditory processing difficulties.

One of my first speech pathology jobs was working in Longreach for both Education and Health.  So pretty much everybody in a large swathe of Queensland.  I had to travel by plane to some schools, and one trip I made was to Hughendon and Richmond.  I had visited Hughendon SS one day, slept overnight at the pub, and was due to visit Richmond SS the next day.  An hour's drive west.

The guidance officer gave me some directions about how to get out of town and on the right road to Richmond.  I kinda listened, but mostly heard the last part of the directions when she told me to get petrol on a particular road.  So off I set down this road in the government 4WD, tidybox packed full of speech therapy assessments, games and stickers.

East.

I drove for about an hour and a quarter with no signs to Richmond anywhere.  I optimistically drove another 20 minutes, then thought 'surely this town must be soon'.  Spotting a property on the side of the road I pulled in to ask directions.

This was before mobile phones, GPS, you know, stuff that might help you know where you were. (And being a city girl I didn't read the stars, sun etc).

The very kind lady at the property sat me down, put the kettle on, and possibly even gave me a lamington (memory hazy on this detail), and explained to me that Richmond was now 260km in the other direction. 

I think I might have cried a little.

I rang the school and apologised, explained I was still close to three hours away, and did they still want me to come.  Of course they did, it was their one speech pathology visit a term, and I was going back on the plane that night to Longreach,

So I go back into the car, thanked God that I hadn't run out of petrol or hit anything, and drove to Richmond SS where I did an assessment on a poor child that had been waiting for me all day.  Then drove back to Hughendon again where the Guidance Officer had the police on standby on the lookout for a lost Speech Pathologist.

Life lesson learned - draw a map when people give me directions.  And Richmond is west of Hughendon.

BBQ stories

I have decided to start writing down some of the stories and memories I always seem to tell when people gather - at my house, at a party, at a BBQ. The stories that get triggered by someone else's story - 'I remember the time when.....'.

Here we go. I told this story to a friend this morning, and it often gets triggered when the conversation turns to snow, or wee, or long car trips when busting, or clueless travelers. I could tag all those words for this story.

Chris and I lived in Krygyzstan for about 7 months in 1999. We had heaps of exciting adventures on that trip. This is not one of them.

We were traveling back from a village in a minibus- Chris, me, and about 8 Krygyz guys. It was winter, and the fields were covered in snow. About halfway through the trip I started to need to go. Further down the road I thought my bladder was going to explode, so I asked if we could stop the bus for me to do a bush wee. Growing up in Australia I was pretty ok with the concept of weeing behind a bush, so I started trudging off across the fields to the solitary bush in the middle of the paddock. Growing up in Australia I was completely unfamiliar with snow, and how it works. I squatted down behind the bush, subzero winds whistling across my behind and started my business. Little realizing that the snow around bushes is only a thin crust supported by branches. As the warmness hit the snow it started to melt, and I began sinking into the snow, the bush, and my pants. I ended up floundering in a snow hole created by me and my toileting attempts.

Needless to say, when I got back to the bus everyone was hooting with laughter having watched the free entertainment of the Australian girl disappearing behind a bush into a hole created by her own doing.

Lesson learned - when you need to go on a snowy drive back from a village, go behind the bus.

I'm glad I can help you with these life lessons.