“WHAT JACOB!??"....
"Look what I got from the tooth fairy!"
In his little hand, a $1 coin and a smile with an extra hole in it....Pretty great way to start the day despite never quite getting enough sleep...
Jacob lost his first tooth ever two years ago in the Cook Islands and was lucky enough to get a $5 note but the tooth fairy has been less generous since then. He had been dying to pull that tooth out for a week but was set on waiting til he got to Australia so he could have Australian money. As a 7 year old, he is quite enthralled with money and loves spending in much more than saving it - hence the purchase of a stuffed monkey at the Calgary Airport with his own money - so he could have a travelling buddy... How is a Dad to say no?
Like our trip to the Cook Islands at Christmas two years ago, we are up at dawn with the sounds of children running all over the house ( much better than the incessant crowing of the roosters at 430 am in the Cooks!) It was cloudy, breezy and cool ( if you can call 25 degrees cool ) After the normal routine of breakfast, showers and checking email and Facebook, it quickly turned into 8am. You can get a lot done in a day when it starts at 6am...
We decided to head to the mall and do some Christmas shopping while we wait for the sun to make an appearance. Krista's sister Melissa took Jacob, Sienna and Lucas to Sienna's swimming lesson while Darren, Krista, her mum Toni and Nicholas headed to 'the shops'. Traffic again was an adventure with everyone on the wrong side of the road (the left ) driving quickly in the city. We took a while to find a spot and headed into the madness - a mall at Christmas time....
It wasn’t as bad as we had imagined it might be. There was a definite buzz in the air as people were spending money furiously. We found prices of most things about 10-40% higher than in Canada for sporting goods/clothing. Food was a bit higher for some, but meat was surprisingly
equal. The Australian dollar was only worth 80 cents CDN a mere 6 months ago, but with the mining and resource industry driving up the dollar with new discoveries in Perth and Western Australia, the dollar has now risen to $1.03. Guess we should have purchased some money 6 months ago rather than waiting.
Krista purchased herself some netball shoes - a very popular sport in Aus./NZ as she plays weekly in Calgary. They have 'gel support and higher impact technology' than the shoes we have in Canada.... ok.... $200 AUS later...
Nicholas and I set off to see what we could find in the 'boy dept.'. Lots of neat sports things including amazing Soccer jerseys from teams around the world, but all at ridiculous prices. We found a bookstore for Nicholas and purchased him a 'crime scene' book as he is our avid reader and it’s hard to say no to buying a child a book when they desperately want it... Nicholas found a loud speaker that converted your voice to squeals and Darth Vader and after wearing out the batteries in the store whilst begging his father to purchase it, it was doomed to end up at the bottom of the pool - thrown there by his father... so it remained in the store...
We grabbed a quick bite at Subway (refused to get Nicholas something from McDonalds... It’s our first day, we can’t resort to eating fast food already...) Was quite pleased to find internet access outside of the McDonalds store though - great marketing gimmick for we tourists who are email and Facebook junkies... so Darren didn’t go into withdrawal from the social networking world.
We ended up in the grocery store and purchased some food and liquor for the week leading up to Christmas. We set out for home and unloaded our wares into the house. We regrouped, had a bite to eat and decided we needed to see some of the city. We packed for the beach and headed for the ocean. The sun had yet to appear, but we couldn’t wait any longer.
We headed east to an area of Sydney called Cronulla. It has a beach on the bay of the ocean with great sand and not too populated considering school had just let out on Wednesday two days before. We camped on the sand near the water and watched all the people body surfing and using their boogie boards. Nicholas and Jacob got one each as a present upon arrival and were quick to strike out into the water, only to discover the ocean water was not quite so warm as the pool back at the house! After some acclimatizing, Nicholas was quickly mastering the art of riding the waves, as he did in Mexico two years ago, with some guidance from his Grannie who is greatly enjoying her grandchildren this Christmas holiday. Jacob was content to go back to the sand and dig tunnels with his cousin and truly best friend Sienna who get along like peas and carrots (Forrest Gump and Jennie...)
We played some football while Krista mastered her new camera and after an hour the sun came out in blazing force. The temperature quickly reached the mid 30's and the reflection off Darren and the other Canadians was near blinding. It's good to get that 'starter burn' over with… Jacob had tremendous memories of hunting for crabs on the rocks and beaches of the Cook Islands so we set off for the cliffs/rocks to the south to seek out some treasures. We found snails by the millions, and after some serious hunting, a few crabs. We were unable to catch any as we didn’t bring anything to pick them up with, and they were quick as the dickens in scampering under the rocks.
We brought a pail with us, Jacob collected more than 50 snails and tons of sea shells for our journey back to the house at 5. We all jumped in the pool to cool off. After a while, we readied all the children for a trip over to Uncle Tim's! Tim was taking the kids for pizza and video games for a few hours while Melissa Devin Krista and Darren went to a house party across the bay. The house got uniquely quiet for a bit as we headed out after 6!
We arrived at Paul and Karen's house, built into the rock of the cliffs, right on the water of the bay. A beautiful 5 level split house with three balconies and over 5000 sq. ft. ( approx. $4 million ) We sat out on the top balcony eating and visiting with friends of Melissa's while watching the sunset in the west. It was very beautiful home! After devouring scads of oysters, shrimp, prawns, bbq lamb and many other appetizers, Krista and I struck out for home around 1030pmwith Krista in the driver seat. It was only a 40 block drive, but in the dark, proved to be challenging enough as she still mistook the windshield wipers for the signal light. (As we did in the Cooks) We arrived home safely to a house full of snoring children and a Granny that was equally as wiped... We readied ourselves for bed, and the early arrival of the children as would surely come long before we wanted them to....Great second day in Sydney!!
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