Hardware

I had my follow up visit today. Here is a picture of what they did to my ankle. They drilled two holes and ran polyester cords through to keep the bones tight together. The buttons are different because they push the rectangular ones through the hole, and then they catch on the other side when they pull it tight. Pretty cool if you ask me.

Australia Day 2

Day 1 was spent getting here, and working really hard to stay awake until a decent bedtime hour.  I am trying to beat this jet lag stuff so I don't spend most of this trip sleeping.  We walked to the grocery store and that was about it for day 1.

Day 2:  We went to the Australian National Museum today.  It is a really cool building.  Very sculptural. 

There were even paintings hung on the ceilings!

But my favorite part of just about any museum is the gift shop.  There is always something great to find.

Today I found this awesome little printed tea towel:

One my favorite movies, The Man From Snowy River, is an Australian movie.  And as I was looking at a map I realized that we aren't too far from the Snowy Mountains.  I would love to go.  But I am hoping for a birth around here and wouldn't want to miss it by going on a road trip.

I couldn't resist.  I like souvenirs that I can actually use from day to day.  And this one fits the criteria.  Isn't it great?
One day I'll make it back here and go horseback riding in Snowy River country.  Until then, I'll watch the movie again.




Side note:  The man from Snowy River is also one of Hazel's favorite movies.  Her favorite character is Jessica.  Nearly everyday Hazel asks me to play Jessica's Theme from the movie soundtrack on the piano.  When she plays pretend, her character is always named Jessica, as well as any babies, ponies, dolls, or pets that she comes upon.  I think it is really funny.  And cute.  And I miss my little baby.

I'm off to the land down under

Toby and I are leaving for Australia in just a bit.  We are excited.  I think I got most everything done.  Everyone is staying with a different friend until Nate comes for the weekend. Then they'll stay with friends again next week until I come back.  I really appreciate my friends for helping me out.  I will owe them a big favor.

Now we just need Hester to have that baby!

A little stress relief

 A BB gun + a work award + a plaque to celebrate a promotion (which didn't include a promised pay raise) = a nice little diversion to take Nate's mind off his broken leg. 

Eagles

These are two of Toby's friends from church.  Both of them just earned their Eagle rank at a Court of Honor a couple weeks ago.  Toby is right behind them.  He earned his Life rank at Christmas time and is now finishing the last few required merit badges and will work on his project.  There is a light at the end of the scouting tunnel.  I'm glad that Toby has such great friends who are good examples for him.  Congratulations to Dallin and Harrison.

Isaac and his junk collection

Since we ar moving, we have been going through all the closets and getting rid of the junk.  Isaac loves junk.  He had 4 or 5 dead RC cars in his closet that I wanted to chuck.  He wanted to keep them.

 As a compromise, he asked if he could take them apart and then throw them away.  Me?  Okay.  I get what I want.

and Isaac is kept busy and out of mischief for...a while anyway.

Then he wanted to keep the tires. 

I am afraid he will one day turn up on Hoarders if I don't keep this in check.

Snow day 2011

They say our winter is probably over here in Austin.  At least we actually got snow this year.  In the 13 winters we've spent here, we've only had snow maybe 4 or 5 times.   The kids are out early in the morning, in whatever cold weather gear they can find, and play until it melts away.  With the golf course in our backyard, we usually end up with a few extra friends to sled or make snowmen or have snowball fights. 

I'm glad that I didn't leave all our gear in Utah like I thought of doing at Christmas time.  (It's such a pain to pack that much gear across the country.)  They kids had a great day.  It was really really cold for Texas:  in the single digits at night with the wind chill.  We had rolling power outages across Texas to help with the overload.  A few of our pipes froze.  We enjoyed many fires in our fireplace.

But I'm ready for some springtime.  It's supposed to be back in the 80's by Monday..  Thank goodness.  I'm ready for sunshine, flowers, and green grass.