Party Animal

Erik was invited to a birthday party where the parents had hired a local petting zoo fo sorts to come bring some australian wildlife for the kids to learn about and touch.

To start off the party there was food (smart to have all the food taken care of before the creepy crawlies came out!)

There was a pizza delivered that was a square meter, it was ginormous! And it was funny because 3/4 of the pizza was pepperoni-a safe bet for kids and 1/4 supreme style for adults. Well here in Oz, sausage is different than in the states (this host family is also American). Let me digress for a moment-a big tradition in my family is to have summer sausage at family gatherings, but especially christmas. There is no such thing here in Oz-which was sad when we were trying to find a suitable alternative last christmas :(. Anyhow pepperoni is almost always spicy, not like in america, and thats all right. But with this large pizza, many kids didnt eat much....well combined with excitement of other kids, party happenings, and the adults didnt have to be shy!

 Sweet little guy, enjoying his. He likes spicy so he ate a bit of it, but then gave up.

 After food and treats, we all gathered in the  front garden (lawn) to see what animals we would get to see. There was such a crowd they tethered off a half circle for the kids to stay behind since chitlins seem to always scoot closer and closer - you know like the tv.....all of a sudden they could lick it if they stuck out their tongue. It was quite funny.

 Some spiky looking lizard. I know I am not good about remembering all the animal names and things I learn here, I should take notes or something, I just dont have it in me. I just like to take it in and move on. this one was named "Spike" I remember and it was going after a little worm on the pillow case.

 Erik reaching out to touch a different lizard. It had a head like a turtle kind of but the body of a lizard and skin kind of  like a snake, very interesting. Erik was hit and miss with the animals. He would get all anxious to have it be his turn and touch it and then he would panic and retract. Unfortuantely there were so many kids so he didnt have much time to change his mind if he did want to reach back out, so he missed out on a few.

 turtle...

Snake...smallish compared to the one you will see soon...

 I practically bribed him to have her put the snake around his neck. This was nearly the best pic I could capture of it-you can see it all in his face.....I am only doing this for you mom! He did not enjoy it in the least. And rightly so, snakes are scary, he doesnt like seeing them at the koala sanctuary too much either. Actually the first handful of times we went he wouldnt even go in the building. So this was a big step.

 The big snake!

 The big one slithering back into its box!

 This was a really cool looking bird. It looks sort of like an owl but its not one.

All in all Erik had a blast, there were lots of cool things to see. There was lots of fun food, there was a lot to learn and just fun times to be had. 

...makes my day

We were watching Mr. Poppers Penguins as a family one day when Erik busted a gut laughing at the penguin named Nimrod. It was that contagious type of laughter.....so I thought I would share!

*the penguin is a bit of a klutz and runs into everything, in this particular instance he runs right into the wall.-Erik thinks anything that crashes is hilarious, unless of course he is involved in the crash.

mind you he had already seen the clip at least 5 times when we started this recording and yes our mattress was on our living room floor, what- you dont ever have sleepovers in your front room? :)

Mum's Day

So the weekend continued into one great adventure. Right after the tri we walked back to the car and found this cool carved out stool and tree near the car. So we took the opporunity for a littl photo op.

 I love this one, I caught a perfect little giggle in action. This may be my new favorite of these two peas in a pod.

 And it would not be complete without some cuddles from mommy. Erik is becoming quite the affectionate little guy and I am trying to soak every bit of it up. He often wont let us leave without a hug AND a kiss. He randomly tells us he loves us often and his new thing is to do the competitive I love you as big as..... phrases. Funny thing is, he cant quite grasp how big or important or vast things are, and he is obsessed with airplanes, and so he thinks he can top all the phrases by saying "I love you as big as an airplane in the sky" with a tone that you cant help but giggle at your self because he sounds like that is the most ominous and precious thing. He even gets all quiet sometimes when he says it. I love his little spirit.

 Sunday we spent the day walking around Byron Bay and hiking up to the lighthouse and standing in the most easterly point of australia that you can reach by foot. Pretty cool!

The scenery was breathtaking!

Walking up to the light house was quite a walk for the Erik's little legs and we dont take the stroller with us usually anymore so to keep him going and keep the complaining down we sang "Do as I'm doing" about a dozen times and every time we got to the phrase 'if i do it fast....' we would run as far as we could.

 silly face.....Erik likes to pull that phrase out randomly for photo ops and in everyday life as well. Silly kid!

On our way walking down those stairs we had the chance to see some wild dolphins swimming along the coast line. It was pretty surreal and great. They weren't doing anything crazy just slowly and relaxingly swimming but it was so cool!

Erik recognizes the letter 'E' now and every time he sees one he says 'hey der is an e for ewik' so when we got to the most easterly point of australia's mainland and there was a giant compass he thought it was pretty sweet. By the way....those sunnies are his must have accessory....he constantly asks if I brought his sunnies and luckily he wears them and we dont have to worry about him tossing them somewhere without realizing it. He actually gets quite upset with me if I forget them.

 In this bottom one, I dont think you can see it well but someone wrote really huge in the sand "MUM" since it was Mother's day. I thought it was pretty sweet.

That morning I had woke up to a super early text message actually from some one at church and had to take care of a mini crisis. But after that I tried to rest in bed for a bit longer while Erik and Linds went and brought me breakfast in bed of a chocolate donut, chocolate milk and a sweet card and new pen that they promised they wouldnt steal from me. Then we went around the bay.

My favorite part of the day was the drive home actually. I had enjoyed such a great weekend away with my men supporting Lindsay in his big event and enjoying playing with erik without the distractions of laundry, cooking, cleaning, etc. Getting away was the perfect pick-me-up. So on the way home I asked Erik what his favorite thing was about the weekend. Then I asked Lindsay, and then I said something. Erik absolutely ate that up and so we continued to go around our family at least ten times. After about two rounds he facilitated the game and that just made my whole weekend. Good thing too because.......

Fast forward to that evening, we were home, we were all blissfully tired and I had some treats that were supposed to be just for me. It was near bedtime for Erik and he wanted me to share, we were in the middle of explaining that this treat was just for me today because it was mum's day-a special day. All hell broke loose I tell you. He had the biggest tantrum I have ever seen him throw (and luckily we havent had one since), he escalated to screaming at the top of his lungs "I don't want happy mums day, I want treat." It honestly left me speechless. I knew he was overtired and just didnt quite get it and by no means were my feelings hurt, I just couldnt believe he was that upset about chocolate. He is a complete chocolate fiend but I guess i didnt realize just how much. Anyways he eventually calmed down and Lindsay had a really good calm conversation him about it all. He came out apologized and gave me loves and then went to bed.

That was the finish of my mum's day but it was all right the whole weekend was near perfection!

Byron Bay Triathlon

So Lindsay has been wanting to do a triathlon for a while. There have been a few different hangups as he has tried to figure out when and how he would accomplish this goal. First off was trying to find one that was on a saturday. This is nearly impossible as most big sporting events-especially races are held on sundays. The second biggest hang up would be finding the time to train appropiately for a triathlon. Considering he is taking online classes, has a full time career that often takes him out of town, responsibilities in his church calling and dont forget Erik and I.

But alas he found one that was just an hour an half south of us AND on a saturday. We discussed in and decided to go for it. The biggest things about this specific tri.....it was OLYPMIC distance. Go big or go home I guess! We were botha bit nervous but excited.

Lindsay did a great job trying to balance all of his roles. I tried really hard not to complain when I felt to be dwindling because I really wanted to support Lindsay in this awesome goal and see him succeed. I may have mentioned to him a time or two though that I was ready for him to have some more time for family time.

So the triathlon fell on Mothers day weekend. We just made a weekend of it and spent the weekend in Lennox head a ten minute drive from Byron Bay where the tri was happening. It was a blast of a weekend.

The morning of.....feeling a bit jittery but excited. The whole goal for this weekend was to just finish the race. There was not really a time goal we would just be happy with a successful finish.

Cool kid waiting to go in the back seat.

 Unloading his bike and checking out others that were arriving.

 Erik wanted to help walk the bike to the start line.

 A view into the transition area. Walking up to registration was such a cool feeling. You could feel the energy and the atmosphere was just buzzing. There were all types of athletes from young and pro to young and fit to old and fit and some like Lindsay-the newbies.

Getting his number on his bike. I kept trying to take a picture of his number written on his leg, but he was too jittery to take a moment to stay still long enough to get it. Thats all right, I understood and to be honest was nervous as well, even though I wasnt going to be competing.

 After registration we went to the common area was with a few different businesses and food options. There was a big blow up slide and it was a relief for us to take the focus off the race for a short bit and great for Erik to get some much needed energy out.

A picture of the finish line with a couple of cool wood structures

 Snack time! We had stocked up pretty well for the long haul of watching the race.

 The throngs of people waiting around for the time to head to the beach to start. At this point Lindsay was worried that he would be the only one planning on using a wetsuit for the ocean swim. Another interesting point about this time was watching everyone's prep routines. Since we were first timers we didnt really know much. We saw what others were eating or not eating and how people were getting their wetsuits on (yep, turns out almost all had wetsuits on they just put them at that very last second-because they are really hot). Seems many would use a plastic bag, put it over their foot, slip their foot through their wetsuit leg and it slid up easily, as long as it didnt rip (I did see that happen with one lady).

Walking down to the start line. Erik was itching to play in the sand and surf.

 I had never see this at the beach before, there were these tiny perfectly formed balls of sand formed. I dont know how it happens and this picture doesnt do it justice but it was really cool. If I would have thought about it I would have stopped and tried to take a few different angles.

 This was he was most nervous I think. The swim was by far the most intimidating. He hadnt gotten to practice any of his swimming actually in the ocean.

Erik made sand angels while he waited for me to put his swimmers on and be allowed in the surf.

 Part of the crowd heading to the start (the flags). Lindsay's division was second to last which in the end was a bit of a drag. He signed up to be in the heavyweight division (they politely called it the clydesdale dvision) for over 90kg men. With being that late in starting and being a beginner, the course was starting to be taken down in each leg of the race for Lindsay which was a bummer. My inner cheerleader wanted to tell all the officials...KNOCK IT OFF!

 He was so excited and I know he could feel all the fun and positive energy! He was in his swimmers and ready to play and yell for Daddy!

 At the start line. He is just to the left of the guy leaning down.

 Running to the water. Silver arms with full length black wetsuit. He didnt want to rush to the water and worry about getting kicked and punched.

In they go. The swim was set up to swim 400m straight out, parallel the beach for a distance and then 400m back to beach. There were guys being rescued in that first stretch. Lindsay said that the first few waves that crashed on him made him worry that he would not make it. Inhaling the salt water and swimming against the waves was hard work!

 Finally, his time came to frolick and have a blast while daddy worked away at finishing out the swim. I was mostly watching Erik but trying to keep on eye on rescues and where they were out at the sea.

 Coming in....notice lack of others and bouys and even lifesavers (lifeguards). While there were still a few out there. I was a nervous wreck by this point. I had given myself one more minute before I was going to ask race officials how to find out if he had been rescued or how they track swimmers. But a lifesaver had walked by and I asked how many were still out there. He said two, I gave Lindsay's description and asked if he was one of them. He asked if he had an accent like mine, he said yes he was out there and he thought he would be all right but the other guy who actually came out of the water just before Lindsay was really struggling. Relief, he was accounted for and at least finished the swim! I was so proud! He said the lifesavers gave him some good tips out there and were encouraging. He had to do a part of the swim on his back but that is AOK, he finished it!

Our favorite picture of the event. He was more tired than I have ever seen him, his lips were white from the salt water and workout, he was walking slow but he was continueing on.....atta boy!

I wasnt fast enough getting Erik back up to snap any pics of him getting on and leaving for the cycling bit. But here he is on the last stretch, this was his strongest portion of the race. But like I said they had started shutting down the course a bit. Although he did pass a handful of people and of course people were dropping out all along, and technically his time was pretty good for a first timer, he got started way later so it seemed he was last.

Back in the transition dropping off his bike and getting ready to run. We learned that you should get a clip on belt for your number so you dont have to waste time in transition to pin it on. Lesson learned if/when there is another tri in our future.

The run was four laps, so that was fun because we could cheer for him each time he went around. He caught a fair amount more on this portion but still people were dropping out.

You go this love, one more lap!

Erik completely distracted me when Lindsay actually crossed the line so I missed the golden shot, Lindsay was so exhausted he didnt notice luckily but it would have been fun to have recorded. Goal accomplished! Lindsay did say that he had to walk a few times in the run, but I am so proud that he set a goal and accomplished it, he did great!

Number one....thats how Lindsay rates in our books! And yes he downed that can of pepsi max. I felt bad, I tried to get him some water for the finish but they were sold out, so he got soda, not the best. But he was so thirsty he didnt care.

Coming up.....the rest of our weekend in Byron Bay!