The Tablelands

This past Saturday we got to go on an adventure!  We have made some new friends at the church we are attending while we are here in Cairns.  They invited us to come with them up to the Tablelands for the day.  To top it off, they graciously offered to let us use their car as well, as it would have been prohibitively expensive to have rented a Treetops car for the day.

So Saturday morning Phil arrived with one of their cars, and we loaded our 5 kids + 4 car/booster seats + the cooler with our lunch + all our towels and swim gear into their car.  (I swear, going anywhere with our family these days makes me feel like we're in a clown car... you know the car where people just keep spilling out?)  We then drove to their home in the south of Cairns, where Matt juggled car seats around between two cars and Phil hooked the boat up.  Phil and his two boys, Daniel and Nathan came with us.  Kirsty had been sick, so she stayed at home to rest.

We then drove the hour plus drive up the highway to the Tablelands.  Wow!  That highway was something else!  We had been told it was a bit winding.  Let's just say that was an understatement!  It was sort of like driving on a car video game where you swing the car one way and barely have time to swing it back the other way before the next curve!  Needless to say, when Phil pulled the car he was driving over, Matt and my first thought was "Oh no!  Kaitlyn has thrown up!".  Well, we were partially right!  Not only did Kaitlyn lose it (a very common occurrence with her), but Nathan did as well (and I hadn't given him a bag, since he rarely gets motion sick).  So after Nathan was cleaned up and changed, we hit the road again.

Our first stop was Crater Lake.  It is a volcanic crater/lake that was fairly recently turned into a National park.  It was beautiful, and popular for swimming.  It didn't really have a shallow shoreline though, so it wasn't ideal for our not-all-swimming-yet kids.  But we walked around and saw the turtles and water dragons.

Then we drove on to another point of interest:  The Curtain Fig tree.  There was a short boardwalk around it and the kids had a blast racing all around (and trying to keep out of any pictures we tried to take).

Our final stop for the day was at Lake Tinaroo.  The Keough's brought their boat, kneeboard and tube and we settled in for hours of water fun.  We ate our picnic lunch and then the kids got to experience their first ever rides behind a boat.  Nathan, always ready to try something new hopped into the tube for his first ever ride.  He loved it!  After the first lap, he was begging to go again!

 Kaitlyn was a different story.  She is always very hesitant when it comes to trying anything new.  It took a while to convince her to give it a try, and then she was only willing if she was in the tube with Nathan.  I laughed to see her hanging onto Nathan's hand with a death grip.  But I think it took only seconds before she realized what fun it was!  Then I could hear her happy squeals/screams as they went by!  After that, she had no problem going by herself.  Amazingly enough, Kaitlyn even was willing to try the kneeboard.  But because she was scared to let Phil get the boat going fast enough, she couldn't stay on.  But at least she tried!

They all had fun swimming in the lake.  Justin and Julianne were thrilled to just get to sit on the boat as the kids were towed.  And Elijah was content to just sleep on a towel on the shore.  The only mishap was when he was trampled by Nathan and Daniel's Grandpa's dog.  (She was running and I guess didn't realize that there was a tiny human lying on the towel and tripped all over him as he was napping (I WAS sitting right next to him, but I couldn't stop it from happening).  Needless to say, Elijah woke up screaming (and I would too, if a muddy, wet dog had just stepped on my head!).

All in all though, we had a fun day at the lake and are very thankful for new friends and their generosity!

Limbo........

I think one of the worst things in life is having to just sit around, not knowing what is going to happen. 

Maybe it's because I'm such a planner and like to have everything organized, and have a good idea of what is going to happen.  Like when I go to the grocery store.  I even write my list according to the location of the aisles in the store and what I'll encounter first.  Or I think of my week and month in terms of the events going on, and what I need to do to be ready for them, etc.

But right now, we're in a position where we can't plan ahead at all.  All we can do is wait.  (I mean, we are still enjoying being in Cairns, and going swimming, and spending time with friends that are here, and getting to enjoy having places to go like the Lagoon and Muddy's).  But it's hard not knowing if we'll be here a week longer, or two, or.....?????

The paperwork for Elijah's visa was lodged in Port Moresby last Wednesday.  The last family who had a baby here and applied for a visa got it 2 weeks after the paperwork was lodged.  But there is no guarantee that our experience will be exactly the same.  So we wait.  We think we think it is likely we will receive it next week.  But we can't do anything like buy tickets for our flight back to PNG, or arrange for the flight up to Ukarumpa until we know for sure.  I'm not starting to pack yet, because we may be here longer.  I don't know if the kids will be finishing out the school term here, via homeschool, or if they'll get some time back with their classes before the term break starts.

We're wondering if we'll be back in time to say goodbye to friends who are going to be leaving PNG for good.  Or if we'll be able to be there for the annual Christmas party good friends of ours host.

So in the meantime, we just keep on doing homeschool, and planning "one last trip" to the Lagoon and Muddy's (maybe it will turn out to be the 2nd to last though???), and I'm planning to join my friends here and bake some Christmas cookies next week IF we're still here then.

Thanksgiving

I hope all of you had a very special Thanksgiving!

We have so much to be thankful for!  The kids and I made a "Thankful Wall" in our house and put up different things we were thankful for.  Some of what the kids are thankful for include:  Elijah, Daddy, good friends, Daisy and Cookies (our pet guinea pigs), our house in Ukarumpa, legos, and that we got to see Grammy and Gramps.

We had a really nice day here in Cairns.  I gave the kids a holiday from school (if we were back in PNG, it would have been a normal school/work day, and we likely would have waited until the weekend to celebrate), and we had a wonderful Thanksgiving meal with Caleb, Adrienne and Ben Weir, and Kelly and Will Stewart.

I was so excited that we were able to enjoy real turkey!!!  This is sort of stupid, but I had been thinking that if all Elijah's paperwork went super fast and we were back in PNG before Thanksgiving, I was going to be really disappointed because I would miss out on getting to enjoy turkey.  But as it turned out, we are still here!

Adrienne cooked the turkey and it turned out incredibly moist and yummy!  She also made some amazing gravy, and green beans and cheesecake.  I brought bread, mashed potatoes, cranberries (they actually had them in the store here!) and apple pie!

We just enjoyed yummy food and hanging out with friends!  It was a great way to spend Thanksgiving. =)

Hanging out after the meal

One Month Old

It's rather frightening how fast time goes.  With #5, there is just so much going on that the days fly by.  Knowing (for sure this time!) that Elijah is the last, I want to be able to savor every little baby moment with him.  But I blinked, and he's a whole month old already!

He weighed in on Oct 23 (his 1 month birthday) at 9 lbs, 5 oz.

I borrowed my friend Crystal's idea of comparison pictures, so here is Elijah as a newborn, and one month later.  (Sorry about the screaming baby.... he doesn't believe in not being held, so it's not always possible to get a 'happy' picture of him!  I did try though!)

I'm not sure what was up with the lighting on the 1 month shots.  =(  And due to technical difficulties, I can't get a picture to rotate.  But you get the idea!  He's definitely starting to turn into a roly-poly little guy!

A Whole New Kaitlyn!

I must confess... there have been times (today included) when I have wished for one.... not the person, but the attitude, etc!

But today we decided to take care of her nasty hair.  For all her good points, Kaitlyn's hair isn't one of them.  She hates, hates, hates taking care of it and brushing it, and so usually it just looks ratty and, well, nasty!  And after 2 months of swimming almost daily, her super fine hair was trashed.

Before

 So we decided to make some major changes.  Off came over 4", and because she wanted to try bangs, we gave them a shot!  (me, not being a professional hairdresser accidentally cut them a bit too wide, but it's nothing some tiny cute hairclips can't hide!)

The Current Kaitlyn

Healthy Fear

So my 2 (almost 3) year old has no fear!  Since she was tiny she has just figured that if the bigger kids can do it, she can (and should!) do it as well.  So she climbs up high things and jumps off high things and isn't scared in the least.

Now that we are in Cairns and enjoying the warm weather and swimming almost daily, there is a new area that Julianne is experiencing:  water!  And boy-oh-boy does she love it!  But once again, she has no fear!  So we have to keep a constant eye on her.

Yesterday, we went to the Lagoon with some friends of ours who are also here awaiting the birth of their baby.  It was a beautiful day and the kids had a blast.  But at one point, the smaller kids decided to follow the larger ones across the pool (which gets deeper in the middle).  Julianne and her friend (who's just over a year older than her) held hands and started out.  The friend, being a little older and thus taller was walking along and Julianne was bobbing along next to him.  But then the water was at her chin, and then it was over her head.  Her friend's head was still out of the water, so he didn't realize that Julianne couldn't touch.  (Us parents were sitting on the shore/side, watching, and by the time we realized that it was getting too deep for her, she was already going on and under.)  So a couple of us went running for her.  She was totally fine, and had done a good job of holding her breath.

You would think after that experience at the Lagoon just that morning she would be a bit more cautious, or at least weary when it came to deep water.  Unfortunately, that's not the case. =(  Last night, Matt took the kids for a much-looked-forward-to night swim.  They were so thrilled to get to go swimming after dark!  Anyway, Julianne "pushed" Matt into the deep end, and before he knew it, she had just jumped right in after him.  Thank God she was wearing her floaties!  (she's never jumped into the pool without someone to catch her, but I guess she decided that last night was the time to start, and she did it over and over during the swim.)

I want my kids to have healthy fear of water, cars, strangers, etc.  But sometimes that's hard to teach.  We constantly tell our kids the rules of the pool, but sometimes they have to find things out for themselves.  I don't want Julianne to be too afraid to get into the water, but I do want her to be aware of the fact that she doesn't know how to swim and needs to be careful!  The balance between constantly teaching and warning, and letting them find things out for themselves can be hard to find.  Sometimes it's ok to let them discover that when we say "don't touch" or whatever, there is a very good reason (it's hot!).  But there are areas where you can't just let them discover something for themselves.... You just have to teach them that it's not safe, or not allowed, and they have to learn to take your word for it and obey.

So, at least for the next two weeks while we're here in Cairns and enjoying pools, we'll continue to work on teaching Julianne how to be safe in water, and to develop a healthy fear of those things which deserve it!

The Zoo

Thought this blog was going to be about life in the Taylor house, didn't you? =)  Well, many days this would be a fairly accurate description of my house.  Especially on the days when Kaitlyn decides she's an animal of some sort, and crawls around, growling or barking or whatever.

But no, I'm actually referring to a real zoo:  Cairns Tropical Zoo.

 


During Grammy and Gramps last week with us, we all headed out to the zoo.  It's a fairly small zoo, about twenty minutes north of Cairns.  All the animals and birds and such there are ones that are found here in Australia (and some that are the same as in PNG, too).  The kids had fun.  Julianne and Kaitlyn fed fish to pelicans that were taller than Julianne.  All the kids had a blast feeding kangaroos.  Thankfully, the zoo wasn't super crowded, and the kangaroos were actually willing to be fed (in past trips, the overfed kangaroos weren't interested in the least in their not-so-delicious-looking-pellets, much to the extreme disappointment of the kids!)



 We walked around and saw the various creatures, and attempted to go to a bird show.  It was rather hilarious, actually, as none of the birds were willing to cooperate.  The magpie took off and didn't return for a long time.  The owl hid in his hole and didn't come out until forced.  At least the guy running the show was good at improvising and had a sense of humor.  There must have been a strange, big bird in the area.

We got lunch at the little restaurant there, and ended the day with the crocodile show.  I've seen crocodile shows before, but I must admit, I was kind of scared for the guy this time.  He let the monster crocodile (a huge beast!) get really, really close.  I was worried the croc was going to say "maski about the dead chicken, I want me some real meat" and go straight for the guy's leg that was just a few inches behind said chicken.  Thankfully the guy got out of there in one piece!

What a way to sleep!

Now that's a relaxed Wombat (and yes, I checked:  it was still breathing!)

I don't know about you, but I wouldn't ever dare to set foot in this guy's pen!

I think the kids all had a really fun time (Thanks, Grammy and Gramps!!!), and Julianne has asked several times now if she can go back and see the animals again. =)