Flies

I have this fly that has been flying around my head all night and it makes me think of flies in Australia-specifically the outback and Alice Springs. For those of you who aren't familiar with Alice Springs and their flies, let me expound. The flies here are not just ordinary flies. They are very aggressive and they like to fly into your face and all over you. They like warm, moist places and that means that your ears, nose and mouth are all exposed and fair game to fly into. The little aboriginal kids here have snotty noses and, therefore, snotty faces all the time (and they don't wipe them, they just let it run. My kids freak out over a little buger and they just let it sit on their faces) and occasionally you see flies stuck in their snot-it's gross (are you getting a visual yet?). We have here what's called "the Alice Springs wave" because you have to walk down the street swatting the flies away from your face so they don't fly into those warm, moist places. I've actually become pretty good at hitting the flies as they buzz around me (though that may just be because there are so many of them that you can't help but hit some). I will never take for granted the flies we have in the US again-they are nothing compared to these darn flies. It's started to cool off now and the flies aren't nearly at thick as they are during the summer but I can't wait until they are all but gone. I'm going to go find myself a fly swatter and kill this darn fly.

Caleb with flies all over his butt and legs (Click for a closer look)

Josh's arm covered in flies

Nothing new

We've found out that Josiah's flu was just that-the flu. He miraculously recovered the day after we took him to the doctor and was anxious to get back to school again with his friends. Go figure.

This week is going to be a hectic one for us. We've got a field trip with Rebekah's class to the pet shop on Wednesday. The preschools rabbit died just before school started, the bird died a few weeks into school and then a few weeks ago they had a break in where the people trashed the place with glitter, paint and every other art supply they could find, filled the fish tank with paint, and killed the fish and then took the fire extinguisher and sprayed it all over the top of everything before they took the stereo, camera, the teacher's reading glasses and a few other things and left. Anyway, that leaves them needing new fish too. So, it's off to the pet store for a tour and to buy some new pets and I get to chaperone.

Then on Thursday and Friday, I volunteered to go with the year 3 kids and Josiah on their camping trip to Trefina gorge. It's just over one night, but with about 60, 8 and 9 year olds. They want 1 parent for every 2-4 kids so there will be a lot of us going along. It should be fun.

Once we get back on Friday right after school, we're having a branch camp out on Friday night. The whole family has been anxious to go on this one. We debated whether or not to even go when they changed it to this weekend, but we'll go anyway I think. At least the truck will be all packed up already-all we need to do is add a few chairs and sleeping bags and our food for the night (maybe we'll buy something on the way). We'll be back early Saturday morning (because this branch doesn't know what camping really is) and then we'll all have an early nap.

Saturday afternoon/evening, we have the military ball. I still need to hem my dress and maybe make a shrug to go with it. The fabric store was closed on Saturday for Anzac day, so we'll have to go tomorrow to see if I can find some fabric for a shrug that I like. We were also supposed to go to a farewell dinner for two families at church Saturday night but it happens to be at the same time that we need to be at the ball for dinner, so we'll miss that one.

Sunday we have church and then a working bee at the preschool to prepare our float for the parade on Monday morning. All of the kids should be able to be in the parade with their schools but I'm not sure what Living Waters has in mind for their float. We'll probably drop off Raven, Noah and Josiah for their float and then Rebekah and I will go the the preschool float where, as President of the parent committee at the preschool, I get to ride along.

The next week should be so much less busy after the parade but, until then, I'm feeling exhausted just thinking about it all. I'm off to start the hem on my dress.

How long does the Flu last?

So, Josiah came down with the flu a week ago Friday. It's flu season so we expect it and most of the kids have had it now so it was Josiah's turn. He's thrown up every day since-some days once and other days more. We took him into the doctor yesterday to see if it was something else, because I've never heard of the flu lasting more than 48 hours, much less 10 days. Apparently there is a strand going around that does last that long and he's perfectly normal, as far as having the flu goes. They have us taking stool samples, which is a whole other story in itself (I've changed my share of dirty diapers but nothing compares to taking a stool sample from an 8 year old), to make sure that he doesn't have something else causing it but that's about it. I expected so much more from the visit. Oh well.

Also, we took a trip to Ayres Rock and Kata Tjuta this last week, sick kid and all-pictures and details once I get stuff off the camera.

New Blog

So I've been reading all of my friends' blogs lately and really enjoying learning what they've been up to since we last spoke or saw each other. I was thinking that it made me feel as though we were still living near each other or something. Then I had this thought of what a bum I felt like not letting them know what I've been up to so I decided to create a blog for myself too. It's not going to be anything spectacular or even something that I can keep up on regularly-I'm a bad blogger. So, I hope to be able to keep everybody as updated as I can. I've posted a couple of current family pictures for now and I hope to do more after we get back from our trip to Ayers Rock this weekend.