Seasonal Confusion

Happy Spring everyone! While my mind is SCREAMING at me to pull out my fall decorations, go to my local Starbucks and get my first Pumpkin Spice Latte of the season (We don't have a Starbucks by us....like at all), and drink some apple cider.......the calendar here actually says we have now entered spring. What?! Spring decorations.....I just don't think I can do it! So as we sit over here in Spring confusion, I will give you a brief overview of what we have been up to lately.

Whale watching:
Such an amazing experience! I mean getting sprayed in the face with the mist of the whales breathing kind of experience. It's days like these that make all of the hard days seem worth it. Watching our boys watch huge Humpback whales in their natural environment swimming wishing feet of our boat. I will not forget it........

These are our friends Paul and Charlotte and their beautiful girls. They were kind enough to host this excursion for us on this day. They are the only other Caterpillar family living on an international assignment here in Australia. They are originally from the UK so while we come from different places, we can very much relate to what each other is going through. We are thankful to have them!

Our boat for the day. It was a 3 hour tour from start to finish.

Seriously, the whales were THIS CLOSE!

We could still see the beautiful skyline of the Gold Coast while on the boat, which was probably a good thing as we needed land to focus on due to all the rocking waves-more on that later.....

2 Dramamine's later..........#drugged

More of the Gold Coast-gorgeous day in a gorgeous place!

So positives on the whale excursion-once in a lifetime experience. Slight negatives-holy seasickness warning! We were lucky that our friends had warned us ahead of time that the waters get a bit rough. The whole family loaded up on motion sickness meds. Many on the boat however did not......they were not so lucky. Even with 2 Dramamine's each for the boys and pills for Matt and I, we were all glad the tour ended when it did. As Matt said, the lower part of the boat looked like a "war zone". Many poor souls laying down with throw up bags right by them......in fact, the crew just walked around handing out the bags to everyone. This must happen a lot for them!

Remember how I talked about seasonal confusion? Well tomorrow is actually Father's Day here in Australia. The boys made gifts all through the week at school. They had what they called a "Father's Day stall" at school where the kids could bring money and shop for their dads. Gavin bought an "I love My Dad" picture frame for Daddy's new office and Brady bought a Coke (not pictured because previously consumed) and a pen for Daddy. I also volunteered a morning in Gavin's class and the kids made chocolate balls rolled in coconut to give the dads. We had to celebrate a bit early as Matt left today for Russia. Somehow he managed to miss both the American Father's Day in June as well as now the Australian Father's Day. Matt is 0-2 for Father's Day this year:(

Gavin had his last basketball game for term today. They unfortunately lost but he has had a lot of fun playing. Both boys will be starting baseball for term 4.

And wouldn't you know that at the same time Gavin had his game, Brady had a birthday party. Since I was single parenting it this weekend I had to beg for some help from some kind parents to keep an eye on Brady until I could get back from Gavin's basketball game. I felt quite confident in his safety as the birthday boy's mom is a police officer. The birthday party was complete with a magician and a rabbit in a hat....for real.....his name  was Marshmallow.