Happy Birthday Benjamin!

As of December 1st, Benjamin is now 5 years old! We had a birthday party for him on Sunday, out at a lovely park just out of town. Fagan Park is an 11 hectare park with a great playground, lots of beautiful walking trails, and the reputation for being extremely windy. Being that the park is on a long slope, and the wind blows over the crest of the hill and down toward the valley, this makes for perfect kite flying! We flew a kite and managed to get it all the way to the end of it's string. It was quite satisfying! The kids enjoyed running around like mad things pretty well the whole time while the adults sat under the one large tree by the playground and chatted. About half way through we brought out the water guns and they all had a marvelous time chasing each other around and getting thoroughly soaked. We even joined in for a bit! After that I promptly put the camera away, snuck up on Cathleen, and began a great chase around the playground after which we were both quite wet (and tired!). It was a blast! The only time we managed to get the kids all in one spot was when we handed out the cupcakes (which Marc made).

All in all a wonderful day.

Yesterday Marc, Jeremiah and I went on a little excursion. Ben was a at daycare for the day, and Cathleen didn't need the car, so we borrowed it and drove out to the coast. Marc is very talented at driving on the left side of the road, thank goodness, and with me as navigator, we managed to only make one wrong turn. Unfortunately it was onto a freeway headed north, and said freeway has very few exits... However, we successfully found one a ways up the road, and turned ourselves back around to get back on track. Minor detour! I wanted to try driving, but their insurance requires the driver to be over 25. And that, I am not. Unfortunately as well, the car we will be renting to drive down to Melbourne also requires the driver to be over 25, so I won't be able to drive it either! Oh well, at least Marc doesn't mind driving, and I like navigating!

We made it to the coast, a little town called Mona Vale, in just over an hour, stepped out of the car and got hit by tremendous winds. But the view was spectacular!

We made our way down the bluff to the beach, and just as we stepped onto the sand it began to rain. Turning around to look in the direction of the wind, we saw some tremendous storm clouds billowing up on the horizon. Marc ran and dipped his feet in the water to see if it was cold or warm, but mostly just to say that he went in the water. It's not cold, but it's not tropical warm. Apparently it's around 21 degrees. Not too bad I think!

Needless to say we didn't stay at the beach for very long. The wind was picking up even more, and believe it or not it was quite cold! It was whipping the sand against our bare legs and driving the rain hard toward us. So we trudged back to the car, piled back in (much to Jeremiah's dismay), and followed the road a bit north to a beach town called Avalon. We had just enough time to have lunch, and we found a little place called The Roost! It was a little chicken joint that served various kinds of roast chicken, chips (fries), burgers and lots of different salads. We each had a chicken burger and some chips, which were quite good, then headed home.

Today is going to be a lazier day, full of laundry and planning our last week here in town. We have decided that tomorrow we will drive up north of the city to a place called Port Stephens, which apparently has a couple pods of Dolphins that reside in the bay. I'm looking forward to it! And I promise to take lots of photos. Anyway, lunch is calling. Check back in a few days for some dolphin pictures!