Busy Weekends

Well, one really needs to define busy. By our new Aussie-rules lifestyle, the last 2 weekends have been busy, filled with social get-togethers, beach excursions, and a short road trip. Yes, yes, busy with fun stuff! I'm not going to get any sympathy from those of you back in the USA, I know.

Let me start with March 1-2 since I have managed to post a little slideshow from that weekend, thanks to the help of Bob and my dear (well, usually. . . ) husband David. Saturday, I actually cleaned the house! That doesn't happen too terribly often, so it was somewhat of an accomplishment. After a trip to the grocery store, I was ready to help David with the cooking. The menu: chicken curry, aloo beans, and roti as we had learned to make them at an Indian cooking class last summer. Steve, Helena, and their 2 boys arrived in good time, bringing some really scrumptious homemade desserts and a bottle of shiraz. (You didn't really think I was cleaning just for fun, did you?) The adults had a very pleasant evening eating, chatting, and playing De Grote Dalmuti. The kids supplemented those activities with badminton, hide and seek, and video games; they did join in the Dalmuti games and sometimes even beat us adults. After they left, Elise quickly whipped up some rice bubbles (krispies) treats for our next get-together. Sunday morning was church, as usual. We then followed home friends from church with quadruplets Elise's age for a BBQ and an outing to Grange beach, just 5 blocks walk from their home. At the beach, the girls got into collecting these odd, clear, small, jelly-like balls, creating a good-sized pile. You can sort of see this in the slideshow. A passing man told us they were little jellyfish. I'm a bit skeptical as I didn't see a single tentacle, but I'm certainly no marine life expert. Whatever they were, the girls were thrilled with them and carried the whole pile back to the house carefully wrapped in a towel. I'm not sure if any of them ended up going home with us. I haven't seen any stray jelly balls in our house recently.



Saturday, March 8, we went on a little road trip down to Victor Harbor, about 110 km. south of us. After a late start, we enjoyed a few hours on a beach on Horseshoe Bay. That's Horseshoe Bay in the photo above. David had bought 2 boogie boards that morning, and the kids had fun playing around on them. Well, I'll admit that David and I had fun playing on them too. We then found a funky beachfront restaurant for pizzas and Indian food. After dinner, we headed over to the jetty and walked the 800m. to Granite Island, home to a colony of Blue Penguins. When the sun had set, we went on a penguin tour. It was not the best time of year to see penguins. In fact, it was just about the worst possible time to see penguins. Many in this colony were still moulting, meaning they were not going out to sea until their waterproof feathers had completely grown back. Plus, their chicks were grown up so numbers were not as high as they could have been. Still, we saw about 5 penguins, a few returning to their burrows after a day of fishing, and we learned a lot from our very knowledgeable guide. The highlight was witnessing the enthusiastic reunion of 2 penguins, one of which was moulting and so staying at home while the other had just returned from the ocean. They literally hugged each other, flapping their little wings on each other's backs and rubbing their beaks together as if kissing. They were still entwined when we finally left them. Maybe they were newlyweds?? We got home about 11:15 pm, making for a long but enjoyable day in the sunny Australian outdoors.