Fun at the parks

A trip to the Australian zoo

The day before we headed to the zoo to check out the Australian animals, Ellie received a book that had all the animals as characters. It was so exciting, then, to see the real animals the next day. Unfortunately, lots of the pics didn't turn out, but here's a few.

A lizard.

A couple bilbies.

A couple emus.

A kangaroo.

We also saw wombats and wallabies. Fun, fun, fun.

Barney at the supermarket

Wii fun with friends

We spent a happy Wednesday with some friends. Ellie enjoyed singing Disney songs and dancing to the Wii. To top off the fun, our friends had a wig. :) Ellie loved it!

Our journey to Australia

On Friday night we headed to the train station to take the train to the capital city.

During our 7 hours in the capital, we stopped at a beauty parlor and Ellie got henna put on her hands.

Unfortunately, during our morning Ellie developed a nasty fever. She was pretty miserable before the medicine kicked in. Poor Ellie!

We had a layover in Malaysia, and by the time we left on the next flight, the medicine had taken over. Ellie was content to color for a bit.

Our overnight flight to Australia was 8 hours. A perfect night's sleep, right? Wrong! Ellie needed to be laying flat to sleep, so she got about 5 hours of sleep (not enough for a toddler)... I got 2 hours (not enough for a mommy)... Franklin got less than 1 hour (not enough for a daddy). We arrived in Australia very tired.

We were happy, though, to see the sunrise in Australia.

Bengali New Year

April 14 is New Year in Bangladesh. This year Franklin and Ellie went out to celebrate the beginning of the year 1418. The appropriate attire for New Year's Day is red and white.

One interesting sight on the university campus was an ox cart pulling a sound system playing music. Of course the boys on top were dancing up a storm.

Ellie joined in the fun wearing clothes that were given to her as gifts and getting her face painted.

Gingerbread house

Not everyone has an Aunty Ingrid, but fortunately Ellie does. Aunty Ingrid decided to spend a day with us while we were in the capital making a gingerbread house. She brought all the necessary building equipment, she also did the basic building.

Ellie guarded (AKA ate) the candy decorations.

Ingrid the engineer/architect worked hard.

I decorated the outside of the house. Ellie was supposed to help, but most of the candies that ended up in her hand didn't make it to the house...

The next night for dessert, it was time for the gingerbread house to be destroyed.

Nani Di and Nana James were eager assistants to Ellie. (Sorry I can't get the picture to rotate.)

Thank you, Aunty Ingrid!

Hot season rain

We are in Australia now, but I am going to do a few posts from before we left. Hot season had started before we left, but there were some rainstorms that would break up the heat. During one of them, we all sat on our front veranda... well, Franklin and I sat. Ellie got more comfortable.

Bedtime stories.

Franklin (ever the amazing daddy) decided to help Ellie calm down before bedtime tonight by telling her a story. It was similar to the three billy goats gruff except that the billy goats were Ellie's friends and I don't know if the ending was exactly the same as I've heard before.... but anyways.

After Franklin finished the story, Ellie decided it was her turn to tell a bedtime story........ make that stories. 45 minutes later, after we had heard about a baby whale typing on the mommy whale's computer and getting a spanking, after we had heard about many different colored goats throwing sometimes good monsters and sometimes bad monsters into the river, after we had heard Ellie say, "Once upon a time...." more than a handful of times, Franklin and I decided that maybe telling Ellie a bedtime story isn't actually the best way to calm her down.

After a few minutes, Franklin asked me, "Did you give her sugar tonight?" Oh yeah, we had guests over.... and the shortest member of our family ate brownies.

Maybe we should try bedtime stories again sometime...

A purple cactopus

This morning at the breakfast table, Ellie asked Franklin if he got her a surprise last night when he went shopping. So, he showed her the new toothbrush he got for her. Then Franklin asked if Ellie had gotten him a surprise. Ellie said she'd go shopping and get one. As she walked to her room, she called back to us, "Protect my toothbrush!"

She returned and told Franklin to close his eyes. Then she said, "Open them." But all there was was an empty hand. Franklin asked what his surprise was, and as Ellie pointed to the middle of her hand, she said, "A purple cactopus."

Your guess is as good as mine... something that's half octopus and half cactus... and purple?

Where are you from?

Franklin asked Ellie, "Where are you from?"
She replied, "The Solomon Islands."
"Where's your mommy from?"
"Between my tent and Malu'u." (Malu'u is Franklin's hometown, and there's a tent in her room right now.)
Franklin then asked, "Where am I from?"
"The USA."

So, I guess there's a bit of confusion about where we're from...

What are you going to do with me?

I'm sitting at the computer thinking I can rest for a couple minutes. Ellie comes and sits on me with her hands folded in her lap. She eagerly asks, "Mom, what are you going to do with me?" I start chuckling. She seriously says, "Don't laugh, it's not funny." Then she starts listing the options, so I guess we are going to go work on the opposites puzzle now. I thought that sounded more productive than pretending I was some animal shaking my tail, which was another option on her list. :)

A sick girl

Ellie is sick... she's been having temps of 103 unless I load her up with medicine. No fun.

She also has a tummy bug that keeps her running to the bathroom. Most of the time she makes it. No fun, either.

This morning she's feeling a little bit better. She has requested to go out on the veranda and blow bubbles. That's a good sign.