Is there a doctor in the house?

Really about ready to pull my hair out.  We are on week three of fevers in John.  

It started three weeks ago with a high fever and sore throat.  I took him in for a rapid strep which was positive.  7 days of antibiotics later and his fever was gone, he was back in school, but still not at 100%.

So then he spiked another fever.  I called in and spoke with his doctor.  We decided to add 3 more days of anti-biotics at a higher dose.  I only went forward with this because of the previous positive strep test.  What if it were reoccurring?

3 days later, it's Easter and we are all feeling good.  John comes down with a faint rash that doesn't look like Scarlet Fever to me.  It fades in a day or two.  We have his birthday.  Everyone seems healthy.  Then Thursday night he's coughing so much it wakes me up.  When did that start??  I go in to check him and he's hot again.  The thermometer confirms it with 101.  I give him Advil and keep him home again on Friday.

Today is Saturday and he is at 102.   Of course it would be the weekend.  We are monitoring him closely and will probably wait until Monday to take him in, IF he hasn't recovered.

Let's hope he recovers.  I don't think I'd look good in a wig.

This is frustrating!

Joe's Birthday adventure

April 17th~ Joe's Birthday!

We celebrated Joe's eleventh birthday in a new way:  Zovbing ("zorbing")

After school a group of  8 friends came to our house after school to pile into our cars to head out to Zovbing Singapore.  Zovbing is rolling down a hill ala hamster style in a large inflatable plastic ball.

The boys rode down, two in a ball, strapped in and when the ball stopped, they unhooked themselves and rolled the ball back up the hill hamster style.

Here are a few of them helping out friends going down the hill:

Happy Birthday Joe!

Western Australia--Day 6 Hang Ten

One of the activities recommended to us by friends was to do surf lessons out of the Margaret Beach Resort.  We called and booked for today!  The weather was the warmest day of the week and sunny and nice, too. 

We drove down again to the Margaret Beach resort and then on to Red Gate Beach from there.  The boys tugged on their wet suits under some duress.  Again, "why do we have to wear this?"  "Why are we doing this?"   I should say really only one complained.  The others were excited.  I dubbed myself the official photographer of the event and off we went!

Our surf instructor was a muscular Gilligan looking guy named Scotty.  He gave us a 20 minute lesson on the sand and then took us out into the water.  Lots of pictures to follow:

                                                     That'll clear out your sinuses!

Two hours later, after battling the surf and the boards and the tide, they came out looking a bit like this:

We struggled out of the wet suits and drove off to find  a spot to sit, get a drink, and eat lunch.  We made it to a great brewery and sat outside and recharged.  Everyone was just exhausted.  Surfing is a lot of work!  No wonder Scotty is muscular!

Later, we meandered our way back to Bunker Bay, stopping at Sugar Loaf Rock for a look.  Great views.

And that was the end of our fun week!  The next morning we packed up and drove back to Perth, gave up our rental van, and boarded a Qantas Flight back to Singapore.  

Oh!  Forgot to mention that on day 3, the story on the news was of another Qantas Flight that had to do emergency landing due to mechanical failure.  Nice.

But we made it home safely and the nose and tail of the plane cooperated nicely this time.

Western Australia-- Day 5 Fun with Kangaroos

Around Day 2 we began to hear rumblings from the kids, "when are we going to pet a kangaroo?".    When you visit this part of Australia, you see kangaroos often.  They are the deer of Australia.  Seriously.  You see them in fields while driving and they like to come out at dusk and dawn, just like deer back home.  You also see them as roadkill along the side of the roads, just like deer back home.

So the kids had been seeing them since day 1 in the fields and wanted to get up close, which is funny because just the evening before, they walked right by one!  A wild one!

Here he is in all his wild glory!:

We went to dinner after horse wrangling and came back to Bunker Bay as the sun went down.  On the walk to our villa, they unknowingly strolled right past this Roo.  I noticed him right away and stopped dead in my tracks because I didn't want to scare him away.  I called out to the boys ahead of me and of course, everyone got excited.  Except the Roo.  He just stayed where he was, calmly eating on this patch of grass under an olive tree.  We inched closer and closer just to see how he'd react.  Eventually he kind of stood up and let us know not to get nearer.   Fun!  We got just over an arm's length away.

So the next day we planned to visit Sunflower's Animal Farm to see animals. 

We woke up to warmer weather, lovely day, and drove down toward Margaret River to the farm.  We paid for three buckets of food and headed out to see the critters.  the buckets were filled with carrots, lettuce, and seeds.   Good stuff.

Our first encounter was with baby chicks who were being housed in a box with a warming light.  I have held chicks before and played with them as a kid on my uncle's farm.  I lifted them in and out of the box for him to make sure they didn't get squished.  So cute!  Lots of peeps!

This gal is "Chloe" the ostrich.  We all got a kick out of feeding her because she gobbled fast!

Then we came to the kangaroos.  So sweet!  And so soft!  Amazingly soft!:

This little joey was allowed out and about.  He just hung around and loved to be petted and held.  So gentle and soft.  Just like a kitten!

The boys couldn't get enough of that little guy.  We spent most of our time with him.

This Clydesdale horse was named "Storm."  he was pretty large and had a large appetite!  When we finished our walk through, we came back and gave him whatever we had left because he acted like he was starving, silly guy!

Alpacas and Llamas:

The rabbit Hutch, Joe's dream come true, to hold a rabbit:

Everyone loved the Farm.  Conversations for a few days revolved around why we couldn't get a pet kangaroo to take home and how he wouldn't like Singapore because we don't have enough grass for him and other kangaroos to play with.

We drove a bit that day and stopped for a family photo.  My favorite of the trip!:

We ended up back at our resort.  Here is another photo of it from the hill looking down toward the beach:

Here's where we ended up that late afternoon again:

Up Next:   Hang Ten!

Western Australia-- Day 4

Busselton Jetty Day.

Today we woke up to another day of beautiful weather.  Sunny, cool to start and warm by noon.  We ate our breakfast and drove up to the town of Busselton.

Busselton is around 30 minutes north of Bunker Bay.  It sits on Geographe Bay:

named in 1801 by French Explorer Nicolas Baudin; Baudin named the bay after his ship, Geographe.  The bay is a wide curve of coastline extending from Cape Naturaliste past the towns of Dunsborough and Busselton, ending near the city of Bunbury.  The bay is protected from the rough seas of the Indian Ocean by Cape Naturalist, which makes it a popular destination for recreational boaters.  The bay is extremely shallow, limiting the entrance of large ships.  To alleviate the problem, the two-kilometre-long Busselton Jetty, the longest in the southern hemisphere, was built.

We arrived right at opening time to get tickets for the first tour of the underwater observatory.  The observatory is located at the end of the jetty.  Good thing we wore good walking shoes! 

                                                  The Busselton Jetty

We trekked out on the jetty, which is over a mile long and only in just "okay" shape.  It is a wooden structure that was pretty narrow to start.  No rails on the side, either.  We watched John closely so we didn't have a repeat of Koi Boy.  He had already fallen out of a tree and into the Margaret river two days prior on our canoe trip.

I failed to mention that, didn't I?

Here we are along the way.  About 3/4 along, as you can imagine, John decided he'd had enough.  It was too long, too hot, and too boring.  The water was clear, but no fish.  The kids took to calling out, "look at the invisible fish!"

                                                  Yes, we walked all the way to the end out there.

The end consists of a small shack, which is the location of the underwater observatory.  We waited until start time, gave the gal our tickets, and were escorted with another group of jetty-trekkers down the stairs to the ocean floor.  The lower level had 4 large glass window panes that you look out to see whatever happens to be there.

Here are some of the fish sites:

The colors we very pretty and we did see fish.  Nothing big or exciting.  Sharks don't come into Geographe Bay (too cold!) and there weren't any rays or jelly fish or anything else.  My overall impression of this morning's adventure is: it was nice to see, but pricey and I don't think I'd put it on a "must do" list.   

After our viewing, we began the long walk back to shore.  There's no food or further fun at the end of the jetty.  Just the viewing observatory.  

Anyway, we ran into our friends, the Sauers  (remember the canoe trip), on the walk back.  They were walking out!  We had a good chat and decided to try and hit the Aboriginal place in the afternoon together and do dinner that night.  

By the time we got to shore, it was lunch time and we were hungry.  Jim decided it was time to find a winery to visit because we were on day 4 and still hadn't had any wine!  We broke out the maps and drove around until we found Will's Domain.

Aaaaaaah...  lovely.

We grabbed a table outside and ordered food and drinks and enjoyed a nice leisurely lunch.  Even John was well behaved enjoying what he loves best:

Satiated, we touched base again with Kevin and Melina and made our way to the Aboriginal place for the kids to throw boomerangs and spears.  Good family fun with boys.  Too bad they never got their act together!  The spear/boomerang experience was not available and we were told to come back tomorrow morning.  (which we did, and the guy wasn't there to do it.  After that we gave up on them.)

We gathered the kids and took them back to our place at Bunker Bay where they played in the sand and went swimming.  Melina and I headed to the grocery (a real grocery store!) to pick up a few things and then we had fun grilling and grubbing and hanging out:

Good times.

Up Next:   What's soft and furry and something John wants as a pet?

Western Australia-- Day 3

Even though we were on a Spring Break vacation, work didn't rest for Jim.  This morning was no exception.  We needed to stay at the resort until lunch time so he could do a conference call this morning.  No worries, though.  We slept in, which the boys needed.  They were in much better spirits after a good sleep.  The weather was sunny and nice.  We ate breakfast, relaxed, and headed to the beach.

Here a picture of the Spring Break crowds in Australia.  Don't know how we managed!:

Truly, I don't know how they could stand the water.  It was clear and beautiful and cold!  Too cold!  To give you an idea of how chilled the water is, Jim, my husband, wouldn't go in!  And he'll swim in anything!

But the boys enjoyed it and the water was so clear they could wear their goggles and watch fish.  Enough entertainment for an hour or two before we made it to the pool, which was warm! (heated)  Joe and Jim said their toes were numb after swimming in the ocean.

Around 12:30, phone conference finished, we headed out into the world again.  This time we headed out to please the kids for lunch at Subway and then drove into Margaret River for a horseback ride.  The name of the ranch is Jester's Flat and they couldn't have been nicer or more helpful with us on our trail.

Jim rode Jackal, a young brown horse with a bit of a pea brain.  I rode George, a gorgeous black horse who was gentle and hungry. James rode Radar, a good horse.  Joe was on Polly and John on Twinkle, a small brown horse.  My George was trying to eat his way along the entire trail, grabbing at grasses as he walked along.

Here's the three cowboys before we set off:

When our time was finished, they brought us soda and wine and bread with olive oil.  We sat and sipped and discussed the kangaroos we saw along the trail.   The boys loved the ride and wanted to return here later in the week for more.  Truly a fun day.

Up Next:  The longest Jetty in the southern hemisphere and dinner with friends!