I'm Back and Blogging Again

Haven't been much in the mood to blog lately. Well, I also haven't had a computer for a few days. It seems my hard drive was "no longer able to mount." I know that is not a good thing, but the terminology is so wrong! Anyway, my computer basically froze and wouldn't do a thing so I headed over to the Apple Store to talk with one of the "geniuses."  The guy was a genius. He did all kinds of fancy stuff (to no avail) and then told me the hard drive had to be replaced and I may not get any of my data back, but he would try. Holy #@#%! That would have meant I lost the last 5+ years of photos the most important ones being of the boys. I know some of you are asking- well, weren't they backed up and all I will say to that is no.  Let's leave it at that, okay?  They called later that day and said they were able to retrieve my photos, music and documents.  Thank goodness!  I now have a new hard drive that I assume is mounting away and all my sweet memories.  Actually, I have all my photos times 3.  When I put all my photos back into iPhoto I ended up with 3 copies of each photo plus a gazillion copies of each photo cropped. No clue what happened. At this point don't really care. Better to have 3 copies of each than none of any of them. How is that for a positive attitude?  :)  Needless to say, I will be doing some serious backing up (and deleting for that matter) over the next few days (unless any of you geniuses know how to easily get rid of all those duplicates).

On Saturday night we walked over to Winter Fest which is going on a few blocks from here. Basically they have recreated a Swiss village and put in an ice skating rink.  It seems so strange that it IS winter, but not really because the weather is so mild.  It was really a very tame "fest," but the boys like watching the skaters and it was a beautiful night to be outside.

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Coop is having a blast at swim lessons. When he stops, listens and concentrates he can do amazing things, but I must keep reminding myself that he is not even 5 yet and playing around in the water when the teacher is talking is not unusual at all-- right Teacher Anne????

We attended a music class today.  We took a bus to community center in Paddington (a neighbourhood of Sydney, I guess) where we joined a class called, "Shake, Wriggle and Roll." The first class was a freebie to see if we liked it.  Well, the kids liked it alright.  Tucker danced the whole time with a HUGE smile on his face and Coop just loved every part of it. I think he also liked being the older kid. All the others but one were Tuck's age.  The teacher was great (no Melissa tho'). She has a beautiful voice, is very knowledgable (musically speaking) and had a great manner with the kids. When the class was over Coops turned to me and said, "Is it over already?" He was just gearing up for more and all the little ones were DONE!  I am hoping we can sign up and go again, but like everything else here it is not cheap. We will see. It was great for me too to see other moms and kids in a small setting.  It felt very comfortable.

Manzie's age is beginning to show.  She has arthritis in both her back hips and she is limping around quite a bit. It is really heart-breaking.  I am really hoping that the injections we began last week will help her.  Despite her pain, she is still able to get up and down from the couch and sit under our chairs at dinner and beg for food...

Oh, look what Tucker made today.  Some of you may not be overly impressed, but you educators out there know that this is a developmental milestone.  And, when he was done he pointed at it and said, "Ta-da!"

Can't think of much else that is happening down here.  We are just going along day by day and making the best of it all.

I "made" this shirt for Coop (from his favourite show)

Boys watching tv together

Okay, strange thing happened in this post- my computer now knows Australian!  I tried to spell "neighborhood" and "favorite," but it insisted I was wrong!!  It made me spell them "neighbourhood" and "favourite."  That is a little creepy to me....