Footy

On Saturday afternoon we went over to the Evans' place to watch the Adelaide Crows on TV and hang out. Unfortunately the Crows lost , but we had some fun with a footy in the park during half time.

Here's Joe giving passing a try. You're not allowed to just throw the ball, you have to perform a sort of swinging motion with the arm holding the ball while hitting it with the thumb side of your other fist. This pass ended up a little more vertical than is generally preferred.

Ryan and Mary showed up stylishly late.

John perfects the art of kicking with thongs on.

Bridgett shows off her pregnant high kicking skills.

The Neighborhood

The telephone poles in Adelaide are made of steel and concrete.



So we've got our next Ob/Gyn appointment in two hours. I'm excited to see Little Coop in the ultrasound again. That kid is gonna be pretty big this time. Sarah's tummy is growing!

Sarah and I got to eat dinner at our pastors place last night. Good times. Craig is the pastor of the 5 pm service we got to at Trinity, Myrl is his wife, and Meredith and Jonathan are their two kids. Jonathan has some incredibly curly hair which he inherited from his mother, and has one of the most beautiful afros I have ever seen. I wish I would have taken a picture of him for all of you. I will soon.

Anyway, it was a great time of fellowship, mutual cultural learning, and some scrumptious curry. Very enjoyable family to spend time with.

Saturday, In The Park, I Think It Was The 4th Of July

The Royal Adelaide Show with the F4

Hubbly Bubbly Has Nothing To Do With This Post

Here's a few equal opportunity photos of us.




Hubbly Bubbly was the dish soap we used to use at UPBC.

A Backyard Kind of Weekend

The grapevine is growing! It's now even nicer to lay in the hammock. The best will be when we can just lay there and reach up and grab a handful of juicy grapes to feast upon.

The dual purpose tramp. Jumping mat and sunning pad.

And a nice still life to finish out the set.

The weekend was nice. On Saturday I woke up early and got a whole lot of stuff done, and then we went over to Joe and Megan's for the afternoon. Most of my time was spent learning cricket with Joe and Johnny Evans. Peter Thurling, who is a pretty excellent bowler, came over and showed us the ropes. Due to my lack of skill in throwing a baseball, I had no preconceived throwing habits and was able to pick up bowling pretty well. I'm still sore today though. There's a lot of cricket muscles that aren't used during a normal life.

Sarah's been feeling better. Still a little nausea sometimes, and her stomach is still upset quite a bit, but it is improving. Our next appointment with the Ob/Gyn is on Friday. Maybe we'll be able to tell the sex! I won't count on it, but I'm excited to find out.

The initials of the child will most likely be either LBC or AJC. Can you guess what the C stands for?

The Camera Shy Mama To Be

I know, I know: there's never any pictures of Sarah! Well it's not because I don't try to take them. She just doesn't like it when I take them, and when I do, she doesn't like the results. However, yesterday evening I was able to convince her that it was for the best, and she complied. So here are a few pictures of the radiant and beautiful mother to be; your friend, daughter, sister, acquaintance or random stranger on some blog you happened to pull up.

Modesty

This will take you to a blog dedicated to increasing the availability of modest clothes for young girls and young women. Apparently marketers prowl the blogosphere looking for new trends to exploit, and this is one we'd like them to get wind of.

This Is What I Do While Sarah Sleeps

Saturday To Do List

Cut Brian's hair.
Clean the trash can.

A Full Double Rainbow

On my ride home from work yesterday I saw a nice rainbow. It only stretched about a third of the way across the sky, but I stopped to enjoy it. As I looked the sun became less obscured and the rainbow stretched into its full arc. Above it was another rainbow, also a full arc, but much less intense. I was thinking about rushing home to grab the camera when I realized it was in my backpack, which was conveniently on my back. I didn't have the F4 with the 20 mm lens, so I couldn't fit the whole thing into one frame, but here's a couple of the nicest shots:

Don't Mess With Texas

Relax

This was last week. When the weather was nice.

Two winters in a row is getting old...

Growing

Well it has been raining for the last three days. So when the sun came out this afternoon I decided to enjoy a little and investigate what has been happening to our yard. Well the grape vine is sprouting like mad and the beautiful white flowers on the plumb (very small) tree are gone but the weeds are sure growing! They are huge! It seems that perhaps I have missed a few weeds that seemed inconsequential before but now are giants.

I also seem to be growing. I was saying to Brian recently that my upper abdominal muscles are hurting...maybe they're stretching?? So last night I finally started sleeping with a pillow under my tummy and then today I noticed that I really do have a baby bulge now :) Plus I got my mom's package today with fun maternity shirts for when it gets hot and it's fun to have something to imagine 'growing' into.

Brian has been great about cooking, doing the dishes and just letting me be an emotional wreck at times. I'm looking forward to some rain free days so I can go out for a walk!

Biking with Anthony and Gemma

On Sunday morning Sarah kicked me out of the house, so it was a good thing our friends from church had invited me to go cross country riding with them. Just kidding, that's not really how it went down. Sarah was feeling too ill to come, but she told me to go anyway.

We drove northeast about an hour to get to a track that had been built a few years ago through a pine forest. We rode three circuits of the pink track, which is apparently the more difficult of the two available (the other was blue). It was great. There wasn't a whole lot of elevation change (just over 100 ft) so none of the uphills were too long or arduous. Some parts were pretty technical, but I think I held my own. I flopped over a couple times, and flew superman style over the handlebars once. Thankfully some nice soft grass and pineneedles awaited my super self. Gemma did not get off so easy on her fall; she stalled on top of a pile of logs and tipped into the bracken, where she obtained a nasty diagonal gash down the front of her thigh.

Don't Read This If You Can't Handle Cockroaches

So yesterday morning Sarah stepped into the shower and turned around to see an inch long cucaracha in the corner. She tells me she screamed, and I'm sure she did. I think I would have too, loud enough to be heard back in the U S of A. She jumped out, left the water running and closed the door hoping that the nasty beast would drown to death. It did not. So she grabbed a cup from near the sink and was able to trap la cucaracha underneath it. She was so broken up about having to trap an innocent little animal like that that she couldn't go near the shower for the rest of the day.

When I got home I gathered my weapons: a Gatorade bottle and one of my work boots. When I got to the shower I assessed the situation. The cup was still on top of the roach, and one of his hairy legs was protruding from beneath the rim. At first I pinned the leg down with the edge of my boot, and removed the cup. La cucaracha was on its back and started an attempted attack on my boot immediately. I tried to snuff it out with the Gatorade bottle but it just wasn't doing the trick. I was able to hold down one of his antennae with the bottle which freed the boot up for some action. I knew I had to be quick. My plan was to lift the bottle and bring down the boot before it could move. My left hand was like lightning, and my right brought the thunder. There was an explosive crack and a sickening splat as the insides of the cockroach were spread across the wall of the shower.

I cleaned out the shower and removed the remains, and then went out back and got a brick. The brick is now standing guard atop the shower drain, and while we're sleeping every sink drain stopper is in place.