Trip to RIDBC in Sydney

One week ago, Zemiel and I left to come to Sydney and to spend some time in the preschools at the RIDBC to see what Zemiel responds well with. We hoped to get some idea of whether we focus on sign during his education or speech. Unfortunately (or fortunately), there have been mixed results for both preschool environments with significant advantages presented in each. So I fear that I may be no nearer a final decision than before. In any case, it enabled his teacher of the deaf to observe him and helped her to identify some strategies for working with him. Sydney has turned down the temperature! Even the locals are feeling the cold and it seems that it might be an early winter.

Here's Zem with some of his new warm clothes:

We stayed at the RIDBC in North Rocks for a a week and enjoyed the change of scenery and activities. Zemiel really enjoyed sorting out certain transport toys into their colour groups or vehicle types (sometimes both). Here's a pic of one of his sorting efforts.

We also set about to recreate a lego/duplo farm scene. Below are a picture of the original card and our effort.

I originally planned to pick up our new car from Sydney and drive home, but the top up loan for our house that we originally planned for has taken longer than expected to organise and so we are staying at Adrian's place for a couple of nights. I feel very blessed that Zem and I get to spend some extra time with him before he leaves for America.

Today, Zem and I went to the Australian Museum and stopped on the way at the ANZAC memorial. We had a blast all day. The displays were: Skeletons, Dinosaurs, Indigenous Australians, Chapman Mineral Collection, Gem Stones, Birds and Insects, Surviving Australia, Kidspace, Search and Discover, and Birds of Paradise. Of these, Zem loved the Birds of Paradise the best and closely followed by Birds and Insects and Surviving Australia displays. Kidspace was also a big hit with him. The mineral and gemstone displays were of little consequence to him and we spent about 3 collective minutes (out of about 5 hours) in both displays.

Here are a few photos taken from the day:

This fellow had all the birds attention.

The ANZAC memorial.

Seagulls living the good life.

Inside the museum, there was so much to see.

These blocks were cut by the original convicts. Each convict had their own particular pick mark 'signature' so their overseer could keep track of their daily quota.

Zemiel pointing out a starfish.

Zemiel showing me a butterfly.

The museum had a section for kids five and under. Here, Zem is getting excited over a funnel web spider under a large magnifying glass.

Still in the little kids area, Zemiel cheers as he completes a puzzle.

The entire museum boasted an amazing array of preserved animals. Here are only a few.

 I can't begin to imagine how many children must have patted this wombat. It is looking a bit threadbare.

One last thing, that we saw on the way out, was a huge sperm whale skeleton suspended from the ceiling in the foyer.  

Easter holidays 2011

This Easter we were blessed to have Damian and Ellie come and stay a few days with us. Of course, Joshua came as well and really got stuck into all the new gadgets and toys. Zem and Az also liked having a live-in playmate too. We enjoyed visiting Queens Park Beach on Sabbath, fishing and markets on Sunday,  and take-away Chinese food and the Anzac day parade on Monday before they headed for home again. Here's some pics of the long weekend.
Joshua, Zemiel and Azariah at the park.

Here's Damian playing with Azi, Ellie smiling (in a case of perfect timing), and Sharlene... ...doing something.

Earthquake

Just felt an earthquake and its aftershock. We were talking to a friend on our stairs when we heard a possum run across our roof. Immediately following this a deep rumble sounded and our house began to shake. It sounded like a herd of cattle were running across our verandah! It passed in only a few seconds but it was my first first-hand experience with an earthquake.

First, a picture of where it hit:
Click for a larger view.

Source: http://www.townsvillebulletin.com.au/article/2011/04/16/224201_news.html

And now,  a few of the statistics surrounding it:

Magnitude	5.2
Date-Time	Saturday, April 16, 2011 at 03:31:19 PM at epicenter
Location	20.034°S, 147.659°E
Depth	10 km (6.2 miles)
Region	QUEENSLAND, AUSTRALIA
Distances	124 km (77 miles) SE of Townsville, Queensland, Australia 145 km (90 miles) E of Charters Towers, Queensland, Australia 991 km (615 miles) NW of BRISBANE, Queensland, Australia 1697 km (1054 miles) N of CANBERRA, A.C.T., Australia
Location Uncertainty	horizontal +/- 17.4 km (10.8 miles); depth +/- 3.3 km (2.1 miles)
Parameters	NST= 45, Nph= 49, Dmin=146.9 km, Rmss=0.92 sec, Gp= 76°, M-type=body wave magnitude (Mb), Version=6
Source	USGS NEIC (WDCS-D)
Event ID	usc0002stu

Source: http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsww/Quakes/usc0002stu.php

Sounds of Life

Today we took our family to the doctor and heard our new baby's heartbeat on the dopler. Its rate was averaging 145 beats per minute and was coming in quite strong. It is now fifteen weeks old. Today also marks the first day that actually felt like Autumn. Just walking outside today, I could feel that Summer had departed and that Autumn had fully arrived.

Zemiel has recently recovered from another ear infection. We were able to catch this one quite early thankfully and do something about it before it got too severe. He continues to improve his speaking ability for individual words and is showing signs of trying to join conversations - but no one can understand him when he does that. His loves at the moment continue to be steam trains and he watches some documentaries we have about them regularly. He also is very attached to his ipad and especially the puzzles thereon. To be honest, he is getting quite good at them. He loves to help with the washing up and the only thing that he likes more than yoghurt is nectarines. But nectarines are now out of season for another nine months, so we return to the ol' fallback. He also helps watering the garden and pot plants.

Azariah is cheeky and mischief rolled into one. Last week in Townsville, we called in at Australian Hearing to get some more batteries for Zemiel. Azariah was immediately recognised and the ladies in the reception and office areas went goo-gaa over him. (Azariah usually spends quality time with them when Zem does his testing). Azariah is also managing to climb the ladder up to the top bunk during rest times. Thankfully, he hasn't attempted to get down yet. He has had a few prickles in his feet recently and tonight we held him down and used a needle and tweezers to get them out. He complained that they were sore but when given the option to go to bed or get more prickles out he opted for the pain! Ha ha! Sharlene thinks it is because he is such an extrovert and just doesn't want to be shut away. He has been helping with the laundry and really enjoys throwing the dirty items over the stair rail to the cement, where I stand to catch them. Fun times!

Sharlene is in her last week of a 12 week term. She has been quite ill for the last 10 weeks and has lost weight compared to the start of the term. There are signs that it might be starting to ease up, so hopefully things will improve for her over the Easter break.

My Dads' Playgroup is still happening, despite being almost canned due to lack of patronage. It is now opened to the whole family with the focus remaining on fathers. I have the SES coming in tomorrow for a special event and hopefully we will get a decent turnout. I have finally put in my application for registration in Queensland for teaching. Hopefully, we will here something about that in a month or so.

Looking forward to some great Autumn days at the beach.

Rainy Days

The rain's been falling down for the last 48 hours and the ground is pretty slushy around here. The roads are cut both north and south and that meant that Sharlene couldn't get to her inservice in Mackay today. So instead it was just a normal day at school. Talk about an anticlimax. The rain also caused havoc with my dads' playgroup and the guest speaker I invited, couldn't make it either. Our phone isn't working properly and Sharlene is spending the night marking. So, in summery I think I should just go to bed and pray that tomorrow is better.

New Order for COLE:

We received this letter in the mail today. Click on it to enlarge.

Gingerbread Man

Today Zem and I made some gingerbread men. First we read the story and then we mixed up the batch. Zem kneaded, rolled, cut and decorated the dough.

So we didn't get any runaways, we didn't open the oven until they were well and truely cooked.

New ipad

We've had our ipad for a week now. It is a great device. We've gleaned some good applications from the app store and Zemi really enjoys them. It is a family thing, but we also got it with Zem in mind. I've already had some fun putting on some social stories. I've also managed to download for free some old books that I would never find in Bowen. At the moment, I am reading the sequels to The Scarlet Pimpernel.

Tomorrow our kids sabbath school is taking the morning program at the church. Shar and I are a little ready for it, but we'll see what else God can inspire us to do.

Our garden is now planted with tomatoes and egg plant. We are planning on getting some capsicums put in shortly too. We also got some rock melon vines. The seedlings came from the high school ag-farm. They had too many so we got the extras. Looking good!

Raised Beds

Well, we've finally got our act together and decided to make some raised beds. We are planning to utilize the no-dig garden approach. Click here and here if you want to know more. We only only have one started at the moment, but hopefully we will get up to four going eventually. Sharlene is trying to sprout some seeds in her seed-raiser trays, but every night it buckets down rain and I think most of them have been drowned. Besides that, Azariah has taken a fancy to little green plants that out of the ground and likes to pull them out. Luckily, I usually get to the uprooted shoots before they dry up too much. Even so, it could take a while before we get something growing.

Bunnings and Icecream

Today we headed off to Cannonvale to see the new Bunnings they have there. Yeah, sure. Seen one Bunnings - you've seen them all. But they don't always have free jumping castles, face painting and snow cones! Besides, we bought a raised garden bed kit to get our gardens growing again.  On the way home, we stopped at the 'Big Mango' and had some sorbet and ice-cream. Nice way to end a Sunday I should think.

Oh. I almost forgot. This morning we had a possum stuck up one of our trees. Diesel had it pinned up there since early morning. It was probably Zemiel's first look at a real possum. It eventually escaped after we tied poor Diesel up.