Cell Block # 7

       As you can guess from the title, we went to visit Jackson today.  Visiting hours are from 1:30 - 3:30 on Tuesdays and Thursdays only and the quarantine station is about 45 minutes west of Sydney.  So, we sprung the kids out of school early, rented a car, and drove west into the heat.  Once you get away from the beaches and harbor, the temperature goes up significantly.  Our car said it was 41 C (over 100F) on the way home!  After signing in and promising to follow all the rules, we made our way to building #7, waited for the attendant to let us in, and found the sweet little guy.  I don't know who squealed or wiggled more, the kids or Jackson!  He was very excited to have attention and the tail never stopped the entire hour and a half that we were there.  Conditions (stifling heat and humidity, wet concrete cell and dog hair everywhere) were not so great for visiting but we really didn't care too much.  His attendant seems very nice and said that she constantly writes "needs cuddles" on his chart so that he gets as much attention as possible.  We got information to hire someone to spend more time with him over the next few weeks so he's not too lonely.  The best news is that his release date is listed as February 28th, while we thought we'd have to wait until March 2nd.  Don't know how that happened, but we're not asking questions!

     School continues to go well for the kids.  They both seem to like their teachers and are adjusting a bit at a time to the differences.  Mia has met some nice girls in her class and they enjoy trying to "talk American" while they laugh at her Aussie attempts.  She said the girl next to her asked if she could borrow her "rubba."  Thank goodness that's only an eraser!   Some of the differences are truly impressive.  The Year 2 students all get to take a swimming course for 9 weeks.  They walk two blocks to the aquatic center and have 45 minutes of swimming lessons or stroke instruction once a week for 9 weeks.  It's not surfing, but still.

     We continue to try to set up things here.  It looks like the rental furniture, appliances and beds should be able to be delivered next week so we should be in the house by Thursday.  That will make things much easier as far as getting to and from school.  We are going to look at a used Honda CRV over the weekend so that we might have wheels before too long.  Chris has even"jailbroken" and "unlocked" my iPhone tonight so I have a working cell phone finally.  Now if we can just memorize all these new 8-10 digit numbers!

     The big news here is that Cyclone Yasi hit Queensland last night as a Category 4 storm.  As with the flooding, Sydney has escaped it all while Queensland gets hammered.  We are happy to be dry down here! 

     I haven't been lugging the camera bag around lately since (1) it's coming apart and I have to ship it back to Amazon and (2) too many bags to take around on the buses all day.  We'll post more soon though!