Wild Things....

Well today I did it, I drove!!  You have to think about every turn you make and parking will take a little getting used to, thank God we have a small rental right now – God help me when we get the 4 x 4 JD has his eye on.  I am not sure how long it will take me to get used to signaling, the wipers are where the blinker should be and then what should be left with the blinker is right and vice versa.  I am certain no one noticed that I am an American since every turn involved, wiper on, wiper off, wrong turn signal, followed by correct turn signal. When I parked at Woolies (the grocery store) I told the boys to give me 100 points for not hitting anything, they said I deserved that plus 1000 bonus points.

We ventured out to the Olive Pink Botanical Garden, think rocks and dessert landscaping.  Jake was already not happy about being there, notice picture – then when we had just started on the trail, Jake saw a bee and started screaming.  We had to leave but at least I got a pic of the boys, Jake’s face is priceless.  I hope for his sake he gets over his fear soon, I have been told there will be numerous flying insects at different times of the year. 

Friday night we went to a club called The Gillon club, we had dinner with neighbors while the kids played in this incredible play area, there is a huge bouncing pillow (bounce house with no walls) outside under a cover, and the kids had a blast.  We then went to the base of the mountain we live by, to feed the wallabies.  It was incredible, you buy pellet food and at dusk they come down from the mountain to eat right out of your hand – there were probably 30 of them.  There were even a few that had joeys in their pouch!  The boys loved it, where on earth do you get to feed and pet a wild wallaby.



Notice the joey in the pouch



Saturday we visited the reptile house – we thought it was important for the boys to learn about the snakes and spiders that are indigenous to the area, particularly since 9 of the 10 most poisonous snakes live here.  At first the boys were nervous around the snakes and lizards but then they started to warm up.  They had a 2 ½’ guana walking around free named Frank, which was a sight to see! There was a show where we taught how to avoid a snake bite – in case you did not know, stand still and pretend to be a tree (an impossible task) – they can’t smell humans and they are deaf. We also learned that Australia has the fewest deaths due to snake bites, about 2 a year compared to 100,000 worldwide. By the end of the show Dillon was holding a skink and he even went to pet the python.  Jake, on the other hand, did not touch a thing.




Daddy was not too happy about holding the skink!