Yay- the Weekend

On Saturday we hit our first garage sale in Brisbane. Yes - the acquisition of more crap that I will have to deal with when we move has begun. It was at the church in St. Lucia (the suburb where the Uni is). It was quite the event - we should have gotten up earlier - looks like there was some good stuff. I just got crap as noted. Actually, that's not quite true. I picked up two lamps - one to disassemble so I could scrounge parts for our floor lamp and one that looked like it would be good in Ellis's rather dark room. Those were both 2 bucks. I got a hairdryer (my most expensive purchase at $5), a waffle iron and beaters (both $1), 5 puzzles, connect 4 and a small paul tshirt (that's the monkey) all for $5 and a glass for $.50. I was feeling pretty pleased with all my purchases. Cyp just had a big old frown on his face, but grudgingly carted everything back to the car. When we got home, I ignored the kids while trying to put the floor lamp back together. Cyp was slightly critical of my efforts as the light bulb does not really stay upright, but it mostly works. Ellis likes his new puzzles, but Connect 4 kept him entertained for ages. Yes - it is mostly comprised of what look like green and pink poker chips. They are now scattered hither and yon around the house. Rowan is at that great age where toys most be dispersed to every corner. He picks up something and I'll find it later in a drawer somewhere. Yes - I'm guarding my keys.

We decided after I got the lamp back together to go for a drive up Mount Cootha as it really is at our back door. Plus, Rowan was being a difficult non-napper so we thought throwing him in the car would help. We drove up the mountain and sure enough when we got to the parking spot for the Grey Gum picnic area he was out cold.

We headed out even though it looked like a storm was brewing (it was supposed to be nice this weekend) and hiked down down down. We got to the turnoff and discovered that our trail was closed so we continued on. Found another trail - looked rough, but you know me - poor Cyp had to haul the stroller up what looked like a washed out creek. I did help. We came to another spot where we had to make a decision - go left and walk for another 3 km or go right. I don't know why I even considered going left, but we did stand there for about 5 minutes trying to decide. Ellis wanted to go left but we came to our senses and went right. Two minutes later, Ellis said "I'm tired. you can leave me here and someone else will come and stay with me until you get back." (I think he was hoping it would be the girls, whom I think he has developed a mini crush on).

We continued on and hit the road so I walked back to the car and left Ellis and Rowan with Cyp. I must remember that for next time - maximum walk length, 1 km.

As I walked I passed the TV stations. They are all located on top of Mount Cootha. It is quite funny. All of a sudden there is a big news story and you see the news trucks peeling out of their lots to drive 5 km down the hill to the city.

That said - we get great reception living right by the mountain (hill) - it's great!

Sunday morning I got up and decided to use our new waffle maker. Yes - there was a reason you always see these things at a garage sale. The other sad part was that my beaters came with the wrong attachments. Sigh.