Rough transition

It's been difficult adjusting to US time. We arrived late Monday night after 28 hours of traveling. I figured I'd sleep well because I hadn't really slept at all during the long flights. But no! And last night was the same issue. Anyway it will eventually get better, right?

Zari has 1 more day at home with everyone, and then we drive her up to university on Friday! We went to dinner together tonight because my some miracle, no one had soccer games or evening soccer practice. We were also hoping to play games or watch a movie, but the kids all had homework.

Zari is mostly packed: 1 big suitcase, 1 small suitcase, and 1 backpack. Her housing got finalized this week; she's sharing an apartment with 3 other girls just a few blocks from campus. The owner is a professor who lives upstairs. I have the feeling that I wrote this is an earlier post. If I did, blame it on jet lag!

We went to the big box store for some final supplies (sock, underwear, toiletries). Now it's a matter of remembering all the little miscellaneous items. But it's not like she's going to a remote undeveloped country! She'll be in an enormous city (Toronto) and will have shops galore.

I put 2 new patches on my apron. Can you spy them?

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Home, finally!

Zari and I made it home without any issues, other than some stress-inducing turbulence over the Pacific. We've been up for 30+ hours now and I'm not going to last much longer. Life continues at a fast pace for the other kids. Ivy and Inga had soccer games this evening and Dio is working on an English essay about "My Name Is Asher Lev." I'm hoping for a good night's sleep and then back to work tomorrow.

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Conference done!

I gave my presentation late this morning. I'm so used to public speaking that I was surprised to feel a bit nervous. It's not that the audience was scary--they're midwives!

I didn't take a single picture, other than pictures of other presenters' slides, but someone took a photo with me and sent it to me. I had my breech earrings on because why not!

I met with Betty-Anne Daviss after the conference to go over our video analysis paper. Then Zari and I headed out for a walk to the grocery store. Dinner was sandwiches, salad, and strawberries. We bought lots of goodies for the family back home: chocolate and Tim Tams. She also has a bag of flavored mealworms. Yum? She ate some but I just couldn't.

We head home early tomorrow morning, flying with the sun so we'll have a super long day and get home in the evening local time.

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Conferencing day 1

After 3 days of teaching, attending a conference is like a relaxing spa retreat! All I have to do is sit and listen and eat delicious food! (To be fair, I also multitasked and got some breech work done.)

I loved the Cloak of Righteous Anger, a "craftivism" project about obstetric violence and protecting and nurturing laboring women. It is totally the kind of thing I'd love to help create! I took a picture of the slide and I hope to get pictures of the actual cloak tomorrow.

https://www.instagram.com/cloak_of_righteous_anger/

https://www.instagram.com/p/DA_EElSy-GU/

I give my presentation tomorrow morning! Super excited. I hope I can finish on time.

Zari visited the Australian National Maritime Museum and loved it. She spent 4 or 5 hours there.

We had a gala dinner tonight and I had so much fun laughing at midwife humor and swapping stories.

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3 days of teaching

I just got done with 3 days of teaching in a row: 2 days at Birth Time doing our usual vaginal breech training, and then 1 day of breech skills & drills as part of the Convergence of Rebellious Midwives. I could barely grip the baby by the end of today's training!

Because I'm speaking at the conference, Zari and I transferred over to the conference hotel last night and felt very awestruck. This hotel is super posh and we don't feel fancy enough! We woke up to a gorgeous rainbow from our room on the 27th floor.

Tomorrow will be relaxed for me: I'm just listening to conference speakers. On Sunday I give my presentation in the morning.

Zari and I had a few hours this morning before I taught. We did touristy things and visited the zoo and the aquarium in Darling Harbour, right near where we're staying. She got a multi-pass ticket and went to the wax museum and the observation tower in the afternoon.

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In Sydney

We drove back to Sydney this morning, arriving at noon at the airbnb. We dropped our bags, ate lunch, and then caught a bus to downtown Sydney. I had business cards to pick up, and since we were there, we walked through the botanical gardens to the opera house. Then we wandered back through the skyscrapers, browsing in some stores and enjoying the big city energy.

We had dinner at a Middle Eastern restaurant with a few of the other instructors. Lots of midwife talk, which Zari endured patiently.

We discovered finger limes at my friend's house yesterday. Amazing! They are dark purple, about as long as my thumb, and filled with little round crunch lime-flavored bits. They are native to Australia and I've never seen then anywhere before.

3 big teaching days coming up, then speaking at the conference. Phew!

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Grand Canyon Track bushwalk

I love the term for hiking here: bushwalking. We did the Grand Canyon Track today, and it was amazing. We overprepared for it with tons of water and snacks, many layers of clothes (which we greatly appreciated given that it was just 7C when we started), and a snakebite kit. Our friends insisted we bring it, even though this time of year it's not very likely to encounter snakes.

I'm happy to report that we emerged snake-free.

The hike was listed as a 3-4 hour hike, but we finished it in just over 2 hours, including a lunch break. It was about 6.5 km with a LOT of elevation change. From the top, the Grand Canyon looks like big uniform hills. But as soon as you start to descend, you realize that the area is riddled with deep canyons, sometimes just 5 feet wide but hundreds of feet deep. It's astounding.

There was so much water that the huge stepping stones across the creeks were submerged in a few places. No big deal--it felt great to take our shoes off and wade across! We were muddy by the end of the hike because it's been raining in this area for the last week or more. Today was just a light drizzle towards the end of the hike, plus lots of falling water from the cliffs.

We had some down time after we got home. Zari read a book (Cloud Atlas) and I did several hours of video editing. My friend brought us on a lovely drive through the western Blue Mountains, showing us her previous house (straw bale house, off-grid). We saw many kangaroos and wallabies, although the emus weren't visible tonight.

We ate kangaroo for dinner. Yum!

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Scenic World

My friend treated us to a visit to Scenic World. It's not really a theme park...more like a touristy nature park with gondolas, cable cars, walkways, and the world's steepest railway. We had rain and fog, but miraculously as soon as we started descending into the valley the cloud cover dissipated enough for us to see everything!

We're going to hike in the national park tomorrow--so excited. The rain is supposed let up, finally.

I had some breech meetings and tasks today. One fun one was watching a live session together with my host/friend! Lots of interesting conversation about her work here as a private midwife in Australia.

I made another chocolate tart, this time with some white chocolate decorations (done by her 12-year-old).

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Palm Beach & lighthouse, Curl Curl beach, drive to the Blue Mountains

Forgot to write last night. Yesterday started early with an excursion to Palm Beach. Our host had a golfing appointment and we tagged along. Zari and I hiked along the peninsula and up to the lighthouse while she golfed. We ended at a restaurant, where Zari had brunch.

We stopped by the grocery store again for dinner supplies. I think we were otherwise at home in the afternoon, me working and taking breaks to watch Murderbot.

I gave a test run of my conference presentation--70 minutes. About 10 minute too long. We also got a simulator all set up and converted to an right position and then worked on the simulator for a while.

Today we wanted to get out in the morning, but there was a lot of rain. It let up late morning, and we took a walk south along the cliffs over to Curl Curl beach. We wanted to take the coastal path, but it was far too muddy.

We got packed up and on the road by 2:45 pm. It was my first time ever driving on the "wrong" side of the road. Not too bad, but I kept turning the windshield wipers on when I was meaning to use the turn signals! My brain knew it was on the opposite side, but my muscle memory kept overriding. We made it by 5:15 to my friend's house in the Blue Mountains. The last part was super foggy--quite eerie to drive in.

 

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Hello from rainy, cloudy Sydney!

We left at 1:45 pm on Tuesday Eastern Daylight Time and arrived at 6:15 am on Thursday local Sydney time. It's still so bizarre how you lose an entire day somewhere in that 24 hours of being on an airplane.

We had 3 flights: a short one to the Twin Cities, then a longer one to Los Angeles, then a realllllllly long one (15 hrs) to Sydney. Everything went smoothly. Not much sleep at all--I couldn't get my head to stay in place, so every time I'd fall asleep I'd wake up as soon as my head nodded or fell to the side. I've tried a few contraptions for this situation and so far nothing has worked very well.

A midwife friend picked us up at the airport and drove our rental car to her house. She insisted because, with all of the traffic and fatigue, she thought it would be best to drive us to her house. It took almost 2 hours even though she doesn't live very far (in a suburb north of Sydney).

From when we left our house to when we arrived at hers, it was 29 hours and 45 minutes! Whew!

She revived us with breakfast and herbal tea. After showering and brushing our teeth and putting on a fresh change of clothes, we felt much improved. We then headed out for a lovely walk through some bushland until we got to the sea, at which point our host parted ways with us. We took a long walk up to the point, stopping to find shells and watch the kite surfers.

Our next stop was the grocery store to buy chocolate (I wanted to make a tarte au chocolat). We ended up buying lots more things than planned and had an impromptu picnic with salad mixed, cheese & crackers & dips, and more chocolate.

We kept ourselves awake in the late afternoon by baking and watching a few episodes of Murderbot. Zari fell asleep almost mid-sentence right before dinner. We're both feeling extremely uncoordinated and giggly because we're so tired.

Meanwhile a day earlier yet at the same time, it was the kids' first day of school!

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Sydney bound!

Zari and I are 2 flights into our 3 flights to Sydney! We also accidentally wore matching outfits. (Excuse the squinting--it was super bright.)

I'll be teaching vaginal breech workshops as well as speaking and teaching at the Convergence of Rebellious Midwives.

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Last full day of the reunion (it's a short one, sadly). We have tomorrow morning to pack and clean.

More of the same fun things, plus Capture the Flag, Talent Show, Family Dance Night, and Freeze Family Track & Field.

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Back home (for a day)

We arrived back in our (American) home last night around midnight. Since we had a few hours to spare before catching our flight home, we stopped in downtown Salt Lake City to see the sights. The bathroom building in Temple Square was so fancy that Dio said, "I want to live in this bathroom." You feel like you're in a posh 5-star resort.

We also visited the Gilgal Gardens, which is a garden filled with bizarre rock sculptures. A stonemason started filling his back yard with sculptures and at some point it opened to the public.

Inga was happy because she'd never seen a "big city" before--one with skyscrapers--and this filled her bucket list.

When we pulled in last night, we were greeted by an absolute jungle. It's been the wettest July on record here, which means astounding weeds. (It doesn't help that the person I hired to do the weeding ghosted me...). Honestly it was depressing and stressful, knowing how much weeding was ahead of us. I even woke up in the middle of the night thinking about it.

The worst are the nettles that keep spreading, followed by Snow On The Mountain in places where I don't want it.

But first order of business this morning: feeding the horde. We had no food and the kids were hungry! Our town just got an Aldi--one of the few things I'm excited about coming back--and we spent well over $300 to restock our kitchen.

Then...the weeding started, plus mowing and car washing. By the end of the day things were looking much better and we have a pile of weeds almost as big as a small car. We also burned all the fallen branches and took an afternoon Smores break. Why not?

I had to run errands after dinner to get ready for my and Zari's departure for Australia tomorrow. So crazy! I got some new clothes at the thrift store and then ran to the big box store for things like travel-sized toothpaste, contact solution, etc.

I also had to do some woodworking to get the wood pieces ready for the simulator. I fired up the table saw, compound miter saw, orbital sander, and angle grinder.

Oh, last night I woke up in the middle of the night absolutely freezing. I was buried under the covers and still couldn't get warm. I finally decided to investigate. I went into the hallway, turned on the lights, and looked at the thermostat. Someone (cough cough...Dio) had turned it down to under 70F! (21 C) I usually keep it at around 78-80 with the fan blowing constantly, which is very comfortable without having to put on a sweater. (I HATE being cold in the summer. It's bad enough in the winter.) No wonder I was so cold!

I was still cold the rest of the night but it got slightly better. I gave Dio a lecture in the morning about not touching the thermostat. He still had his winter comforter on, but everyone else had just their summer covers on, and they were all very cold as well. So yeah, not a lot of sleeping happened after that rude awakening.

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Family reunion fun

Some of the things we (including all of the extended family) did today:

• swam in the pool
• swam in the hot tub
• swam in several of the lakes (mostly the one behind our lodge)
• caught fish
• played card games
• worked on a puzzle
• played guitars
• played a pickleball tournament
• looked at the stars and felt a sense of existential dread and awe (that was me and Zari!)
• rode bikes
• went on walks
• planned a massive game of capture the flag for tomorrow morning
• sat on the porch or deck and did nothing
• read books

Eric caught a huge trout in the lake, using lots of stealth and a net. It was big enough that he was unsure if he could keep it (fish over a certain size are considered trophy fish and you have to pay $80 to keep them). He let it go and it wasn't acting very well. Eventually it swam off. He tried to find it later in the day. Some of the cousins spotted a large dead fish which we think may have been the same fish.

I went swimming in the lake twice--the water is very clean. There's no lake smell at all during or after swimming.

Even at just half full, the moon is super bright and casts clear shadows. It's so nice to be outside at night and not be attacked by insects (or bears!). There are coyotes here; you can hear them howling and yipping at night.

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American West Road Trip

We completed an important part of American culture: the road trip. We drove from Lake Tahoe to the eastern part of Utah in a bit under 10 hours. Starting from my sister's house in the Bay area, we've driven across California, Nevada, and almost all of Utah.

We're staying at a family reunion resort truly in middle of nowhere, in the middle of the Uintah and Ouray Reservation (about 2.5 hrs east of Salt Lake City). We were dubious as we kept going further and further away from any settlements. Even the last few miles, I was wondering if this was going to be like a few huts out in the bare desert.

But it's amazing! There are several lakes, a gorgeous landscape, a huge barn with a professional kitchen and gathering hall, a super fancy lodge that houses 25 people, and several cabins for all of the cousins. There's a pool and a hot tub, pickleball court, bikes, canoes, kayaks, paddleboards...all included! We feel super spoiled here.

The first thing Eric did when we arrived? Put on his swimsuit, grabbed his mask and snorkel, and went freediving in the two nearest lakes. He said it's like swimming in an aquarium; there are tons of huge bass and trout.

Because there's so much to do right here, we won't be doing any excursions (which is fine with me--we did plenty in Lake Tahoe). We just get to stay here and play for a few days.

Last I checked, the teenagers were playing pickleball under huge spotlights. We're super tired from our 5 am wakeup so we're heading to bed.

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