New Aussie Strine (Slang)

Here are some new Aussie terms I am wrapping my brain around now...

"this arvo" means this afternoon - I have recieved many a letter from parents saying that would pick up their child this arvo.

"bestie" means your best friends (I guess we have BFF so I shouldn't be too shocked about this one)

"brellie" means umbrella - Bring your brellie to the footy field, it's gonna be a wet one!

"crook" means your sick or injured - Your looking a bit crook today - are you right?

"dag" one of those endearing terms for someone you love who is a bit goofy (I've actually been called this and wasn't sure if it was an insult or not but now I'm okay with it)

"good onya" good for you, well done

"kindie" kindergarten - The kindies are going on a field trip to the farm.

"the Salvo" The Salvation Army - I got my outfit at the Salvo.

"Vinnies" St. Vincent De Paul (use sentence above only sub Vinnies). We have a group in our school who raise money for those less fortunate and they are called "Mini Vinnies".

"a snag" a sausage - I actually was in a restaurant and reading the specials board and it said, apple and onion snags with mashed potato and vegetable. I had to ask someone what that was.

"swag" a sleeping bag that you can sleep under the stars in because it has a built in mini tent for your head.

"sunnies" your sunglasses. I brought my sunnnies to the beach.

"whinge" complain - Stop your whinging and get on with it!

she/he/it 'll be right whatever will be fine - Give Jack a couple weeks and he'll be right (at the sitters).

It is really funny as I notice more and more the kids are adopting some Aussie language. I think we still have our Canadian accents but the words we use are changing. I often hear Jack asking to go "to the toilet", or telling me to stay on the "footpath" (sidewalk) at the park. Sam "reckons" a lot of things and if anyone has a bit of an accent at times, it would be him. Jake seems to use it a bit, but I think he is holding on to his "Canadianness?" the most. I nearly gasped when I heard myself ask someone how they were "going"? I chuckled the other day when a "mate" said that they thought I was getting an Australian accent because they don't notice when my accent when I talk as much anymore - I think it is just that they are getting accustomed to hearing me speak. :)

All part of this wonderful journey! I wonder if O'Mahoney's are finding the same?

Official School Opening and Books For Breakfast

The Front of the School: The left pic is of the new admin. building and the right pic is of the addition joining the hall to the admin. part. - it is all one piece. You can see the church in the background of the r.h. pic.

This week was National Book Week in Australia (Aug 20-26) along with the Official Opening of the new buildings of St. Joseph's. Needless to say, it was a busy week!

The new school "addition" was part of a country wide initiative of the federal government. Each "school board" was allotted a chunk of millions to be spent on each school to use on capital projects. For our school, this meant new infants classrooms (K-3) and a new administration building as well as a "breezeway" to join the administration building to the hall.
The ground broke about 22 months ago and despite the usual building hiccups, 2 floods and a plague of mice, the official opening finally happened!
I took some pictures of the new buildings to show you. In a nutshell, the school is still comprised of 5 main buildings on one plot of land, bordered by a street at either end. The church is next door to one side and a lane way to the other. The new buildings are very colourful and the infants really seem to be enjoying their new space. Click on any pic to see it larger.

Above L-R breezeway leading to the library and hall; the library; the office; the hall.

Above L-R: Breakout area in infants wing (K-2) with computer pods; Walkway between buildings to the admin office; Year 1 classroom.

St. Joseph's had its first "Books for Breakfast" event this week as part of National Book Week. It was combined with dressing like your favourite book character and the traditional Book Parade(which I think must be Aussie's answer to Halloween as it is much more wholesome and no candy is involved!) We had a fantastic turnout and the costumes were really creative! Jacob dressed as Charlie form Charlie and the chocolate factory - he even made me write out the ENTIRE message from Willy Wonka on his Golden Ticket. I dressed as Goldilocks as we have been studying Narrative Writing and creating our own point of view pieces based on Goldilocks and the Three Bears (look for examples of those on my classes blog next week). Jack came along for Books for Breakfast and the Parade dressed as Spiderman. Classes also visited the public library this week as part of Book Week. The library is within walking distance which makes it easily accessible for visiting. It was great fun and especially meaningful this year as the school library has been closed for over a year due to all of the construction. Incidentally, we received more timely good news this week as all books (over 4000) that were lost in the flood were claimed by insurance to the tune of over $100000 - let the ordering begin! I'm learning about many Australian children's favourite books and becoming a fan of some favourite stories. I am missing some of my favourites here though such as David Shannon and Jan Brett and of course, Robert Munsch and so many others (although I did find a copy of "I Love You Forever".) I may have to have some books "imported" to add to their collection! We had a fantastic turn out for Books for Breakfast and there has been discussion of continuing this event in future. The P&F supplied fruit, juice, coffee, tea, muffins and "pikelets" which are mini pancakes. You can see some pics below of that event.

Clockwise from Left: Goldilocks and Spidey; Bogus AKA Jarrod(Fantastic Mr. Fox) and Mary Poppins AKA Marie and Goldilocks and Charlie and Spidey; Jacob in the Book Parade; My Year 3 Class

Grand Final

Today Sam played in the Grand Final AFL Game at Ganmain against the Ariah Park Jets. It was a beautiful sunny day and the fans were decked out in Blue and Gold to support our Eagles. The under 13's team is the only of the Narrandera Juniors to have made it to the Grand Final this year.
We spent the evening before making poms to wave and Jack wore an eagles "guernsey" (jersey) and had his face painted in order to support the team. The game was very exciting and although the Eagles lost, they put up a terrific fight!
It was a bittersweet ending as the Sam was proud of his teams' accomplishment but sad that this would be his last AFL career game in Australia. We went for dinner with the rest of the team families tonight and the club shared it's appreciation and pride and support of the boys. It was really nice for the boys to see how valued their contribution to the club was this year. Now we look forward to Presentation Night on Sept. 2 where both Sam and Jacob will celebrate a successful season in the Eagle club.
We are thankful to the Narrandera Eagles Club for their kind support of our Canadian boys in teaching them so much more this year than how to play footy!
I would also like to say thank you to all of the families who explained to me the rules of the game, gave us rides to the out of town fields, led us to the fields and entertained Jack as he tagged along every week. THANK YOU SO VERY MUCH. We have really enjoyed our time with all of you.
Get ready Kenora, AFL is coming to a field near you!

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A Day at the Races

The boys and I dropped in to the Narrandera Race Course today to take in a little of the Narrandera Cup. This is a highly social event in Narrandera and it attracts visitors from as far as Sydney and into Victoria. They were expecting nearly 2000 people this year. There were 6 races and 95 entries. The total prize pool is $28,000 for the events.
As spring is approaching on September 1, this is an opportunity for people to attend a prestigious event in their finest spring fashions and to watch the races. It is called "Fashions on the Field" and men, women and children alike can be awarded for their fashion sense. When we arrived, Jack quickly took notice of the fancy hats and fascinators the ladies were wearing and asked if it was a "special" day? We even spotted his friend Marnie, who was all decked out in her finest for the day - including a "Best Dressed" sash. There are several "marquis" (Aussie for tents) set up for groups to socialize. It looked very glamourous as you see people in their finery, sipping champagne and seated at linen covered tables as they take in the races. It was lovely.
We saw one race in our time there. It was fast and furious but very exciting to watch and hear the pounding of the horses hooves as they thunder past to the finish line.

This free picture collage made with Smilebox

Celebrations

This past weekend was filled with small celebrations!

I celebrated the return to good health and big appetites for all of the boys after nearly 3 weeks of illness.

Sam celebrated a BIG footy win for his team this weekend that places them in the "Grand Final" championship game for the Riverina region next weekend - not bad for a rooky's first and only chance at AFL.

The boys and I celebrated a beautiful Sunday with a walk among the gum trees and the billabongs and a koala sighting.

FOOTY

Saturday was Sam's big game in Ariah Park which is an hour's drive away. They were playing their arch-nemesis, the Giants. The last time they met, the Eagles were on the losing end of the draw in a hard fought but bitter game. This was a grudge match and the winner would go on to the Grand Final for the league title next weekend.

The game began with each side strong and focused and fighting hard for possession of the ball. Unfortunately, the Giants drew first blood with a score of 1-0. The Giants quickly gained a lead with a goal and went up 7-0 and finished the first quarter with a lead of 8-1.

Narrandera came out strong in the 2nd quarter and took the lead with a couple of 6 pointers as well as some single point kicks. We were feeling good at half to be ahead on he scoreboard and the boys seemed to be in high spirits.

The Giants fought back in the third quarter to take the lead once again. It seemed to be that we just couldn't get the ball into the score zone and by the end of the quarter, we had been shut down. The score was 21-17.

The Giants scored a single point with a kick in the fourth quarter to go to 22. The Narrandera "defense" played extremely hard and managed to shut down the Giants from further scoring although it was tense as the ball came dangerously close a few times. finally, Narrandera scored a fantastic goal that put us in the lead 23 to 22.

I have never in my life experienced the feeling I had as I watched and prayed for the minutes to tick away and that siren to blow. I was torn between wanting to turn away as I saw the Giants head down the field and wanting to run on the field and help Sam's team. I found myself pacing and willing that horn to blow. People were yelling and screaming and cheering and moaning as both teams fought in the dying minutes of the game.

Relief gave way to elation when the siren wailed and we were the victors! We were so proud of the boys and their hard fought win.

Good luck next weekend as you play for the Championship Sam and the Eagles!

KOALA SIGHTING

The boys and I woke up to a beautiful day on Sunday and having no footy to go to, we decided to all go together to the Common for a walk among the gum trees. Maybe we would see a koala if we were lucky.

We packed snacks and water and headed out. As we parked the car at the Common, we started to chat with a family from Victoria who had also come by. The fella told us that we passed a koala as we were pulling in so we walked back about 20 steps and sure enough, on a branch about 10 feet up and over the road, was a chubby round little koala staring down at us. We took a few pictures and marvelled at him for a while and then set off on our trek.

Little did we know that would be our only koala sighting this day - oh well. The walk was lovely, the boys had "light saber" duals with sticks and threw rocks in the billabongs as we meandered along. Jacob found a tree he couldn't resist climbing so we stopped and ate our snacks and fruit there. Before we knew it, 2 hours had passed and so we headed back to the car. It was lovely to be all together and to do something fun and relaxing. It was the first time since Dan left, but it certainly won't be the last now that the days are getting longer and spring is definitely in the air!

When we got home, we decided to have Canadian style burgers (which Jacob made - yum), Aussie sticky date pudding (which Sam made - mmmmm) a nice green salad (which Jack made - m-mmm-mmmm) and potato salad (which mom made - goood). What a fabulous day - it was so fun and relaxing and exactly what each of us needed! Thanks boys! Love Mom

And Then There were Four ...

The last month has seen us endure some big changes and happily, we are getting back on track! Dan left us on July 13 to return to Canada for work and although he does work away from home normally, the idea of him being a continent away has left us feeling a little more isolated from our family and friends. Luckily, we have many new friends who have been more than supportive to us and for that we are deeply appreciative!

There have been some hiccups though. Unfortunately, days after Dan left I threw my back out and then the kids started dropping like flies with various ailments from the cold and flu to tonsilitis. As a newly single parent, I was scrambling to care for them and cover my work schedule. Normally at home, I can call one of my family members to the rescue and continue on ... Here, there is no family so I was going down supply teacher phone lists to find a replacement and when that didn't work I was going down friend lists to have my children for the day! Jacob spent a couple of days on other people's couches in his pajamas.

Luckily, Marie came to the rescue one day and Kellie another day and took wonderful care of the ill and "infirm". I think I must have looked like I was losing my mind one week because I had three full meals packed up and sent to us in ONE DAY! It was enough to make me teary as we truly felt that people cared for us and thought enough to send us some food to ease the load. How kind!

Well now, those days are done and we are settling into our new routine. Jack is adjusting to "daycare" thanks to Sharon and Brigitte. We are all becoming accustomed to the flurry of getting out the door in the morning and then reconvening at the end of each day.

It is already half way through the third term and we are looking forward to our next school holidays and the arrival of my mom and dad in 4 short weeks! YAY!

Time flies and before we know it, Dan will be back in Narrandera and it will nearly be time to return home. For now, we excitedly await Mom and Dad's arrival and our upcoming holiday adventure to ... Cairns and the Great Barrier Reef!!!! Stay tuned for all the fun at one of the 7 Wonders of the World!