Reconcilliation Week and Dominoes

Taylor's been really sick. Poor little guy. If only he could blow his nose. I ended up taking him to a clinic last Sunday because he had a fever and wouldn't sleep. He's still not sleeping well, but I think the antibiotic is helping his ears. He has a hoarse cough and a sad cry and a load of snot. We have been holding him almost 'round the clock.

Last weekend we had a great time. We had 2 American couples from our ward over for dinner. Then we all stayed up late playing the Wii. One of the couples is totally expert, and actually gave Bryson a good challenge at Brawl. We ate Mexican food and reminisced about Cafe Rio, and all the good Mexican places in Utah. I took Taylor up to bed, while they all continued playing, well passed midnight. I couldn't believe my kids, at 11pm playing DDR!

I had an early hike scheduled, and Taylor was being really fussy, so we went up to bed. What a night! Little did I know, poor Tay was coming down with a pretty bad cold. I went on the hike, and it was gorgeous to be out when the sun came up. Unfortunately, Matt did not have the best time with our sad little baby. Sunday, I took Tay to the doctor, and then stayed home with all the boys. It was a much needed day off church.

This week the kids have been amazing. They have all had busy school schedules. I just tried to get them into bed at a decent hour. Bryson's speech went really well. He was the first one up for the timed speeches. (They did the K-2 kids first, and then excused them from the assembly.) They forgot to explain the bell system before Bryson's turn. Thankfully, I had mentioned to Bryson that if he heard a bell, it was just a warning that his time was coming to a close, but to keep going. He did just that, and sped up a bit to finish. He finished just as the final bell was rung! The funny thing was, watching him on stage as he had to sit through the other kids' speeches. He had a rubber band that was holding his index cards together. It became his toy--chewing on it, flossing his teeth, stretching it from ear to ear... I kept trying to send him messages with my eyes. I should've kept the video camera on for all of it. It was hilarious.

Zach's class sang "I am Australian" for Reconcilliation week. There is still a lot of distance between the Aboriginals and the Australians of European (and Asian, etc) descent. So, the public school system instituted reconcilliation week, which raises awareness and promotes unity. The students all did a very good job speaking on their ideas for decreasing conflict, and increasing Australia's unity.

It would be a very long post for me to go into this topic, but I've been very interested in it, and have been trying to learn as much as I can. I may have mentioned that we were here for "Sorry Day". It was the first time that the current Australian government officially apologized for taking the Aboriginal children away from their families and placing them into white families. At the time, their intentions were to give the Aboriginal children the same opportunities as the white children. But what resulted is now referred to as the "stolen generation." They are in their 40's now, and don't really have a comfortable place in society. Here in Sydney we hardly ever see Aboriginals.

I will try to post some video clips from the week. I just haven't done it on this laptop before, so I may have to wait until Matt's back from Brisbane, so he can help me.

I'll leave you with this ad. Every time I saw it, I thought, "Was there no catchier slogan?" "Did the marketing manager see the list of ideas, and this one was the best?" (I actually wonder this a lot when I see totally absurd commercials.)

Anyway, I finally figured it out. When you say Tuesday here, it sounds like Cheewsday. So I guess it's not quite as lame as I thought...