Another trip to the beach.

We went to the Ocean Grove Surf beach, a little bit away from other people.
The sand was wet right up to the scrub, so even sitting on a towel I got a wet bottom. Ralph had a fantastic day building a network of castles, moats and rivers. He even dug himself a waterhole to sit in.

We dug up lots of soldier crabs, their bright blue carapaces, huge bodies and tiny legs made them an amusing choice of observation subject. That and their spiralling, whirly hole-digging methods.

It was also at this beach that we spied a vast number of ladybirds. I had never seen this variety before and they were very large, too!

This is the bucketful of crabs.
We found more, but these were our biggest and best!

( Tunnelling Crabs and a Ladybird )

As I've mentioned before, for Ralph's birthday, Kim's mum got him a special interactive world globe (he loved playing with it every time we visited the store, so when I told her about it, she was very happy to get it for him because it is "educational").

Well, as he has been learning a lot of country capitals from this, whenever he can he quizzes people on them, which he did today on his last day of primary school transition. The teacher he had for that day was the youngest of the three prep teachers and he was stumping her on a lot questions. She said she was very impressed by Ralph because not only was he amazing at Geography, but he was already writing words from memory and reading. =D I hope that he is put into her class next year because she is such a sweet lady, although I do also like the other two teachers.

In a related and humorous anecdote, Ralph said something quite hilarious on Wednesday.
Ralph: "Mum, what's the capital of Wales?!"
Me: "I don't know, what is the capital of Wales?"
Ralph: "TARDIS!" (He said this in total seriousness, mixing it up with Cardiff)
Me: *Giggling*

So, I thought it was such a funny coincidence, considering that I don't watch Doctor Who in front of Ralph. Plus: TARDIS => Doctor Who => Spin-off show Torchwood => Torchwood is set in Cardiff, the capital of Wales.

So since today is Halloween but the boring people of Australia refuse to celebrate it, I hereby pronounce this "Annual Zombie Survival Survey Day".

Each year I will do an online quiz which will predict whether I would or would not survive in the event of a zombie uprising. Sure I would, if you gave me a gun and an unlimited supply of ammo, food and water... (Which reminds me, I should really have a survival pack stashed away somewhere in case a zombie uprising does eventuate...) I really don't care for humans much in their "ordinary" state, so given the chance to whack some off without fear of retribution and in fact be commended for it, sure, I'm in!

Here is this year's quiz:

BTW, Alice rocks, she is my zombie-killing idol... Would YOU survive a zombie uprising? Yes! Oh, my good friend congratulations! You had an amazing strategy, good tactics (and a lot of ammo). Maybe even some trust worthy companions. You have survived the uprising. For now.

Here are the photos of Ralph at Lorne, bouncing on the Trampolines.

He is pulling some funny faces.

They make me giggle so much...

"Weehee!"

( Four more bounces: )

Today was the foggiest day I have ever seen.

We caught a bus that travelled along the Great Ocean Road, but the closer we got to Lorne, the foggier it got. Soon we could actually distinguish parts of the fog from other parts of the fog and we could hardly see 5-10 metres away. Also, the winding road and the bus driver's love of fast driving was not doing my stomach any favours.

When we got to Lorne we were hungry. I was lucky to have an enormous baked potato with cheese, sour cream and coleslaw (it was massive, but I was so hungry I finished it!) Ralph had a cheese, mushroom and pineapple pizza and Kim had a fish and chips pack. We ate close to the beach on a picnic table, but when Kim looked around for some seagulls to feed his leftover chips to, there were none to be found. We were astounded, a trip to the beach is not a trip to the beach without them!

We took Ralph to the Lorne Trampolines and paid for fifteen minutes worth of time. Ralph loved watching people doing flips and I even did a front-flip to show him it wasn't scary, but he was happy enough jumping up and down or doing "the frog", bouncing on his bottom.

Then we walked down to the rocky area of the beach and had a great look at the rock pools. I had never seen so many different anemones, black, white, red and green,plus we even saw an elephant snail which I had never seen before! Other interesting sea-creatures we spied were sea-stars, glass shrimp and tiny bottom-dwelling fish (a Tasmanian blenny).

Green anemone. Looks like Vietnamese Bubble Tea Jelly... Mmmm...

( Eleven more: )

So riding home from the train station one day, Ralph and I spied something quite geeky.

Geeky, but hilarious.

Geeky and hilarious, but cool.

If only if these decals were on a nicer car. You know, something Link green and possibly convertible. =D

Also, who is excited that Spirit Tracks is near release day? MEEEEEEEE! Choo Chooooooo!

Ralph wanted to see this exhibition very badly, but really only because he plays the Lego Star Wars game on DS. =D Well, I do think he's a little too young for the movies yet...

In any case, I am hoping he will become a fan of the movies, even though he is related to Kim who hasn't watched even one of the movies all the way through and has no intentions to, either...

When we got to Scienceworks, the line just to get in the door was about an hour and twenty minutes long. All of the online bookings were sold out, so we were crossing our fingers that we would be able to get in...

Then finally we made it:

To quote Mr. Homer Simpson, esq.: "Woohoo!"

( Ten costumes: )

( Models, and others: )

There were a few cosplayers around, a very dorky Anakin (with a Padawan braid) and a few other Jedis. The one costume I would have liked to get a picture of, but didn't, was the cool Darth Maul we saw on his way to the bathroom. He was a bit short, in my opinion, though... =D

We also visited the Planetarium which was quite cool. We were in the session that had a presentation about how life on Mars is possible. The screen made it feel like we were actually moving, we travelled from the bottom of the ocean on Earth, through the clouds and stars and onto Mars. It was narrated by Harrison Ford which was of amusing providence. I had to explain to Ralph that he was the actor who played both Han Solo and Indiana Jones (he also plays Lego Indiana Jones on DS).

Ralph had a great time visiting the regular exhibits at Scienceworks, especially the Nitty Gritty Super City exhibit. It's such a great place to go, a very cheap day out for the amount of enjoyment kids get out of it...

Okay, so it's actually Ralph wearing a Koala pillow thing.

It has micro-styrofoam balls as filling and is made out of t-shirt material. It's getting really stretchy...

I had another tenth Doctor dream in which I was travelling with The Doctor and solving a mystery on Earth. The setting of this dream was similar to the episode in which The Doctor and Donna met Agatha Christie.
It was a quite strange dream, I remember having to do a lot of running, but other than the setting and the running, I don't remember too much else about what happened, which is a shame.

I like having Doctor dreams, but then I wake up disappointed that I wasn't actually travelling with him... =D

Ralph and I went to the Geelong Show by ourselves this year because our only free day was Sunday and Kim had to work.
Ralph and I got Kim some Red Fox organic red wine (cabernet sauvignon, his favourite) and a couple of chocolate show bags as consolation.
Ralph had a great time, we saw heaps of animals and machines (he loved the old steam tractors). We were even lucky enough to see the dog jumping (where dogs see how high they can jump up a wall, running to it and using it to climb-jump to the top) and the terrier racing (our favourite, a Scottish Terrier named Matilda won her sweep. I had recently been asking Ralph about what he would want in a pet dog and he said "Small, black and will play fetch. I'll name it Coco/ Cocoa", so that was why we chose to cheer Matilda!).
Other things of interest for Ralph were the show bags, he chose Ben 10 and Wall.E ones. I love the Wall.E backpack because it is shaped liked Wall.E. It came with a grabber and a dart blower (plus stickers). =D Ben 10 came with a satchel a digital watch and a magnetic dart board (plus stickers and a money tin). Ralph and I practised getting bull's-eyes...

Here are some animal pictures of the day:

( Moo, neigh, oink... Okay, so, mostly moo... )

Today Ralph had his first transition day at the primary school he will be attending next year.

I wasn't too sure how he would feel even though he was really excited to be going, but he actually handled it as though he goes to school every day.

He had a grade prep buddy (the kids are huge compared to him), but other than that I didn't really get to see what they got to do because the parents were ushered away for a parents' information session. Kim looked bored during the whole thing, I don't blame him, it was a bit awkward being the only dad there.

After the session, Ralph was so chirpy and animated.

When I reminded him that he would be going to pre-school on Monday, he exclaimed "No I'm not, I'm a primary school boy now!".

I hope that this is a good thing, proof that he will have a great time at primary school next year. I am looking forward to helping him with homework and going on school excursions with him. He is getting pretty smart already, reading very well, possibly a few years ahead of other kids his age and he has a love of geography at the moment, thanks to the world globe he received for his birthday, with which he has learned more country capitals than I know. I think I need to brush up on my general knowledge, otherwise my plans of helping him with future homework will come rudely crashing down... =D Ah, well, there's always Wikipedia...

This movie looks awesome...

For anyone who is interested, go here:

http://wherethewildthingsare.warnerbros.com/#/Splash

Doesn't it look completely fantastical and fabulous?

I so want to cuddle the main Wild Thing, "Carol". This movie is so incredible that it makes me want to buy some premium fur to make the Wild Things!

And what's even better is that Angus Sampson, one of the most hilarious people on Australian TV voices one of the characters (Marco).

I probably forgot to mention that we have being dog-sitting my sister's dog Coffee while she is moving into her new house. We were only supposed to have him for a week at most, but we have already had him for over a week, and they keep making excuses as to why the house it not ready for him to go there yet.

Kim's mum likes dogs however, so today we were able to take him visiting with us to Ocean Grove.

Here he is, enjoying the car trip:

( More Sunny Snaps: )

So, these are Ralph's forays into growing things on his own.

First he started with a kidney bean plant and then at pre-school he made a grass-head, or as his class likes to call it, a "Hairy Harry".

I remember growing one of those when I was in primary school. I gave it haircuts until I stopped watering it after a while and it died. =(

I drew the silly face on it, because it needed one!

Ralph ate the beans with dinner, but he wasn't too impressed with them. Kids and vegetables...

I took Ralph to see Up in 3D today. Kim came along because he was given a free ticket from his work and he needed time out from studying for his exams.

It was quite excellent and I am not ashamed to say that it made me teary twice. I loved the premise of the movie (though young Ellie reminded me somewhat of Darla from Finding Nemo). I enjoyed the characters, even the villain, who was slightly pathetic, but hugely amusing. As for the graphics, they were superb as usual. I was a bit disappointed with the 3D viewing as I feel that it didn't have any scenes that wowed/ were overly spectacular in that format.
Ralph laughed his head off at so many scenes, especially the ones in which characters befell bodily harm. The doberman "Alpha" was a highlight, as was Russell, the boy scout.
Also, meriting a mention, is that the accompanying short film Partly Cloudy, in my opinion, is the best short film released by Pixar so far (Kim said he still liked Knick Knack, the short film about the snowman sow globe best).

All in all, I recommend this movie to almost anyone out there, perhaps it is not suitable to a very young audience, nor for someone lacking an imagination/ light-hearted view of life.

In other movie news, I watched Studio Ghibli's Ponyo (English subbed) and I thought it was exceedingly fabulous! I really grew to dislike Ponyo's father, the sorcerer Fujimoto and fell in love with Ponyo (especially her three fingered/ toed form which reminded me of one of a Tamagotchi character's metamorphoses, which looked like a blob on stilts with sticks for arms). As for her mother, the sea-goddess Granmammare, she was enchantingly lovely. I absolutely adored the sea-life that was incorporated into the film, especially the ones that were thought to be extinct. Though it echoed the story of The Little Mermaid, in no way did it feel like a shallow, or pale, imitation.

These two movies are definitely going to find their way into my DVD collection!

Kim got his licence. As he let it lapse for over two years since the last time he held one, he now has to be on a learner's licence for three months before he can go for his full licence. As that will be by mid-January, it will give him time to save for a car. I will also get my learner's licence, which will be for three months.

At the moment we are just thinking about small cars that are fuel efficient. Considering that cars are less pollutant than cows in pasture awaiting consumption and the fact that other car drivers are so uncaring about their car usage, I don't know why we are even bothering to worry.

I would love a Chrysler PT Cruiser (mainly because they look like old style cars) but they a) are not exactly fuel efficient, b) may be expensive to repair and c) got a poor safety/ crash report... Kim is thinking about a Holden Cruze (I hate the name of it), 2002 model, which look cute, have pretty efficient fuel usage and are a little bit higher up (good visibility). Unfortunately, they only scored 3 out of 5 stars on howsafeisyourcar.com.au . The Holden Astra CDXi hatch, 2004 model, looks quite nice and has a 5 star safety rating. I think I wouldn't mind one of those.

Oh, and don't get me started on the garage. Kim just threw any sort of junk he felt like in there and is not looking like he will be cleaning it any time soon. This is after two years of my asking him to please so something about that mess. I feel sorry for the car, having to stay outside if it is not cleaned up in time.

Today we managed to get into Melbourne for the outings that I promised Ralph that we would have.

We visited both the Collingwood Children's Farm and the Melbourne Museum and even had a little time left over to visit Myer (Ralph's favourite store to visit when in Melbourne. We have one in our area, but Melbourne's store is bigger and better).

We had such a great time at the Farm, Ralph even had a chance to milk a cow. She was very calm, but also full of milk, so she was leaking milk without even needing to be milked. Ralph found it very easy to milk her and wanted to keep milking her for a long time. When he finally relinquished her teat, he then turned his attention to giving her a brush.

Ralph had a ride on a Chestnut Appaloosa. We even had a "hay ride", pulled along on a tractor. We saw so many animals, including about five different types of chickens, baby chickens, guinea pigs, piglets and a calf, among the other animals that I was lucky enough to photograph.

( Farm pictures: )

After that we took the train back to the city. Ralph was very excited to disembark at Parliament Station, because we usually go past it when we travel into the city. It has the longest escalators of any station in Victoria. They also go quite slowly, so it takes a while to get to the top. From there we headed across to the Museum and got stuck into learning! We saw the fossils (Dinosaur Walk), the Bugs Alive exhibit and the Marine Exhibit (which showed specimens from the deepest parts of the oceans). My favourite parts were the giant squid and the tarantulas. Ralph loved the fossils the best.

( Museum Photos: )

An old warship was prepared for sinking to create an artificial reef close to Ocean Grove.

As we were passing the area, we decided to have a look as it was being towed out to the designated position.

We missed it when it was closer to shore, but we still saw a glimpse of it as it headed away from the Point Lonsdale Lighthouse.

The Lighthouse.

And we saw a couple of other different ships passing by while we were on the pier:

I thought it was going to tilt over and lose its load...

We kept heading towards Ocean Grove and saw the warship again:

Okay, so not the real David Tennant, just the naked one in my bedroom.

Oops, that sounded even worse.

To explain: Well, I've been working on some plushies for lick_j. The one that I have finished is of her and the other is going to be Doctor Who's Tenth Doctor. But right now I have only made his body and head, i.e. none of his clothes are completed.

So in conclusion, a naked David Tennant plush is creepy, especially when a plush replica of someone you know is sitting in his lap. =D

I am first making him a pair of red converse high tops (they are the item of clothing I am most excited to be making. I will feel most accomplished when they are completed!). Then I will make him a blue pinstripe suit and some boxer shorts (I think he is a boxers time-lord, not a briefs sort of time-lord). I will also make him a stripy shirt and finally the hardest thing I will make will be the trench coat!!! I am terrified of making it because I'm sure I will have to redo it multiple times. I am also considering making him a mini sonic screwdriver out of Sculpty clay and sewing on a butt-crack. You know, because butt-cracks are hilarious. I already gave him a cleft chin and stuck-out ears. =D

So Kim finally sent in the video of Ralph being knocked over by the wombat during our trip to Lake Mountain in July, 2007.

Today it was actually screened on Australia's Funniest Home Videos.

Here is the original video:

The voice-over said "I might look like a wombat, but I'm really just a fur covered bowling ball."

Yesterday Ralph and I went for a trip to the Werribee Open Range Zoo.

It was actually a first time visit for both of us and luckily we had a great time.

The day started out a bit bleak, but later on it was quite hot, so I was rather overladen with backpack and jackets. I shouldn't have packed so much to eat, because we didn't even get through half of the food. Note to self: Next time, pack lighter!

We had a great trip, first we went to a temporary exhibit about animals that are smuggled through airports.

Then we went on the safari bus and we saw almost all of the animals possible. Some of the animals came quite close to the bus, including a hippo, some giraffes and the rhinos. The animals which were a bit shy included the zebras, the camels and the blackbuck antelopes.

Later we walked around on the walking paths and saw some of the animals that we had missed out on, like the cheetahs. Unfortunately, the African Wild Dogs were sleeping quite far away from the viewing areas, so we only glimpsed their distinctive fur in a pile. One of them raised its head, but went straight back to sleep. The lions were also having a restful day, but we were very lucky indeed to see the cheetahs up and about!

Finally we did the Australian Volcanic Plains walk and saw native birds, kangaroos and a wallaby. The kangaroos were quite far away resting in a secluded area. It was quite a good walk though, because the animals weren't in enclosures and were free to wander along the same path as the visitors. I was slightly worried about some of the emus who were eyeing Ralph as though he was a tasty-looking morsel.

( A zoo full of pictures: )