Hey there!

I've been here for a couple of days now and I'm liking it! I've gotten to know the family better and I sorta got the gist of what is expected of me. Jen and James are great, they work hard to provide for the children but they also do a lot for them, and they spend a lot of time with them when they are not working. The kids are involved in several sports. At the moment Eliza does dancing, Harry does cricket and basketball and Alexander does cricket too. They need to be brought or picked up from these activities and in the near future I'll be helping out with that. The Dunlops have a great social life, the kids have loads of friends and Jen and James are friends with many of the parents. It makes life a bit easier since a lot of these parents have been helping out with the school run etc.

Today is Tuesday, Jen had to leave in the morning to go on a business trip to Canberra, she'll be home tomorrow. James always for work before 7 even, so I never see him in the morning. He usually comes home around 7 so those are pretty long days! Yesterday James' parents came over to have dinner with us. Jen and I went to the supermarket in the afternoon to do some grocery shopping, they are huge here, American style! Jen cooked a mean lamb leg on the BBQ, we made good salad with lots of veggies and ate some roast potatoes and sweet potatoes with it. Delicious! Kit, James' mom, used to be a teacher and she helped out Alexander a bit with his school work, especially to get him organized. Pap, as they call their grandfather is a real outdoorsy person, he is e geologist and was leaving on a birdwatching trip, hence the dinner party. It was great fun! At 9.40 Jen left to go to her netball game, she plays every Monday and Tuesday.

Sunday was a great day! I slept a bit later in the morning, woke up around 9 I think and helped Jen with making lolly bags for Harry's B-day party. His actual B-day was in September but he only had the party now. We went to the mall to play some lazer tag, have mcdonals, a donutcake, some more lazer tag and then some arcade games. I think he had a great time with his friends. After the party we went home so he could unwrap the presents he'd got. At around 4pm we left to go to Manly. Jen and James wanted to show me some sights. Manly is surrounded by water, on one side there's the ocean and on the other there's the harbor. Hence there are lots of beaches and surfers around. I had my first Australian beer, a Fat Yak, rather tasty! After a stroll along the beaches we went for dinner at Mozarella's, they serve great Italian food! We had pizza, garlic shrimp, a bit of pasta, some bruscetta and a good wine. And of course an ice cream J After dinner we picked up Eliza who was at a friend's house and by 9 the kids were getting ready for bed and so did I.

Saturday was also interesting; in the morning I went to one of Harry's cricket games. I didn't get a thing at the beginning, but I think that now I got the gist of it. Harry's team won! We were there all morning and I got my first sunburn. It was still pretty cold, especially the wind, but when the sun came out it burned like hell! At night I went to Eliza's dance recital, she does competition dancing, like the kids in 'dance moms'. Jen jokes about the show, she doesn't really like the whole dancing a lot and dreads going there because you have to watch all the kids perform and then wait for the results of the judges, which can take very long! When we dropped of some of Eliza's friends from dancing we stayed a bit because Jen is good friends with one of the mom's, her name is Tina. We had some margarita's and chatted a bit. I thought it was fun J When we got home it was pretty late and we all went to bed, I put cream on my face because it was burning sooo badly. Luckily it's better now. James had had a golf tournament at the golf club and he won it. It was the first time he'd ever won. When you win a tournament you get a small cup which you take to the golf club and if you tap someone on the shoulder with it that means this person has to buy you a drink. I think it's pretty funny! He gets to keep it until the next tournament is up.

So those were my days up until now. I'm going to hop in the shower now, hang some laundry outside and then have another attempt at finding my way around North Ryde!

X

(Had niet zoveel zin om alles ook nog eens in het Nederlands te typen, dus bij deze mijn excuses!)