Aussie Expats Update – Birthday Celebrations in Dallas, Mini-Golf and a New Toy!

HAPPY FRIDAY WORLD!!

It’s been a big week for us, in part I think because it took us quite some time to recover from the events of the weekend. Yes people, I drank… Two cocktails. At the ripe old age of 25, I’m pretty much incapacitated by a big meal and a couple of tasty cocktails (also apple pie, and a free makeshift cake comprising 2 oreos and some whipped cream with a candle on top – so in my defence, I ate a lot).

We had a great time visiting Dallas. On Saturday morning we spent some time at the Perot Museum of Nature and Science, which was seriously cool: they had some great interactive displays which, not surprisingly, we loved. Possibly more than some of the children we pushed out of the way. We got to:

• present the weather:

(I didn’t realise until AFTER I watched James have a go and seriously ace it, that there’s actually a script playing on a teleprompter in front of you. I was too busy watching myself and talking smack).

• Play with robots, which was actually kind of difficult… For which I, 110%, blame mechanical errors.

• Watch what we presumed were window washers abseiling off a nearby building… Seriously, do Americans make people wash windows with just buckets and an abseil line? What happened to window washing platforms?

• Crawl through a little tunnel (clearly designed for children) in the animal section.

AND dance around in front of this seriously cool motion-detector activated panel of wooden tiles. How cool is this?!

But after the weekend, I was seriously fragged. It was everything I could do to clean the house and put up a blog post on Monday. On the plus side, Kim made us some epic Philly cheesesteaks and AMAZING vegan cupcakes for dinner that night and since the cupcakes were vegan, they were actually good for you (right? Guys?) soo… I gave myself a really big pat on the back for that one.

Tuesday saw the Fort Sill Patriot Spouses Club Luncheon (mouthful, or what?) which, I’ll openly confess, I wasn’t overly keen to go to. Plus, turned out that I’d left my wallet in the car and had no money to pay… Oops. [Anne: remind me that I owe you lunch money. Ha, lunch money: doesn’t everyone feel like they’re young and on some US TV show now? You’re welcome.] We saw a box turtle on the road on the way out to the Lake Elmer Thomas Recreation Area (LETRA) and I missed it. Since we were also concerned the little fellow would get run over, that was enough to make us turn around to  help him across the road… And get me a photo too, of course!

The lunch was great though. The food was good – there were COOKIES – and Charlsie and I kicked ass at mini golf, with definitely no creative score keeping at ALL, and maybe some hamming it up for the camera. Maybe.

The rest of the week has predominantly been about smashing through my assignments so that I can crack into exam revision next week (hopefully) and still stay on top of everything else… Plus, of course, a bit of social media networking. Seriously, you can find some badass stuff on the internet. Like this #ThruLineThurs business that was on Twitter yesterday. As usual, I stumbled across it because a whole heap of other people were tweeting about it and I just followed it down the rabbit hole. Basically, there’s an account that generates a different topic/idea every Thursday that you then have to tweet about – yesterday’s was fractured fairytales. If you’re on twitter, check me out @azpascoe and let me know if you like my short re-imagining of Beauty and the Beast!

In other news, I received the scores for Round 1 of the NYC Midnight Flash Fiction Challenge yesterday—I got a 7! Admittedly (and hardly surprisingly), there is some teeny-weeny part of me that’s disappointed I didn’t score a 15 (realism, 101), but I’m thrilled that I placed in the top 10 and looking forward to getting the feedback sometime today. Hopefully some nose to the grindstone for Round 2 this weekend can help propel me into Round 3, since only the top 5 people from each group get to progress. Cross your fingers and toes for me everyone!

PLUS, WE GOT A PIANO YESTERDAY. I’m beyond excited to get back to playing, and forcing my ink-stained fingers into remembering how to put together musical pieces I haven’t touched in ages. We’re going to look at getting some simple music books (everyone please feel free to let me know if you have learner’s books any you don’t want!) and I’m going to teach James the (very very) basics. So pumped!

We’re headed out for Mexican tonight wearing our Aussie football jerseys for one of James’s work functions. Since the weekend is starting with a burrito, I’d say I’m already on the up and up – I hope everyone else has an amazing weekend too!

Ana.