Sunday morning started with a delicious breakfast (obviously), and then I headed off to church. Here’s a picture of the church I attended: St. George’s Presbyterian Church.

The building is beautiful – suuuuper old. I don’t even think they had heat in the building, because they had several heat lamps hanging above us like we were baby chicks at Tractor Supply Company. I wanted to take pictures of the inside of the church, but people were in that somber, reverent mood that made me think taking pictures might be disrespectful. There were four sections of pews in the sanctuary: two down the middle and one on either side. There were also balconies on each side (and maybe one in the back too – I forgot to look). Basically, the church was way bigger than mine back home and could easily fit a few hundred people…but there were maybe a few dozen in attendance. The average age felt like it was around seventy. I stood out. People were friendly and kind, and a woman named Liz talked to me quite a bit. She lamented the state of Christianity in Australia. “Faith is strong in the United States,” she said. “You’re a very Christian nation.”

If the world is counting on the United States to be the picture of Christian virtues…I’m concerned.

After church, it was pouring down rain. My hotel was about a quarter mile away, but the museum was just across the park. I’d been meaning to go back to the museum anyway, so I decided to spend Sunday afternoon there.

After a couple hours at the museum, I still didn’t see all the exhibits. That’s probably because I had the ability to stop and read all of the information on the plaques. Usually when I’m at a museum, I’m on a field trip with students. Then I don’t get to read anything because I’m spending most of my time yelling things like, “Stop jumping on the artifacts!”

There was one exhibit called “Surviving Australia,” and it was about how there are tons of animals in Australia that can kill you. They have the most venomous snakes, most venomous spiders, etc. I thought, “Okay, note to self – don’t go hiking.” But then I read the information more closely. Many of the species are “very common in urban areas.” You know what’s urban? SYDNEY. Ahhhhh! So now I keep checking corners of my room for things that will kill me. Look at this lovely list of snakes that will kill you. Almost all have Sydney in the red zone. Awesome.

I went through a section about prehistoric creatures, and my favorite was the carnivorous “Demon Duck of Doom.” It seems that a very dramatic scientist came up with that name, and I would like to be friends with that person.

There was an entire hall of bird specimens made from hundreds of birds that are indigenous to Australia. Most of them were so pretty and colorful!

This boring brown one kind of reminded me of a grouse, though, so I took a picture for Rex.

Now, when I walk across parks and down streets, I see fabulous birds and think I can identify them because I spent a good amount of time in the bird gallery. Guess what? I can’t.

Okay, we’re going to move on from the museum. I have lots more to say. But check out one more picture of this skeleton horse and rider. Super cool.

After the museum, I went back and got ready for the conference welcome reception. I wasn’t sure what to expect. I knew I was meeting up with the American teachers on my team before the reception, but that was pretty much it.

I found our group (~20 people), and we went around and introduced ourselves and explained what we do in the math education field. Most are not classroom teachers. Once we were finished with the introductions, the organizer of our group said, “Now, before we go any further, I want to make sure you understand something. If you’re a classroom teacher…well, it’s not that they don’t want you here. It’s just that this conference isn’t geared toward you. It’s mostly professors and people doing their post-doctoral research. I’m not saying you have to be embarrassed about the fact that you’re a classroom teacher, and you don’t have to be shy, but I just want you to understand.”

Man, nothing makes you feel more unwanted/embarrassed/shy than someone assuring you that’s probably how you’re feeling, but DON’T feel that way. I wasn’t feeling intimidated before she said that…but by the end of her speech, I felt tears stinging the back of my eyes. If the conference isn’t for me, why did they invite me?

Kevin (remember Kevin from “Kevin and the Daves”?) spoke up. “I’d like to mention that I was ‘just a classroom teacher’ before I became president of NCTM. I talked to several PhDs before taking this position and said I wasn’t sure I was cut out for it since I didn’t have research experience or advanced degrees. They told me there’s not any point to math education research if researchers aren’t consistently working with current classroom teachers to figure out which methods would be viable. Classroom teachers are vital to this conference, because they’re on the front lines of what happens every day in math instruction. If you’re a classroom teacher, please speak up. We need your perspective.”

I knew I liked Kevin. Not only did he totally stick up for me, but also he is the president of NCTM – who’s going to disagree with him?

After that slight hiccup, I tried to dust myself off and muster up some confidence. When we went into the reception hall…well, I’m not sure what I expected, but it wasn’t what I found. A children’s choir sang on risers to provide background music, starting with the song “Welcome to the Land Down Under” by Men at Work.

While the choir sang, thousands of educators milled about. Servers in suits came around with trays of red wine, white wine, champagne, beer, snacks upon snacks upon snacks, etc. I don’t think I recognized a single snack because they were all so fancy. I kept asking the servers what they were. The servers would tell me and then assure me something such as, “Don’t worry, it’s vegan.” or “It’s dairy free.” Dear servers: I’m not actually worried about allergens. I mostly want to know what that crispy red and green thing was before it was a crispy red and green thing.

Every time I turned around, there was a new sort of snack floating by on a silver tray. I tried quite a few, but I also didn’t want to be the stereotypical American that eats ALL THE FOOD.

Speaking of food, I talked to an American teacher about going out to dinner another time. “We could invite Kevin too,” I said, because he was only standing a few feet away.

“Omg no,” she said. “Can you even imagine? Going out to dinner with the president?!”

Oh right. I forgot. I’m supposed to be scared of him. But he’s part of Kevin and the Daves! And we bonded over trying to figure out rugby. He doesn’t seem that scary to me anymore.

I met so many people at the reception that I started sneaking my phone out between conversations in order to take notes because I was scared I would forget everyone’s names. Most of the notes had nothing to do with math: “Greta froze her eggs. Might have kids later” or “Lisa only sees her family on weekends because her school is so far away.” At the end of my list, I added “When in doubt, DAVE.” Because that’s apparently every math guy’s name.

My favorite interaction all night was with a couple from Australia: Jason and Sarah. I bet we talked for over an hour. By the end of it, they were invited to Kalamazoo, and they said I’ll always have a place to stay in Melbourne. So we’re pretty tight.

Here are a few of my favorite moments:

J: You’re from America? Does that mean your school has a bus?

Me: Yes…

S: Is it YELLOW?

Me: Yes….?

J&S: Wow!! That’s so amazing! It’s just like the movies! I always wondered if they really had yellow school buses!

Apparently they don’t even have school buses in Australia at all. Kids have to take public transportation. Bleh.

After we got to know each other a little bit, they asked me about American politics. I just knew that was going to come up.

Me: Sorry…most of the Americans are confused too. It’s not great at the moment.

S: Here’s the thing: Biden is an embarrassment to your country. But Trump is nuttier than a fruitcake. You guys couldn’t find anyone else?

I spent a little time explaining about the polarization of our two-party system and how we ended up with our current options…but short answer? No. We don’t have anyone else.

They asked about where Michigan is in America, and I pulled out my phone and found a map where all the states are different colors. “There’s Michigan,” I said. “It’s the purple one.”

“Oh,” Jason said. “What’s the purple one above it?”

“That’s also Michigan.”

“They’re both Michigan?”

“Yeah, we have two peninsulas. They’re connected by a bridge.”

“Whoa, that must be a LONG bridge.”

“Yeah, it is. We’re pretty proud of it, actually.”

Hooray Michigan!

Don’t worry – I didn’t spend the whole conversation blabbering on and on about my culture. I learned about them too. I asked if people in Australia really eat kangaroo or if that’s just a myth. They assured me that yes, people eat kangaroo all the time, and there’s actually a section for it in the grocery store next to the chicken, beef, and pork.

Jason and Sarah don’t eat it much now, though, because their daughter decided to be vegan.

“Wow,” I said, “That must have been a huge adjustment for your family to start cooking everything vegan.”

“It was,” said Sarah, “but what are you going to do, say no? I mean, if Ezra comes home one day and tells you he’s vegan, you have to respect that.”

I believe I mustered up a polite nod.

Anyway, I made a lot of friends at the reception. I stayed all the way until the end when the employees said our time was up and started kicking us out.

I have a feeling this is going to be a great conference!

Yesterday I watched a war dance, ate fresh pizza by the opera house, and went to a rugby game with Kevin and the Daves (“Kevin and the Daves?” I hear you say. “Is that a failed pop band from 1991?” No. Not a pop band. We’ll meet them later in the post).

When I set out to explore the city, my first stop was the Australian Museum. It has free entry, so I didn’t really know what to expect. How great can a free museum actually be? Pretty great, it turns out. I started by exploring the floor that has artifacts and information about indigenous people of Australia and the South Pacific. I’ve learned a lot about Native Americans in the US – all the tribes are different, but I’ve learned about “here’s how the plains Indians lived,” “here’s how the desert Indians lived,” etc. I don’t feel like there are many indigenous artifacts in museums at home where I think, “What the heck? What in the world is that?”

Here, it felt like a mashup of Native American history and a Dr. Seuss book. For example, check out these “full body masks.”

These are drums, which I didn’t understand at first. People hit the sides of these towers to make music.

Everything was so…different. But also fascinating. Did you know that South Americans exploited Pacific Islanders and had an active slave trade capturing people in this area and taking them back to Peru to be slaves? I don’t know why I thought America had the market cornered on being horrible to other humans, but apparently it happened here too.

A dance troupe did a presentation of some traditional Tongan dances. The first dance, a war dance done by men, was banned when missionaries got to this area because they thought it seemed “ungodly.” I’m not saying the dance was ungodly, since I need to respect their culture and everything, but the men wore black masks with no eye holes and stabbed sticks into the air aggressively while making screechy and then guttural vocalizations. If I was a missionary new to this area, I could definitely see myself saying, “Okay my dudes…we’re gonna stop that, mmmkay? You’re kinda freaking me out.”

The women danced next. I’ve never seen a dance like this one. The way they moved their bodies was so…gentle? Soft? Delicate? I’m not exactly sure how to describe it, but it was beautiful. If you could write a lullaby with body movements, it would be this dance. No twerking in Tongan culture.

Shortly after the dances, my phone notified me that I was on 5% battery. Eeeep! 5% battery? I must have forgotten to charge my phone. This wouldn’t usually be a disaster, but I was in the middle of Sydney with only the faintest idea of how to get back to my hotel. I needed Google maps to work, and also Uber in case I got super lost. I reluctantly left the museum, promising myself that I’d go back another day to look at the exhibits I missed.

I got back to my hotel with 1% battery left. I could almost hear Rex saying, “Let’s not cut it so close next time, okay?” Roger that. I’ll remember to charge my phone from here on out. I spent some time reading in my room while I waited for my phone to charge, then I set out for a market downtown.

The market was bigger than I expected – stalls and stalls on several streets. I bought a few odds and ends, and I got some fresh pizza from a vendor making pizzas with an outdoor wood-burning oven. Yummmm. I walked over and sat on a bench by the harbor, where I had a fantastic view of the opera house. It was, I must say, a pretty fun lunch.

I kept an eye on the time because I didn’t want to be late to meet Kevin and the Daves for rugby. Let’s stop for a moment and explain how I found myself going to a rugby game with Kevin and the Daves:

Last week, Rex was talking to his coworker Abigail. He mentioned that I was going to Sydney for a math conference, and she said, “No way! My dad is going to a math conference in Sydney next week too!”

To make a long story short, her dad and I are going to the same conference. How random is that?! Rex said her dad is “some important math guy,” and I should call him so I could make a friend at the conference. I felt like that would be pretty weird. “Hi, you don’t know me at all, but can we please be conference friends?” Odd. So I brushed it off. Multiple times, though, Rex has asked me if I contacted that guy yet. So finally I thought, “I’m planning to go to a rugby game tonight by myself…I guess I could see if he wants to go.” I looked the guy up online to see if he looked creepery or nice, and my jaw dropped. I called Rex right away.

“Rex,” I said. “Do you realize you handed me the contact info for the president of NCTM?!”

“Umm..no?” he said. “I don’t even know what that is. But she did say he was up there in the math world.”

NCTM is the National Council for Teachers of Mathematics. It’s, well, exactly what it sounds like – the national board of all math teachers in America. He’s the PRESIDENT OF AMERICAN MATH, and I was going to casually invite him to a rugby game?

Yes, apparently. After all, even presidents are just people, right? So I e-mailed him. I invited him to the game and told him that any of his colleagues or friends were welcome to join too. Shockingly, he e-mailed back right away and said that it sounded like a lot of fun, and he was in. *gulp* He also said he’d invite two of his friends to join us, which was perfect because then it wouldn’t be just me and this random guy.

Both of his friends were named Dave, which is how I ended up going to the game with “Kevin and the Daves.” They also mentioned a third guy in their group, also named Dave, and I said, “Hold up. You have a third friend named Dave?”

“I guess it’s a math guy thing,” one of them said. A math thing? That everyone is named Dave? This is weird. I’m going to start introducing myself at the conference as Dave just so I fit in.

Kevin, the Daves, and I found our seats and settled in for the rugby game: Australia vs. Fiji. It was a double header – women’s rugby first and then men’s. Our seats were in row X, which felt very fitting for a group of math people. I wished I hadn’t fallen asleep while trying to watch those rugby instructional videos, because I didn’t have any clue what to expect.

My shining moment came when one of the Daves said, “Why is she kicking from way over there?”

I automatically answered, “You have to kick the conversion attempt perpendicular to where the try was scored.” WHAT?! How did I know that? I guess some of the weird rugby clips did sink in before I dropped my cell phone on my face.

Here’s the view from the awesome stadium:

Have you ever watched a rugby game? It is INTENSE. They must laugh at American football players with all our padding and helmets and time outs and such. This game has no time-outs, and the players are full-contact tackle, throw each other to the ground, rip each other apart with no bodily protection.

I wondered how they don’t get injured. Quickly, I learned that players do get injured…and the rest of them keep playing. When a girl went down, an athletic trainer would run onto the field to attend to her. While the trainer was fixing her and/or helping her off the field, everyone else kept running and tackling like nothing happened. I at first thought perhaps they didn’t see the injured person, but nope. At one point they were literally doing conversion kicks over the top of an injured person and an athletic trainer. What?!?! In the US, we usually pause the game for injuries. I guess we’re weenies. The only time the game was paused for injury is when one girl was so badly injured that they had to bring a medical vehicle on the field to put her on a stretcher.

Have you ever seen rugby girls? They are so hard core. I wouldn’t want to mess with any of them ever. Here’s a sample of some of the players from last night’s team:

By the end of the match, we were catching on to the rules. I’m not ready to ref or anything, but we knew the basic terms. We also knew enough to see that Australia won by a lot – hooray! Go Wallaroos! Kevin and the Daves thanked me for setting it up and said they had a great time.

Once I got back from the game, it was almost time for bed. I changed into comfy clothes, ordered room service again, and drifted off to sleep while watching some true crime.

It was a fantastic day. Now, Sunday morning, I’m almost ready to leave for church. The conference starts with a welcome reception this evening, so hopefully I’ll meet some more teacher friends. They’ll probably all be named Dave. Wish me luck!

Getting to Sydney was a long process. By the time I arrived at my hotel, I was ready to go to bed (not ideal since it wasn’t even 9 AM yet). The hotel staff was very friendly from the moment I stepped out of the car, and they gave me good vibes about staying here. Unfortunately, my room wasn’t ready when I arrived. Since check-in wasn’t supposed to be until 2:00, I couldn’t really blame them. They stored my luggage for me, told me they’d try to ensure I had a room by noon, and then I had to decide what to do for a few hours. I asked the concierge guy for suggestions, and he asked what kind of things I like to do. “Bookshops,” I said. “Where’s the nearest bookshop?”

He seemed a little incredulous. I guess he doesn’t get many requests for bookshops? As a well-trained concierge, though, he didn’t ask too many questions. He told me how to get to the nearest bookshop.

I thought this was a fabulous idea. I can easily spend hours in a bookshop. I could spend weeks in a bookshop. As soon as I walked in, I took a deep breath of the bookish air and felt completely at home in a very foreign country. “This is a beautiful shop!” I said to the lady behind the counter.

“Thank you,” she said in her fun accent. “We think so too.”

I started milling about the endless shelves, and I quickly realized a problem I’d overlooked when planning to chill here – they sold gobs and gobs of Australian books. When I explore book stores in America, even when I’m specifically there to buy a book, I usually find quite a few that look interesting. I add them to my library list and go on my merry way with plans to read them for free later. How was I supposed to do that in Australia?? It’s not like my library back home has these books! I would obviously have to buy them all. It was the only solution.

This was one of those bookstores that not only had books, but other fun things as well. Can I get a bone china teacup at home? Possibly. But can I get one with a koala on it that’s hugging a bundle of flowers? No, I cannot. How about a beautiful canvas tote with the Sydney skyline on it? Nope. What about this weird “Nanobugs: Microbes With Attitude” game? Absolutely not.

They also had a section promoting local Australian authors. How can I not support a local author? I picked up a signed copy of one of the books, curious about what authors in Australia write in their books. This author wrote, “You just made the best decision of your life.” Which, um, made me want to buy it. Buying this book would be the best decision of my life? Must be some book.

I am lucky (I guess…) that I don’t have much room in my suitcase to bring things home with me. I comforted myself with the fact that the store is really close to my hotel, so I can wait until the end of the trip and see how much space I have. Then I can assess what I should get from the store. I did snag one book, though, because they only had one copy left. Ezra loves the series of books at home that includes Never Touch A Spider, Never Touch a Shark, etc. Here they had Never Touch a Platypus (ha!) and also this book, which had a bunch of Australian animals in it. Ez is going to love it.

They had a bunch of pennants with different countries on them in the children’s section. If you have ever wondered how Australians picture America, this is how:

After the book store, I did a Google maps search and found the nearest Op Shop. Thrift stores here are called “op shops,” a fact I thankfully looked up before I got here. There was one about a twenty minute walk away, so I decided to go for it.

My hotel is located in a pretty central part of Sydney, with fancy shops (Kate Spade, Jimmy Choo, etc) a three-minute walk away. I didn’t realize that a twenty-minute walk would take me to a completely different type of Sydney. When I started seeing bars on the windows, I thought, “Hm. This is a bit sketch. Perhaps I should leave.” By that time, though, I was almost there. Plus, had I expected an op shop to be located next to Jimmy Choo? Not so much. I resolved to take a quick look at the op shop and then head back toward the lush parks and fancy places near my hotel.

Right when I walked into the shop, the lady behind the counter greeted me with a smile. “Welcome,” she said. “Would you like some fruit?” She motioned to a box of fresh(ish) fruit on the counter.

“No thanks,” I said. Then I looked around nervously. Why was she offering me food? Did she think I was homeless? Was this a store for homeless people? No, the other customers didn’t look very homeless. One well-dressed woman was pushing her Chihuahua puppy around in a fancy stroller. The dog’s name was Earl Grey.

Then I looked at myself. I was in clothes I’d been wearing for the last two days on planes, unshowered, no makeup, and carrying around my old backpack that I got at a garage sale. I probably did look homeless.

The things in the shop weren’t marked with prices. People would walk up to the front and ask the lady how much something was, and I’m pretty sure she just made up numbers on the spot.

Then I saw it: the quilt that still haunts me.

It was beautiful, I tell you. Gorgeous. When I asked the lady how much it cost, she told me ten dollars. I even asked her to repeat herself because I couldn’t believe it. TEN DOLLARS? That’s only about $7 in the US. My homeless look must have worked in my favor.

I picked the quilt up, ready to buy it. Then I questioned myself. First of all, how was I supposed to get a quilt home with me? Also, there’s the tiny detail of the fact that I don’t need a quilt at all. I put the quilt back. Then I picked it up again. I must have picked it up and put it down five times. I pulled out my phone to text some girlfriends for advice, but I already knew what they’d say. If I wasn’t going to buy the quilt, they were the wrong people to ask.

I waited until I was all the way back to the hotel to text them about it. That way I knew I couldn’t change my mind. No matter how lovely the quilt was (and it was LOVELY), I was not going to walk twenty minutes back through the belly of Sydney to get it. Sure enough, they were appalled that it isn’t coming home with me.

“CHRISTINE,” one of them said. “Leave your clothes. Get the quilt.”

I will probably never again in my life have a chance to buy a quilt for $7, let alone a magnificent Australian quilt. But how would I get it home? And once it was there, what would I have done with it?! I have so many quilts already.

Does it feel like I’m trying to justify my decision to you? Because it feels like that to me. It’s not even working, either. Haha. Let’s move on.

Back at the hotel, I contemplated my questionable shopping decisions while researching things to do around Sydney that evening. There were tons of options. I couldn’t decide what to do, and then something occurred to me: the thing that sounded the most fun was to take a shower, hang out in my fancy hotel room, read, write, order room service, and not leave for the rest of the day.

“That’s ridiculous!” I told myself. “You’re in a new city. It’s huge. You should go explore.” But how often do I have hours at a time totally to myself, where I can do whatever I want, and no dishes/diapers/dogs to distract me? Plus, it was kind of rainy outside anyway (there I go justifying myself again).

So I did exactly what I wanted, and I spent the rest of the day in my room. I worked on writing, read, and ordered room service when I got hungry. It was amaaaaazing, and I only had to leave the fancy tray outside when I was finished. No dishes to do! I could get used to glamorous hotel life.

I fell asleep in the evening while I watched YouTube clips of how rugby works. I might be checking out a rugby game tonight, so I thought I should have some idea of the rules. Unfortunately, I kept dropping my phone on my face until I finally gave up and turned off the lights. Now if I go to rugby, all I really know is that they smash each other a lot. Perhaps that’s all I really need to know.

It’s Saturday morning now, and I’m well-rested and ready to take on the day. I went downstairs for the included hotel breakfast, and….whoa. No individualized cereal boxes with questionable milk here. For today’s breakfast, I had the following:

• Omelette made in front of me after I chose my fillings
• Fresh pancakes made from a self-serve pancake roller
• Croissant with Nutella from a vat of Nutella (umm…why don’t we have these in the US?)
• Fresh fruits
• Hash browns
• Orange juice
• Tea (made with loose leaf tea, and I admit that for a second I wondered how to actually use that)

There were kabillions of choices that I didn’t eat. One thing looked suspiciously like some kind of legs. No thank you. They also had things such as “poached plums” that looked foreign but also edible. I may try some different stuff tomorrow.

One funny note: by the pancake station, they had a bunch of toppings. One was titled “Mable Syrup.” I wondered what on earth mable syrup was, and why it looked and smelled suspiciously like maple syrup. I looked it up online, and apparently there is no such thing as mable syrup. My guess is that they were trying to be culturally sensitive to their North American visitors by offering our traditional pancake topping, but they got the name wrong. Oh well. I’m not offended. Especially after the breakfast I just had. They can call the stuff whatever they want.

Now I’m off to explore the city! Talk soon!

I’ve officially arrived in Sydney! That’s Sydney, Australia, if you were wondering – not Sydney, Indiana as one of my friends asked when I said I was going to Sydney. It’s been a loooong twenty-four hours of travel, but I’m finally here. Hooray!

“Wait,” I hear you saying. “Don’t you have a toddler at home? Why are you zipping around the planet?”

Good question. Trust me, I’ve asked myself that same thing countless times leading up to this trip. But hear me out, okay? It’s kind of a long story. Here’s how I ended up in Sydney:

Back in 2019 (told you it was a long story), I applied for a grant to go to the International Congress on Mathematical Education (ICME) in Shanghai, China. It’s a conference held every four years where educators from around the world get together and discuss the state of mathematical education, best practices, etc. Rex calls it the “Nerd Convention,” and I don’t correct him.

I received the grant (yay!) and prepared to head to Shanghai in the summer of 2020.

Silly me, thinking I would leave the country in 2020. We barely left our houses. The congress obviously got cancelled, and I figured the grant was lost for good. Disappointing, to be sure, but it was just one more fact of pandemic life.

This fall, however, an verrrrry interesting e-mail popped into my inbox. The coordinators of the American ICME team asked if any of the people who didn’t get to go to Shanghai in 2020 would like to join them in 2024 in Sydney.

Why yes, yes I would.

Even this past fall, I questioned the decision. I used to travel abroad all the time, but things are different now. I hadn’t been over an ocean since the pandemic. I had a baby last year. I’m just…all around in a totally different place. But was I really going to give up a free trip to Australia?

(That’s a first-world problem if I ever heard one).

Ultimately, I decided to go. I was very nervous leading up to the trip. Not only was I nervous about leaving Ezra and Rex, but also about going through fourteen time zones by myself. Traveling alone doesn’t really throw me, but I do have some mental health concerns that can be exacerbated by significant time changes. The last time I went through a billion time zones (Japan 2015) was a complete disaster. But that was NINE YEARS AGO. Things are different now in so many ways.

Still, about a week and a half ago, I found myself on a zoom call with my friend Lauren, wondering if I was doing the right thing. This trip felt daunting to me, bordering on overwhelming. I’d dusted off my passport, booked a flight, and ordered my shiny, colorful play money (oops, I mean Australian dollars) from the bank. Everything seemed all systems go. I was still more nervous than excited, and I was contemplating cancelling the whole thing and paying the grant money back.

“Do you think you’d feel better if someone went with you?” Lauren asked.

“I mean, yeah,” I said. “But who could drop everything and jet off to…wait a minute. WHAT ARE YOU SAYING?”

Lauren spoke slowly, as if the idea was forming in her head only a millisecond faster than it was coming out of her mouth: “If you think about it, I’m a fully online student. I could do schoolwork while you’re at the conference, and we could hang out in the evenings and stuff.”

“That would be awesome!” I said. “I already have a room at a fancy hotel, you can stay with me, and you’d just have to pay for your flight and food.”

“I’ve never been to Australia…” she said. “Maybe I really should go.”

“Are you serious?” I asked, not daring to get my hopes up. “You realize I leave in ten days?”

Lauren started clicking around online, asking questions like “How much is the flight? Can I get a visa in time?” etc. This is what’s so great about Lauren – she’s up for adventure pretty much all the time. A few years ago, we planned a cross-country train trip to Glacier National Park. We went from the idea of “hey, this would be fun” to boarding the train in about four days. But even for someone as spontaneous as Lauren, a last-minute trip to Sydney is impressive.

Lauren has a wedding to attend on Saturday back in Michigan, but after that she’s flying out to join me here. I can hardly wait – it’s going to be so much fun. 😀

Even though I’m very excited that Lauren’s making the trip, I still want to make some friends from my American ICME team. Before I left, I started online stalking researching some of my teammates. I listed off their impressive credentials to Rex and even showed him a couple of pictures. “He looks kind of like a nerd,” I said about one of the team members.

“Well,” Rex responded, “You are going to a math conference.” Fair point.

I started to get some serious imposter syndrome. All of these people are so much more accomplished than me. I stopped researching my teammates and started looking more closely at the conference sessions instead. Unfortunately, that made things worse. One of the sessions I have the option to attend is called – and I kid you not – “Adventures in Hyperbolic Paraboloids.” Do YOU know what a hyperbolic paraboloid is? Because I didn’t. I do now, though. In my humble opinion, it looks like a Pringle on acid. Maybe that’s part of the adventure.

Another session is called “Neocolonial Mathematics.” Huh? What does neocolonialism have to do with math and math education? And what country’s neocolonialism are we even talking about here?

I may be in a bit of trouble next week.

The one moment that gave me the slightest bit of hope that I’m not completely in over my head is when the organizers sent out an e-mail two days before I left and asked all the attendees to bring postcards from their home cities. They want us to put them together and “build polyhedra” out of them. My first thought was, “Wow, it’s going to be tough to build a variety of polyhedra when we only have non-regular rectangles to use.” And then, quickly on the heels of that thought, was “Ah ha – that thought seemed kind of mathy! Maybe I will be okay.”

Oddly, the organizers also asked us to bring a traditional board game from our home country. I hate most board games, and also I had no space in my suitcase for a board game. I told Rex that if anyone asks why I don’t have one, I’ll just say, “We’re too busy for board games in America.” Plus, umm…are board games quicker in other countries? Because the conference is only a week long. I’m not sure I could actually finish a game of Monopoly in that time. Don’t even get me started on Risk (which would be awkward to play with people from all over the world anyway).

So yeah, no board game from this American.

I admit I was a little jumpy about flying over the Pacific (there’s no emergency landing in an ocean, you know?), but it’s not like I was asking the Wright Brothers for a lift. It’s 2024. We could send a man to the moon in 1969, so by now I should theoretically be able to trust that modern technology can get me safely to my destination.

In order to calm my nerves (or perhaps this is simply what moms do), my mom handed me a white paper lunch sack when my parents dropped me off at the airport. “I made you some zucchini bread for the plane!” she said. I didn’t have room for this lunch sack in my backpack, so I carried it across the whole country, nibbling zucchini bread every once in a while. My mom even put an encouraging note in the bag, as if I was a five year old heading off to kindergarten instead of a thirty-five year old going to Australia.

Here’s a picture of it in some fancy San Francisco fake plants before I threw away the well-traveled bag.

The flights went well. In an amazing stroke of luck, the seat next to me on my longest flight (fifteen hours) was empty. Yesssss. The extra room was great.

Now I’m in my hotel room. I took a very long, hot shower. After all, I had to get three flights of grime off of me. I’m lounging in my fluffy bathrobe and slippers that the hotel provided, and I’m looking forward to the days ahead. Hooroo for now!

(“Hooroo” is allegedly slang for “goodbye” in Australia. I will investigate the veracity of this claim on another day).

Now to beat jet lag and stay up for…

…a couple more hours…

…or perhaps just order some room service…

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

*whispers* Hooroo.

While the Webbs do love all hunting, eagle hunting is only legal with a camera (but who would want to kill an eagle, anyway? They’re so majestic. And also #murica). Bright and early this morning, Rex, Michelle, Ezra and I set off “eagle hunting.” We woke up super early to get the best light, and the sunrise over the water was beautiful. I should have taken a picture, but I was still bleary eyed and questioning the life choices that led me to be awake at sunrise.

Michelle had seen a bald eagle at a park earlier in the week, so we drove there to see if we could find it. Sure enough, across from a large bridge, we saw the eagle perched in a tree. We drove all around trying to find a place to stop where we could get a good shot of the eagle. Finally, we decided to park at a nearby parking lot and walk back toward the bridge. We found a trail that went below the bridge where we could see the tree where the eagle was sitting. By the time we got to the perfect spot for viewing the eagle, it had flown away. That’s how it would work, of course.

Michelle and Rex walked around with their cameras, seeing if there was anything else fun to photograph. I was on Ezra duty. He was still in his pajamas because we woke up too early and I didn’t change his clothes. I thought, “Hmm…I shouldn’t set Ezra down. He’ll get his pajamas all sandy.” Then I thought, “Hmm…we’re not in Florida very long. And I can change his clothes later. Live it up, Baby Son!”

Here he is leaving crawl tracks in the sand as he set off to seek his fortune:

Here are Michelle and Rex comparing pictures (none of which made it onto the blog because Rex said they’re all pictures of “nothing good”).

When Michelle and Rex got bored of waiting for the absent eagle, we headed back to the beach house. After naptime and lunch, it was time to head to the beach!

Ezra discovered seashells today. He is finally (mostly) over eating sand, but shells provided a whole new challenge. I said, “No, Ezra, we don’t eat shells” about a million times. I said it all stern, too, like how you’re supposed to as a parent. But he kept eating shells! Exasperated, I eventually said, “Okay Ezra. If you eat another shell, you’re going to lose your privileges.” Because that’s what parents say, right? I’m still getting the hang of this mom thing, if you can’t tell. Unsurprisingly, he immediately ate another shell.

“Welp, now you’re losing your privileges!” Except umm…what privileges does a one year old have? And how was I supposed to take them away? And for how long? I haven’t gotten that far in the parenting book yet! I didn’t think this through, but it was too late now. So I took his shell, and I threw it over my shoulder very far away so he couldn’t get it. There. He lost his shell privileges.

He gave me a look that said, “What’d you do that for?” and then he crawled around and found another shell. Which he tried to eat. So I’m not POSITIVE we learned our lesson here.

After my shining moment of motherhood, some more family came down to the beach. Ezra liked playing with his cousin Drake, and they were both pretty excited when Grandpa brought over a fish that he caught. Oooooo, shiny!

Before we knew it, it was time to start getting ready for our family photos. That meant showers, blow dryers, makeup, the works. Steph even offered to steam my outfit with the steamer she brought, that way my clothes wouldn’t be all wrinkly. How nice!

When I was alllllmost ready, I made a really bad mistake. The details don’t matter. The point is, completely by accident, I hurt Ezra and put him in a lot of danger that could have easily landed him in the hospital. It would have been all my fault. So I was pretty shaken up, but everyone was waiting outside for pictures. I grabbed a can of puffs and headed out. “Stop crying, buddy!” I said. “Mommy is so sorry! It’s all my fault! Here, have a puff.” He stopped crying right away because he loves puffs, so I figured the situation wasn’t as dire as it could have been (Thank God. Literally. I’m thankful to God for keeping Ezra safe). Anyway, I sat on the beach and fed Ezra one puff at a time while I watched Rex take pictures of Tom and Courtney’s family. Ezra would look at me with his big eyes and tentatively reach for another puff, and I’d be all, “Yep. Unlimited puffs today. Mommy is so sorry.” Feeding him junk food out of mom guilt is, you know, fabulous parenting.

I’m really starting to see why Courtney bought me that parenting book.

Unfortunately, the sunlight was all wrong for family pictures. Rex did his best, but people couldn’t even look at the camera without doing a whole-face squint because of the sun. Therefore it was decided: we would go eat dinner and then try again. It’s not like we trusted kids to eat wearing fancy clothes, so we all had to go change.

When I was changing Ezra, Rex walked into our bedroom. Even though I was nervous, I had to tell Rex about the incident from earlier. I set Ezra on the bed while I was talking to Rex. Rex seemed alarmed at first, but then said, “Wait, so you’re telling me he’s not hurt?”

“I mean, not really. But he COULD have been VERY hurt.”

Apparently this is not of much concern, because Rex immediately went back to changing into dinner clothes. I turned back to the bed to pick up Ezra, and this is what I saw:

In the thirty seconds I was talking to Rex, Ezra had somehow gotten the top off of his can of puffs and was now shoving so many into his mouth at once that I was afraid he was going to choke.

Today was not a banner day for mothering. Seriously.

While we waited for dinner, everyone was chatting about different things. One of my sisters-in-law said to another one, “I found a new method to help very young children learn how to blow their own noses.” The other one was all, “Oh, great! How do you do that?” So they chatted about how to teach their brilliant children to be self-sufficient. Meanwhile, my kid was over in the corner eating dominos.

Dinner was delicious. It was haystacks, which is a Webb favorite. It’s basically like build-your-own nachos, but with Fritos instead of tortilla chips. Delish, but not conducive to tidy eating. I was glad I’d changed Ezra’s clothes, because he got Mexican food everywhere. He was having tons of fun.

After dinner, it was Take Two for family photos. I changed Ezra back into his photo clothes – carefully – but somehow he had a cheese smear on him before I got out the door. I discovered it was from the puff he had for “dessert.” Welp, no going back now. He was going to have his picture taken with a cheese smear.

Family photos were fun. Rex seemed pretty stressed because he hates taking photos of people. He much prefers wildlife. On the one hand, I don’t get that. You can tell people how to pose and what to do, but with an animal you basically have to make yourself invisible and hope it does what you want. On the other hand, I don’t think an animal has ever asked him to airbrush a zit. So maybe there are perks to sticking to wildlife.

We chased the light for photos until the sun went down. It was tough to get the kids to look at the camera, so when some people with a dog walked down the beach, we asked them to stand by the camera with their dog so we could say, “Look at the doggie!” The dog was wearing sunglasses, so that was pretty fun. The kids seemed to like it.

We tried to do a picture of all the grandkids with the grandparents, but that was a bit of a fail. The kids were squirming and crying and crawling away. I was proud of Ezra – he was doing great. But then when it was time to snap the photo, all of us parents started screaming, “LOOK OVER HERE!! HI BABY!! OVER HERE!!” Ezra hates loud noises, so that was too loud and he immediately started sobbing. Of course, as soon as the pictures were over, he was fine again. So now he looks like the cranky grandkid. Oh well.

After pictures, I talked Rex into an evening walk (our last one for the trip, since we’re leaving tomorrow *sob*). He seemed really down, and finally he told me why: he’s nervous that the pictures turned out terrible.

He took like, five kabillion pictures. Surely they’re not ALL terrible. I think that maybe he is being too hard on himself. He told me that people had their eyes closed in a bunch of the pictures, and he was going to have to “photoshop some googly eyes” on them. He’s going through photos right now as I type this, and he just made the comment that “way too many people in this family pick their noses.” But here’s the thing: the pictures don’t have to be perfect. Everyone has seen perfect family pictures before. Doesn’t it add a little depth and zing when Ezra is sobbing, Michael is picking his nose, and Madi is trying to run out of the frame? Now there’s a picture with pizazz! It’s more accurate to our family, anyway. He was capturing authenticity, not perfection. I, for one, am prepared to love the pictures no matter how they turn out. Because I love the people in them.

EDIT TO ADD: I still haven’t seen many of the pictures Rex took, but here are a couple. I think they’re great!

All good things must come to an end, and unfortunately it’s time for this vacation to be over. I might pop in with some more pictures later (especially if I come across some funny ones), but it’s time to head home and get back to “real life.” Thanks for coming on another adventure with me. I really appreciate you taking time to read this blog.

Until next time – adios!

When I woke up yesterday, it was rainy. My first thought was, ‘Aw, man! What do you do at a beach house if it’s raining?” But the answer followed soon after the question: You go THRIFT SHOPPING, of course!

Some of the family decided to go thrift shopping, but by the time we had breakfast and changed diapers and blah blah blah, it was almost 11:00. I absolutely had to be back by 1:00, as I had an online publicity meeting for my new book. I didn’t want to hold the family back from all the deals, so I asked Rex if we could drive separately.

“Hey Rex,” I said. “Want to go thrift shopping with me?”

“Not really…”

“What are you going to do back here in the rain?”

He thought for a moment. “Anything besides thrift shopping.”

“Okay, then can I borrow your truck?”

“Why?!” (He looked more appalled here than when I asked if he wanted to go shopping).

So I explained about the publicity meeting. He (thankfully) agreed to go with me so that I could still go but also be back in time for my meeting. Phewf!

We drove through the rain to Goodwill, and whoa – it was the largest Goodwill I’ve ever seen. Here’s the view from the front door. Who knew what kind of treasures could be lurking among the junk? That’s the fun of thrift shopping – it’s like a scavenger hunt, but you don’t know what you’re looking for. You know it when you find it, though.

I found some really weird stuff at the Goodwill. For example, there were a ton of Christmas clothes. Not exactly sure why. Maybe a collector cleared out their attic or something. I also found this Florida Gators purse with a furry top.

There was also a strange display of Barbies, and I took a picture because I thought, “That’s a weird display. I’ll get a picture for the blog.”

When I got back to the beach house and reviewed the pictures, I discovered that the Barbie picture was definitely not blog-safe. I mean, sure, all the Barbies were naked, but I figured that’s because we were at Goodwill and the clothes cost extra. When I looked closer, though…many of the Barbies were in very, um, compromising positions. I wanted to march back to Goodwill and declare, “YOU HAVE DONE A VERY BAD THING WITH A CHILDREN’S TOY.” Bleh!

Let’s move on from the Barbies. Forget I mentioned them. While I was shopping, I got a text that we were under a tornado watch. Eeeep! Then, a short time later, the lights at the Goodwill flickered off because of the storm. Some people gasped and freaked out like they had never been in a dim room before, but the lights went on again quickly and order was restored.

I found quite a few things at the Goodwill to take home with me. Rex was very disappointed that my feet aren’t a size 6, because he found some women’s hunting boots that usually cost $300 (Lowas, for those of you who know these things). My feet are a size 10, so I told him that if he wanted me to cut off all my toes, the boots just might fit me. It really shows how committed I am to getting a good deal.

We got home with ten minutes to spare before my publicity meeting. I quickly exchanged my t-shirt for a simple black v-neck and took my hair out of a ponytail so I could wear it down. That was about as professional as I was going to look in ten minutes. Then I grabbed my Chromebook and hunted for a place to do a zoom meeting. Newsflash: when you’re in a house with seventeen people and seven of them are under age 4, there is no quiet place to do a zoom meeting. I ended up outside, under the deck, on some white wicker porch furniture. It worked out!

I won’t tell you all about the publicity meeting because it’s not really relevant to this vacation, but I will say that I was surprised to see five or six people on the zoom call, all with different jobs related to promoting my book. It was very cool. I wished I had packed a suit coat to look more professional or something. Then again, how professional can you REALLY look when sitting on white wicker furniture?

By the time the meeting was over, the rain cleared up and the weather was nice again. Hooray! Rex went down to the water to fish, and I worked on my blog during Ezra’s nap.

Just as I finished writing my post, Ezra woke up. Perfect timing, little buddy. I decided to take him for a walk on the beach. Let me take a moment to give a shout-out to our stroller, which is the only one here off-roady enough to work in the sand. We’ve all been taking turns with it. Finally it was my turn to use it!

Stephanie texted the family that dinner would be ready at 6, so I had a good half hour/forty-five minutes to go on a walk. I checked in with Rex at the fishing poles on my way out, and he said to stop by on the way in and we’d walk up to the house together. No problem.

I enjoyed a walk down the beach, and Ezra enjoyed it too. I stopped to get a picture of him, but my phone was out of storage. Blast! So I went through and deleted a bunch of screenshots and downloads. Unfortunately, my phone STILL didn’t have enough storage. So I stood there deleting stuff while Ezra looked up at me from the stroller as if to say, “Uhhh…why did we stop?” Finally I freed up enough space to take a picture. Then I said, “Smile for mommy!” and click click click.

In my determination to get a beach picture, I hadn’t been keeping an eye on the time. I realized I’d have to pick up the pace if I wanted to make it up for dinner on time. I pictured the whole family sitting around the table, waiting for me and impatiently saying, “Where is Christine?” (I won’t say that I knew which family members would be saying that, but I knew which family members would be saying that). So I walked a little faster.

When I got within sight of the beach house, I saw the fishermen going in. That’s when I knew I was in trouble. It’s not like they were going to go in one second before it was absolutely necessary. And Rex, who planned to walk up with me, had abandoned ship and left me behind (Pirate Code).

So I was practically running while pushing the stroller up the sandy hill that leads to our beach house, and I was trying not to breathe hard because certainly I’m not THAT out of shape, right? When I came over the crest of the hill, Rex was standing there with his camera. Oh boy. He took a few pictures as I was rushing down, then laughed and said, “I thought this would be a nice action shot, but it didn’t turn out that great.” I took a look at his screen. I looked like I was about to drop dead, and Ezra looked mad, and the whole picture was hilariously awful. I don’t really want to put it on the internet, because you never know where pictures from the internet might end up. But if you want to see the pic, I’ll send it to you so you can have a good laugh.

Anyway, I grabbed Ezra out of the stroller as quickly as possible and burst into the house. I looked at my phone, and the time was 6:00 on the dot. “I am NOT late!” I declared. “For anyone keeping track, I am on time.” Some of the family still wasn’t there yet. Maybe I didn’t have to hurry quite so much, but I think Steph appreciated my punctuality. Here’s Ezra waiting for his dinner:

Dinner was awesome: Chicken Caesar wraps, homemade bread, salad, green beans, corn casserole…lots of deliciousness. Ezra especially loved the chicken.

After dinner, everyone started the long journey toward putting kids to bed. It wasn’t quite Ezra’s bedtime yet, and Jake and Steph were busy downstairs putting their kids to bed, so Rex and I decided to take a walk on the beach. The stroller wasn’t available because Paul and Michelle had it (see? I told you it’s popular), so we put Ezra in his pajamas in case he fell asleep, grabbed the front pack, and started off.

This trip has been a lot of fun, but Rex, Ezra, and I haven’t had a ton of time with just the three of us. That is fine, as the point of the trip was family time with extended family, but it was fun to walk together and enjoy the evening. We talked about a lot of different stuff, and I assumed Ezra couldn’t understand (which he for sure didn’t). But then I said something about Ezra not crying as much as the other kids, and was that even developmentally normal? And then Ezra immediately gave me a super sad face and started crying, like, “I’M NOT NORMAL? WHY AREN’T I NORMAL? OH NO…I’M A FREAK BABY!” So I assured him that of course he’s normal, and I love him the same no matter what, and I kissed his cheeks and made him feel better. *guilty face*

I snapped this picture on the way back, and I love it. It doesn’t even need an explanation. I might blow it up to poster size and put it on my ceiling so I can stare at it at night when I’m going to bed.

I mean, not really. But if I was going to do that with a picture, this one would be in the running.

Well, gotta go. We’re doing family pictures soon with the whooooole family. Rex is taking the pics with his fancy camera. I told him I want some blooper pics for the blog, and he assures me this will not be a problem.

Talk to you later!

Rex and I made dinner for seventeen people last night, and we didn’t set off the smoke alarm once. NOT ONCE!

I’m not sure if I’m more proud or surprised. You may or may not know that during our first year of marriage, I burned dinner so badly that I not only set off the smoke alarm in our apartment, but I set off the smoke alarm in the hallway as well.

I was cooking a frozen pizza at the time.

Anyway, the giant meal comes later in this post. We’ll get there soon. First I need to go back to where I left you earlier and get you caught up.

I don’t think I told you about the book exchange we did on Monday evening, did I? *quickly checks other post* Nope! I didn’t.

Before the trip, I asked if anyone wanted to participate in a book exchange while we’re here. I mean, we’re at the beach for a week. What’s better than some surprise reading material? I think the first few people said yes because they actually wanted to participate, and by the end I think people said yes because none of them wanted to be the only one left out of the exchange. However it happened, everyone decided to participate. Yippee!

I could write this entire post about who bought which book for whom and why all of them look like fabulous reads, but I’m not going to do that for two reasons:

1. This post would be too long.
2. You don’t actually care, do you?

Here are some pictures, though. Doesn’t it look like we’re having fun? Especially the picture where Ezra is waving his book around in joy (ummm…that’s actually a total lie. He wasn’t waving it around in joy. He kept chucking it on the ground. Which didn’t seem very thankful, so I hope he didn’t offend anyone).

I read Ezra his new Peep 123 book as a bedtime story last night, and I think he was totally into it. It was a counting book. First came 1….then 2…then 3…then (PLOT TWIST!!) 4… I mean, you just never knew what to expect.

After dinner, all the moms and dads tried to wrangle our children to bed (which is quite a long process). Then Rex went night fishing, which doesn’t sound that fun to me, but he loves it. When he came back to the house (AT 2:00 AM!), he says he found me in bed, cuddling Ezra (also asleep), next to my book with the light on my phone still on as if I was trying to read with my eyes closed. Oops! He OBVIOUSLY should have taken a picture of this scene for the blog, but I guess he doesn’t think like a blogger.

The next morning, Rex and I headed to the grocery store. It was a big day for us – the day for our family to cook dinner for everyone in the house. EEEEEEEP! My plan was to do a Pasta Bar, because the lady online promised me that it would be “fun for the whole family.” We needed quite a few groceries, though. Here was the menu for our “Build your own pasta deliciousness:”

• Four types of noodles
• Three types of homemade sauces
• Two meats (meatballs and grilled chicken)
• Veggie options (broccoli, assorted peppers, and onions)
• Two types of cheese as topping
• Italian bread with garlic spread
• Salad
• Ice cream for dessert

Apparently, in order to execute that menu well, we had to buy ALL of Wal-Mart. Plus, each family is on our own for lunches/snacks, so we stocked up on stuff for that as well. When all was said and done, the final grocery bill was…

…well, a lot. I won’t tell you the exact number because apparently talking about money isn’t proper etiquette, but here’s a picture of the groceries. You can estimate for yourself.

I timed out the meal I needed to cook, and I figured I should start cooking around 4:30. That left some time in the afternoon for relaxing! The guys ran out of bait for fishing, which is an obvious bummer, but I said to Rex, “Hey, come play in the sand with Ezra and me!” He agreed. I’m going to pretend he liked it as much as fishing.

We gathered up our supplies in a beach bag and headed down to the ocean. I considered the fact that this is probably one of the most timeless family pastimes: a day out at the beach. Families throughout centuries have been enjoying seaside fun. I bet cavemen loved the beach. Who doesn’t love the beach? It’s fun to consider that we have this in common with gazillions of other people.

Here’s Ezra looking like a model with his serious face on while his parents look like goons:

While we were down at the beach, Ezra played in the sand, and I talked to Rex about the new book I got from the book exchange (Raising Amazing by Monica Swanson). “I already read the first chapter,” I said, “and I like it. It’s about being an ‘all-in’ parent and prioritizing your kids. Like, I need to get off my phone and pay more attention to Ezra, you know?”

Just then, Ezra started doing something cute. I don’t even remember what. But I immediately said, “Where is my phone? I need a picture. AHH! I NEED MY PHONE!” So clearly the book hasn’t actually taught me that much yet. Also, I don’t know if Courtney bought the book new for me, but it certainly looks new. It was in pristine condition…until Ezra took a bite of the cover. There’s nothing that says “you need this” more than a parenting book with a bite taken out of the cover.

Our idyllic time at the beach was cut short by an Ezra meltdown. We suspect maybe he got some sand in his eye, or maybe he suddenly remembered he was hungry, but it was time to head inside in a hurry. We got him some food and sat on the deck for a while to enjoy the sun. Then Rex went to go catch sand fleas to use as fishing bait.

I honestly went to Google right now and searched “picture of sand fleas” to use on this blog, but they’re all too disgusting and I don’t want to freak you out. Look it up on your own if you want. I thought “sand fleas” would look kind of like fruit flies but in the sand. OH NO. They are these large beetle-y looking things with white wiggly legs and gross heads and they’re living just under the sand. Ahhhhh! I may never dig in the sand ever again.

At 4:30, it was time to start cooking.

In the kitchen, my mother-in-law already made a crock pot full of pea soup, and my sister-in-law Stephanie already made these “energy bites” ball things that are filled with…I don’t know, health. But they taste good. I told Rex that I KNOW I’m not the best cook in the family, and I might be the worst cook in the family, but did they really have to make all this “backup plan” food? I mean, if our dinner was really a disaster, we’d just order pizzas or something. We didn’t need crock pot soup and energy bites to survive the evening!

(Disclaimer: I’m sure Steph and Pat would *claim* they weren’t making backup food. Just lunches and snacks to enjoy throughout the week. But they made them on the same day that Rex and I were supposed to make dinner. Coincidence?? You be the judge).

Rex was still catching sand fleas (*barf*), so I got my part of the meal started. Luckily, the backup food crew had moved out by this point. Ezra hung out in his activity center and helped me. Here we are getting ready to make the meal:

I always cook with music, so I turned on some T-Swift and then some Britney. I usually sing along, but Courtney was sitting on the couch in the living room. She didn’t want to hear me sing (to be fair, I didn’t ask her. But still). I lip-synched the lyrics and danced around the kitchen. I may only have one audience member, but he’s a major fan. This was his face pretty much every time I looked at him:

Here was Rex grilling downstairs:

Dinner turned out great! I mean, who knew that was going to happen?? I made the three sauces and then put them in roasting pans in the oven to keep warm, then I made the rest of the ingredients. Rex grilled the chicken. I think everything was relatively warm at the same time, and I was very impressed with myself. For the three sauces, I made a meat sauce, an Alfredo, and a Skyline chili. Since most people hadn’t had Skyline, I explained it:

“My dad grew up in Cincinnati, and this is a really common pasta sauce there. It’s kind of a cultural thing. It is traditionally served with cheddar cheese, but you can eat it however you want.”

I inwardly rolled my eyes at myself. It’s a “culture thing” that is “traditionally” served with cheddar cheese? Like this is some exotic food from the far off land of Ohio? I mean, if the most exotic food I eat this week comes from Ohio, I’m actually okay with that. None of this sushi or haggis nonsense.

Everyone either enjoyed the meal or pretended to enjoy it. The lady online was right: fun for the whole family! I was so relieved that it went well. A pasta bar is kind of a lot of work, but the result is really enjoyable. I might do it again sometime if I have to feed a lot of people.

I’m going to wrap this post up here to give it a logical break since I caught you up to the end of last night. The next post will include today, where we’re currently under a tornado watch, and I saw inappropriate Barbies at Goodwill. You can look forward to that.

Bye for now!

The week before spring break, it is really common for teachers to ask each other what they’re doing with their week off. That means I had this conversation about a dozen times over the past week:

Person: What are you doing for spring break?

Me: I’m going to Florida…

Person: Oh! *happy face*

Me: …with all of my in-laws.

Person: OH. *concerned face*

It’s like they don’t know whether to be happy for me or say, “I’ll pray for you.”

My in-laws are actually pretty fabulous, so I think we’ll be fine. Also, there’s been a Webb Baby Boom in the past couple of years, so there are now seven grandkids under the age of four. With that much cuteness around, how can anyone be ornery? Ezra is in the middle-ish of the lineup, so he has lots of cousins his age.

I’m calling this “Post 1” instead of “Day 1” because I probably won’t be able to post every day. Something about having a one-year-old who refuses to nap on vacation is making me a little busy, you know? Plus, FAMILY TIME. Squirreling away at a picnic table below the deck doesn’t exactly scream “team player.”

Yet here I am at said picnic table, talking to you. Welcome to our vacation!

This was Ezra’s first multi-day road trip. You might say, “Wow, you road tripped with a one-year-old? How brave.” But NO – I tell you – we cannot take the credit for being “the brave ones.” That prize goes to my sister-in-law Courtney and brother-in-law Tom, who road tripped with a ONE MONTH OLD. *lots of applause*

It was a two-day trip to get to the beach house, and I won’t bore you with all the details. Here are a couple highlights, though.

Ezra is using his big boy car seat for the first time. Two of my sisters-in-law have the same car seat, and they love it. When Rex and I went to the store to get one, I was shocked at how expensive it was. “Rex,” I said. “This is like the LEXUS of car seats. Do we really need this?”

“No,” he said sarcastically. “Let’s get our baby the KIA of car seats. Let’s save money on safety.”

Oh. Right.Good point. So fancy pants car seat it is.

The car seat swivels so you can easily take the baby out of the car, then swivels back to lock the baby in. At every single stop on the road trip, Rex made beeping sounds when swiveling the car seat in and then, when it clicked, said, “Okay, Ezra. We’re ready for launch.” Ez does kind of look like an astronaut in this thing:

I asked Rex if we could listen to Dateline podcasts on the way down, but he said only after dark because then they’re “extra murderer-y.” So during the daylight hours, we listened to country music and podcasts about turkey hunting. Unsurprisingly, I read my book. Now I’m not prepared to turkey hunt. Alas.

Here are some rest stop pics of my favorite guys:

We stopped at a hotel in Hurricane, West Virginia. This was Ezra’s first hotel stay – hooray! We got in around midnight, so I don’t think he fully appreciated the experience.

He was excited about it in the morning, though, crawling around and exploring the room. Then he found himself in the mirror, and WELL. What a treat. I hope he doesn’t grow up to be a narcissist, but if he does then I’ll be able to reference this blog and say, “Ah. There were early signs.”

We finally arrived at the beach house, and we got settled in. When I say “beach house,” I don’t mean “house where you walk ten minutes and find a beach.” I mean BEACH HOUSE. Here’s the view from the deck. It’s beautiful.

All the families arrived safely by Saturday night, which means we made it in time for Easter. Yay! Jake picked a nearby church, and we all put on our Easter best and headed out on Sunday morning. It’s obviously not our normal church, so I think Ezra was a bit concerned about the theology:

The service was great, though, and then we headed back to the beach house for a giant Easter dinner. I tried to get an “Easter portrait” of Ezra, but this is the best I got.

For dinner, we had ham, potatoes, stuffing, casseroles, salads, fruit…the works. My mother-in-law took no shortcuts. Each family is responsible for making dinner one night, and this was hers. You just WAIT until the day Rex and I make dinner. There’s a chance it won’t go well because I’m not the best cook, but the worse it goes, the better the blog post. So there’s that.

After dinner was the Easter egg hunt. My mother-in-law went all out (again, no shortcuts). The eggs were color-coded by grandkid so that they could have age-appropriate snacks in them. Each cousin had to find twenty-three eggs. Ezra’s color was orange.

I wasn’t sure how this was going to go, as Ezra has never done an Easter egg hunt before. I showed him where to find the first egg. He picked it up, and I held out his bucket and said, “In.”

At home, he routinely plays a game my parents made up called “In and Out.” Here’s how it works: you hold up a box and give Ezra a toy. When you say, “in,” he’s supposed to put the toy in the box. When you say “out,” he’s supposed to take the toy out of the box. Repeat 700 times.

Anyway, all this “In and Out” totally prepared him for the Easter egg hunt. When I said “in,” he dropped the egg in the bucket. Go Ezra!

This was going pretty well. I’d point out an egg, Ezra would pick it up, then he would put it in his bucket. He was having a grand time. Then he accidentally squeezed an egg too hard, and it opened. His favorite snack (tomato puffs) was inside. He looked surprised but also thrilled, as if a thought bubble popped up over his head that said, “THESE EGGS ARE ALL FULL OF PUFFS?!? JACKPOT!!” He tried to stuff all three puffs in his mouth at once. Then it got a little more complicated to collect the eggs, because who wants to put an egg in the bucket when you could crack it open and get treasure?!

Finally, we collected all twenty-three eggs. Then the guys went fishing. Ezra and I putzed around the house for a little bit, then we went down to go see Rex. It was getting a little cold as it got darker, so Rex put Ezra in his jacket like a baby kangaroo. Ezra quite enjoyed it.

Here’s a picture of Grandpa fishing, which Ezra also enjoyed:

By the time we went to bed, I think everyone was having a pretty good time.

THEN. DISASTER.

I wasn’t even going to include this part, because who wants to hear the bad parts of vacation? But my sister-in-law Michelle said, “If you’re going to tell the story of the trip, you should tell the WHOLE story.” So here goes:

My nieces Amelia and Zoe (Michelle and Paul’s daughters) came down with the plague or leprosy or some other mysterious illness. Paul sent me these pictures so you’ll get the idea. They’re somehow still cute in spite of the faces full of scary. Their whole bodies were splotchy and red. And even though we obviously want family togetherness, I admit I was secretly thinking, “Ahhh! Ezra! Don’t play with them!”

They went to urgent care this morning. Their dad Paul (a pediatrician) wasn’t totally panicked, so I figured maybe there was some simple explanation as to why the girls’ skin decided to revolt against them.

It turns out they were having an allergic reaction to the medication they’re taking for an ear infection. So that’s good news because:

1. It’s easily fixable, and
2. It’s not contagious

Hooray! The vacation continues!

The weather has been beautiful ever since we got here, so we spent some time in the sand today. Ezra got some practice sharing his sand toys with his cousin Madi. Madi was better at sharing than Ezra was, but she has a brother and also she’s two and a half. So she’s had more experience with the idea of sharing, and I’m trying to give Ezra a break because this is new to him. At least he didn’t hit her or push her or anything. He would just look at me and start crying, as if to say, “But I want the red castle and she has the red castle and life is COMPLETELY UNFAIR!!!” Then, because I’ve seen good moms do this sometimes, I said, “Okay. We’re going to let Madi play with it for two minutes, and then you can play with it for two minutes. Got it?” He didn’t get it. So we’ve got some work to do, but luckily we’ve got all week to work on it. Or maybe I’ll make this easier and throw away the red castle so no one gets it.

Kidding (mostly).

Here’s a picture of him taking the red castle and Madi looking at me like, “HELLO? AREN’T YOU GOING TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT THIS?!”

The guys, meanwhile, have been fishing all day. Rex is on his second run to the bait shop as I type this. Rex even used sunscreen today, and I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve seen him do that. But if it’s the price to pay to stay outside and fish, game on.

Rex’s dad caught a hammerhead shark, which was pretty cool. I’ve never touched one before today, but now I have! And now Ezra has too, though I don’t think he fully appreciated the experience.

When we played in the sand without Madi, Ezra had full reign of the sand toys. Unfortunately, he decided that eating the sand would be more fun. He would bring a handful to his mouth, then before he could eat it I’d take the sand out and say, “No! We don’t eat sand.” We did this about twenty times. Then he finally gave up, turned away from me, and reached for a sand toy. I was happy he was finally following directions.

Um. When he was turned away from me, he reached for the sand toy with one hand, then surreptitiously took a huge handful of sand with the other and stuck it in his mouth. Because he knew I couldn’t see him. What a SNEAK!

Why does he even want to eat sand? That cannot taste good. I’m dreading his next poopy diaper. Maybe I’ll post a picture of it (kidding for real this time. No one wants to see that. Including me. Maybe I’ll change it with my eyes closed).

Rex is almost back from the bait shop, so I need to finish this post up. It’s almost my turn for Ezra duty again.

When I told one of my friends about this trip, she said, “The Webbs are a special clan.” That’s true in so many ways. Stay tuned for more adventures!

When Lauren walked into the room this morning, Rex and I were on the floor with Ezra, entertaining him during tummy time so he’d be encouraged to keep his head up. Rex’s phone played music, and he and I made small stuffed animals dance to the songs. When looking at it from Lauren’s perspective, it was probably a little weird: grown adults making a stuffed pug and a baby Sasquatch dance to cowboy tunes. But hey, parents gotta do what parents gotta do.

We didn’t waste time this morning – it was a beautiful day, and we wanted to get on the trails!

Our first hike was to Rock House. It was allegedly a cool rock formation. I’m not exactly sure what I was picturing, but what it was turned out to be WAY cooler than my expectations.

There were carvings in the rocks dating all the way back to the 1800’s. Did Gordon + Wilma really stay together 4ever? We may never know.

Next we went to Ash Cave, which was also awesome.There was a skinny waterfall that fell over the top of it, and we hiked right behind it. So fun! On our way out of Ash Cave, there was a sign pointing to another trail that said, “Cedar Falls — 2 miles.” I turned to Rex and Lauren and said, “Do you have a couple more miles left in you?” After all, waterfalls are fun. We decided to go for it!

Well, it was kind of a hilly two miles, which was a little difficult when carrying Ezra. At one point I said, “Whose great idea was it (*breathe*) to make the person in the worst shape (*breathe*) carry the baby? (*breathe*)” Lauren responded with, “You ran a 5k! You can do this!” and then I felt a burst of energy because she’s right. I am mama — hear me roar!

Along the hike, Lauren tried inspiring us to pick up trash. “I have three points,” she said as she picked up her third piece of trash. “You guys have zero.” Rex and I looked at each other and shrugged. Looks like Lauren will win the “picking up trash” game.

When we finally came around the last corner before the waterfall, you’re not going to believe what we saw. No, not a cool animal. No, not a beautiful stream. We saw…

A PARKING LOT.

We hiked two miles one way to get to these falls, and it turns out we could have just driven right up to them! *facepalm* Oh well. The hike through the woods was really pretty, and there weren’t too many people at the falls.

We took a break at the falls to feed Ezra and enjoy the beauty. He was having a grand old time. He seemed to like looking at the waterfall, and he definitely enjoyed his bottle. He’s the cutest hiking buddy ever. I especially appreciated him not puking on me in the hiking pack since I forgot to bring a burp cloth. #mommyfail

After a break at Cedar Falls, we hiked the two miles back to our truck. Then we stopped at Grandma Faye’s again for more ice cream. Fudge raspberry in a waffle cone for only $3.50 – you can’t beat it! After a long day of hiking, it tasted especially delicious.

Once we got home, it was time for dinner. Dinner was homemade personal pizzas. Yummy! We’ve had some great food on this trip. Tonight did not disappoint.

After dinner was over, we went outside for another fire. We finally busted out the s’more supplies, which is good because it’s our last night here. I’m not ready for vacation to be over, but vacations always seem to end eventually.

Thanks for coming on this adventure with us. Let’s hope Ezra does okay in the car tomorrow! We’ll see you next time. 🙂

Today was supposed to be stormy all day, so we made plans to go into town and avoid getting caught outside miles from shelter in a thunderstorm with a baby. Of course that would have made a good blog post, but the amount of stupid stuff I’m willing to do “for the blog” does have its limits.

This morning, though, the weather was great! It was hard to believe that a storm was on the way, but the tornado watch alert on my phone made me wary of hiking too far. We decided to stick to the trails close to our cabin. Our AirBnB is on thirty-eight acres, and there are trails cut all through it. With no other people to run into, that meant it was a great time to bring the dogs. Elvis is almost totally deaf, and he gets really nervous around dogs who aren’t in our family. We don’t usually take him places where he’ll run into other dogs, but today was his day! He LOVED hiking on the trails and sniffing around everywhere and peeing on things (so the entirety of this thirty-eight acres now belongs to Elvis).

We tried to bring Penny too, but that was a little trickier. You see, last week she got injured AT THE VET’S OFFICE (that’s a long story), and she’s on strict crate rest for two weeks. It’s been so sad to bring her on vacation and leave her in the crate so much. She looks really pathetic when she’s in her crate – just look at this picture. Wouldn’t you want to take her out too?

Anyway, we do have a doggy stroller (thank you, garage sale). We brought it so we could push Penny around without having her walk and re-injure herself. We tried pushing it around on the trails, but the terrain was so uneven that it was hard to push the stroller, and all the jostling around couldn’t have been good for her hurt hip and back. So her walk ended up being pretty short, but at least she got some fresh air and got to see the world!

Ruby didn’t get to go into the woods with us because Rex said she’d think she was hunting and would be bananas on a leash. For her outside time, she sat in the lawn and tried to avoid Boomer’s advances. Boomer is Lauren’s foster pug who hasn’t been neutered, and he’s in LOVE with Ruby. He goes completely nuts around her. He was on the balcony gazing down at her lovingly when we wouldn’t let him be around her. But I mean, who can blame him? She’s a pretty dog.

As we were hiking back to the cabin from our trail hike, we heard thunder roll. The storm was heading our way after all.

We went into town and had a delicious lunch at the Olde Dutch House. It reminded me very much of Essenhaus in Shipshewana. It was a buffet full of amazing food. I feel bad for Ezra that he can only have milk, because he missed out on some good eats today.

While at lunch, I got a text from our AirBnB host that the power was out at our cabin due to the storm. Oh no! We decided to stay in town for a while rather than head back right away to a cabin with no power. Plus, the Olde Dutch House was right next to an antique mall. Who doesn’t love an antique mall?

We walked around the antique mall, and Rex pulled me aside and said, “This is the largest collection of junk I have ever seen in my life.” There were over 100 vendors! And sure, some stuff was junk, but isn’t that kind of in the eye of the beholder? There were super cool things and super weird things too. Here – I got you this for Christmas:

He he just kidding. I did buy a couple things, though. I’m very excited about the fifty-cent postcards, and I bought a bunch of those. I’m going through a “sending out postcards” phase, where I find postcards at my house that I bought during various trips and send them to people. I usually say something like, “I’m not really in the Bahamas, but this card was cool…” Who doesn’t love getting a postcard? And the person doesn’t care that I wasn’t really in the Bahamas. It’s mail that’s not a bill – that’s fun! I found the weirdest postcards I could. For example, here’s a postcard of a well in West Virginia.

Here’s one of this weird ancient family.

Who wouldn’t want to get one of those postcards in the mail?? And it’s not like there’s some expiration date that won’t let me send old postcards. A postcard is a postcard is a postcard. Slap a stamp on it, and POOF! It will go to the right house. So fun.

We also found a baby doll that was almost the same size as Ezra. Lauren and Rex matched.

It was unsettling how many of these “antiques” were things from my childhood. I’m not THAT old, am I?? But there were lots of beanie babies, Furbies (oh my word remember FURBIES?!), and other nineties toys that I probably have lurking in a box somewhere.

We were supposed to have homemade pizzas for dinner, but because we didn’t know how long we’d be without power, we bought Subway instead. It poured rain all the way home — the kind of rain where it’s so loud pounding the windshield that you can barely hear each other talk. The windshield wipers were working up a sweat, and Rex could still barely see the road.

When we got back to the cabin, the power had been restored! Yay! The clocks were blinking, which confirmed the power was off at one point, but happily we were all set for the evening. After Ezra went to bed, we went in the hot tub again.

Once we were wrinkled prunes, we came back inside. Lauren went to bed a couple minutes ago, I’m writing to you, and Rex is watching more MMA (Lineker vs. Kim, if you must know).

Tomorrow is supposed to be beautiful, so we’ll probably head back to the trails, but our inside day turned out to be tons of fun.