Dial Up is sooooo slooooow!

Well, I guess this is progress. I'm actually posting from home. We are going to get DSL internet, a home phone, and mobile for Mark as part of a package through Boeing. In the long run it will be a good deal, but it may take a while and in the meantime we have to persevere with the glacially slow rate (I refuse to call it speed) of dial up and only on Mark's work laptop at that.

Another weekend has gone by with us doing anything too out of the ordinary, which for us is actually quite extraordinary. No regattas, hikes, ski excursions, road trips, hmmm, maybe by next weekend our feet will start getting itchy. That's not to say that we just sat around. Saturday, we got Erik a new bike, sans (without) training wheels, and spent half the day at Rocks Riverside Park. The park is relatively new and has an interesting history. Coral was dredged from Morton Bay, just off the coast then shipped up river to where the park is now and then sent to via conveyor belt to a cement factory a few miles inland. Needless to say, as Australia became more environmentally aware, this practice was was no longer allowed, and the docking site was converted into a park. Segments of the conveyor belts, huge viaduct like arches, are still in place as is some of the remaining heavy equipment and layers of crushed coral.

Both Mark and I got quite the work out running around helping Erik stay upright. I think it will take a few more sessions before he will be riding solo. Although it was painfully slow, I uploaded a picture of Erik playing on some of the cool Australian play equipment. Yes, that little dot up at the top is him.

Sunday we went to South Bank and Streets Beach, one of Erik's favorite places in Brisbane. It's a series of open outdoor "beaches" really chlorinated pools built into the riverbank promenade. Each pool has its own shore with sugar sand, rocks, bridges and palm trees. I've probably wrote about this before, but its a pretty amazing place to have right downtown.

To round out the weekend we went to a BBQ hosted by Mark's boss and met the other Boeing families and swapped stories about big bugs and other adventures we have had thus far. They all seem quite nice and hopefully we will see more of them over the course of our stay.