Plenty to do!

The beauty of living in a new City or town is that there are so many new activities to enjoy! Yesterday we headed into the Queensland Museum, then had another swim at Street's Beach. At the Museum there was a Dinosaur exhibition, and a science exhibit similar to Scienceworks in Melbourne.

Emily and Rosie with a Fossilised Stegosaurus plate. 

Emily and Rosie really enjoyed the Dinosaur stuff, some of the fossils where of particular interest,  Coprolite seemed to amuse the kids as you would expect! Quite a few of the science exhibits also struck a chord with the girls.

Rosie the T Res and Emily the Raptor - Hilarious stuff!

Whilst eating some lunch we witnessed something I feel the need to share. The coffee shop had a challenge to customers that involved balancing a coin on a lemon floating in a bowl. If you could place the coin on the lemon using only one hand and have it stay there for five seconds you would receive a free coffee, if the coin fell into the bowl it was gone. I happened to see one little unfossilised coprolite give it a go. His first attempt with a coin that was provided by his mother was unsuccessful. What happened next I could not believe! The kid stuck his hands in the bowl grabbed a coin and had another go, no luck so he did it again, five more times until he got the coin to stay on the lemon this time using both hands. Once finally successful he gained the attention of the barista and pointed out his success. The barista then as per the challenge offered a coffee to kid's mother who accepted it with just a little too much excitement, saying well done (insert prats name) what a good boy! It was just a little too much for me given she was watching the cheating little turd. The little prick then had the temerity to pocket the successful coin he had grabbed out of the bowl, Mum didn't bat an eyelid - way to set an example for your kids and all for a $3.50 coffee, horrid people!

All the girls then cooled off at Street's Beach, I would suggest to all and sundry that swimming at this venue on weekends should be avoided. The extra chlorine dosed into the pool to cope with the enormous number of weekend visitors was very noticeable.

We have had some more wildife visitors, including many Water dragons (Physignathus lesueurii), mainly along the creek, but they also frequent the odd swimming pool in the area. Emily and I walked the dog the other night and saw dozens of Black Flying Foxes (Pteropus alecto) I also disturbed one in our fruit trees out the back. The loudest of our neighbors are no doubt the Double drummer cicada (Thoppa Saccata), you do get used to the noise.

 Today we got busy in part of the front garden, there was a mismatch of plants and it badly needed some TLC, we visited a couple of nurseries and got a couple of pot plants for the front entrance and some succulents and grasses for the small garden to the right of the entrance.

Silver Plum Bromeliads

We removed some near dead Gardenias and Dianthus, that weren't particularly suited to the garden bed they were planted in. There were a couple of other tree Aeonium and Cordylines that we broke up and replanted and spent a hot afternoon planting Pedilathus, Kalanchoe and Euphorbias.

Front garden when completed

We are hoping for some cooler weather so that we can get right into the gardens.

Charlie has thus far found the hidden fence to be an impenetrable wall of pain! The receiver collar has an LED light that flashes to indicate if he has received a correction. Friday night he had been on the end of a correction after following the dog from next door, so when we headed to the Museum yesterday we left him out and drove around the block to see if he would escape. He did try to get out as the collar indicated but he had not crossed the boundary and was sitting on the front step wagging his tail upon our return.

Today we went to the nursery and again we left him out, this time he didn't try his luck and was again waiting on the front step when we returned, the same thing again this arvo when we did the groceries. The Hidden fence is a ripper and Charlie has pretty quickly learned he cannot escape sans being zapped beyond his current pain threshold. He has one final training session this week, not that I think he needs it.