Happy Holidays!

Merry Christmas!!
We had a lovely Christmas here at home just the 3 o f us. We got up early with Henry & made coffee & had a bottle of milk (Henry) before getting to the presents, then went to town unwrapping. We got each other lots of good stuff & even opened some really nice presents from John & Laurie. Thank you so much! We got a call from them as well & were able to have a Skype while Henry opened their gifts. He loves everything he got.
We went to the neighbors up the hill to play a Christmas croquet tournament. I won!!!! (Kristen) thank you very much! We had a nice smoked ham & cabbage salad & homemade stuffing of course for dinner & went to bed extremely late, because the little man was just not ready for Christmas to end apparently. He finally passed out after lots fo protest around midnight!!!! Jack had a fever & all over body rash about 3 days ago & Henry caught it yesterday on Christmas…how fortunate! He is fien & the fever has gone, but the rash remains. It is all over his body from head to toe! He looks like he has chicken pox, but he doesn’t. Little Scarlett ( 6 months old) has the same thing…also caught from Jack. On top of this unfortunate turn of events, Henry received 3 new teeth last night as a nice extra Christmas present. He did not sleep soundly. They are through the skin today & very nice. He is having a well deserved nap as I am writing this.
It is officially the rainy season here now & we had our first category 1 cyclone on Christmas eve..not to worry, a cyclone is not a major thing here. Especially a category 1. We did have trees fall down in the woods though, and lots of rain. The rain is so hard & so loud that the tv on top volume is still to quiet to hear properly. It’s crazy. The rain brings creepy crawlies with it though. All the critters want to come inside to get out of it, so we come in contact with much more than we are used to…and that’s been a lot. For example… last night (Christmas) I went over to the bed to get the flashlight, to go to the bathroom, and next to the bed on the wall was the largest spider I have seen so far on this trip…needless to say I freaked out a bit & Ben, with some well aimed whacks killed it quite quickly. I was feeling very pleased & went on my way out to the bathroom, which is outside…and the bushes had overgrown the walkway at the stairs a bit, so I accidently brushed up against them on my way up & looked back to make sure nothing creepy had hitched a ride on me just about the time I stepped on a HUGE python!!! It was in the bathroom across the top of the stairs waiting out the rain. I freaked out a bit at first; not knowing which kind of snake it was that I had just stepped on, because the flashlight was so dim. I could see it’s head looking at me, and when I leaned down to get a closer look, luckily it turned out to be a 14ish foot amethystine python, and not a red bellied black snake, or something else venomous. Ben came to my rescue with the broom & poked at it from behind until it left.
This morning Ben & I were looking for something in Henry’s drawers, because he likes to hide things in there & I opened the last one to find a HUGE skink taking a nap in nice snuggly comfort. I thought it was the toy crocodile I had gotten Henry for Christmas & went to grab it, when it freaked out & ran from me, which freaked me out, because I thought it was fake, which freaked Ben out, because I yelled & all he saw was the tail, which looked like a snake going behind the cabinet, which scared Henry, because he got snatched up so quickly & had no idea what was going on. We got a good laugh out of it a minute later, but at the time it was really freaky.
Then, while I was making dinner on the stove, the biggest spider I have ever seen in person…way bigger than yesterday’s spider popped out from behind the stove & walked across the wall behind it… I screamed, obviously, and Ben came running, and also freaked out & he is NOT afraid of spiders….so you know it was big. He sprayed it at least a dozen times with “instant kill” spider spray & it was still running around & climbing the wall, so he had to whack it several times with a thick magazine as well & I still wasn’t satisfied that it was dead, but finally it stopped moving. CREEPY!!!!
…so that’s what we are dealing with here. I will go to bed tonight thinking of all the creepers running loose in our house & wishing I had a bug net over my bed like Henry. Lucky boy!
It’s pretty cool watching the rain come down though. Ben & Hamish had to drive through really deep water to get home from work the other day, because the road was flooded. Henry is getting up, so I need to go, but we will keep in touch. We are packing this week & headed out on Saturday if all goes well, then after a quick drive down the coast we will arrive at the airport for our flight home on the 13th. We are really excited to see everyone!!! We miss you all!!!