It's been a long time!

Henry loves balloons!

Skyping is one of our favorite things!

Kewarra beach, our weekend hangout

Jungle walk

Henry in his little monkey towel at the lagoon in Cairns.

Henry is good at making new friends. (He's in the red)

Getting sprayed by a jet at muddy's at the Cairns Esplanade

Water baby

Snuggles up with his favorite blankie after swim lessons

Fuzzy caterpillar...a perfect fly fishing lure. (this thing is much larger than it appears.)

Swim lessons, instructor Gary in the background

Playing in the pool after lessons.

Playing with his Swim lesson friend Mayella.

Swim lesson group.

Kick, kick, kick!

Sand everywhere!

He can get in the chair all by himself now.

Lounging...no room for anyone else in this chair!

So proud of himself.




Wow, It's been a while since we wrote!

We have been keeping busy! It's been so ridiculously hot here, we are never home! We try to be in or around the water as much as humanly possible. When we are not at the beach, we go to the waterfront down in Cairns where it is free to swim in their lagoon & "fake beach" and use the kids water park with waterspouts cool water features. The real ocean & beach are too dangerous this time of year in Cairns, so they built all this cool stuff to keep people out of the water. It works!! The beach we go to is out of town a ways & it is jelly netted off & free of crocs etc.... so we feel safe there.

Ben got to take Henry to two swim lessons, which was great, because it allowed me to take some great pictures & videos of it. He does such a good job & he is actually improving his swimming skills! He kicks now & reaches underwater for things. He can also pull himself out of the pool, which is the first thing he got taught. He climbs out, then jumps (from sitting position) back in, then repeats. he has no fear, which scares me a little, but is great at the same time. he is the only baby not to cry in swim class & when we get to the beach he crawls in head first as fast as he can go until the waves wash over his head, before retreating & doing it again. We have been body surfing him in on little waves & he laughs so hard! It's awesome.

We are loosing the car next week, because our friends are selling it, so we will not be leaving the house as much anymore. I had to fight off another python the other night, but lost the battle & it ate our rooster...which makes me really happy actually, because it was really annoying & crowed all day starting at 2 am. It never failed to wake Henry from his naps. I'm sure I would have strangled it myself eventually if the Python hadn't done it for me.

On a positive note, no date has been set, but we are coming home early. We are looking into flights & booking one tonight, so we will know more soon, but it's most likely going to happen in January. We are thrilled to see everyone again & although we love Australia despite it having too many creepy crawlies, it's just not home. We miss snow & all of you! It's going to be a bit of a temperature shock, so we will have to dig out our heaviest winter gear the minute we get to our storage unit.

See you all soon. Hopefully we will have a date tonight!!

Oh, also , Congratulations Doug & Janice!!!! Beautiful wedding!! So glad we could be a part of it. Thanks Jessica!! Mom, we need to skype soon!

Love you all!!!

xoxox Team Davidson.

!!! Lots of pictures !!!

The Building site...

The wood is a hardwood called spotted gum.

Lots of posts for the house to sit on.

A lovely frog Ben found in the bathroom.

He makes a HUGE noise when he puffs his throat out. So cool!

Look at what we grow here!!! No shortage of fruits or veggies ever!

Our resident python

We caught her trying to steal a chicken.

Part of the garden. Lots of veggies.


Henry dropping food off the high chair for the chicken.... I was not in the house... Usually Henry drops food over board for the chickens when we eat outside.

Messy baby

Upside down fun with dad

So cute in his little overalls. (they were Ben's when he was little!!)

The pool at our local tavern. If you get a drink, a swim is free. Very nice! That's Jack, Sarah, ,& Hamish on the bottom right side of the pool.

Cairns has a really nice free Botanical garden. We had a nice walk around.

Carpet Python in the driveway, notice the jungle boy on top of the car..

Crazy plants.

Wearing daddy's sun hat.

Getting a smooch from a baby cow at the dairy farm!!

White lipped tree frog, fairly rare, especially this large. It was just outside the house.

Ben & Henry in the bouncy castle!

Where to start?

It's been a while since we wrote. We have been really busy & Ben & I have been sick with a nasty cough the last few weeks. Henry is healthy though luckily. We have been walking around like zombies a lot from lack of sleep. Ben has been working hard helping Hamish with the house. The job site is showing progress, although it's moving a bit slow due to the amount of special order metal parts & galvanizing, and hand notching all the hardwood, etc....

Henry is happily attending swim lessons every Tuesday, and playgroup on Wednesday. He also plays with Jack most days, and other friend's children at least once a week. He wants to be a big boy so bad! He sees the other kids running around having fun, and he wants to be in the action all the time. I feel bad for him sometimes, because when he plays with the other kids I have to constantly pull things away from him that he can't have, or remove him from the room if the other kids are getting to rough. He doesn't understand why everyone but him can do what they want. I caught him in jacks room a few weeks ago about to put a marble in his mouth...... Never trust a 5 year old to make sure babies don't put anything in their mouth...luckily I didn't trust him & peeked in constantly. Henry is a full on busy little boy. Almost nothing in the house is safe. He gets stuff off the coffee table, the bed, the linen cabinet, pulls his diapers out of their bag, laundry out of the basket, shoes out of my closet, hides his bottles under the couch... He has to be watched like a hawk. When he comes around the corner & is chewing on something it's usually not a good thing. I pull out bits of paper, diapers,little pieces of mud that got tracked in...you never know what you are going to find in there.

Henry is doing so well with his cruising. He walks along the couch and other objects really easily these days. He can switch from one object to another, like from the couch to the coffee table no problem. He is babbling nonsense all the time. It sounds like he's saying whole sentences, but just not in English. He says mama & dada, waves bye bye, has a hand signal & noise for his bottle. He still claps when you do & throws the ball really well. He is figuring lots of stuff out. He's very inquisitive, and in always on the move.

I'll put some pics up. Hope you enjoy them. We will try to keep posting more often. We have been a bit lazy these days.

Love you all!!

-Team Davidson.

No way!! ...

Ben & I ask Henry silly questions all the time & usually the answer is "No Way" So, the other night, Henry was sitting on Daddy's lap & I was in the kitchen making dinner, we started asking him questions like, isn't it your nap time yet, etc... with the answer (provided by Ben in the gingerbread man voice) being "No Way!"each time. On the third or so question Henry replied with No Way himself!!!!!!! He actually said it! We got really excited & tried to get him to talk again, but he hasn't yet. He said it loud & clear though!! So cool!!!
On a less cool note, we have all been a bit sick with some awesome Australian bug. Ben and Jack have a terrible cough & runny nose, while Henry & I have tummy troubles, but no cough or cold symptoms...strange. We asked around & turns out a family we know have all got the cough as well, and another family's two children have the same tummy troubles. I guess it's just going around. I'm sure we will be over it soon. Ben, Henry, & Jack went to the doctor two days ago just to get checked out & looks like we will all be well with some time. We have been home the last two days resting & taking turns looking after the little man. He seems to be holding up best out of the three of us. He doesn't even seem to realize anything is wrong with him & is racing around like a mad man keeping us very busy...which is not very easy when you aren't well.
Mom, you got it right with your wildlife refuge comment. It's ridiculous here. I can't even describe how much stuff we see everyday that we definitely don't have at home, for example, just in the last two or three days, It was late & dark out, but the boys weren't home yet from work, & Sarah started yelling at me to get over to the chicken house with a flash light as fast as possible... so, I put Henry in his crib, and sprinted across the yard around the dam to help & there she was in the pitch black with a dead flashlight trying to fight off a python that had gotten into the chicken coop. She had a rake and I was holding the door open feeling very vulnerable in my shorts & flip flops by the way, as she tried to pull the snake out of the coop. It was very reluctant to leave & quite cranky. It kept lifting it's head up off the ground & coiling up to strike, which did not help my nerves. We finally got it out & shut the door, which had mistakenly been left open..oops. I looked up on top of the coop to check the snake out better & noticed our little black chicken was sitting on top of it about a foot from the snake's head about to become dinner. I tried nudging it with the rake handle & it wouldn't move, so I reached up & tried to grab it, but was unsuccessful, so Sarah tried her luck & nabbed it by the foot. It's a bit nerve racking trying to snatch a python's prey right out from under it's nose. Anyway, the boys got home a few minutes later & we all went out & managed to wrangle it into a garbage bin. It was let loose the next morning down the road.
That's just one example... Ben saw two geckos dangling from the ceiling yesterday having an epic battle over territory.He says one was holding the other by the foot dangling it from the ceiling beam & they were squeaking ferociously at each other.
We now have a large skink living in our house, which we just leave alone, because he eats spiders & is friendly. He comes & goes through a small hole in our screen door. He's our new pet I guess. Tree frogs & cane toads everywhere, saw another big black snake in the driveway.... wallabies in the yard running through the laundry. giant earwig in the bathroom trying to attack me...bush turkey's chasing me...the list goes on...

Anyway, I'd also just like to say that Ben's birthday was on the 14th!!!!! YAY!!! He wasn't feeling really well, which was a bummer, but we went to cairns & took a walk on the beach & had a big dinner with friends complete with carrot cake & ice cream! So, Happy Birthday Ben!!!

Hope all is well at home & less eventful than it is here wildlife wise.... I'm a bit on edge all the time..you never know what you are going to find. Henry has still never touched the ground outside here.... except at the beach. We do let him play in the sand of course!

love, team Davidson!

Showers with snakes

The pad for the new house.

footings for the new house. look at that jungle!

This is what I spend half of my time doing... running around the house trying to catch & remove wildlife from our house. Here I am trying to catch the baby goanna that mistook my cupboard for his new home.

Little man standing with one hand only for support. He does this often now.

Little laughing tree frog. I rescued him from our house.

My new shower mates! Thats the entry to the shower to the left, next to the pile.This is where I found the python.

We are getting less and less surprised by the things we encounter here on a day to day basis.

Our shower here is an outdoor shower. We have a water tower next to the house and the base of it has three sides covered by green privacy screens and the fourth has a shower curtain. The shower head is inside. There is a stack of kayaks on one side, and a pile of wood on another. I was having lovely shower yesterday & walked out to find a huge python in the stack of wood just a few feet away!! I looked a bit closer, and with the python were two huge lizards. Turns out the reptiles wanted a shower too. After some further investigation we found chicken eggs in there, and are assuming that’s why we have 10 chickens and only get one egg a day. The lizards are stealing them & eating them in the wood pile.

I looked out the kitchen window this morning & sure enough, a whole family of lizards were sunning themselves there on the wood pile. I took a few pictures, but they are a little fuzzy, because I took them through the screen window.
As far as Henry goes, he’s up and standing on everything!!! He pops right up now! Nothing is safe. He can walk using the couch as something to hold onto. He can transfer from the couch to the coffee table by himself & is very mobile! I’m getting worried! He is getting so big & growing up so fast!

I thought I put pictures of Ben's job site up last time, but don't' see them, so I'll add them on to this entry so you can get an idea of where he spends most of his weekdays.

Hope you are all enjoying the pictures etc...let us know.

Nature won't stop touching me!

Sticking his tounge out at daddy.

Our friendly roommates left us some presents.

Mr. Scorpion knocking on our door.

Sailing

Out at the reef

Henry loves the beach!! Look at how tall he's getting!

Playing in the sand.

Ok, so a quick update on the last week or so's events:

Ben & Hamish got a little shelter set up at the property for protection against the rain. They also have the foundation in. I have included some pictures.

Henry & I have been very busy. Henry has been to the pools in both Kuranda & Cairns several times, he had his first official swim lesson on Friday which went really well. He learned to blow bubbles in the water & float & kick. We had a ton of fun. There is a kids park in Cairns that has water features Henry can play in and we go there often too. He is becoming a real water baby. Hamish, Ben, Henry, & I sailed the Jenkin's boat "Free @ Last" out to the Great Barrier Reef on Thursday & had a nice snorkel. I'd never seen blue coral before, so that was an cool new thing for me.

We threw some steak on the Barbie at Naomi & Rob's house on Friday night & that was awesome. We had tons of fun & Henry got to play in their pool with their little girls & Jack, so he loved it.I have been introducing everyone here to the pumpkin pie of all things. Everyone in Australia eats tons of pumpkin, but no one has ever eaten a pumpkin pie. in fact, only one person I've asked has ever heard of it. I've been asked to make 3 so far. We brought one to tea at Deb & Andrew's house, then got a request to bring one to dinner at Mic & Kim's house, then were asked to bring one to Naomi & Rob's BBQ, so I'm turning into the pumpkin pie lady. Everyone has loved it so far & word is spreading. As you can see, we have quite the social life.

We came home to some more wildlife the other day & were quite shocked by what we came across. In the middle of the living room was a giant centipede! Creepy!!! They bite & according to our bug book it will hurt for days, so we whacked it several times with a frying pan & flattened it pretty well, then after disposing of it I came back to the house to find Ben taking pictures of the doormat... Turns out there was a scorpion on it!!!! Nature won't leave us alone! How are we not supposed to touch it when it seems intent on cuddling up in our house with us?! We have also in the last few days come across a night tiger, (brown tree snake) living in the ceiling above our bed. I included a picture of it's skin that it shed. It is not really harmful, but will bite & it will hurt, so we stay clear. We killed 2 more huntsmen spiders in the last 24 hours in the living room. Nasty!!!!! I also shooed a baby goanna out of my kitchen last night only to find that it has returned today & lodged itself behind my oven.... Can't seem to get it out. Oh well. At this point I'm giving up on that one. It will pop out when it's ready.

I think that's about it for now, I'll give you a quick update on Henry before I sign off though:

New skills: Clapping, waving bye bye, and throwing the ball to you. All very cute!!!

Also: Henry can pull up on furniture & stand alone. The coffee table is no longer a safe place to put anything. He tries to just get up & stand in the middle of the room, but isn't ready, so he just falls over. It's a valiant effort though. Henry & Jack play a lot. They have a good time together. In case I forgot to mention it, He has 8 teeth now! We actually think he may be working on more too. He's coming along & has even more personality now...he already had tons before. He's sooooo busy all the time! He's loads of fun.

Ok, enjoy the pics, love you all!

xoxoxoxo Team Davidson.

Catching up on pictures

Not sure if you can read this, but it basically indicates what a great place this beach is for a swim! Box jellyfish,and Saltwater crocs will be swimming with you. Yay!!!! There is actually someone in the water to the right of the sign too.

self portrait by Henry

Henry is showing you his new fully netted bed.

The goanna that wants to hang out in our bathroom. Check out his claws.

there he is again making himself at home. I wish you could see the way he struts when he walks.

This python was trying to strangle my arm to death.

Our open air bathroom looks out onto the water dam.

looking left out of our "dining room" jungle everywhere.

last day in the states. Davidson men.

Davidsons in the park in Seattle.

Riding on uncle Steve's big pencil & radio flyer in Seattle

You have to wear a cowboy hat to the rodeo! Yee Haw!

Yay, goats!

Packing up for the trip

Henry loves big starfish. slimy!

Hope you enjoyed the pictures. We will try to keep them better updated in the future. It took me a while to figure out where I had packed the camera cord away.

I am hoping to upload some pictures of our veggie garden. I planted it about a week ago mostly from seed with a few seedlings & the seeds have already sprouted & some are already 4 & 5 inches tall!!! the tropics are insane!!! I can't believe how things grow here!!!

Hi Courtney!

Bye!