A little Late For Christmas

I know it is a little late but I just realized that I never really talked about the kids favorite Christmas toys. As usual their favorite things were from their relatives. They got a gift cirtificate to the app store, iron-on make your own monster t-shirt designs (oh CA grandparents Ethne left hers there somewhere and is sad about it. If you find it will you save it for her?), Playmobile, Legos, animals from the "Cleland" Wildlife park and more. So fun!

Ethne loves her Playmobile as you read in the last post. She has so much fun with it and feels so grown up and more a part of her brothers life since she got it.

She also got a tea set that she loves and has had a lot of fun playing with her brothers with that although they never play long or in quite the way she wants them too.

The boys spend hours with their Playmobile and Legos and build and rebuild everything over and over. They also LOVE to take them apart and make other things out of the sets. I think I might be a little OCD about their toys though and i'll tell you why. It is hard for me to watch them take apart the Legos after working so hard to build the set. They spend a lot of time building the pirates of the carribean toy, or whatever it happens to be, and then by the next day it is in pieces all over the floor and they have made 5 different things out of the pieces. I have to fight the urge to snatch them all up and put it back together :) silly I know but it drives me crazy.

The thing is too, it is GOOD for them to do this because that is the thing I love about Legos- they can be creative, inventive and imaginative. So why then do I freak out when they take them all apart? I guess because I worry that they will loose a lot of the pieces and will never be able to build the original design again :) oh well. At least I keep these thoughts mostly hidden from the kids and alow them to be creative.

In their stockings they each got a chocolate Bilby, which we at first thought was a rabbit, :) it was from Haighs Chocolate store in Adelaide. Then we found out from our friends that they don't have the Easter Bunny in AU, they have the Easter Bilby and that is what they were. I don't know why but we all thought that was super cool. Maybe it is because the Bilby is my new favorite animal :)

Another thing the kids got in their stockings this year were exotic fruits. Between us all there were Fresh figs, kiwis, a pomegranate, pears, AU apples and three different types of Lychees. There was a spiky one, one that looked like a tiny round Asian pear and one that looked like a large hairy raspberry. Each was exactly the same on the inside though. How is that possible? Three fruits so different on the outside but exactly the same on the inside. Santa truly does bring things from the country you are residing in I guess because this year there were all things Australian. He even brought smoked macadamia nuts and spicy macadamia nuts. The kids and Garrett loved those. I didn't eat them. Because although I love a good macadamia nut, I like them roasted and salted or covered in chocolate best. Mine came in Dark chocolate :)

Garrett got two exotic chocolate bars from Haighs as well for us to try. They have this series of chocolate where the cocoa beans come from only one location. Usually when you buy chocolate it is made from beans from many places. These bars are each exclusive to one place. He got one from Equador where they are floral and woody and he got another one from Puru where the beans have more of a fruity taste. It was amazing to taste the difference. I liked the one from Peru best even though it wasn't the darkest one. The fruity notes were tastier to me than the floral/woody ones. It was fun though to see the difference between them. I used to get bar chocolate for baking in NZ that came from beans in Ghana and was really dark. It had a totally different flavor from these two kinds.

I wonder if most people know that chocolate is a lot like coffe, wine and cheese. The place it starts from and the manner and care with which it is prepared makes a huge difference in the flavor, texture and price of the chocolate. One day I want to go to one of the chocolate shops in Europe where all they sell is chocolate- not confections but just the pure unadulterated chocolate for baking, melting, and cooking. I have seen them in cooking shows before but never been near one. They look just like a cheese shop but with bars and chunks of chocolate instead of cheese. I will add that to my bucket list I think.