Update!

What a month, its been incredibly hectic. So big M has been to Dublin, Waterloo (in Canada) and Atlanta since last post, all conferences and work visits. Waterloo was interesting in that this is a home of a Mennonite community, so we got to go to the local market and see their wares, bought some pure maple syrup which is totally delicious - we had pancakes for lunch today! There were some quilting exhibitions, the quilts were incredible, all totally hand quilted, and a couple of women sitting at a big frame showing how it is done. Amazingly skilful. So anyone who is interested in this should google for Waterloo and quilting. The place we went was St Jacobs market. Other than that a quite uneventful trip - other than plane being cancelled in Toronto due to the mother of all thunderstorms. Unfortunately my suitcase was on the tarmac when it hit - so everything in my case was soaked and had to be sent to the laundry when I got to Atlanta. Luckily M has done this enough to know that the FIRST thing you do with a cancelled flight is get a hotel room in the airport hotel THEN you get on the phone to the airline where you can sit on hold for 2 hours to get rebooked - that way you dont end up in a line for 4 hours and sleeping in the airport as many poor souls did!!! Only got 3 hours sleep but better than nothing.
SO of course once M got back we were all getting ready for J to have his tonsils out. But of course in the week before he decided to dislocate his wrist (off to emergency) and later that night develop raging toothache resulting in a tooth extraction the next morning. His parents didnt even wait for the dentist to open just turned up there with crying child so they couldnt fob us off with an appointment at some time later in day/week. UK has made us hard with dealing with medical personnel!! Then on Saturday off to hospital for the tonsils. Didnt like the anaesthetic, said he thought his head was going to explode. But the hospital experience was faultless - they were unbelievably good with the kids. One nurse does a long shift so the kids have the same person all day, then a night nurse comes in after they are pretty much asleep and the same day nurse back the next day. It was really very good - strict protocol of dealing with the kids in age order, something they all relate to - the bigger kids quite proud of waiting for the littler kids to be done first. They had about 6 overnight patients (clearly this was a little private hospital) and it was very good. Then J came home and has been recovering slowly - he became annoying yesterday afternoon so we know things are improving. Still lots of painkillers in order though.
R has been playing cricket the last couple of days (!!) He decided he quite enjoyed it, was very stiff after saturday effort, so waiting to see how he holds up today - he has been gone about 6 hours today, so he may be joining J in lying around groaning tomorrow I guess.
10 weeks until we leave roughly. Looks like we will head for HK about 16 September, M has a conference there, kids will do Disneyland and experience a little bit of Asia after spending years just rushing through it, and then aim to be in HObart probably 21 September. New school term starts in tas on 22 September, but that might be just too cruel!! No pictures I am afraid until R uploads from his camera. And as you can gather with all that sickness we havent been doing too much of interest!