More Anzac Hill and a Bike Shop Bash

Morning shot off like a rocket. A call from Dad's Sister Gina got
everyone up and immediately following that, a knock on the door
presented Logan's best friend Bradon, with his Dad. Five minutes later
and Dad & Logan were out the door for a climb up Anzac hill. Logan had
done a partial hike up the 300 or so steps of Anzac Hill a few weeks
before, but never all the way. This time we all made the entire
distance! Well, Logan had to be carried the last 20-30 steps. At the
top, Logan and Bradon regained their energy and proceeded to run up and
down the ramp to the parking lot... as well as climb and hang out on the
guard rails while watching the little people play a game of 'footy' on
the Anzac Oval below (An oval is what they call their sport's fields in
Australia, since they generally take the shape of an oval. Also,
'footy' is another name for Australian Rules Football, not at all like
our American football, but with a very similiar looking ball).
After making it back down the hill, mostly with Dad carrying Logan, we
parted ways with Bradon and his Dad Jesse. We needed to get to the
photo shop to pick up passport photos of Dad to get his soon-to-expire
passport renewed. Along the way, we passed by and said hello to an
Aboriginal friend named Peter Taylor. He's one of the top painters in
the area and we have commissioned a number of paintings from him before
(based mostly off of photos we've taken around Alice Springs). After
getting the photos, Dad tried to go into a gift shop to try and get Mom
a birthday gift. No such luck. Logan's grubby hands were reaching out
to try and grab anything. Considering the store was filled with fragile
objects and didn't have much open space to browse, it was an accident
waiting to happen. Oh well. We headed out almost immediately. Dad
suddenly remembered he needed to stop by the Penny Farthing Bike Shop to
say hello to his friends, the owners (Trevor and Yvonne Owen). They
were celebrating their 30th anniversary of the store being open. Inside
Logan was giddy with excitement getting on and trying to ride all the
smallest kid bikes. Tamara, one of the owner's daughters, helped me out
and put a helium balloon on Logan's wrist. At first he liked it, but
soon got frothy in the mouth trying to get it off. We then went to the
little kid's play area in the shop so that Logan could have some more
fun (after all, Logan must ALWAYS have fun right!) However, rather than
playing in the kid's area, he was more interested in opening and
shutting the kid's area gate. He was quite adept at opening the gate
(just barely within reach of the latch), but if he was on the inside of
the play area and closed the gate, he was too short to reach over and
get back out. This meant that Dad couldn't leave the area to try and
find a gift for Mom, otherwise Logan would shake the play area fence
enclosure quite vehemently until Dad reopened the gate. Daddy was able
to grab a snag for Logan, which were being served as part of the
celebrations (a snag is an Aussie version of a hot dog, and is
traditional at most Aussie barbie BBQs, or as they call them, a Sausage Sizzle. They are quite greasy and are served on a piece of white bread with ketchup/tomato sauce). Logan ate
most of the snag right up. Dad ate the remaining white bread and a
thumbnail sized remainder bit of the snag. While in the shop Dad was
able to convince Logan to go to other parts of the store. We then
purchased a baby bike seat for Mom so that we could all go on a family
bike ride along the scenic Simpsons Gap Bike Path.