Cleaning Out the Backpack

My rule is that every time we go on a holiday, I clean out my backpack.

We're going away soon. This is the first time we've been away since we came back from Australia in March.

Today I started cleaning out the backpack. Here is a list of what I found:

1. A receipt from Platypus Shoes in Manly. 28/02/09. 5:00. We spent $39.99

2. A Watsons Bay Ferry schedule. We needed that to get to Rose Bay to meet up with our cousins.

3. A receipt from Kiama Cycles and Sports for a mini scooter that cost $65. This happened 14/2/09 at 10:47. That's my nephew's birthday, but he wouldn't be born until a day later since he's in Texas.

4. A fading receipt from Woolworths. It's for $3.49. What did we buy? The date is 11/2/09 at 12:42. We were in Canberra then. That's the day we went to the zoo. We also went to the mall earlier that day. I remember wanting to buy wipes. Maybe that's when we got them.

5. A very faded receipt from the Sydney airport. I think the store is called And Beyond. I think it's in the domestic terminal. We must have bought something before boarding the flight to Tasmania. Ah! I can see. It's for a bag!

I bought this cool reusable bag. It has all these Australian cities on it. Whatever happened to that bag? I don't remember seeing it lately. I'm sure we also bought waters at that store too.

6. Three blue car jelly lollies. We had bought a bunch of candy and put it in a reusable container. The container stopped working well, and a lot of candy fell to the bottom of the backpack. It has been there for three months. Is that a little gross?

7. A broken Jaffas

8. A faded Jaffas

9. Two parts of a broken AND faded Jaffas

10. a licorice bullet.

11. A flyer from the Argyle Oracle where I never got my 30 minutes for $25 dollar reading.

12. A piece of yellow notebook paper with directions to my friend Michelle's house.

13. A brochure for Sealife Park in Hawaii. I think we picked that up when we stopped off in Hawaii on the way home.

14. Jaffas crumbs

15. Airplane earphones

16. Information I printed out for the trip. It has recommended restaurants and the phone numbers of some people we planned to meet up with.

17. Receipt for Sydney Jewish Museum

18. A receipt for David Jones from when I bought a gift for Fe. It's from 26/02/09. 2:15 pm. To my shame, that's a few hours before we were supposed to come to her house for dinner. We were very last minute about things.

19. Directions I had printed out at home from the 131500.com.au site...how to get from our hotel to the Powerhouse Museum.

20. A coupon for the Taronga Zoo. It came in a booklet or something. I forgot how we got it, though.

21. A receipt for a Crocs store in Hawaii. We let Jack get some new Jibbitz for his new Crocs. Did I ever tell you guys that when we were in Hawaii Jack got his foot caught in the escalator? It was a bit scary. I pulled it out fast. He was fine. His Crocs look a bit beat up, though. When we returned to Texas, an elderly woman fell on the escalator. That was REALLY scary. I think she was okay, though. I hope! But we had two scary escalator scenes within a few days.

22. A receipt for The Crystal Gallery in The Rocks. Jack and I both bought a gemstone there.

23. Telstra Cards with our phone numbers on it.

24. Annual Pass for Sydney WildlifeWorld and Sydney Aquarium. I just see mine here. What happened to Jack's? I guess it's okay if we lost it. It's not like we're returning to Australia this year.

25. A newspaper article about a "real life" mermaid that Tracey's husband Tyrone gave to me.

26. A weird Cheerio shaped thing that held the wrapper on a lollipop that Jack got at Hugo's birthday party.

27. A pen from our hotel in Hawaii

28. A five dollar note

29. A ten dollar note

30. A box of Jila Mints. I think we actually got those in 2008--on the Qantas flight. Jack just saw them and told me not to eat them. He said, they must be SO old. I told him I just ate one recently. I ate one at my niece's birthday party. It didn't kill me.

31. Two 20 cent coins.

32. Three 5 cent coins

33. Three 10 cent coins

34. An ace bandage for snake bites that I bought in 2007 when we were soon to be leaving Sydney for Port Stephens. Yes, I was a little paranoid about the deadly and dangerous wildlife of Australia. Now I keep it in my backpack for the same reason people carry umbrellas. If I have it, we won't need it.

Oh! Speaking of wildlife. My dad recently informed me that we have alligators in Fort Worth. What?!! I never knew that! And apparently they're native to the area. That's pretty exciting.

35. Another David Jones receipt. This one is for the juice bar. It's for 4/3/09 12:01 pm.

36. A receipt from Sydney Attractions Group at Aquarium Pier at Darling Harbour. It's for $28.45. February 24 2009 at 1:09. I have no idea what we bought. We had the pass to the aquarium so we didn't need tickets. Maybe it was lunch at the Lizard Lounge? I need to go and look back at my old trip reports. Hold on.....

I'm guessing it was this day. Jack and I did go to Darling Harbour. But I can't figure out what we could have bought.

37. A piece of a Fantales wrapper.

38. A small paper shop bag from the Sydney Aquarium Gift shop that Jack used to test out his new multi-colored pen. There's a sad face, a happy face, a face with glasses, and some musical notes.

39. A mini Cadbury bar that Jack and I are going to split in a few minutes.

While we're on the subject of nostalgia.....

Our 10th wedding anniversary was this Saturday. For our gift, my sister and my brother-in-law tracked down our wedding photographer and bought all our negatives. That was so incredibly thoughtful and generous of them.

Here is one of the photos.



That's our family (the lake house crowd) minus my brother-in-law Fred and all the little kiddies. Fred and the munchkins were just twinkles in our eyes back then.

From left to right are: my dad; my younger sister (the nurse-practitioner and new mom); my grandfather (unfortunately no longer with us); Tim and I; my mom; my older sister (mom to my two favorite little girls in the world); and my BIL who is like a real brother to me.

My family makes me feel very mentally unstable some of the time. But for the most part, they're awesome, and I love them. They're the ones that taught me that you can still love people even when their beliefs and opinions seem completely outrageous and offensive.