Hobart

We planned a weekend away but the destination was a mystery to me. We ended up in Hobart, to take in an art gallery/experience there and to relax in general.

We missed the mark with each other, at times, which always seems painful. But we were able to come fully back together, to fully digest the emotional bumps.

We went to the movies, ate out, caught a ferry, made friends in the beer garden, read & schemed in the park. (that's the PG version, of course! Won't bore you with more details!)

And we returned very relaxed and 'full.'

Thanks especially to mum and dad for taking the kids for three days!

Coal Creek

On our way to Inverloch with Gord's folks, we stopped at Coal Creek, our closest local equivalent to the Mennonite Heritage Village. Actually, the two places are remarkably similar. I guess all that old-fashioned stuff wasn't that different, continent to continent! The pics tell the story - look out for smoochy couple shots of the tourists!







(Photo war with Auntie Ev!)





(Gord doing the can-can while belting out 'Doe, a deer...' from 'The Sound of Music.' Some people were left wishing they'd had their video camera ready for such entertaining entertainment!)

Healesville Sanctuary

On Saturday (the 20th), Anne, Ev, Mum, myself and the kids headed to Healesville Sanctuary (one of the three Melbourne zoos), while Gord, John and Bill went four-wheel-driving with Brett, our next door neighbour. (Uncle Bill has videos, you'll have to ask him. Anyway, back to us!) While driving to Pakenham with Auntie Ev a day or two earlier, it became apparent that she didn't know what a wombat was, and I had a bit of trouble trying to describe one (was it like a warthog, she wanted to know? Yeah, kind of the same size, but more cuddly - hmmm, not so helpful!).

So it seemed like surveying a few Aussie animals was in order. I didn't get any photos of the animals, only a few of the Canadians, being by far the rarer species around here! However, Anne and Ev took home some snaps, or at least some memories, of kangaroos, wallabies, dingos, koalas, Tasmanian Devils, possums, sugar gliders, small crocodiles, emus, a platapus, echidna, wedge-tailed eagle, a sleeping, hard-to-see wombat, and many others! And caught some didgeridoo-playing and boomerang-throwing to boot!

Surveying the koalas...

The cutest koala!

Snap time!

Later that evening, we had dinner all together with my parents. (Nice earrings, hey Sharon! Thanks!)

Anne and Piper had made (another!) birthday cake for Piper after we got home from Healesville Sanctuary, so she was able to have a party with all her grandparents together... pretty special - you can see how much she was smiling! (The cake was a mother horse and a baby horse, a baking set I found just recently at IKEA and couldn't pass up, with these carousel horse candles - all a bit horse-mad around here!)

Canadians in Melbourne

Alright, enough of catching up on photos from the last couple of months. Here's what you've all been waiting for: a glimpse of that unusual occurance - a Canadian or two in the Dandenongs!

Last Monday, this is what the kids and I were making...

... "Welcome to Melbourne" signs. Which Jasper rather accurately changed to "Welcome to Busytown"!

Then on Wednesday, Piper and I walked into the Melbourne Airport arrivals area just in time to see Gord's parents emerging from those grey doors, and a little later, Bill and Ev, his uncle and aunt. Gord had lost me in the carpark, after I thought I'd lost him on the freeway - a saga I won't go into now. All's well that ends well, cos Gord and the boys turned up after about five or ten minutes...

We took our guests back to our place for spaghetti bolognese...

Gord was adamant about helping his family reorient themselves as easily as possible. Hence, the following day, being a Thursday and all, we found ourselves at this place (to my bemusement!)...

Leading the youngest of us astray...

Are we in Steinbach or Pakenham??

Catch this, cos it doesn't happen very often!

And for their second dinner in Australia, John and Anne and Bill and Ev invited us back to their place - Gembrook Retreat just down the road. (Check out that new guest garden area, a last-minute effort to get the retreat spaces ready for international guests!)

February: Holiday in Geelong

Gord is determined to take more holidays this year. Hence, we found ourselves in Geelong, a satellite city about an hour out of Melbourne (and more like two from our place, cos it's on the other side of the big smoke). The highlight for the kids was a trip to Adventure Park, which claims to be Victoria's first water theme park. It was fun, but will be better when the kids are older. Piper was barely high enough for a lot of the stuff, and both her and Jas were a bit freaked out by the huge amounts of water pouring periodically over the play structures! Still, lovely weather and good memories...

Piper's favourite part was the lazy river. She was too scared to go on it at first, and then by the end of the day, she was going round by herself!

This was the slide none of us went on!

Jethro and Eloi's birthday party

Our friends Tim and Jacqui have a son, Eloi, who was born on Feb 14th, just a bit before Jethro, so they shared a joint birthday party. Jacqui's friend made this amazing cake:

A few games outside...

Jethro in his element, humping around outside!

The two birthday boys feeding the horse across the road (with Eloi's grandfather)...



Not happy about blowing out the candles!

Lara sums Jethro up...