John's Visit - I

Uncle John arrived on Friday, February 23. I was so excited waiting for him in the airport I thought I was going to be sick! Eventually he appeared through the doors and I must say he looked pretty rough, which is normal considering amount of travelling a person has to do to get here from the east coast of Canada. Oh yes, and William was not excited at all that Uncle John was coming to Canberra...not at all...

We started out John's visit the next day at a good old fashioned game of Australian rules football, otherwise known as AFL football (Australian Football League). Did I mention these guys' bodies in an earlier e-mail? If not, I'm mentioning it now...
















Here is William having a "sausage sizzle" at the game - that's a sausage wrapped in a piece of white bread with tomato sauce (ketchup) on it. Have I mentioned that the Aussies like their sausages....?




















We soon started the local sight seeing. Here are John, William and I atop Mount Ainslie in the centre of Canberra. Directly above William's head, on the other side of the lake, is Parliament Hill.
















Here is a view of the down town area with Lake Burley Griffin (named after the man who designed the city) in the background. The hills in the background are known as the Brindabellas. Notice there are no sky scrapers or tall buildings. Canberra is known as the "bush capital". Buildings are purposely built to blend in to the surroundings and there is lots of green (or brown as is the case during the drought) space between suburbs.
















Here is another view of part of the city. The long avenue in the forground is Anzac Parade (Anzac stands for Australia and New Zealand Army Corps). It is lined with war memorials from various countries and organizations. Near the bottom of the picture at the end of Anzac Parade is the Australian War Memorial, an amazing war museum. Just to the left of centre, there is a white "stick" looking building. This is the National Carillon. There are performances there very frequently. The lake is surrounded by great walking and biking paths.

Kioloa Caravan Park

If you've read the January blog about us reuniting with Abby after her 30 day quarantine, you will be keen to see these pictures......On the weekend of February 17/18 we met our friends, the Cooper's (Pat, Jodi and Grace), at the Kioloa Caravan Park, which is about 30 minutes north of Bateman's Bay on the coast. We discovered the summer of 2006 that Abby likes to play in water and this weekend was an incredible opportunity to see her play in the ocean in Australia!Here she is with dogs Maxine and Khan and their owner Nick, who is a good friend of Pat's.
















Its amazing that we actually got pictures of her, because she rarely stood still while on the beach. In this picture, she is standing near Grace. That's Pat in the foreground.
















Just a big, wet, dog!
















Grace's new little puppy Charlie (a Cocker Spaniel and King Charles Cavalier mix, I think) tried but could hardly keep up with Abby!















Remember doing this when you were a kid? Well, it was Grace and William's turn this time!

Beautiful Grace Cooper and little Charlie...

Pat's friend Nick (aka. Fuzzy) made and played this didjeridoo.

Then the kids took a turn...

William had a good laugh when Nick made the didj make a sound reminiscent of a certain bodily noise that little boys get a great kick out of...!

Again, the big, wet (and happy) dog...

Race Day in Braidwood, NSW

On the way to the coast there are two great little towns that we love to stop in - Bungendore and Braidwood, New South Wales. Both are smaller than Hartland. Braidwood has a wonderful bakery (that's why we always stop on our way through), and more importantly (depending on your perspective), horse racing. Saturday, February 10 was Braidwood Race Day (did I mention that horse racing is a big deal in Australia?). Everything stops on Race Day. All the girls in town don their best frocks and hats and everyone heads to the races. Here are a few of the horses warming up....

















Here they are.....coming down the last stretch......






















And here is the part that I found the most entertaining......

I used to like lime green....

I call these three Charlie's Angels....

And the best viewing of the day, was 10 month old James Sealey-Thompson, son of Nick and Lesley Sealey-Thompson (UK). Nick is one of Ian's classmates at Staff College.

William goes to school!

In Australia, the school year begins in February and runs until late December, with three two-week school holidays between the four school terms. William's year at Duffy Primary School began on Tuesday, February 6, and he became a "year two" student in Ms. Duncan's class. (William mentioned to me that he wouldn't have any trouble remembering his teacher's name because of his uncle Duncan!) He also told me about three months after starting school that for the first two weeks he didn't understand a word that his teacher said - because of her Australian accent!









.....the school colours are bottle green and white


Within a week of starting school, William started losing more teeth! Here is the first of the top front teeth to go.......the tooth fairy brought a two dollar Australian coin!