Land of Big stuff - Gumeracha

Everywhere you go in Australia, somebody has build something much bigger than it really should be - such a giant wooden rocking horse

Aaron vs the Kangaroo!

Cleland Wildlife Park

Aaron, Brenda, Dave & Lyn spent the day at Cleland Wildlife park - saw all the usual suspects, Kangaroos, Wombats, Devils, Snake, Emus, Dingos, Wallabies etc

Photos of the day out are below





(Note somebody slept a most of the day!)

Power vs Demons

Its not ALL babies in our lives (although it is close!)

Took the time last weekend to visit AAMI stadium - and watch the Port Adelaide Power demolish the Melbourne Demons! The match wasn't even close!

Sadly, AAMI stadium was build for the Adelaide Crows - who get about 45,000 fans per game - and the Port only average 25,000 so the stadium was a bit empty. But the footy was good, and for $35.00 I'd go again!








David

The Last night out before baby

Well, unbeknown to us at the time - this was going to be our last night out before we were parents. It was a night of Comedy - Rich Hall / Otis Lee Crenshaw was playing at the adeliade fringe - and we had seen him before - both live and on TV

Below is the last photo of Lyn before Aaron was born on Sunday 15/3/09




Things are a bit hectic with the newborn at the moment, but bear with us - Baby photos are coming!

Slack-o-blog!

No excuses! I've been slack in the blogging department. Its not that we aren't doing anything.. we are!

But its not always the most photogenic... (did you really want a photo diary of our trip to Toys'R'us looking at baby gear?) I didn't think so.

Anyway, we've got a good chunk on the basics sorted, so if young boris/doris should spring upon this world early, we'd be prepared.

Now i know some of you (mom!) are worried when I mentioned a 'nautical' theme to the baby gear - so in order to allay peoples fears, I've asked Charles to model a few of the baby items.

First up, you can see Charles in the baby bath -with a few starfish and other cartoon fish


Next up - a plain baby pram - no fish!



And then a change table -with a few cartoon fish.



So - its not nearly as Jacques Cousteau as it sounds on the phone.

I've got a few other pieces of baby furniture to show - but there was a slight mismeasurement with the shelves, so I need to re-glue and re-paint a few bits!

Till next time!
David

Evening on the Beach

Hi - I've not been ignoring the blog - I've just not had much to add recently. All our spare time is spent getting ready for the arrival of the baby. With Baby Prams, baby furniture, baby toys, baby clothes, baby bath products... the list goes on and on!

Anyway, we took some time out last weekend (14th! How romantic!) to picnic at Semaphore beach and watch the sunset - as we finally got round to buying some folding beach chairs.

Anyway, here we go - 24 Style

The following photos take place between 7pm and 8pm (well between 6:59 and 7:40 to be exact

7pm

7:15pm
7:20pm

7:30pm

7:40pm

Happy (belated) Australia Day

The 2009 Australia Day long weekend has come and gone. The big news around here was the Australian cricket team losing to South Africa in a one day match at the Oval.

For Us - it was a weekend of pre-baby DIY to all the new the furniture and of course a BBQ!

I was even kind enough to let Lyn near my BBQ.

We had the traditional Australian 'Snags' & Beer for dinner

We a very healthy Ice Cream & Tim Tams for dessert.


After the BBQ - we headed down to the beach for the Australia Day Fireworks.

Heat Wave!

Well, it my first Aussie Heatwave... the temperature yesterday.. was a LOW of 33c (with a high of 44c!)

Yes, the low was 33c! And we have another 5days of 40+ to come.

Now, between the Air Conditioned Office, Air Conditioned public transport, and the Air Condition house - the weather doesn't seem all that bad. Of course, you don't want to leave your house/place of work, as it really feels like your walking into a sauna. And the normally nice cooling breeze is now an series of annoying gusts of hot wind.

However - Lyn is coping admirably, using a combination of the air con and a fan to keep cool. SO no worries there.

We had Australia day long weekend this past weekend, I've got the photos and as soon as Vista allows me to rename them, move them, and change the file size, I'll see about uploading them to the blog

D&L

PS We have a new computer.. quite swish... sadly it runs on Vista... I am so NOT a fan.. it is very slow, and real a pain in the backside when just trying to do the simplest things - and I usually don't go in for the Microsoft bashing found in the IT world.

However Vista seems to think I am stupid - double - sometimes triple - checking if I *really* want to install that file, or save a file in that location. It is not very user friendly if you have any real experience using computers! But your not hear to read about my thought on Vista!

Dave “the Motherboard Slayer”

Righty – in technical terms – our computer has crashed and gone boom!

Which of course hasn’t stopped us from enjoying the summer heat, and the cooling refreshness of the beach!

Heck, without this ‘internet’ thing to suck away all my spare time – I’ve managed to watch another series of the Sopranos (getting close to the end now!), get more exercise, read a book, and I’ve even had time to iron all my workshirts for a week!

Needless to say, we’ve not gone many places out side of Adelaide recently – but we have been trying out a few more local restaurants while we still can– Red Rooster Chicken didn’t live up to the hype! I guess you could say we are content at the moment spending our time getting to know Adelaide better.

I’m on call this week, which includes my first Australia day – so we’ll have to keep local, which means a trip to Semaphore again (same place we watched the NYE fireworks) I must admit, the amount of things happening during the summer in Semaphore has been amazing – considering it is not even the most popular of the beach ‘burbs in Adelaide (Glenelg being the busiest!) – so I think we can count ourselves lucky to have found a place to live so close.

Anyway, Lyn is doing fine, just another 2 months or so to go now.

D & L

A day in the life down under (Jan 13th)

Been quiet on the blog front recently – as things have gotten into a routine… So I give you today’s Blog – A day in the life down under (note it doesn’t always get 41c like it did today)

6:45 – Alarm goes off
6:54 – Alarm goes off again
7:03 – Alarm goes off again – get out of bed and get ready for work
7:46 – Catch train – can it really be 28c this early in the morning?
8:11 – Catch Tram – yup, it really is quite warm today
8:30 – Air Conditioned office – Nice.
10:27 – I really shouldn’t be writing a blog at the office J
12:30 – Lunch time – surf the internet.
12:35 – Doh! The Canucks lost again
17:00 – Time to go home
17:05 – Catch Tram to train
17:30 – Catch Train to tram
18:00 – Get home, change into swimwear
18:30 - Enjoy the AirCon
19:00 – Go to beach
19:10 – Splash Lyn
19:15 – Splash Lyn again!
19:16 – Run away from angry Lyn
19:45 – Leave the beach & head for home
20:00 – Barbeque outside – eat inside with the air conditioning
20:30 – Water the plants in the back garden & feed the Mosquitoes
22:00 – The Law & Order Hour!
23:00 – Time to get ready for Bed
23:15 – Too hot, put air conditioning on for 15mins
23:30 - Sleep

A day in the Sun

The first weekend of 2009 has come and gone already - and rather than just going to the beach this weekend(which we did as well), we also took in the annual Adelaide United Soccer game at the Adelaide Oval.

The soccer games are not usually played at the Cricket ground, and once a year, they host a game in town. This year the game was vs Syndey!

As you can see, with cricket grounds, a good portion of the crowd sits on the grass hills around the oval (Lyn above), and the rest are in the covered stands (below).




The game itself was won by Adelaide 2-0 - with 2 of the 3 Brazilian imports for Adeliade getting on the scoresheet.

Work is back to normal for me next week - but the summer has really only begun. We've managed to make it to the beach pretty much everyday since Christmas - I'm even a darker shade of Ghost brown than usual.

David

PS - Happy new year to everybody!

Christmas Down Under

Merry Christmas everyone.
After opening presents (Santa was very kind this year) we spent our Christmas Day at the beach ,trying out Dave's new snorkelling gear, followed by a BBQ and a wander around the local streets to view the Christmas light .
Turns out these are something of a local tourist attraction, and we will post up the best of them soon (once we figure out the new video camera!!)
In the meantime a few photos of our Christmas Day below.

Hope that you all enjoy your Christmas holidays be it hot, sunny and summery or snowy ,cold and wintry, either way there is always eggnog!

Thinking of you all love Lyn, Dave and the bump.


Christmas Picnic at our Local beach

Sharks!

Right - to put yesterdays Shark stories in perspective, I've got to together with Google Map, and Microsoft Paint, to create the above map. Numbers 1 & 2 are where the sharks were spotted, and number 3, is where we live, and we swim in the Ocean. And about a 10-15 drive from our place to Henley Beach...

Below is the local papers "Reporting" of the events.

"THREE shark sightings today have terrified swimmers and forced the temporary evacuation of Henley Beach.

In the latest sighting, a shark was reported swimming in waters near Penneshaw on the eastern tip of Kangaroo Island about 4.30pm

Earlier today, Henley Beach was evacuated when a large shark was spotted 50m from shore about 11.30am.

Another sighting was recorded a few hours later at Grange.

Police said it is possible one shark had migrated down shore and they were attempting to locate it and monitor its movement.

Today's sightings follow a surge of shark spottings in recent weeks, with reports at Moana, O'Sullivan Beach and Christies Beach.

Last month, a man fishing in a dinghy was attacked by a shark about 1km from shore near North Haven.

He phoned police after a bronze whaler circled his dinghy and bit into the hull and motor.

The boat sustained only minor damage and the man returned to shore."

Swimming!

Just a quick blog today! But since I left Canada 10 years ago - outdoor swimming was something saved for holidays on the Med or for over chlorinated hotel swimming pools.

Well, no more I say!

This past Sunday, it was hot & sunny, about 32c if the newspapers are to be believed (and considering the quality ofsome of local rags, I would take most everything they say with a very large grain of salt).

So on went the swim trunks and 15min later - there I was just like the local dolphins, Swimming in the ocean!

And the best bet - the water was warm! (and not that yellow kinda warm you sometimes get a public swimming pools)

D

PS - I hope everybody is enjoying the cold snap in the northern hemisphere.

Christmas Cheer

Lyn's parents came to visit with us for a week before Christmas. All went well (aside from the rain) - we had plenty of time to see some sights, visits some pubs, and play the pokies!


We even had a giant Christmas dinner - with the worlds largest leg of ham - which I'm proud to say, we are still eating - athough not sure how much longer I'll really want to be eating ham.


One of the activities we took park in - was the local Christmas Carols by candlelight (seen below). The weather had cleared, so the crowd was decent size, if only they had actually spent more time singing, and less time blabbing... but it was still a pleasant evening


I was on-call for the weekend, so we didn't get to go far, just a trip up to Handorf, and a visit to the summit of Mt Lofty - as you can see below, it wasn't the sunniest weekend!

In the end, Bob & Barbara spent a week with us - and I believe a good time was had by all.


David