This one is from a walk that we took - it's an old convent
The cake Conor make yesterday for Ally since it was her birthday last week
Liz after her Australia tour - she was dark...I'm very white!
Saturday, April 21, 2007
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Happy Easter!
I love long weekends! I was supposed to work until 7 on Thursday and then I was going to meet Conor at the Cathedral for 730 Holy Thursday Mass, but it ended up being a REALLY slow day at work (due to people leaving for the long weekend and it raining all afternoon), so we ended up getting out an hour early. Ally had invited us to come watch a movie afterwards, so we decided to go where she was going for mass which was the Carmelite Monastery…so we just walked there and Ally lives just up the road.
Friday was fairly uneventful…slept in and then went to Good Friday service at the Cathedral at 3 and then came home…Conor made clam chowder. For anyone who knows me at you, you know I don’t like fish or things that come from water, and I don’t like soup…but I tried it and I ate ONE clam! Haha, I didn’t like it though…sorry!
Like the last long weekend, we hadn’t really planned anything, but we didn’t want to put Ally out again to do something, but I woke up Saterday morning to her calling to see if we wanted to go on a day trip, which we gladly accepted! Our choices where: Healesville Sanctuary (had Australian animals, not as enclosed as Zoos), The Melbourne Zoo, or Werribee Sanctuary (African animals, BIG animals). We decided to go for the Healesville Sanctuary because I really wanted to see a Koala! It was great. It was a really nice day out, and it was out the same way as all the wineries were that we went to on Labor Day. We stopped off at a couple wineries (one we had gone to before to see how the leaves were changing – autumn is upon us!!) and then to another one where Conor and Ally did some wine testing.
We saw emus, Koalas (sooo cute!!!), Kangaroos (most were sleeping), Platypus, Blue-tongues lizards, goannas, wallabies, and pelicans (they don’t even look real!). We also was wombats, went to see Tasmanian devils but they were asleep! There was a reptile exhibit which was probably the most entertaining part! Most of the animals were sleeping, or just not acting as they would in their natural habitat – except the koalas which we got to see moving about and eating from the gum trees, and these reptiles. There was one tank that had a couple baby crocodiles, a few turtles, some sort of lizard that was swimming around in there (Conor liked that!) and then a whole bunch of gold fish. It was quite traumatizing to see the baby crocs just sitting at the top of the water, completely still with their mouths open, just waiting for an unsuspecting gold fish to come near it’s mouth and then EAT IT!! Some little girls saw one get eaten and started screaming and crying! The worst part was this dumb turtle that was trying to play with the croc or something and the croc took a big from the turtle’s leg – luckily it didn’t seem hurt!
After we got home we headed to the Cathedral for Easter Vigil. When we were playing poker last the Meese’s were talking about last Easter and how people went to their house after vigil and stayed up really late…anyways, we knew they were going to the vigil at the cathedral so we got there about a half hour early and found them right away and sat a few rows behind them. After mass we hung around and played tag with their three little girls and got invited to their house…it was great! We hung out talking a lot, eating chips and chocolate (and yay, coke!) and then their son (who I’m sure had been waiting the whole time to bring it up) said “so, who’s ready for poker!” We didn’t play for money, and most of us were tired or overtired but didn’t show it because we had so much chocolate and caffeine in us! The game went on awhile, and two of their daughters are studying at a catholic university in Brisbane or Sydney (can’t remember which one!), one of them got in an argument with their dad about some issue…it was funny…they are a loud family and the daughter and dad were just yelling at each other (not it a scary way or anything, just good loud discussion). All of the sudden someone said it was almost 3 am! The game went on for another hour or so and we got a ride home just after 4!
We had been invited to someones house for Easter Lunch, but we had already decided a few days ago that we were just going to stay home for Easter Sunday…and it was a good thing, after staying up that late! We slept in, had a small breakfast and then went for a walk after noon. It was a nice walk, we went to this man-made falls…kinda dumb, but it’s a really nice walk along the river right by our house...before you get to the falls there’s this one part of the trail that goes through a petting zoo and an old convent…so after going to the falls we came back around and found our way to the convent grounds and had a look around. It was left pretty much abandoned in the 60s, and some people were going to build sky-rises and apartments there, but the community got together and vetoed that. Now it is home to many things: cafes, wellness centers (yoga, acupuncture etc) and open gardens. It was really nice, we’ll have to go back again (I was really tired so we didn’t see it all!!) – We ended up getting home 3 or so hours later. Now it’s 5 pm we’ve had a snack and a rest and Conor’s going to make us some pork chops and such for our Easter Dinner.
I don’t know what we’ll do tomorrow since I have the day off…but a rest will be nice! Haha!
We hope you all had a great Easter!
Friday was fairly uneventful…slept in and then went to Good Friday service at the Cathedral at 3 and then came home…Conor made clam chowder. For anyone who knows me at you, you know I don’t like fish or things that come from water, and I don’t like soup…but I tried it and I ate ONE clam! Haha, I didn’t like it though…sorry!
Like the last long weekend, we hadn’t really planned anything, but we didn’t want to put Ally out again to do something, but I woke up Saterday morning to her calling to see if we wanted to go on a day trip, which we gladly accepted! Our choices where: Healesville Sanctuary (had Australian animals, not as enclosed as Zoos), The Melbourne Zoo, or Werribee Sanctuary (African animals, BIG animals). We decided to go for the Healesville Sanctuary because I really wanted to see a Koala! It was great. It was a really nice day out, and it was out the same way as all the wineries were that we went to on Labor Day. We stopped off at a couple wineries (one we had gone to before to see how the leaves were changing – autumn is upon us!!) and then to another one where Conor and Ally did some wine testing.
We saw emus, Koalas (sooo cute!!!), Kangaroos (most were sleeping), Platypus, Blue-tongues lizards, goannas, wallabies, and pelicans (they don’t even look real!). We also was wombats, went to see Tasmanian devils but they were asleep! There was a reptile exhibit which was probably the most entertaining part! Most of the animals were sleeping, or just not acting as they would in their natural habitat – except the koalas which we got to see moving about and eating from the gum trees, and these reptiles. There was one tank that had a couple baby crocodiles, a few turtles, some sort of lizard that was swimming around in there (Conor liked that!) and then a whole bunch of gold fish. It was quite traumatizing to see the baby crocs just sitting at the top of the water, completely still with their mouths open, just waiting for an unsuspecting gold fish to come near it’s mouth and then EAT IT!! Some little girls saw one get eaten and started screaming and crying! The worst part was this dumb turtle that was trying to play with the croc or something and the croc took a big from the turtle’s leg – luckily it didn’t seem hurt!
After we got home we headed to the Cathedral for Easter Vigil. When we were playing poker last the Meese’s were talking about last Easter and how people went to their house after vigil and stayed up really late…anyways, we knew they were going to the vigil at the cathedral so we got there about a half hour early and found them right away and sat a few rows behind them. After mass we hung around and played tag with their three little girls and got invited to their house…it was great! We hung out talking a lot, eating chips and chocolate (and yay, coke!) and then their son (who I’m sure had been waiting the whole time to bring it up) said “so, who’s ready for poker!” We didn’t play for money, and most of us were tired or overtired but didn’t show it because we had so much chocolate and caffeine in us! The game went on awhile, and two of their daughters are studying at a catholic university in Brisbane or Sydney (can’t remember which one!), one of them got in an argument with their dad about some issue…it was funny…they are a loud family and the daughter and dad were just yelling at each other (not it a scary way or anything, just good loud discussion). All of the sudden someone said it was almost 3 am! The game went on for another hour or so and we got a ride home just after 4!
We had been invited to someones house for Easter Lunch, but we had already decided a few days ago that we were just going to stay home for Easter Sunday…and it was a good thing, after staying up that late! We slept in, had a small breakfast and then went for a walk after noon. It was a nice walk, we went to this man-made falls…kinda dumb, but it’s a really nice walk along the river right by our house...before you get to the falls there’s this one part of the trail that goes through a petting zoo and an old convent…so after going to the falls we came back around and found our way to the convent grounds and had a look around. It was left pretty much abandoned in the 60s, and some people were going to build sky-rises and apartments there, but the community got together and vetoed that. Now it is home to many things: cafes, wellness centers (yoga, acupuncture etc) and open gardens. It was really nice, we’ll have to go back again (I was really tired so we didn’t see it all!!) – We ended up getting home 3 or so hours later. Now it’s 5 pm we’ve had a snack and a rest and Conor’s going to make us some pork chops and such for our Easter Dinner.
I don’t know what we’ll do tomorrow since I have the day off…but a rest will be nice! Haha!
We hope you all had a great Easter!
Monday, April 02, 2007
FINA
Long time, no update! Sorry, everyone…but like I said a while ago, once everything got settled it would all become mundane and we would have nothing to talk about! One exciting thing happened though! The 12th FINA swimming championships are/were held in Melbourne and one of the sponsors was Nestle. Ally works (well WORKED) for Nestle so she got some tickets to see the women’s 3m springboard finals and the men’s 10m platform finals and invited me to go with her! When we went there we actually thought that we were just seeing the women’s, which was interesting enough, but the men’s was much more exciting. We had one Canadian women in, Blythe Hartley…she started off good (there were 5 rounds), but ended up with 8th. There were two Canadians for the guys, Despatie (I think I spelt that wrong) and then a young guy from Victoria…they both did not so well and were the bottom two for the most part, but Despatie ended 8th and of the 12 I think the other guy was 11 (but maybe was 12th). It was pretty cool…I can’t believe it when they do those handstands and still manage to do flips and all that!
We’re still playing poker…but we didn’t win last night.
The pro-hockey team that Conor plays for had their season finals last week. They lost game one by one goal; won game two by 1 goal…Conor racked up a whopping 7 penalties in those two games (he had only a couple prior to that for the whole season!) Anyways, game three they were down by 2 goals, Conor got their first goal…and then he got high-sticked (which resulted in a big bump on his jaw!! Hehe) the other guy got a penalty and then Conor’s team scored the goal to tie and then won the game and the finals in a shoot out. He got a very special medal (note sarcasm, apparently it wasn’t up to snuff with the medals he’s won back home)
Work is going well for me, I’m enjoying working Monday to Friday and having proper weekends, all the staff are pretty much trained up so that takes some stress off, and I’m actually enjoying what I’m learning as far as how a business like that runs…looking at what we are making and COGS (cost of goods), those kinds of things.
We’re still playing poker…but we didn’t win last night.
The pro-hockey team that Conor plays for had their season finals last week. They lost game one by one goal; won game two by 1 goal…Conor racked up a whopping 7 penalties in those two games (he had only a couple prior to that for the whole season!) Anyways, game three they were down by 2 goals, Conor got their first goal…and then he got high-sticked (which resulted in a big bump on his jaw!! Hehe) the other guy got a penalty and then Conor’s team scored the goal to tie and then won the game and the finals in a shoot out. He got a very special medal (note sarcasm, apparently it wasn’t up to snuff with the medals he’s won back home)
Work is going well for me, I’m enjoying working Monday to Friday and having proper weekends, all the staff are pretty much trained up so that takes some stress off, and I’m actually enjoying what I’m learning as far as how a business like that runs…looking at what we are making and COGS (cost of goods), those kinds of things.
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