Lots of good news

A few weeks ago - actually about the same time we found out we were pregnant, we got some good news!

Money!

We had been waiting to hear from Melbourne if we were approved for more money.... in order for us to go back to Canada even (as in with no money, but at least not owing money) we so far had about 2/3 of what we needed. So on Tuesday we heard that we were getting that last 1/3 and a bit more!! Unfortunately Queensland Australia started having massive flooding disasters, and the dollar went down a lot because of it. The last installment we got from Australia, we lost almost $1000 in the exchange to Canadian! We started to worry, because we hadn't gotten the money yet, but now it looks like the Canadian dollar is almost at par with the Aussies again - good news for us!

Since then we've also had 3 large deposits from the CRA (Canada Revenue Agency) - some of it was back payment for the Child tax credits and some back payment from GST (when Conor got his tax return last year they took over $600 back of GST which they had given us, so they were giving it BACK again!), and the third was, well I don't actually know, I know it was from them, but I don't know what for. I'm definitely not complaining though!

This is all very beneficial, especially since I'm paying 80 euro for prenatal doctors visits, and I just forked out another 150 euro this morning for my bloodwork!

WYD Rest of the week

I knew I would get caught up with stuff and forget to post the rest of WYD stuff. So I apologize, I'm sure you will understand :)

My Girls :)

Anyways, this will be sort of brief, because I can't even remember everything! I'm typing this up with one hand while on hold with MSP (Canada's Medical Services Plan), I've confirmed that Conor doesn't have to wait 3 months for medical to kick in...but I'm crossing my fingers about myself, cuz I think I accidentally cancelled my account when we left the country as opposed to suspending it :(

Walking the Bridge

Okay, WYD - the rest of the week:


Tuesday July 15th

Cathedral Tour - We got a special tour of the Cathedral. We had a tour guide and everything...but unfortunately I couldn't hear a word he was saying, not to mention I had to go to the bathroom really bad, so I didn't really pay that much attention!

Opening Mass - I really enjoyed this mass. The pope wasn't there yet but Cardinal Pell said mass and I really enjoyed his homily.

Our Group @ Randwick

Wednesday July 16th

Catechesis/Mass - Ummm, I won't go into much detail, but we didn't really think much of our catechesis site. So we didn't go back the next two days.

JPII/Life and Love/Lola and Cam - At the University of Notre Dame there was a "Life and Love" tent...at this venue there was a booth for the JPII Institute, some Respect Life agencies, the Sisters of Life from NYC as well as bbqs, concerts and special speakers. We had known previously to getting to WYD that Conor would be helping at the JPII booth this day, so we had let Conors brother Cam know, and hoped to meet up with him there. It all worked out splendidly...Conor wasn't needed right away, so we got to go out for coffee with Cam and Lola (Conors cousins girlfriend) and catch up.

Christopher West - This was probably the highlight of the week for me...next to seeing the Pope of course! Christopher West played a big part in my conversion to Catholicism, so I was excited to see one of his talks in person. And I think most of the kids in our group really enjoyed it as well.

Christopher West

Thursday July 17th

Slept in - hehe, I got to sleep in, it was great. Conor and I met up with the group at our designated spot for the Popes arrival.

Umm...random guy that Conor loves

Papal Arrival - This was more exciting for me than I thought it was going to be. We weren't super close to the front, but we had a pretty decent spot. Everyone was just going crazy, haha!!

Father Flemming talk - after the Papal Arrival, we headed over to the University of Notre Dame and had a Q&A session with Father Flemming, who is the director (I think director, something like that) of Campion College, a Catholic Liberal Arts College in Sydney. It was an interesting session, there were some really good questions, but I'm just not sure if it was the most productive. I think some people left having felt that their questions weren't really answered. Oh well.

Friday July 18th


Mass @ Convention center - Because we had decided not to go to our usual catechesis site again, we went to the big Convention center and sat in on their catechesis, went to Confession and stayed for mass.

Stations of the cross - Well what can I say about this?? Some of our group went to our designated viewing area for the stations of the cross early, to see the whole thing...while the rest of the group left later. So in the end I pretty much did see any of the stations of the cross. I heard it was amazing though - a very realist re-enactment of Jesus' death and resurrection. There were different places in the city that the Stations would go through, but where ever you were there was a big screen, so even if it wasn't at your location, you would watch it on the screen.


Saterday July 19th

Early in the morning, everyone in our group met at the train station and went into the city to begin their pilgrimage. I'll have to put some map links up later so you can see where they walked..but for the most part they went to the north end of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, and walked across is, and then south, south-east to Randwick Racecourse, where there would be an evening vigil with the Pope and the final mass on Sunday morning.

I was definitely not up for the pilgrimage, so me and another girl in our group met up at the train station later, went into the city, ate some lunch, bought some birthday stuff (one of our girls was having her 16th birthday that night, so we thought we'd do a little something for her) and then took a bus to where we were staying that night.

While I was eating lunch I kept feeling these "muscle spasms" in my lower stomach and it was really weird. But then when they stopped I was thinking about it and realized that they didn't really feel like your typical muscle spasms, and I remembered a friend joking about how I would probably feel the baby kick sometime during the World Youth Day week and I then decided that yes, it probably was the baby kicking!! I wanted it to kick again so I could feel it again, but no such luck.

Anyways, I didn't mention that the group were walking to randwick, would have the vigil that evening and then would all sleep outside that night. Along with not doing the pilgrimage, I wasn't going to do the sleepout. So I had arranged previously with another JPII student to stay in his room, which was in Randwick, while he did the overnight sleep out. So after lunch we went to where were would be staying, dropped off our stuff, and then headed to the racecourse to meet everyone else.


I honestly don't remember the vigil at all! It's kind of embarrassing, because when I got back to work in Melbourne afterwards and would see people who had also been there and they would ask me what I thought of the week, almost all of them would say "What about that vigil? Wasn't that just the most amazing night??" Anyways, I just don't remember it! After the vigil was over me and the other girl left to sleep in our hostel and have a nice hot shower :)

Sunday July 20th

Mass with Pope - We got up the next morning, packed our stuff up and headed back to the racecourse for the final mass. The whole week is called World Youth Day...but the Sunday is the actual DAY. It was a great mass. When we heard the pope talk at the Papal Arrival, I actually thought he was kind of dull and boring...but he was a totally different person at the final mass. He was very interesting and sounded very, I don't know, enthusiastic. I found out later that he had a bit of a cold or something on the day of the arrival, and that's probably why he didn't sound as enthusiastic. Anyways, my favorite part of the day was after mass, when the Pope announced that Madrid would be the venue for the next WYD he looked sooo excited!! And the crowd was cheering like crazy...he started to go on with his talk, but they were all cheering so loudly and he stopped and chuckled a bit...so CUTE! haha

Anyways, I don't really think that I personally got alot spiritually out of WYD...but I realize that it isn't geared towards 25 year old, but teenagers...all in all though, I'm very glad I went...I would have regretted not going.

SO - my highlights were

1. Seeing Christopher West talk



2. Seeing the Pope



3. Going to confession and adoration (although I didn't make it to adoration as often as I would have liked)



4. And finally, just being in that atmosphere. Everyone was just so happy and friendly...there were police everywhere but it was probably the easiest week of their lives because yes there were alot of crowds, but everyone was happy and getting along and meeting people. It was just very encouraging seeing all these young people standing together in their faith.
   

Okay, end of long post!!

Last post from Australia??

Well today is our last day of "independance".

We move out of our place tomorrow (Monday) and will stay at a friends place for 3 nights...then she has graciously offered to drive us to the airport on Thursday morning where we will make our 22 hour journey back to Vancouver Canada!

Anyways, this may be the last time I get to post before we go. So please pray that all three of us have a safe journey, hopefully no problems at airports...and that I don't cry too much! haha.

Goodbye Australia!!

WYD Day 2

WYD events didn't officially start until Tuesday July 15, so Monday was kind of a free day for us.

Monica arranged for the Parish Priest to say mass for us in the morning, and then we headed into the city. Father Denton, who was our "chaplain priest" for the week gave a talk to the kids on Confession...and to tell you the truth, I think it was probably the best formation type talk that they heard all week! They were all asking really great questions, and even through the week felt comfortable to ask more questions on confession and other aspects, so I'm really glad that we had a chance to listen to him.

After that we grabbed a late lunch and headed to a park where we all split up into small groups and just talked. Me and my girls had a good chat...Conor told me afterwards that his group are typical guys, not only did they not introduce themselves, but they pretty much didn't talk about anything to do with World Youth Day! haha

From the park we split off into 3 groups for free time. One group went to Campian College, which is a great new catholic liberal arts college that one of our leaders will be graduating from this year, another group went to Circular Quay (including the rocks, opera house, botanic gardens, etc), and Conor and I led a group to Manly. Manly is a beach in Sydney that you have to take a ferry to. It was a nice day...the ferry was cool (same thing we did when we went to Sydney with my brother Dan) and we pretty much just hung around, wandered here and there, the boys played footy...and then eventually had dinner and got back on the ferry to meet our group and take a train home for the night.

End of Day 2

WYD Day I

Sunday July 13th we got up bright and early (well it wasn't really bright, since it was 430am, and our attitudes DEFINITELY weren't bright either!) to head to the bus depot. Our bus wasn't scheduled to leave until 7am, but we had to check in at 530am.

The bus ride wasn't terrible...although I wasn't able to sleep at all on it. It's generally an 8 hour drive if you drive with very little stops...but we new it was going to take about 12 hours on the bus, because we had 3 scheduled pit stops, each around 45 mins. At first I was annoyed by this, but it ended up breaking up the ride and in the end it didn't feel so long.

On the Ferry to Manly

There were these pit stops set up by Days in the Diocese Melbourne (they plan events in Melbourne for pilgrims the week before WYD) and they have food and toilets and a "prayer experience". At the first pit stop Monica, our leader, made us go to it...it was really weird...there was music playing and then a projected video of the journey of the cross and icon while she read about some saint...she must not have liked it in the end because she didn't even mention the prayer experience for the other 2 stops! haha

Other than not being able to sleep, and a girl being sick on the bus, it was alright. Then all the confused about where we were getting dropped off happened! Originally we were set up to stay in a parish hall for the week, except the first night we were going to stay in a place called homebush where there was a big like convention center or something, alot of other pilgrims would also be there. But we found out the night before that instead of staying in the parish hall we would be doing homestay (getting split up and sleeping at peoples houses from the parish). For some reason they decided to put our luggage (along with other pilgrims that were leaving Melbourne at the same time as us) in a truck and our stuff would get delivered to where we were staying.

I knew something was going to go wrong! Just after our first pit stop, the bus driver told Monica we were actually getting dropped off at the parish that night, and that we wouldn't be going to homebush at all...so she called the bus company to make sure that our luggage was getting delivered to the parish and not Homebush, and they confirmed. But when we got to the parish our luggage hadn't arrived...so we all registered and met our homestay parents and our luggage still hadn't arrived...so we just had to go without it.

It was really frustrating, but we had to be thankful that we were in homestay, with nice warm beds and a shower per household (as opposed to the recommended shower per 75 pilgrims at other locations!!)...and we got our stuff the next morning and were able to change before going out for Day 2.

Oh and another funny thing...this parish had been planning for WYD for 2 years, and were all excited to be getting people at their houses, but they probably hadn't planned on having people just from Melbourne (as opposed to having people from all over the world)...but we thought our homestay parents (mine and Conor's) would be happy because they were actually getting "foreigners"....but they were a little weird, and when we said we were from Canada they just said "oh, that's nice". Haha, oh well!

Sooooo many people!

WYD

Okay, I'll have to leave part II of that last post for a couple weeks, as we're leaving for world youth day in Sydney at 530am!!! on Sunday.

Pray for us please, and for everyone who is going - it's going to be a great week!

Daylight Savings

Conor and I have only successfully navigated our way through daylight savings ONCE in this country...and it was NOT today!!

I work up this morning at my usual time - ready to eat and get ready before going to mass and then to work right afterwards. It was just past 8am when Conor asks me when the time change happens.

Mass hysteria erupts (well, maybe not mass, but I think I caused enough chaos to say that)

I start freaking out, because I realize that yes, this weekend is the time change, which means that it's really 9am!! If I wanted to go to mass I would have had to take the 830 tram, so that was out of the question...but the bigger concern being that to get to WORK on time, to which I am the only one with a key, and access to the safe, etc would mean taking the 9:02 tram!!

So I just started freaking out:

1. How am I going to get to work on time? I don't even have the number to a cab
2. I haven't even finished getting dressed yet
3. I haven't eaten breakfast
4. I missed mass, which means I'll have to go after work, but we have poker tonight
5. I absolutely hate myself at this moment
6. WHY do I always miss this time change!!!!!

Then, my amazing husband Conor, while trying to calm me down, instructs me to turn on the computer and go onto the internet to find a cab number (while he makes my lunch - I love him!)

Then comes the "doy-yoy-yoy" moment, when the computer comes on it has already adjusted the time...and instead of saying 9am...or even 8am for that matter...it informs me that it is 7am!!

If I were in Canada then yes, the clocks would "spring forward" - but I am in Australia, and it's autumn right now, meaning that the clocks "fall back".

Now I hate myself even worse than before, and am mad that I didn't get my extra hour of sleep that everyone else in this country will get!

It's just going to be one of those days.

Bear-ick...I mean Berwick

A priest friend of ours that studied at the John Paul II Institute with Conor has recently become assistant to a parish priest in one of the Western suburbs (actually, it's not even in the Melbourne diocese, but the diocese of Sale). So on Monday he had a day off and we weren't doing anything so we took a train out to Berick, it took us an hour and a half to get there, the trian ride was an hour.

It's out in the country and not very far from where this priest actually grew up. So he picked us up and then we went and saw the parish he's at and where he's living and then went for a drive.

There's an old steam engine train called the "Puffin' Billy" right around there, so we stopped by the stations, we weren't going to get on, but we wanted to see if it was in the station and it was! We were pretty lucky, we got to see them cleaning it and such.

Then we went to the town he grew up in, we saw the church that he went to school at. I think he really enjoyed telling us stories from his childhood. He went to school at the local church, and I think he said there were 80 students (years 1-7) and two or three nuns teaching them. Right across the street from the church was the old post office and general store that his father helped start and run (it wasn't there anymore though). Then we walked to where his house was (the lot was still there, but a new house on it)...we went and saw an old Lady who lived there, her husband and her and been looking for somewhere to live and I guess the Parish Priest asked him what he could do (which was make pipes or something) so they offered him a job as a plumber and he's been there ever since.

After that we went to another ladies house who Father grew up with. He was a few months older than their eldest child, so I think they were very close with him...she told us stories and gave us yummy cookies! haha

After chatting with her for awhile we went to Fathers mums house and had "tea" (which means dinner...if someone invites you to "tea" in Australia, that means dinner...and if they invite you to "Supper" eat your dinner at home and then go there for after dinner snacks!) She seemed pretty lonely so she was happy to have us there. We might have stayed awhile, but I didn't eat much for lunch and didn't drink enough water, I think I was a little dehydrated from being out in the sun...so we got home around 9 I think.

It wasn't what you would call an exciting day, but it was very nice and relaxing, we met alot of nice people and had a good visit with Father.

Australian Open 2008

Conor and I got to see the tennis again this year at the Australian Open - we went the first day, the Monday before last, to cheer on the two Canadians that were in the singles draw (both lost, unfortunately) - we also go to see Davenport that day.

I got a really bad burn!

Then the following Thursday night Jo (one of the girls I work with at the cafe) and I went and saw James Blake play, it was a great match!!

Sharipova just defeated Ivanovic for the woman's championship title, and Djokovic (who upset Federer in the semis) and Tsonga (who upset Nadal in the semis) play for the men's championship title tomorrow night...I'll definitely be watching!

Lorne

Well this year we had the pleasure of going to Lorne again with the family that we play poker with. Last year Liz was here so she was able to come with us as well - but unfortunately we had terrible weather pretty much the whole time we were there!

Last year we decided to just get a ride from the dad, so we left the Friday night and came back on the Sunday night. But this year we decided to use some of our Christmas money (thanks Mom P, Dad and Mom S, Grannie and Papa and Grandma F!) and rented a car! I had gotten the dates mixed up of when the family would be there, and in the end wasn't able to make it for a weekend, but instead we left Sunday after I was finished work and I think we got to Lorne around 7ish? When we got there another family (who we also play poker with occasionally) was still there, they had just gone for the day, so it was a full house! After we ate some dinner we went down to the beach with a couple cricket bats and tennis balls and some people played a little beach cricket. I just kinda wandered around and one of the girls (the middle child, I think she's 16 or 17) was throwing sticks in the water and waiting for the waves to bring it back - we both got soaked a couple times by waves!!

Walking down to the Beach for some Cricket

We slept in the next day and then Conor and I decided to drive another 2 hours along the Great Ocean Road (the highway that goes right along the coast - beautiful views!) to a place called the 12 apostles. The twelve apostles are rock formations caused by the tides and waves in the ocean...I think there are only 8 still standing, and somewhere in the vicinity is another rock formation that was called London Bridge, but that also has fallen. It turned out to be terrible weather though when we got there, it was really cold and windy and just unpleasant, so we only stayed for 10 minutes and then drove back to Lorne. When we got back to the house we found out most of the family decided to go there as well, and they left about an hour after us. When they got back we found out they had beautiful weather there! If only we had waited! haha

While we were waiting for the family to come back for dinner, Bridget (the 16 year old) Conor and myself decided to go for a swim...it was so cold! I can't believe I had to nerve to go in! But once we were in it was so nice, the waves were kind of crazy though, and the lifeguard waved us in at one point and told us to stay out of the area we were in cuz the rip was bad, so we moved and still had alot of fun!

In the evenings we watched tennis, played poker and watched the first and second Lord of the Rings - I lost at poker :(

We stayed until Wednesday night as I had to work on Thursday morning at the cafe. One day Conor, three of the daughters and one of their boyfriends went to Erskine Falls, which is about a 10 minute drive from where we were staying and hiked down from the waterfall along the creek all the way to the beach where I was with the mom, son and two youngest girls - I think it took them about 2 hours, and they saw a snake...I can't remember what it was called, but it was one of the really poisonous ones! I'm surprised Conor didn't pass out.





We also went to a place called Teddy's Lookout where you get to see over the ocean and take great pics of a stretch of the great ocean road.

Conor, Dom and Bridget

Well it was alot of fun, lots of swimming, goofing around and just relaxing :)


Back to work now!

Sydney - Day four

On the last day in Sydney, Bernard and us went to Bondi Beach which is a very popular beach in Sydney. Dan wasn't feeling well so he didn't go swimming, and I didn't feel like it either, so Conor and Bernard went swimming, while Dan sat around and I walked around the shops.

Gotta love Dan's new shirt :)

After that we drove into the city, walked a little more around Circular Quay where all the ferries leave from, and then walked around the Opera House. Dan had a rest in the botanic gardens...so when we were done at the Opera House, we walked through the botanic gardens and then met up with Dan.





Conor and I were flying back to Melbourne that evening, so we just took a little drive with Bernard after that and then it was time to head to the airport, and say goodbye to Dan.

Goodnight Sydney!

After that he went to New Zealand - eventually he will have his blog updated, if you want to know how his trip went.

Sydney - Day Three

We decided to take the half hour ferry ride to Manly in the morning, then we could find a plot of land to guard with our lives until the fireworks!

Ferry to Manly

Beach (no one in the water though)

The ferry ride to Manly was actually really nice, it gives a really good view of the opera house and the bridge, for half the price of any of the actual tour boats. Unfortunately, when we got on the ferry there was a big sign saying that the main beach was closed because the waves were too dangerous. So when we got there, we walked around, looked at the beach, took some pics, and then we found a little beach to the right of the main beach that was open, as it was kind of sheltered by the waves. After that we ate, looked in some shops and then headed back to the city!

I can't remember for sure, but I think it was around 3ish when we got back. We had been looking at the newspaper to see where the best spots to sit for the fireworks were and decided to try a spot across the harbour bridge - then we basically just stayed there, sometimes wandereing around...where were initially sat we decided we wouldn't stay there for the fireworks, but there was plenty of room - we really should have just not even come down to the fireworks until just before the 9pm family show! Oh well!

Hanging out waiting for the sun to go down

But in the end, even if we didn't HAVE to have gone so early, the fireworks were amazing and soo worth it!!!

I think they were about 15 minutes long (the 9pm show was good as well!) - it felt like they just kept going and going and were getting bigger and bigger...it's really difficult to describe how good it was, and even harder to take pics of them! haha - anyways, definately check out the fireworks on youtube part one and part two and if you have a chance - spend New Years in Sydney!

It was a long night though, bad stuff going on all around us while we waited for the fireworks, but I won't go into that!

In the end there were SOOOO MANNY PPEOPPLLLEEE!!! trying to get to the same train station as us. So in the end we decided to leave the main group and walk to the next stations (away from the city, so we would still end up at the closer station, but before everyone else) It was great, other people did the same thing, so we weren't the only smart ones, but we did end up with seats all the way home so that was good.





I had a really good nights sleep that night!!

Sydney - Day Two

The next morning we got up and caught the train into the City. Bernard lives about a hour from the city by train. We were very lucky to have been able to stay at his place while we were in Sydney. When Dan had finalized the days he was coming and I checked what days I could get off, we booked our tickets to Sydney, but I hadn't thought that we would have any trouble finding accommodation in the city. Little did I know! haha - it seems EVERYONE goes to Sydney for New Years! I can't remember when exactly I started looking into hotels and such, it was before November I think - anyways, EVERYTHING in the city was either booked or else you had to be staying at least 7 days in order to get a room...and we were only going for 3 nights.

I had found one possible place in Manly (which is a ferry ride away from the city) - but at that time I didn't know the proximity of Manly to the city, or how often ferries went and such, I didn't want us to get stuck there and not get to see the city as much as we wanted to, so I called Bernard just to ask about that stuff, and when I told him our predicament and said that if we were going to stay out in Manly we might as well stay at his house with him and his parents. I was very grateful, and they had two spare rooms so we slept very comfortably while we were there!





Anyways, onto Day two - we took the train in and Conor and I went to mass (it was Sunday) at the Cathedral and Dan went to a "performance" at Hillsong :) hehe

Mass at the Cathedral was at 1030, if I remember correctly, and Dan's church was starting later - so Conor and I went shopping and wandering around the city, ate a bit, and then met up with Dan at Darling Harbour.

I really wanted to go to the Aquarium in Sydney because I had heard good things about it, but as we were waiting for Dan, Conor saw the Maritime Museum across the way so we had a look and decided to go there instead, if it was okay with Dan. When we finally met up with him he was in line at the Aquarium, but the line was really long - so we definitely decided to go to the Maritime Museum instead.

The destroyer and the submarine

The museum itself was free, and then you just paid to go out onto the ships that were docked in the harbour. You could get a package where you could go into all the ships, but we were mainly interested in the submarine and the big destroyer ship which you paid one price to do both. It was so cool - and I'm very glad that I'm not claustrophobic, because the submarine is very small, and there are people in front of you and people behind, so it wouldn't very fun if you didn't like small spaces!

Dan was getting scared! hehe, just joking!

After going through the submarine you can wander around the destroyer ship for as long as you like, so we did that, and took lots of silly pictures, and then headed into the museum and wandered around.



After that we decided to walk up to "the rocks" (which Conor was very disappointed about as he thought that he would get so see some special rocks, but really it's just a name for that area of town) and then to see the Sydney harbour Bridge. We were also starting to scout out possible spots to sit and watch the fireworks for New Years.

After tiring ourselves out, we went back to the rocks where we had found some nice places to eat, and we picked Phillips Foote.


We didn't know it at the time, but at this restaurant you grill your own steaks! haha - so you go up and you can buy a meal with whichever meat you want (steak, chicken, etc) and includes potatoes and all you can eat salad - or else you can just get the salads without the meat...so I did that, and got drinks while the boys grilled their food. It was a really nice place, I recommend it if you're in Sydney.

After stuffing ourselves there we hopped back on a train to Bernards for a good nights rest before a long New Years Eve day.

Pictures

Obviously I haven't been putting up all of the pictures from when Dan was here, and Sydney - but if you go to the right of the screen, under the links to other blogs, there are links to all the photo albums that I've put on facebook.

Sydney - Day One

On Saturday morning (Dec 29th) we flew to Sydney were we would be spending three nights at a friends house, Bernard, and watching the Sydney New Years Fireworks.

Before leaving I wasn't sure how much free time Bernard would have while we were there, if we would get to see him much or not, but it turned out he was on holidays from work so it worked out great. He didn't spend the whole weekend with us, because he had some JPII institute papers he wanted to work on, but we were very thankful for his help and driving us around while we were there!

He picked us up from the airport when we arrived, we went and had some lunch at his place and dropped of our stuff and then we drove to the "Blue Mountains". On Wikipedia it says they get their name because of the "blueish tinge the range takes on when viewed at a distance, which is caused by the release of volatile oils from eucalyptus forests". We didn't really know what to expect - but were very surprised!! We were driving and saw signs saying that we were nearing the mountains, and then we parked on some residential street, walked a little bit and then looked out and saw this!!

Beautiful!!




It was crazy, the mountains and trees and ridges spanned as far as you could see. You could climb down "1000 steps" (I think there was only 800-900 steps), some carved into the stones and some man-made, down beside a rock formation called the "three sisters". We took the chance to get some pictures with the three sisters to show my mum, because she's always loved the three sisters mountains in Alberta.







Anyways, I wasn't very keen, but we decided to walk down the "1000 steps" and then walk back up...it was crazy! They weren't your typical house steps, you really had to watch where you were walking. Anyways, at one point I decided it was going to be hard enough walking up from that point, let alone walking up from the very bottom - so the boys went ahead and I started walking back up. But apparently I wasn't actually very far from the bottom when I turned back.






Boy did I regret that walk though - my calves were SOOO sore for the next two days. Especially after sleeping, or after sitting down for lunch or dinner, they would be really really stiff afterwards...but they're looking good now though! haha



After we were done we drove around a bit, stopped at a little town with shops and such, wandered around and then headed back to Bernards.

Down Under with Dan Part III

Boxing day went down to St Kilda Beach

(and got a little burned! )

My oldest brother, Mike, calls me Jackaroo :)

The priest that we play poker with at our monthly poker night took Conor Dan and I to a cricket game the day after boxing day.

Haha - posers!

Every year Melbourne holds the "boxing day test cricket" - which is actually 5 days...so we went the day after boxing day. Cricket isn't my sport...but I enjoy going to most sports games and asking questions and learning how the game works. Then I enjoy it for another hour or so...but then after that will come proof of whether I enjoy the game or not. I don't really enjoy cricket that much! But it might have to do with the fact that it was a really SLOW game (in the first hour and a half Indian ((it was Melbourne vs India)) had zero out and only 2 runs...if you know cricket, then you know that's REALLY slow!) We got to the game around 11 am and I left around 5ish, the boys stayed til 6 to see the rest of the days game. I was there for 6 hours!! Anyways, I'm glad I went..now if Conor's watching it on tv I can actually understand what's going on.

I had to work the next day, and I'm not sure, but I think Dan and Conor went golfing...and it was a really hot day! haha, poor Dan.

Then, bright and early Saterday we left for Sydney for the weekend and to see the New Years fireworks!!!

Down Under with Dan Part II

Last year we really wanted to go to Midnight mass at the Cathedral, but there were no trams running afterwards so we didn't go...but I really wanted to go this year, especially with Dan around so we found someone that could bring us home afterwards!

So we went to Midnight mass, and there were carols before hand so we got there around 1030pm. The Cathedral was already filling when we got there, and I'm sure that within 15 minutes of us sitting down all of the seats were taken, it was crazy! We sat there for a good 2.5 hours! It was long, but really good...the choir were better than ever, and they even had a mini-orchestra!

Here's our Christmas trees - better than last years! click to see

The next day we slept in, had some breakfast, and then got to opening presents! (Thank you to everyone who sent cards and presents!!) Since it was a hot-ish day (definitely no snow) it didn't feel like Christmas, but having Dan here made it feel more like it!

Dan trying to solve the sudoku rubics cube that I got him

Conor was going on and on about his family normally has a "Christmas hike", so we went on an extra long walk (not a hike) and then relaxed when we got home. Then our friend Clare (she's from Queensland, but was staying in Melbourne for Christmas) came for dinner with a friend of hers, Friska.

Clare, Friska, Me and Dan

The food turned out really good, and it was nice to have the extra people - we had a good game of tricks afterwards (Conor, Dan and I:the Canadians, won coming in the top 3!)

The FEAST!!

We were going to rent a car for Boxing day and go up the great ocean road (the same place we got to go with Liz when she came last year) but by the time we had decided a day and all, all of the cars were booked, so instead we relaxed in the morning and then went down to the St Kilda Beach and enjoyed the sunshine (after the miserable few days Dan had previously)

Christmas Pics